... when it first came out. Yes, it was bad. Perhaps the title was a pun on the film crew making the movie. Even so, was it as bad as 'Give My Regards to Broad Street', which came out a couple of years earlier?

It's a brilliant - if highly stylized - story, which deals with racial tension (the Notting Hill riots), sexual politics and the rise of the teenager in the London of 1958. The un-named protagonist reminds me of a nice version of Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange', with jazz replacing classical as the music of choice.

I recorded this last year, from Film 4 I think, and got about half way through the DVD one night and haven't gone back to it.

Cheesey is the word to describe it. Every character is a stereotype - Lionel Blair the sleezy club owner, Tenpole Tudor as the Ted etc. Faux Jazz and finger clicking.

It views like Summer Holiday for the 80's - I'm surprised Cliff, Melvyn and Una didn't make a guest appearance.

...there are a couple of decent scenes and some ok tunes. But the book is much much much much much much (you get the picture) better. Go and read that instead for sure.

Although if you do watch the film watch out for Bruno Tonioli the strictly come dancing judge as a lodger in Colin's mum's house...

never seen the film and don't think i'll be rushing!

surely that tells us all we need to know.

Sublime Bowie lead song , complete with Rick Wakeman's beautiful piano fills over a band that included Steve Nieve ( piano as well ) and Neil Conti ( Prefab Sprout ) on drums . The 12" single came in a lovely gatefold sleeve with stills from the film and a t-shirt offer insert-£8 including p & p !

Lead role bloke - Colin - was Eddie O'Connell . Horrid film , brilliant main title song .

Got me wondering - will we ever get to hear the soundtrack the dame wrote for The Man Who Fell To Earth ?

but like most rock films its kind of enjoyable too. As has been mentioned - great novel, great theme song. I went on my first ever date to see this when I were just 15...perhaps made me think a bit more fondly of it.

Did a whole episode promoting it. It was indeed an awful film. I'll stick with Expresso Bongo

That dreadful scene with Bowie on the typewriter put me off him and his music for ever. The scales fell, I realised what a phoney chancer he is. Emperor's new clothes, etc.

Film was a real struggle for me, all style no substance.

Soundtrack was great though and Bowie's Title Track is probably one of his underrated toons. Proof that the Bowie 80's were not all bad, although worse, much worse was to follow from the Dame.

It's difficult to believe now but at the time Absolute Beginners was heralded (in the music press anyway) as the Movie Which Would Save The British Film Industry.

But like that other monumental failure Casino Royale (the first, road-crash version) it's a curate's egg, because it's a movie of so many "bits" and some of them are actually quite entertaining, like this:

It's also worth a look for historical reasons, because it's the apotheosis of a particular kind of 80's obsession with style over content, and - while it's now a cliché to talk about some films being an extended series of music videos - this is probably one of the first proper examples of MTV techniques being shipped over to the big screen.

Julien Temple never really made the leap from music videos to grown-up film directing. He doesn't know the first thing about directing actors on this evidence (although given the raw materials were David Bowie and Patsy Kensit, there wasn't much to work with) - although he'd put a hell of a lot of thought into the casting. As I recall, Lionel Blair put in a creditable cameo somewhere in there.

...the blend of cascading piano and synthesizer in Bowie's title song. Saint Etienne did an interesting cover version with a looped football chant as a backing track.

I've never seen the film.

If it wasn't for Absolute Beginners (the song) and Loving the Alien, I think I would have gone right off Bowie around about that time. Lionel Blair stating that a nun's tits and the Pope's balls are the most useless things in the world was quite good but overall the film was poor. Although it is up there with Citizen Kane when compared to Give My Regards to Broad Street.

The book made me choose going to a London Uni. I don't dare recommending it (or re-reading it) now as a 40-something, but as a sixth former it really moved me. Bowie's theme song is one of my top 3 Bowie songs, if not number one.

Film was disappointing of course, but the opening scene (one-take I believe) is heralded as one of the best openings of any film, apparently.

that this marked one of my first appearances on the silver screen as a 9 year old extra. If you look very closely you'll see me riding a scooter across the road as the Dame himself strides across. I seem to remember I'm in a wedding scene too.
Obviously not my fault though that it's not very good. Makes you realise how old Patsy Kensit is though doesn't it?

"My Indecision is Final" is one of the best film business books of all and offers huge insight into why the British film industry was the way it was and is the way it is. Although "AB" was a major factor in the eventual collapse of Goldcrest, somewhat astonishingly Julien Temple continued - and continues - to get his films made.

Oh, and that opening one-take shot was intended to be an hommage and to outdo the one that opens Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil". It was certainly longer.

I think it’s a charming period piece. The period being not the late ’50s London in which it’s set, but the mid-80s London pop/media scene which spawned it. It’s kind of bollocks, but kind of great. Some of it looks absolutely fantastic. Although it doesn’t do justice to the original novel at least you get the impression that the people making it have read it and understand what it was getting at. It’s over-ambitious and ridiculous, but it reminds me of a time when the British pop culture wanted to try new, different things and wasn’t run by the likes of Simon Cowell. When The Face magazine was modern and original and exciting. And when Mick Talbot wore houndstooth jackets on Top Of The Pops. It‘s a world away from The Kooks and all the better for it. And I say it‘s Modtatstic.