Ribbon of Memes

It's been over a century and a quarter since the first moving picture was committed to celluloid - the "ribbon of dreams", as Orson Welles mellifluously intoned.

And so, welcome, one and all, to Ribbon of Memes, a new podcast in which Roger Bell_West and Nick Marsh supply grateful listeners hot takes about films considered masterpieces by critics or filmgoers in general.

The rules: we choose one "masterpiece" from every year from the earliest days of cinema to our dreadful modern dystopia. Do we agree these films are classics? Are we entertained? Did we even understand what the film was trying to say? The questions are endless!*

We start in 1973 (for reasons explained in the first podcast) and progress vaguely chronologically (unless we think of another film that makes an interesting comparison to the one we have just seen, or are otherwise distracted by shiny new things).

Yes, that's right, we decided that what the world really needed was two more uninformed middle-aged white guys telling the world about media largely produced by similar people. Find out whether we were right or not herein!

*Actually, no, that's most of them.

We're also on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts.

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Parody Hitler 1 15 March 2025

In part one of a double episode, Roger and Nick look at parodies of Hitler on film, with The Great Dictator (1940) and The Producers (1967).

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Tags: drama

  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 09:10pm on 15 March 2025

    Chaplin's reply when people asked if he was Jewish was "I have not that honour."

    I too do not find Chaplin funny. I don't find Keaton funny as such but do find him admirable and interesting in a way I don't find Chaplin.

    I do find THE PRODUCERS funny and in a few places sublime. (The moment where they're at the fountain and Leo Bloom decides he wants his share and the fountain spurts into the air... ah just lovely.)

    The character of LSD is just about all the way to Flower Child: I don't care what the histories say, they were clearly around at the time.

    The satire is about the Nazis and people who never think about what Nazism meant. I believe that Mel Brooks started plotting his revenge on the Nazis while still commanding a tank crew in France.

    Yes, damn you both: THE PRODUCERS is a masterpiece. Why anyone had the nerve to remake it I cannnot imagine.

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