Very considerate of Walker basically finishing this book prior to his sudden death as it forms a neat trilogy of books about the British film industry. This one covers from 1984-2000 and could be subtitled "nothing is ever good enough". Walker is a bit of a whinger - mocking Thorn EMI and Rank for having too much control, for not making films, making bad films; then bagging Cannon for buying into the industry (he feels this stuffed everything). Even Polygram and Lotto money seem to do nothing but the wrong things - their hits aren't adventurous enough, then when they go out of business that's wrong too.
I always associated British cinema of the 80s as a vibrant, exciting time - that's how it seemed to us in Australia, getting movies like My Beautiful Laundrette, Wish You Were Here, Room With a View. Even Absolute Beginners was an exciting flop. To be fair we only got the popular films in Australia not the dross and Walker does say nice things about some movies, he's just determined to say the business models are bad and get worse. You can just tell this is written by a grumpier old man than in his first two books on the industry.
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