More Movies More England

"It's called love suuhhn."

Somers Town.

It was supposed to be A Room for Romeo Brass, but evidently Netflix has never heard of it. Then I tried for Once Upon a Time in the Midlands...that one isn't available instantly. So I settled on Somers Town. I was a little hesitant because one the characters is an immigrant. Nothing against immigrants, but that's a pretty constant theme in American movies...and well y'all know where my head is right now. I needn't have worried.


It's a funny and sweet movie...and Thomas Tugoose is just good that's all. There's no irony or bite...just two kids becoming friends and crushing on a French waitress.*

"It's called love suuhhn."

As good as it was forget about that for a minute...and think about The Damned United.



FANTASTIC!

I'm not much of a soccer fan...or football if you must...how 'bout Association Football as a compromise? I don't know...y'all just follwo the context. It'll probably mark me out as a nuckle-dragging philistine and someone who is incapable of understanding the beautiful game but...it's the off-sides rule...well that and the fact that there's none of this...


(the audio is atrocious turn it down...but hits so hard the camera can't keep up with some of them)...unless maybe you're talkin' about Leeds in the early 70's.

I think Rugby's probably more my speed.

Anyway, I do appreciate soccer and what it means to people...particularly English football. And I do love sports...especially sports that have a century's worth of stink on them from carrying the hopes and identities of communities on their back. That I do love...that's authenticity and English Football reeks of it. So while I may not clear the calender for Man U. v Liverpool I'd delightfully gobble up a history on the rivalry if anybody wants to send me one.

When The Damned United came up as a suggestion I didn't hesitate...man what a story, what a character...



The other thing it had going for it is that College Football is dominated by coaches...it's a coaches game. They are heralded and blamed for every success and failure a team has. The firing and hiring of these coaches are usually played out with Shakespearean drama..and intrigue. As with everything in college football, nowhere is this more the case than in the SEC. Coaches leave professional teams to coach in the Southeastern Conference...that's how much it means. They become the program..for better or worse...and by extension the face of a State or a Region and take on all the responsibility that comes with it...and with the appropriately outsized egos. Their names are historical and cultural touchstones...Bear Bryant, General Neyland, Shug Jordan, Vince Dooley, and Steve Spurrier (the Brian Clough of the SEC)...just to name a few.

So the psychology of the story was familiar to me and completely sucked me in. The film handled this man, who had greatness in him but who got a little carried away, with the perfect pitch. I genuinely liked him and was mad at him for making a butthead of himself...I didn't feel like he was a jerk, but that he should know better. Quite a feat considering I'd only just met him 20 minutes earlier.

Maybe I'm biased now, but Bobby Bowden...I mean Don Revie and his dirty football team can kiss my grits.

As an aside...when I do come back to England...I'm going to Yorkshire. Yorkshire in the early 70's...and Deep Purple's gonna blare everywhere I swagger.

*It was an unbridled joy after trying to watch that atrocious Kiduldthood. How many times does this movie have to be made before it's seen for precisely what it is...tawdry titillation.

Dead Man's Shoes and Fish Tank

On the suggestion of a reader here (flick) I watched Dead Man's Shoes this weekend.

Fantastic. It's a Revenge Flick and a Slasher film...and just campy enough...it's a lot of things. The perspective it forces on the viewer makes for a different experience. Your set against the victims...it's like rooting for Jason against the camp councilors (if you weren't already)...except not entirely. Most of the film you don't really know why he's being quite as vicious as he is...like Lady Snowblood without the first 15 minutes.

It is gory, but considering what it is...no more than you'd expect. I thought it was pretty clever and just a good movie movie. The way Tarentino's films are.

My only complaint was the doctored grainy footage for the kid's flashbacks...it was doctored to almost a comical extent. That's minor.

Thanks for the heads up.

Then there was Fish Tank. What a flippin' movie..or what a story on film. Unlike Dead Man's this one wasn't a movie movie, but excellent none the less. It's southern squalor this time around. Though I do wonder about some of the reviews I read that were little more than hand wringing about poverty. Get out a little more...a lot of people live that way and worse...ever heard of west Yorkshire :). She wasn't missin' any meals...and her track suits cost "20 quid" OK? Her tart of a momma had enough bread to throw parties for her drunk friends.

There was also a lot about her being full of rage. As if it was indiscriminate or misplaced. She had **** to be angry about. Those skanks in the park.



She had a tough row to hoe and suffered some hard embarrassing lessons...but being 15 is pretty embarrassing anyway. I think she handle the situation about as well as you'd expect from a kid (what she did that scumbag's front room carpet was well deserved)...if the little girl had drowned the whole thing would have come undone. The bit with the horse...man I just really liked the movie that's all.

I had a lot of hope for her when it was over.

I'm prone to tangents so the UK film fest may continue for a while.

The North...Where We Do What We Want

One of the biggest distractions to my writing this weekend was the Netflix that Martha got me. I probably would have been done on Friday if she hadn't signed me up for it.

Among other things, I watched the Red Riding Trilogy over Saturday and Sunday. It sucked. A lot of it was obvious...

"We can just go luv...we'll go south and never come back. You get yer stuff together while I go across town to get mine and when I come back"...she'll be murdered dead...Duh. Or when the lead investigator is invited down to the basement by his loyal buddy, who seems to be the only other straight cop in Yorkshire...yeah he shot him.

The only likeable character in all three movies was the lawyer Pigot. A drunk slob with a great collection of soul records. He and his Soul Music don't show up til the third film.

The twenty something murders, including children, that occur across the span of 10 years and three moview are slmost an after thought...until the last ten minutes of the third movie. The real villian of the film seems to be The North of England.

Everybody lives in squalor, is a sex-pervert (wierdest moment on film...the medium seduces the cop by describing in hushed tones what the missing girl is going through...say what? ), or retarded, or insane, unless they're an utterly corrupt and vile business man who uses the sadistic, racist police force as his own personal army. Thier motto..."To the North. Where We do What We Want!" And what they want to do is break people's hands.

The Yorkshire Ripper, once they catch him...seems almost sympathetic by comparison. The other murderer is a priest of some kind...wears a collar but nobody knows for what church (he's the kid killer...of course...more points for orginality). It's not like he did anything priestly either...he just wore a collar.

I don't know...the fella that wrote the books is from West Yorkshire. Of course some of the worst crap you'll read about The South comes from our own neighbors*...see the aforementioned Donna Ladd, but even she doesn't deny the music, the food and SEC Football. Maybe I'm readin' it wrong...I do live half way round the world. It still sucked either way.

*Be on the lookout for The Help. I've already read a couple of reviews on the blogs that report this book gives a real glimpse into race and class relations in The South and especially Mississippi...uh huh, or maybe it's a glimpse into the mind of warped woman that will lie and trample those close to her in order to tell people what they want to hear and make a buck.