128 Charlie Bubbles

Discuss releases by Indicator and the films on them.

Moderator: MichaelB

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

128 Charlie Bubbles

#1 Post by MichaelB » Thu Sep 06, 2018 5:01 am

Image
(Albert Finney, 1968)
Release date: 19 November 2018
Limited Blu-ray Edition (World Blu-ray premiere)

Pre-order here

After achieving international renown as one of the finest actors of his generation in films such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and Tom Jones (1963), Albert Finney turned director for this surreal comic twist on the ‘kitchen sink’ dramas in which he’d made his name.

Finney plays Charlie Bubbles, a successful writer suffering a mid-life crisis, who attempts to re-connect with his northern working-class roots and estranged family. Based on a screenplay by Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey), the script clearly references both her and Finney’s personal experience of their shared working class origins (both were Salford natives), and the consequences of achieving great success.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES:
• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• New and exclusive audio commentary with film historians Thirza Wakefield and Melanie Williams
• Danny Leigh on ‘Charlie Bubbles’ (2018): the journalist and broadcaster discusses one of his favourite films
• Interview with producer Michael Medwin (2018)
• Interview with Director of Photography Peter Suschitzky (2018)
• John Harding on Shelagh Delaney (2018): the author of Sweetly Sings Delaney: A Study of Shelagh Delaney's Work 1958-68 discusses the author's work on the film
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: promotional photography and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Thirza Wakefield, an overview of contemporary critical responses and historic articles on the film.
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited Edition of 3,000 copies
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD128
BBFC cert: PG
REGION B
EAN: 5037899071847

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#2 Post by domino harvey » Thu Sep 06, 2018 7:11 am

So I watched my copy of this once I cracked the clue and it is a hot mess. The ostensible premise is Albert Finney Stoicly Endures Endless Irritations, and this gets tiring after a while. I thought Finney had some unexpected instincts as director that made me wish he had a better screenplay to work with, as some of his choices are quite bold and/or alienating, but the script is weak-- surprisingly so given it came from Delaney, but I am unfamiliar with her work apart from A Taste of Honey, so perhaps it is not as outlying as it seems. Kinda surprised by what appears to be a lack of Finney-specific extras, as he's really where any interest starts and stops with this movie for me

User avatar
bearcuborg
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
Location: Philadelphia via Chicago

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#3 Post by bearcuborg » Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:57 am

If they talk about Billie Whitelaw in the extras, I would be interested. Most of what I know about this film is from a Kinks song.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#4 Post by Calvin » Mon Oct 22, 2018 7:23 pm

Specs have been updated on Indicator's site and it looks like a fantastic release. It's wonderful that Stephen Frears' camera test footage still exists and is going to be included.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#5 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 22, 2018 8:37 pm

For those who haven't seen the film, there's a segment in the middle with significant focus on the action as seen through a panel of CCTV screens. It's an interesting approach, but like much of the film Finney never really does anything with it other than employ the visual trick. Nice that it could be included for the fans, though

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

128 Charlie Bubbles

#6 Post by MichaelB » Tue Oct 23, 2018 4:19 am

It was a very complicated scene logistically because the individual screens (eight, if I remember rightly) were shot separately on 35mm prior to being assembled as CCTV monitors - a considerable timing challenge given that they’re all supposed to play together in the same shot absolutely smoothly, with characters regularly walking from one screen to another.

One thing that multiple interviews make very clear indeed is that Stephen Frears did far more than the low-key credit “Personal Assistant to the Director” would have implied. Nobody’s arguing that Frears secretly directed the film instead of Finney, but throughout the entire production Finney needed to have someone on hand that he could absolutely trust in order to judge his performance, since they didn’t have instant video playback back then, and he knew Frears from the Royal Court Theatre and thought that he’d be a safe pair of hands. Frears had never directed a film at that point, but took to it like the proverbial duck to water (rather more so than did Finney!), and so Finney was increasingly happy to entrust him with logistically complicated stuff that he was too busy to deal with himself.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#7 Post by MichaelB » Thu Oct 25, 2018 4:30 am

Full and final specs:

Image

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: 128 Charlie Bubbles

#8 Post by MichaelB » Mon Dec 03, 2018 7:27 pm


Post Reply