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By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Basic Skyline: tear down this phallus, Mr. Livingstone!

In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw constructs prize contumely in: re a certain building being the anchor of today’s London skyline in movies: “And, please, what is it with the Swiss Re ‘gherkin’ building? Why is it that every film set in London has to feature the gherkin? It used to be that London films had Routemasters sailing past the Palace of Westminster as their establishing shot. 30 St Mary Axe Gherkin photo by Grant Smith.jpgNow it’s that bulbous, squat glass edifice poking up into the skyline as characters hurry in and out of cabs. Morrissey’s office is actually in the gherkin, one of the most implausible sets I have ever seen, with its cross-diagonal struts visible on the windows overlooking the city. Why not have his office on the London Eye for ‘Basic Instinct 3′? Our poor capital city adds nothing to the film, and the film contributes nothing to London; it might as well be set on one of Jupiter’s moons for all the atmosphere that is injected. Basic Instinct 2 resembles nothing so much as the toe-curling sex-obsession drama Killing Me Softly, another movie in which the UK is about as sexy as a pair of old Y-fronts.”

One Response to “Basic Skyline: tear down this phallus, Mr. Livingstone!”

  1. Kathy Boyes says:

    Down here at the bottom of the world in the Aussie sun we always thought the UK was about as sexy as a pair of old Y-fronts

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“A lot of people bring bacon and Scotch. There’s a great tailgating scene at a lot of these colleges before the show. They put up different Ron Swanson banners, and they will be grilling different Ron Swanson meat items, like the Swanson. That’s a turkey leg wrapped in bacon, and I have to say it’s pretty delicious. What greater fan interaction could there be? This guy at Iowa State handed me a jalapeño Cheddar cheeseburger that he’d made, which I happily consumed, which fueled the comedy that he’d come to see. It’s all hakuna matata, part of life’s beautiful circle.”
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~ Romain Blondeau On Claire Denis’ Les Saluds in Les Inrocks