Barry Norman: Classic or Dud

worst catchphrase evah!

other than that he seemed oik, although the much maligned Jonathan Ross puts over a lot more enthusiasm and fandom when he does the show nowadays.

who let the oiks out!!??

On Front Row the other night Barry Norman explained that he had never said 'And why not?' Rory Bremner invented it, or at best lifted it from something he'd written ONCE. Not that this makes him any less boring IMO.

He was a creep, a feeb, and a no-nothing sap (ie he didn't like horror movies or anything too 'weird'.) He used to say that he didn't enjoy watching sex scenes because 'sex isn't a spectator sport', ignoring the fact that cinemagoing = voyeurism = sex! Wot a dummy! Also notorious for flinging a bklet abt Raoul Walsh across the studio floor because it dared to talk 'theory' abt 'Strawberry Blonde' or whatever...

I dunno if he ruined the British film industry - there are lot of guilty parties there - but he certainly ruined film criticism as a serious practice in the UK (although he was marginally better than Michael Parkinson or Iain Johnstone when they filled in for Bazza...)
I happened to read some excerpts from Bazza's autobiog in the 'Daily Mail' (and talk abt the perfect match between critic/newspaper/audience) - he comes across as a prig and a bore (can you tell how much I hate him yet?)

Is it true that before Bazza got the job, they tried out lots of the heavyweights of the film critic world (Walker, Malcolm, French, god forbid Tookey) first in a kind of proto-Pop Idol way?

I always thought he was very good on Saturday Superstore. But Michael Rodd would have to get my vote.

taking sides: no-nothing (bazza) vs yes-nothing (ross)

i quite like ross actually

I'm surprised that Bazza never having said "And Why Not" never appeared on the "Use Other Facts Please" thread.

Bazza was always operating under 2 big constraints:

1. Like most of us here, he thought only a handful of the mainstream films released each year were worth a damn. But if he'd said so he'd have looked as if he were patronising his audience and presenting an all-but-ointless program.

2. His position as TV's main authority on movies meant he was in a strong position to help or hinder the business (ie the hand that fed), especially the British film business. He would have come under huge pressure if he'd been perceived as damaging it by a too negative (ie realistic) perspective.

Bazza's response to this predicament was to overpraise almost everything by 100% and everything British by 200%. What I admired about this was that he was consistent, so that once you'd worked out the rules of engagement it was pretty easy to work out what he really thought. Within those terms he was a fairly reliable critic of the old school (ie with a bias towards literary and theatrical values).

Of course you could argue that the whole damn thing was a bit of a sham, particularly the crawling about at Cannes and the Oscars (which obviously came as a relief from trying to say good things about bad films). But who amongst us would have had the integrity to turn down the job, even if it had to be performed on those terms?

he was a bloody bore.

I love the word "ointless".