BRIGHT BULB SCREENINGS, Free Double Features Every Second Thursday of the Month
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Double Feature! Free admission!
I GET KNOCKED DOWN (2021, directed By Dunstan Bruce & Sophie Robinson, 98 minutes, U.K.)
BRASSED OFF (1996, directed Mark Herman, 109 minutes, U.K.)
(Hosted by WPRB DJ Commie Francis of “Uneasy Listening”)
I GET KNOCKED DOWN (2021, directed By Dunstan Bruce & Sophie Robinson, 98 minutes, U.K.)
BRASSED OFF (1996, directed Mark Herman, 109 minutes, U.K.)
(Hosted by WPRB DJ Commie Francis of “Uneasy Listening”)
Chumbawamba's 1997 international smash “Tubthumping” with it's “I Get Knocked Down” chorus is ubiquitous to this day as the soundtrack to many an “Epic Fail” clip, though few are aware of the band's 1980s anarcho-communist roots, once working in the same radical art sphere as the punk rock collective Crass. In the mid-90s, deciding to attack the system from the inside, Chumbawamba signed a corporate record deal, produced a smash album and spread their anti-capitalist/fascism/homophobia gospel world-wide.
Chumbawamba played their last gig in 2012, a decade later vocalist Dunstan Bruce looks back in a personal documentary, partially-based on his Fringe Festival play, “Am I Invisible Yet?” I GET DOWN traces Chumbawamba's music and their tumultuous political stunts while examining Bruce's middle-aged melancholia as a self-described “washed-up, rinsed-out retired radical.” Of course the inevitable question arises, “He's been knocked down, can he get up again?” A rallying cry for commitment to activism, with revered lefty icons John Oliver, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, Fugazi/Dischord's Ian MacKaye, and British director Ken Loach among the doc's talking heads.
“...An enjoyable blast of pop history.”
- Cath Clarke – The Guardian
- Cath Clarke – The Guardian
“...a loving deep dive into a group with a surprisingly profound story”
Abby Olcese, The Pitch (Kansas City)
Abby Olcese, The Pitch (Kansas City)
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BRASSED OFF is a scrappy but upbeat anti-Thatcher drama that was successfully-marketed in the U.S. as a romantic comedy for pre-Obi Wan Ewan McGregor but is a much-richer than expected study of the people in a coal mining town and their brass band tradition (in the Philly remake, they'd undoubtedly be Mummers). The late British character actor/Oscar nominee Peter Postlewaite is again indelible as the band's trouble-plagued conductor.
BRASSED OFF is a scrappy but upbeat anti-Thatcher drama that was successfully-marketed in the U.S. as a romantic comedy for pre-Obi Wan Ewan McGregor but is a much-richer than expected study of the people in a coal mining town and their brass band tradition (in the Philly remake, they'd undoubtedly be Mummers). The late British character actor/Oscar nominee Peter Postlewaite is again indelible as the band's trouble-plagued conductor.
BRASSED OFF was heavily sampled on Chumbawamba's hit album “Tubthumper”, emphasizing the connection between the mineworkers' labor movement in Northern England and the band's political and philosophical development.
[An] audacious, angry but oddly agreeable screed on the social evils of Thatcherism in 1992 Great Britain
- Dennis King, Tulsa World
- Dennis King, Tulsa World
Commie Francis can be heard spinning her highly-informed web of music Saturday evenings from 8-11pm @ wprb.com