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Reviews
Sunderland 'Til I Die (2018)
Every aspiring leaders playbook as to how NOT to run an organisation
This is a fascinating documentary and certainly not just for football fans.
We get to see every facet of the organisation, and it quickly becomes apparent that many areas are either poorly managed, or not at all. I knew I would be witnessing a car crash, but what surprised me was how predicatable it all was.
We witness a scouting team looking for players well beyond the budget of the club, the CEO sardonically highlights this to the recruitment team and it seems as if there is no common vision. It's agreed early on that they will lean on the youth team, but then as transfer deadline approachs, several players are brought in on what appears to be panic measures. Panic leads and strategy is put to one side.
Former star players inform the CEO they aren't interested, and yet there is no disciplinary action. We see the head coach giving a presentation to the team, written in red pen on a flip chart. Players are obviously bored. None speak up, there's no passion in the dressing room it seems. Another player is caught on camera, completely pissed, slagging off his team mates, and there is no management action. It's clear Grayson is weak and out of his depth.
During a meetings with sponsors, the manager, coach and team captain are eviscerated about performance on the pitch, and are unable to define the vision of the club moving forward, nevermind to do it in a convincing way. It's astonishing that we are with an organisation managing a budget of 60-120M and yet only the CEO is able to conduct himself with any professionalism.
This you see time and again, 'we hope it will be ok'. Defeatism seems to quickly take route.
In summary, this is a great example of what happens to an organisation when there is weak leadership and limited management structure. Someone should write a book :)
I Am a Killer: Something Hideous (2020)
Overly sympathetic to the perpetrator
This moving documentary introduces us to 2 key players in the Deborah Moore murder, while leaving much else untouched.
Williams is a disturbed, mentally feeble soul who had a terrible upbringing and spent much of the years from 10-20 in institutions. On release, he was given a job by the Moore family, and within 1 week he was planning not just to rob them, but to kill them as well to remove any witnesses, although he brought along 2 ladies with him, whom we never hear much more of. The plan was ludicrous and failed. Williams is shown to regret this.
The footage of Moore discussing his wife is heartfelt and very sad to watch. His participation in this programme was brave.
We meet a few other bit players who give strangely incomplete accounts Williams current situation.
In the end, Williams is asked how Moore might feel if he was ever released (he has failed numerous parole hearings) - Williams is barely able to answer, he's never considered this. Everything falls apart.
It may be he regrets everything, but if he is unable to have considered this, in his 30+ years in prison, then something is missing in his mind. I found his accounts of events unconvincing, and the film-makers apparent sympathy with such a thoughtless killer is just bizarre.
It Couldn't Happen Here (1987)
An inexplicably forgotten title
On the back of releasing their album 'Actually', which plays like a greatest hits and includes the iconic "It's a Sin", PSBs decided to release this musical, feature length music video, depending how you'd like to look at it.
As a film, it is disjointed, pretentious, with some fairly dreadful dialogue, delivered mostly in Neil Tennant's dull monotone.
As a music video, it's perfect, full of odd and surreal goings on, with a few hand fulls of sexual innuendo, interspersed with catholic imagery, nuns in suspenders, a killer priest, Barbara Winsor, an appallingly over the top used car salesman and Clacton acting as the backdrop, the not so proverbial coastal town that they forgot to close down.
We all know the landscape, and the songs, fast forward the bad bits by all means, but It Couldn't Happen Here, It's a Sin, Heart, Suberbia and One More Chance will each leave you encapsulated and wondering why more bands don't give this a try. Flawed yes, but Neil and Chris, thank you for give us this.
Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights (2010)
Pushing boundaries
I recently watched this for the first time and think it's hugely underrated. You never quite know what's coming next and there is a very clear target market.
If you like your comedy about bodily functions, sex, plus a few jokes about pedophiles, the mentally ill, AIDs, land mines, masturbation, scat, etc, then you've come to the right place.
There were a few instances where even I (practically impossible to shock) thought he had pushed a boundary (e.g. jokes about the Moors Murders, or referencing a huge black cock about 20 times in 2 minutes) but there are other instances where the shock that surrounded the show in mainstream media is put on for sensationalist purposes, for example the reference to a bunch of Pakis being blown up - which is really a joke about how our news media puts undue weight on western lives far more so than non western lives.
I thought this was up there with blue jam/day to day in terms of pushing boundaries and would like to see more of it.
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
A flawed classic
The film portrays a fictional account of conquestadors exploring the Amazon, but takes nearly all of the plot from various historically recorded events. Filming itself, in the Bolivian jungle is the stuff of legends and many of the scenes are simply capturing the difficulty the actors had carrying their gear / travelling on the mighty Amazonian rivers. If you've been to the Amazon or are interested in the history, I can recommend this. If not, you may want to think twice. The key downsides is the inexplicable plot - we really don't get to understand any of the 'why's' in this film, and the interminable footage of the crew travelling down the river. The dubbing is terrible, the music superb. I'm surprised this film hasn't been remade as the story itself is fascinating, but as it stands, this is a flawed classic and even at 90 minutes seems overly long.
Melancholia (2011)
"a piece of sh*t"
Some lovely music and cinematography for about 6 minutes.
Beyond that we have unbelievable characters for whom I felt zero empathy, being appallingly acted.
The scenes were nonsense piled upon itself (e.g. let's put some straw on a dead body of a man who's been inexplicably killed by a horse).
The scientist in you will real at the ridculous portrayals of telescope usage, coat hanger misusage and 'you're not online again' commentary.
Nice sex scene in a sandpit.
Turgid, art-house bullsh*t nonsense - and not in a good way.
10 line rule sucks.