Episode 175 – Wish You Were Here (1987)/Newsletter 82

A young woman coming of age in a seaside town challenges the stuffy sexual mores and hypocrisy of post-war Britain in this dramedy from the writer of Mona Lisa.

Starring Emily Lloyd, Tom Bell, Geoffrey Hutchings, and Pat Heywood. Written and directed by David Leland.

Welcome to the Mary Versus the Movies newsletter! Time for lots of bum talk!

This week: 2/20/2025

EPISODE 175 – WISH YOU WERE HERE (1987)

A young woman coming of age in a seaside town challenges the stuffy sexual mores and hypocrisy of post-war Britain in this dramedy from the writer of Mona Lisa. While it come across as somewhat of a throwback to the British New Wave of the 1950s and early 1960s (fitting for when the story is set), like the films of Tony Richardson or John Schlesinger, it stands those films on their heads, subverting the misogyny of the Angry Young Men by seeing the world through young Lynda’s jaundiced eyes.

This is the second of two films from David Leland about the notorious British madam Cynthia Payne, after Personal Services, a film we’ll also cover at some point.

Starring Emily Lloyd, Tom Bell, Geoffrey Hutchings, and Pat Heywood. Written and directed by David Leland.

HOLLYWOOD AVALON – THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LANCELOT (1956)

We took a look at a British tv series from the 1950s, dramatising the Arthurian story in a high-romance fashion. Believe it or not, it’s pretty good! Starring William Russell–who later played “Ian” on Doctor Who–it’s a fairly faithful rendering of the story, with Lancelot as an outsider who comes to Arthur’s court, Gawain as his rival, a belligerent Kay, and a Merlin who is part magician, part con-man. Lancelot isn’t just the best of knights here, he’s also a champion of underdogs, defying the more hierarchical standards of Camelot–it’s no surprise to find out that several of the writers for the show were Americans who were blacklisted during the Red Scare. Once again, the Arthurian world is used as a playground for utopian politics, not unlike Twain’s Connecticut Yankee and T.H. White’s Once and Future King.

Starring William Russell, Cyril Smith, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Robert Scroggins, and Jane Hylton. With various writers and directors depending on the episode.

This is a preview of the latest episode of our series Hollywood Avalon. To hear the entire episode, join the Mary Versus the Movies patreon for $3/month to hear this and the entire series Hollywood Avalon: https://www.patreon.com/maryvsmovies.

What else are we up to this week?

Mary: The short subjects nominated for Academy Awards are in theaters right now, and so Dennis and I headed out over the weekend to catch the animated subjects; next week I’ll write on the live-action short films. This year was a fairly strong bunch, and surprisingly not one American studio has a cartoon in the running. Often, there’s something from Pixar, or Aardman, which are usually very good. There have been several shorts dealing with the Pinochet regime–grim, stomach-churning stuff, extremely well done. And there’s almost always something I absolutely loathe, like Kobe Bryant’s masturbatory Dear Basketball and Sean Ono Lennon’s War Is Over, or the maudlin treacle of The Boy The Mole the Fox and the Horse, which makes Winnie-the-Pooh look like Salo.

This year, however, every short is strong, and I won’t be upset whoever wins, though I enjoyed some of them better than others:

Magic Candies (Japan): a boy buys some magic candies, and suddenly can understand the world around him–his dog can talk, the couch can talk, and so on. Maybe an allegory for neurodivergence, it’s funny and sweet.

In the Shadow of the Cyprus (Iran): A gorgeously-animated fable about an aging sea captain and his daughter and the beached whale in front of their home, exploring grief, self-loathing, and love.

Yuck! (France): a cute short about children fascinated with kissing.

Wander to Wonder (UK/Netherlands): The puppets of a children’s tv show go on living after their creator dies. This was possibly the most visually-interesting of the bunch, mixing live action and stop-motion, with VHS as a recurring medium. Also, it features full frontal male nudity.

Beautiful Men (Netherlands): Speaking of full frontal male nudity, this story of three Dutch brothers who go to Istanbul for hair replacement surgery is a very, very funny short dealing with selfishness, and inadequacy–and penises.

Any one of these could win and I’d be fine with it, but I’m personally rooting for Shadow.

Dennis: No comic this week. Work has been pretty stressful as well as all of this (gestures around at current reality). I went down to the Sixers game with our friend Bert. He and I worked together a long time ago and I met Mary through him at a playwriting group. I used to do a comic called Donut Box that started out as me drawing his post-it note observations of people hovering around a donut box at work (I think I have over 600 of them around). I was never into plays until I met him. He’s an odd combination of charismatic actor/writer as well as a complete sports nut. I was so used to creative types being anti-sportsball it was cool to meet someone with a different perspective. Anyway the Sixers got crushed. Philadelphia is still basking in the glow of an Eagles superbowl win, and even the Sixers being manhandled by the Boston Celtics couldn’t bring it down. There were only 2 or 3 serious boos of our own team and they didn’t seem murderous at all (I’ve seen way worse).

We watched the Oscar nominated animated and live action shorts. All of them were good, there was no Horse Boy Mole Fox thing to get mad at (I’m still mad at that drivel). Mostly downers (gestures around at current reality), especially the live action ones, but well made. The animated one that will probably win is Magic Candies, a Japanese cgi tale of a friendless kid who gets magic candies that causes a couch, a dog, and other spirits to talk to him. You know me and movie dogs. Not earth-shattering but probably the best looking of the bunch. I have a feeling A lien will win for live action, a nerve-wracking look at the immigration experience in the US, produced by Adam McKay. We’ll be going to Ambler theater to watch the Oscars with some friends; we had a great time last year. For Best Picture, I’ve only seen Conclave, Dune 2, and A Complete Unknown. Maybe we’ll catch the Substance at some point, people seem to be into it. Chalamet doing this Dylan thing is interesting. We’ve had Shia LaBeouf, Jared Leto, and Joaquin Phoenix do weird method acting stunts that mostly seemed annoying and something to role your eyes at, but Chalamet seems to be pulling off whatever he’s doing. The movie is good, though it seems less like a story and more of an imagined diary and not as daring as I’m Not There, but Timothee still holds your attention throughout. I was skeptical going into it but he won me over, I guess. At least I didn’t roll my eyes. I’m not sure what it is about him, maybe it feels like he’s not looking at the camera to make sure that you see him acting. Acting is a weird thing.

Pizza: The Wells Fargo Center where the Philadelphia Sixers and Flyers play used to have pizza from Lorenzos and Sons, a South Street pizza place that served 28 inch slices. Basically if the Spy vs Spy guys where life sized, the pizza would be 1 and a half times the size of their heads. In 2020 Mary and I went to a Flyers game and I got a slice and it was the first time I was mostly satisfied by 1 slice for a meal (she wouldn’t let me get another one). They stopped selling at the FU Center (its proper name… from when it was the First Union Center but FU Center is just about the most Philly name imaginable) and some new place came in with fairly large slices, but not big enough that you feel embarrassed holding it (seriously, those Lorenzos slices were an experience, like holding a kite of cheese). I just had the one slice and it was good… but underwhelming. I don’t know why, the crust was great, doughy but burnt in the right way, but I guess it wasn’t cheesy enough. The cheese journey just wasn’t satisfying. I said 3.5 out of 6 stars on Bluesky when I got back, and I stand by that statement.

Follow Us:

Bluesky: @maryvsmovies

Twitter: @maryvsmovies

Instagram: @maryvsmovies

Threads: @maryvsmovies

Mastodon: @maryvsmovies@mas.to

TikTok: @maryvsmovies

Discord Server: Ask for an invite using the Contact link above.

Tumblr: https://at.tumblr.com/maryversusthemovies

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MaryVsMovies

Letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/tlachtga/