Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh) – I just had a wonderful trip back in time to the 1960s and to my own radio days in the early 1970s.  Pirate Radio is the story of a group of disc jockeys who parked their boat in the international waters off the coast of England and broadcast rock ‘n roll to a country starving for the latest music despite their government’s virtual ban on it.  How ironic that the rocket that fueled the second stage of rock music – the British invasion – was viewed as subversive by the British government.  This film is a wonderful ensemble comedy held together by the two name stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman (playing the only American in the bunch) and Bill Nighy (Notes on a Scandal, Love Actually, Valkyrie).  There’s even a cameo from Emma Thompson.  Pirate Radio has a fantastic soundtrack with songs from the mid-to-late 1960s that are mostly pop, not hard rock. You’ll hear your favorites from Procol Harem to The Turtles and in between.  Yes, I was lip singing along while enjoying the interplay of the DJs, their weekly visiting female companions, and the odd assortment of British bureaucrats (led by Kenneth Branaugh, most recently re-emerging in film in Valkyrie).  This is an exceptional independent film that no one over the age of 50 should miss and those under will enjoy, too.  And to my friends Walt, Greg and Mark, with whom I still keep in touch and spent hundreds of hours with at WOSR, maybe we should resurrect our dream of buying a radio station and play rock all day long.