Monday, 19 April 2010

Amazon Review
19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
This review is for: The Football Factory
As I travelled across London in the "tube" one Saturday in the early 70's, the train stopped at a station In East Ham. To the bemusement of the existing passengers the people who boarded the cars were "fans" of the London Football team West Ham United. Characteristically these fans wore the affected uniform of the day, skinhead haircuts, rolled up jeans held up by braces, or as you would understand the term, suspenders, black crombie overcoats and the ubiquitous white t-shirt. They were off to watch their team play at home and euphemistically, for a bit of bovver, the nickname of their boots, Doctor Martens. They were loud and loutish on the train jeering and picking on anyone who was not white and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when they disembarked.

Jump forward thirty years or so and some things have changed while others have not. Football grounds have demolished the terraces and the white working class males have been usurped by the middle classes who are the only ones who can afford the seats. The manic fans have changed too. Whereas once they were mindless gangs bored out of their minds and easy prey for neo-Nazi groups, the serious troublemakers have organised the firms which charaterize some of soccer's premier league fans and who are identified by British police and deterred from following Engk=land overseas.

Whereas the story of the seventies was told in short novels with the imaginative titles of 'Skinhead' followed later by 'Suedehead' and other similar titles, today we have the Football Factory.

This is a tense, gripping story which induces a feeling of fear for the less worldly viewer. It has an all too real sense of reality about it as anyone with experience with living in a major British city will tell you. Not for the first time has a British movie shocked the viewer with such language and mindless brutality. Not for the first time has a British movie exposed the alienation of disaffected British youth, although those movies were more common in Mrs. Thatcher's day than under the Blair regime. Indeed this movie is an attack on the politics of Blair although the overt references here are subdued in volume. The tensions between the old and new generations are highlighted by the superb performance of Dudley Sutton although this was spoilt at the end when the central character awakes in a hospital bed after a major beating to find himself next to Sutton whp plays his grandfather. Given the distance between the two incidents which led them to being in the hospital in the first place it is extremely unlikely that they would have even been in the same hospital never mind the same ward.

This does not detract from the movie which feels almost like a documentary never mind a drama. The plot is rather thin given the subject matter but the result is a microcosm of the life of members of one of these firms and it is clear from my own experience that the researchers have done a very thorough job.

As a movie this is an excellent piece of work although I suspect that the civil authorities in the US will have serious reservations about it's screening and general release on DVD.

Rather as entertainment, people should understand the seriousness of the subject matter being shown on their screens. There are many lessons to be drawn on both sides of the Atlantic about the way in which our societies are developing in the light of the existance of organisations such as these. But on a cautionary note, the firms of the movie are not as widespread and football matches are not dangerous to visit, in general but the casual visitor might want to do some homework before they go to one.

Five stars.
Plot

"The Football Factory" focuses on two different groups of English football supporters -- the Headhunters, who support Chelsea F.C., and the Bushwhackers, who support Millwall F.C. Throughout the movie, the Headhunters fight with other English groups such as those supporting Tottenham Hotspur F.C., Liverpool F.C., and Stoke City F.C..
The film follows Tommy Johnson (Dyer), a football hooligan in his mid 20s who has begun to question his morals and the morals of those around him. Tommy's major conflict in the film stems from his inevitable aging. Although he loves his weekend 'meets', he knows he cannot possibly play forever.
While enjoying a night out with his pal Rod, they meet a couple of young women in a bar and both end up back at one of the girls' houses. In the morning, Tommy awakes to a man sitting over him with a knife against his throat. Rod arrives at the scene, hits the man over the head with a cricket bat, and they both are able to run home alive. It then emerges that the cuckolded householder is in fact Millwall Fred's (Hassan) brother.
The remainder of the film focuses on Tommy trying to evade the Millwall gang who are seeking retribution for the attack while trying to decipher the meaning behind strange dreams that have plagued him throughout the film.

Cast

Danny Dyer — Tommy Johnson, a bored twenty something who lives for the weekend. The thrill of the big Millwall Versus Chelsea meet leaves his life scrambled as he tries to pull himself out of his nightmare.
Frank Harper — Billy Bright, is a forty something forming part of the older generation of The Firm he is full of bitterness in what he sees as the country and system that have failed him. Away from the crowds where he commands an audience to impress the younger guys, he's a sad and lonely character whose life is fast spiralling out of control.
Neil Maskell — Rod, Tommy's oldest friend and confidant, ambling along the path lead by his mates.
Roland Manookian — Zeberdee, younger breed coming through the ranks of Chelsea, his life has already run into a cul de sac of crime and drugs. With nothing to lose and no one to look out for him, Zeberdee aspires to be a future top boy, unfortunately his lack of intellectual guile get him into a lot of trouble.
Tamer Hassan — Millwall Fred, heads the rival Millwall firm an arch enemy of Chelsea, things come to ahead when Tommy inadvertently crosses path with Fred and a revenge situation begins.
Dudley Sutton — Bill Farrell, is representative of the older generation from a bygone era, a second-world war veteran in his mid seventies who lives out the remainder of his days with childhood friend Albert Moss who plan to retire in Australia.
John Junkin — Albert Moss
Jamie Foreman — Taxi Driver who is never afraid of letting his customers know his true feelings about society.
Tony Denham — Harris, the Chelsea firms head who runs it like a military operation.
Kara Tointon — Shie
Sophie Linfield — Tamara
Danny Kelly — Radio announcer

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

Trailer Courtesy of Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz6GbvWD_NI
The Football Factory (2004)


What else you gonna do on a Saturday?

Starring:

Danny Dyer
Dudley Sutton
Frank Harper
Jamie Foreman
Neil Maskell
Roland Manookian
Tamer Hassan
Directed by:

Nick Love
Rating: 3/10

Running Time: 93 minutes

Certificate: UK: 18

Country: United Kingdom

Let the title fool you at your peril – ‘The Football Factory’ is a film that has absolutely nothing to do with football. You won’t see a blade of grass, a ball, or a set of goals anywhere within its 93 minutes. Neither, for that matter, will you see a waving scarf, a steaming hot cup of Bovril, or the inside of a stadium – so you couldn’t even accurately describe it as a film about football supporters.

No, ‘The Football Factory’ is about one thing and one thing only: hooligans. Sure, they’re hooligans who attach themselves to one English football club or another (in this case Chelsea). But, if they’re also football supporters, it’s certainly not something writer-director Nick Love has any interest in. After all, at no point in the film is football even spoken about. Okay, so there’s a bit where one of our main hoolies (Frank Harper) is glued to the live TV coverage of the draw for the next round of the FA Cup – but even that turns out to be only so he can mark into his diary whose face he’s going to be kicking the snot out of next.

Adapted from the novel by Nick Love (just one of countless pieces of football thug-friendly literature to have sprung up over the past few years), we’re taken through a couple of weeks in the life of Tommy (Danny Dyer). He’s a fully paid-up member of a Chelsea “Firm”, and justifies his way of life by rambling on about the importance of “making a difference.” Exactly what he’s making a difference to, other than the queue at his local casualty, is never quite explained. Nonetheless, he’s part of a lower-middle-class sub-culture that makes him feel both big AND clever – until a couple of scary dreams cause him to vaguely question the worth of it all, that is.

You’ve got to hand it to Love – he’s assembled a convincing band of Guy Ritchie cast-off types, and his scenes of inner-city street warfare are frighteningly realistic. But there’s no discernable plotline, no form of redemption for any of our characters, and nobody for the right-thinking viewer to side with. Yup, there’s a moral lesson thrown in for our lead protagonist, but it never looks like it’s been included as anything more than a minor afterthought in an extremely weak effort to justify the film’s existence. Without a shadow of a doubt, this is a film that revels in its subject matter, which can only bring me to the conclusion that it’s not only about hooligans – it’s also aimed squarely at them. If you’re one of them, you’ll probably love it. Who doesn’t love being told exactly what they want to hear?

It's Got: Frank Harper doing a Cockney tribute to Joe Pesci’s Tommy De Vito from ‘Goodfellas’.

It Needs: To be associated with football about as much as football needs to be associated with it.

The Football Factory is a 2004 English film directed by Nick Love and stars Danny Dyer and Frank Harper. It is based on the novel of the same name by John King.
The film is the first foray into film-making by video game producers Rockstar Games, credited as Executive Producers.
In 2004, Chelsea F.C. football supporters' fanzine cfcuk produced a special edition - "cfcuk - The Football Factory" to coincide with the release of the film.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Slumdog millionaire review

The Times Review

Danny Boyle couldn’t have timed his resurrection as a populist director much better than this. Half the planet is desperate to enjoy a feel-good hit that doesn’t involve Abba songs.

The other half will be astonished by his chutzpah. Slumdog Millionaire is exactly the kind of exotic, edgy thriller that the new generation of Academy voters on both sides of the Pond absolutely adores. The rags-to-riches story is set in the grubby backstreets of Mumbai. Half the script is delivered in Hindi. And the plot is impossibly shallow.

The film starts at the end. Dev Patel’s 18-year-old Jamal is just one correct answer away from winning — or blowing — a 20 million rupee (£280,000) fortune on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?


When the programme breaks for the night before the all-important final question, Jamal is bundled through the back door of the television studio, whisked to the nearest police station, and beaten to a pulp by corrupt and jealous cops who want to know how he cheated. This is where the film actually begins.

“What the hell can a slum boy possibly know?” barks the irritated police chief (Irrfan Khan) as a plump minion clips a pair of electric cables to Jamal’s big toes. “The answers,” spits out Patel’s bruised hero. The plucky martyr reveals how each loaded question asked by the slimy host of Millionaire unlocks a seminal childhood injury.

This being a Danny Boyle movie the precious answers are nailed to brutal scenes. They involve frantic sprints through Mumbai’s crowded markets and grisly flashbacks to medieval slums where the nine-year-old Jamal, and his slightly older psychotic brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), spend most of their childhood fleeing the clutches of sinister pimps and hungry gangs. It’s terribly Dickensian.

The fairytale power of the film is the way Boyle manages to capture the evolution of the city through the eyes of a child. It’s visually astonishing. The film gets under the skin of the city on every imaginable level. The cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle is an insouciant genius with a camera. You could hang his lush stills of garbage heaps, frowning waifs and skeletal tower blocks in any respectable art gallery. By the same token the film must have been murder to edit.

Jamal’s shocks of growing up alone unfold like dreams: the death of his mother, murdered during a riot; a comic shaking of hands with a Bollywood legend, and then a long litany of ghastly wounds inflicted on fellow urchins by smiling pimps and lethal Fagins.

The rift between the sensitive Jamal and his increasingly domineering brother is the rip that hurts the most. The adolescent orphans barely understand the pain that they inflict on each other. Boyle uses this simmering tension to turn up the temperature at critical moments.

The director has never been shy of manipulating emotions and characters to crank out the maximum screen emotion. The scented backdrops and flavours of Mumbai dilute the crude liberties that Boyle occasionally inflicts on the melodrama.

The fact that these memories stack up into neat answers is spookily inconvenient if you’re a poisonous bastard such as Anil Kapoor’s deliciously smug television host. Or an emotionally detached viewer. Indeed Slumdog Millionaire is guilty of all sorts of implausible twists, not least a thundery long-distance romance between Jamal and a sultry captive beauty (Freida Pinto) forced into prostitution. It keeps pulling at your sleeve like a needy child.

Despite the wobbly structure, Slumdog is a far more sophisticated film than the plot suggests. There isn’t an inch of Merchant Ivory on view. And, like the best parables, Slumdog doesn’t simply plunder India’s troubled past and a boy’s bitter-sweet memories in order to look forward.

What’s great about the film is that it looks sideways as the past and future grind past each other like tectonic plates. It’s the kind of dynamic that Robert Lepage explores so brilliantly on stage. Here, Boyle takes on a bewildering mess of contradictions to make a surprisingly pure point.

Mumbai’s brand new skyscrapers sprout out of patches of mud; Jamal’s old-fashioned principles will forever be out of synch with the slick, nightclub world that his older brother Salim inhabits. And so it goes. The romance? Fear not. It’s fabulous icing.

15, 120 mins
Overview
User Rating:Top 250: #87 (register to vote)
8.4/10 155,660 votes
MOVIEmeter:
Up 4% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Directors:
Danny Boyle
Loveleen Tandan (co-director: India)
Writers:
Simon Beaufoy (screenplay)
Vikas Swarup (novel)
Contact:
View company contact information for Slumdog Millionaire on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
9 January 2009 (UK) more
Genre:
Crime | Drama | Romance more
Tagline:
Love and money... You have mixed them both. more
Plot:
A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
Won 8 Oscars. Another 96 wins & 48 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(3424 articles)
Avatar set to take on The Hurt Locker in race for Oscar glory
(From The Geek Files. 2 February 2010, 12:43 AM, PST)
Miley Cyrus to Auction Off Grammy Dress for Haiti
(From Celebrity Mania. 1 February 2010, 10:43 PM, PST)
User Reviews:
One of the best cinema offered in 2008 more (872 total)
Cast (Cast overview, first billed only)

Dev Patel ... Jamal K. Malik

Saurabh Shukla ... Sergeant Srinivas
Anil Kapoor ... Prem Kapur

Rajendranath Zutshi ... Director (as Raj Zutshi)
Jeneva Talwar ... Vision Mixer

Freida Pinto ... Latika
Irrfan Khan ... Police Inspector
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail ... Youngest Salim
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar ... Youngest Jamal
Jira Banjara ... Airport Security Guard (as Hira Banjara)
Sheikh Wali ... Airport Security Guard
Mahesh Manjrekar ... Javed
Sanchita Choudhary ... Jamal's Mother
Himanshu Tyagi ... Mr Nanda
Sharib Hashmi ... Prakash
more
Create a character page for:

Additional Details
MPAA:
Rated R for some violence, disturbing images and language.
Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parents
Runtime:
120 min
Country:
UK
Language:
English | Hindi | French
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS
Certification:
USA:R (certificate #44838) | UK:15 | Ireland:15A | Australia:MA | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Czech Republic:15 | New Zealand:R13 | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Norway:11 | India:A (cinema release) | Finland:K-15 | Hong Kong:IIB | Singapore:NC-16 | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Netherlands:12 | South Africa:13V | Brazil:16 | South Korea:15 | Peru:14 | Argentina:16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Germany:12 | Japan:PG-12 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Belgium:KT | Mexico:B | Iceland:12 | New Zealand:R16 (DVD rating) | France:U
Filming Locations:
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India more

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Green Street

http://business.pearlanddean.com/filmplanner/filmdetail.html?FilmID=3085

from this link the target audience for the film is 15-24 which is very young, the gender audience is shown to be more male maybe due to the fact the film is quite violent.


Exchange

Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
After the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Elijah Wood could've opted for further big budget epics, but took a sharp left turn with this better-than-average B-movie. Released just after Everything is Illuminated, another offbeat entry, Wood plays journalism student Matt Buckner. In the prologue, he's expelled from Harvard when his over-privileged roommate sets him up to take the fall for his own misdeeds. With nowhere to go, Matt decides to visit his sister, Shannon (Claire Forlani), in London. He's already got a chip on his shoulder when he falls under the sway of Shannon's brother-in-law, Pete (Charlie Hunnam), head of West Ham's football "firm," the Green Street Elite. Matt soon gets caught up in their thuggish antics—to tragic effect. In her feature debut, German-born Lexi Alexander makes a mostly convincing case for the attractions of violence to the emotionally vulnerable, as opposed to the emotionally numb pugilists of the more satirical Fight Club. Unlike David Fincher (by way of Chuck Palahniuk), she plays it straight, except for the stylised fight sequences. Consequently, humour is in short supply, but the young Brit cast, especially Leo Gregory as the surly Bovver, is charismatic and Wood makes his character as believable as possible, i.e. he may seem miscast, but that's the point. Although there's no (direct) correlation between the two, Green Street makes a fine taster for Bill Buford's Among the Thugs, the ultimate dissection of the hooligan mentality. --Kathleen C. Fennessy


Synopsis
Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) is a student who travels to London, where he forms an unlikely bond with his sister’s husband's brother, Pete Dunham (Charlie Hunnam), who introduces him to the world of football hooliganism. Violence breaks out at a West Ham game that Matt attends with Pete and Matt's initial trepidation at the violence swelling around him soon turns into a pulse-racing, visceral thrill. Suddenly finding a taste for the hooligan life, Matt joins Pete's "firm," the Green Street Elite, leading to further booze-fuelled confrontations and providing an opportunity for Matt to keep a journal explaining why he's attracted to such a violent pursuit. Surprisingly, Elijah Wood manages to fit perfectly into a role that seems ill-suited to his elfin, wide-eyed looks. Charlie Hunnam--who starred in the television programmes Queer As Folk and Undeclared--neatly complements Wood as the cockney boy who leads him into danger, and together the two actors manage to carve out convincingly violent characters. Thematically similar to The Football Factory, Green Street mixes loud, energetic soundtrack and roaming, trembling camera work to create a disquieting atmosphere in a movie punctuated with scenes of rampant brutality.

Youtube's trailer of the film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAe-1Lv1KYU