Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult.
I botched that one! Ooh, that’s a botch job!
I noticed it because Coogan’s character suddenly started to feel more “genuine” to me than anyone else on the screen.
Again, great film, but this was definitely a weakness in my book.
Finally got round to seeing this and loved it. I’m a big fan of The Thick of It, and it didn’t disappoint. Malcolm Tucker is such an awesome character.
I just wanted to thank Tom for refusing to shut up about this movie on the podcast. I often can’t remember the names of half the films you guys recommend while you’re talking, but Tom has mentioned In the Loop so many times I managed to remember it at the right time in spite of the unmemorable title.
And I really loved it. So many great lines. So many great actors giving fun performances. One of my favorite moments was just the way James Smith and Gina McKee were cracking up at Chris Addison’s lame excuses for cheating on his girlfriend.
But I had one question. Tom repeatedly talks about this movie as if it was particularly enlightening for him about the way politics works or how poor the evidence was for invading Iraq. But this just seemed written completely as a farce. I wouldn’t point to Best in Show as an eye-opening look at the culture of competitive dog breeders.
Does In the Loop have a closer connection to real people/events than it seems?
I wouldn’t say it was particularly enlightening to me. I was against the invasion from well before it began!
I think what I’ve talked about – or what I’ve tried to talk about – is how In the Loop is every bit as much a zeitgeist movie as Dr. Strangelove, reveling in the absurdity of what it’s describing. It’s the perfect portrayal of how the invasion of Iraq wasn’t so much a war as a collaborative Rube Goldberg device of bad ideas assembled by the Bush Administration, their British lackeys, and all the bureaucracy around them.
Besides, even though the movie plays heavily on classic bits of the whole cock-up like Powell’s UN presentation, Bush’s 16 words, and the cherry picked intel, it never once uses the word Iraq. There’s something intentionally timeless about the way Iannucci tells his story.
Glad you liked it, straight. Now go have fun watching Tom Hollander as a brutal villain in Hanna!
-Tom
“In the land of truth, my friend, the man with one fact is king!”
This connection you made to Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite things. I don’t recall the exact show–one of our Top Ten podcasts I think–but I remember you saying it and it being one of those flashbulb moments for me.
-xtien
“Oh…and here we are, the fuckin’ Vice President has also graced us with his presence.”
I watched “In the Loop” on a whim a many years ago after seeing this hilarious exchange in some random Youtube video recommendation. Since then I’ve watched the movie a couple more times when it’s shown up on Amazon Prime, and I’ve always had a ball with it.
Well tonight I found out that this movie is based on a TV show (The Thick of It, something everybody in this thread apparently already knew). And better yet, the show itself is on Amazon Prime.
I am so happy right now. For me this is akin to @BrianRubin discovering a lost second season of Firefly that never aired.
Oh whoa you didn’t know about The Thick of It?! It’s so good. I’m rewatching it now my own self.
It’s even in the thread title!
Yes, the TV show is tremendous.
Sure it is, but the thread hasn’t been bumped in a little while and not knowing the thread even existed, I had to search it out to post this.
Although I didn’t enjoy the movie, I did catch an episode of the TV show, and it looked really funny.
The movie was just too soon for me. The Iraq war was fresh for me at the time, and to see a movie where it’s all treated with the awkward bumbling comedy moments didn’t really speak to anything important, I felt. Similar to Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought that the Daily Show did a better job of presenting the incompetencies and possible consequences of the situation than this movie did as a satire, or that Fahrenheit did as a documentary. I didn’t enjoy it at all.
I love this movie but I love TTOI even more. Armando et al are just so good at using small spaces for comedy. America’s buildings are too big. Veep sort of had the same issue; even TTOI suffered a bit when they moved into the new building. But these are all fine grades of love.
At any rate, it’s got the best Jamie scenes. “Hey, horse of the year!”
Jamie is so great, any scene with both him and Malcolm are just gold.
Is Tom Hollander in The Thick of It? I love that guy.
He makes a few brief appearances, but that’s it.
BrianRubin is underselling his brief appearances. His character’s nickname is “The Fucker.”
Hugh Abbot is by far my favorite character in The Thick of It. Every scene he’s in just has me crying with laughter. My favorite scene so far is when he busts into some little dance for one reason or another, and I love how his feelings seem genuinely hurt and how he gets so whiney when someone doesn’t like “the cut of his jib.”