Monday, August 1, 2011

Adventure film 6: Time Bandits (1981)

Terry Gilliam's family fantasy, Time Bandits (1981) – "intelligent enough for kids and exciting enough for adults" – provides the subject for our sixth Adventure Film Podcast. Click the image below to listen to the podcast (25.2 MB, 1 hour 9 mins).


Recorded Sunday 24 July 2011, edited by Murray Ewing.

Purchase the DVD from Amazon UK: Time Bandits (1981).

6 comments:

  1. This is the first one on your list I saw in the theatre too, in Denver over the Christmas holiday. Remember it being great fun and sometime in the 80's seeing it again on VHS. Didn't see again, until recently, as my husband got a DVD. Unfortunately, the DVD is of poor quality and horrible sound, much like the recent 'The Man who Would Be King' I just got from Warner Bro. Disappointed in some of the studio releases being so poor on some DVD pressings, and good on others.

    I can easily see this film capturing a 12-year-old! I was about 20 when I saw it, and still really enjoyed it. (I really cracked up seeing the plastic on the furniture, as that was something my mother use to do back in the late 60s to keep the dust off the sofa. I thought it was very odd and just plain weird, but kept me from even sitting on the sofa. (Maybe that was the point...)

    Really enjoyed your behind the scenes information, since I never knew that much about the making of it, but always like Terry's work. (Brazil is a longtime favorite.) Also enjoyed listening about your early theater experiences. My father never was a movie person, and since he did all the driving, I rarely went to the theater, but the first time I went without my parents was to see 'Star Wars' when it was released. That is when my love for movies got really re-started, after seeing Chaplin in City Lights in '72.

    That opening scene, with the parents so hooked into all that stuff was so 1970s. I remember microwaves were prized during the 70s! Every housewife had to have one.

    I was quietly cheering for the boy to stay with King Agamemnon (Sean Connery). And I didn't know the background on the 'ship scene'. The effects were very done, because I don't think of them when I watch this film.

    I'll have to watch it again with the headphones on, and hope the sound is better that way, but an enjoyable jammed packed escape film! Thanks for editing in sound clips again, too. Enjoyable program! Now, time for some fruit.

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  2. Dear Chaps. Are you on iTunes?

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  3. Thanks for the comment, Linda. It's really annoying when films get released in a bad DVD version, particularly if you know there's another version out there, in a different region, that's much better!

    Jayleon - we intend to be on iTunes, but haven't got round to working out how to do it yet!

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  4. To USA listeners, TCM will be showing Adventure Films Podcast next film 'Lost Horizon' late Wednesday night (August 4th).

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  5. Interesting podcast, chaps.

    I'm now going to listen to the 'Man Who Would Be King' podcast while clearing out my loft.

    Matt Badham

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  6. Thanks very much, Matt. Be careful up in the loft - though perhaps you'll find some forgotten treasure from old Kaffiristan!

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