This Is England. - incorporating the TV show 'This is England '86

this was good but not nearly as great as dead man's shoes

I've just had someone recommend that to me.

Saw TisE and thought the kid was great. Decent cast, very good at racheting up the old tension, class soundtrack. Perhaps a few too many slow motion scenes as they walk along and a bit cheesy at points but otherwise well worth watching.

Huge disappointment for me. Plodding setting of scene (from "The Rock And Roll Year" credits sequence onwards). Pre-Combo section was very uncertain - scenes of the gang hanging out felt awkward and nervously acted (bad improvisation at work?). All a bit Children's Film Foundation. Didn't think Thomas Turgoose was half as good as all the hype - I've seen many kids act much more naturally.

Combo's arrival put a rocket under the film and he was at the centre of that quite brilliant section, running from Lol rejecting him to getting stoned with Milky and losing it, all so layed with complexity and tension so lacking for much of the film. Though all the "what have you done?" and crying at the end should have been cut.

And then it kind of ruined it all with that godawful Please Please Please cover playing over the end sequence, which really needed to have no music at all. Then the flag-discarding might even have worked.

Blimey Lol was gorgeous though.

the girls all looked amazing, especially lol.

the characters seemed very real to me, too. i grew up with kids like this.

this was a great, great film. i think they could have cut it earlier too (after combo and shaun leave with milky), but i definitely would have kept everything up to their exit. the last shot was lovely though.

i thought the acting was so great. amazing how much i liked Woody. his character and performance was just so roundly charismatic.

I saw this in london. It was very good.

Percy Sledge "Dark End Of The Street" couldn't get permission for James Carr hyuk hyuk

The Percy Sledge version is better!

EVEN better - Diamanda Galas' version.

(Dark End Of The Street may be my favourite song)

i agree - that shitty shitty smiths cover at the end was awful, not sure even that beach/flag scene needed to be there. the part after milky was killed was overplayed too. i didnt think was that great a 'film' personally - i like the idea and the fact it was about what skinheads really meant etc and tried to capture that period but as a film i just thought it became more about combo/skinheads/racism than the kid/his growth, etc.

i think i should probably watch it again though.

You probably should: Milky wasn't killed.

Great film! Saw it again tonight.

So, is the whole idea behind this film something like "Skinheads were alright because they looked cool in Ben Sherman and Doc Martens, but just don't kick anyone's head in because it'll turn you into Thatcher. PS - war is bad."?

It's making my head hurt trying to figure out if I actually like it or not. Which probably means it's succeeded no matter what I think, right?

keep missing this. 'made in britain' is like my favourite film about britain ever so i'm not really gonna be a fair judge.

You probably should: Milky wasn't killed.

-- Mark G, Monday, November 5, 2007 11:57 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Link

I think I need to watch it again as well because I'm sure that this is not at all clear.

Didn't think Thomas Turgoose was half as good as all the hype - I've seen many kids act much more naturally.

Also I have to protest this, while I'm here like. I thought he was fantastic.

God, this film is an absolute, almost totally unredeemed pile of generic, formulaic, ugly, repulsive, boring crap.

Is there any relation to Alan Clarke's Made in Britain? I thought that's what everyone was talking about through most of this thread.

just saw this, thought it was amazing - very smart, very nuanced.

Loved whole movie. Watched it by myself on a plane (on ipod). Can't remember if my seatmate was alarmed by the maniacal giggling to myself, straight into hiccupy crying.

oh and peeps upthread saying that the child actor wasnt all that great, u r crazy - his first film role also btw

http://jawkdna.com/myspace/thisisengland86.01.jpg

TV series starts next tuesday. potentially very interesting esp. considering meadows is at the helm.

Milky is in this but i thought he died in the film?

Nah, Milky, although badly hurt from the beating, did survive in the film.

If you check the cast profiles on the Channel 4 microsite, you can see that they've given Andrew Shim (Milky) a load of prosthetic scarring to reflect the events of the film. I *love* the film, really looking fwd to this.

yeah i really liked this film too. i wonder how this will work out.

there was definitely a lot of darkness in the film but it was the fun that has stayed with me. it should be good for no other reason than to show some unconventional young people in a positive light - a counterpoint, hopefully, to the hollyoaks & celeb culture that's so depressing. it's a shame we have to go back to '86 for that.

maybe this is something Prematurely Aged Snarky Englanders can get behind

don't get your hopes up.

there was definitely a lot of darkness in the film but it was the fun that has stayed with me.

otm. Never really sure about Meadows as storyteller, films tend to lose my attn somewhere in the final third, but I love his people and groups, gets the rhythms of laconic affectionate mockery dead on, also the first person I've ever seen to get East Mids urban/suburban speech properly - remember when I saw Small Time one night, didn't know what it was but thought 'oh - people who sound like people'.

Looking forward to this, only real fear is it'll slip into comedy-of-brand-names bs.

i'm amazed at the negative stuff upthread about the film. loved it. looking forward to the tv show. trailers are great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la7diucB_dg

sleng teng on a trailer. A+

Woof, I agree - Meadows is good at capturing the way people are actually funny irl. a very rare thing!

thanks for the title amendment.

envious of u peeps that get to see this - stil knocked out by the film tbh, still amazed by the way it perfectly captures the bizarre interrelationships between bullying/adolescent male group dynamics/and the fuzzy edged idea of "gangs".

100% sure you will be able to torrent it from thebox.bz after it's shown.

Quite interesting vid of Meadows and the actors and a bit of the programme. Looks good.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/video/2010/sep/06/england-shane-meadows
(contains some fooking swearing arright?)

yeah not as good as made in britain :(

I thought this was really good! The bully biker bits especially funny. Great acting all round too.

bikers funny, the rest was bleh

I enjoyed it, but it felt very much like it was just setting the stage for Combo's return etc. Also Turgoose has become a weapons-grade mumbler so it felt like I'd missed half his lines, which was irritating (accept this could be a directorial choice to bring him in line with other accepted standards of mumbling teens).

all a bit skins for my liking

^^^great pun buried there do you see

yeah it was a bit like skins/shameless but until those shows jumped the shark, i really liked those too, so no probs. It feels like it's just getting warmed up, and I have faith that Meadows is gonna deliver the goods.

I wonder if there was a reason, direcotrial, sartorial,cultural or otherwise, why '86 was chosen. It feels like a weird year. Like, the early 80s were very much entrenched in skinhead culture for a lot of people, but '86 was a fashion/music transition year and a bit of a melange, which I thought was represented really well in the show what with some of the ageing skinheads experimenting with tracksuits and Weller haircuts etc, while others seemed to be falling behind the times.

I wonder if they'll all go raving at some point?

really hope not

the first dizzy game came out in 1986 so it was probably that

What? I didn't see them playing Dizzy..?

should have done. much more important than the world cup imho

I wonder if they'll all go raving at some point?

I read an interview with Meadows where he said he'd like to revisit the characters again in 1990 and give his take on rave culture.

Still a bit Skins-y but still a good show in my book!

This is Shit

'86

I'm an unapologetic Meadows stan but the second episode of this genuinely felt like a chore. Incredibly cliched writing, sub-par acting and a complete lack of the energy that animated the original film.

Meadows directed episode just then was exponentially better than the first two.

Much more exciting (and infinitely more harrowing) than the first two eps. This show's fully kicked in. The emotional pile-up at the end was like driving past 5 car crashes.

Holy balls, that was dark. I think that one scene was one of the most depressing things I've ever watched. Totally believable, and you could see it coming too, but that didn't change how shocking and horrible it was.

Other than that, I'm kind of intrigued by the Kirk Brandon-ish character. He's a type I recognise from the older kids at my school, but one that I could never quite figure out. What sort of scene would someone like that have belonged to? Did they have a name? Seems to be some kind of goth/psychobilly hybrid.

grebo?

Seems to be some kind of goth/psychobilly hybrid

Lot of them about in the 80s!

Grebo

There's a thread on this somewhere

grebo's came a bit later though didnt they?

There kind of smelly/crusty and hippyish, whereas the goth/pychobilly kids were quite flash and stylish

Yeah, grebo was 87/88-ish. Bands like GBOA and Crazyhead, with long hair and shit.

http://media.daemonstv.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/this-is-england-86-cast-550x332.jpg

Think the guy I'm talking about is Harvey.

Maybe he's not so goth really, I just got thrown by the Theatre of Hate t-shirts and the Billy Duffy-ish haircut.

yeah, and what about the scooter gang in the tracksuits - was there a name for these kinds of dudes? my knowledge of 85-88 British subcultures is really lacking, which is why i find this show quite compelling.

I think the scooter guys are maybe low-end casuals, but they sort of grade in to being yer average townie oik.

Ex-mods?

Don't think so, most of them looked too young to be ex- anything much.

Pretty sure Mods wouldn't ride fizzies.

http://www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/images/www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/Image/this%20is%20engalnd%20bike%20gang%20shot.JPG

http://www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/images/www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/Image/this%20is%20england%20casual%20leader.JPG

I think the little thug leader is one of the funniest performances on TV right now.

"ENGINES.... OFF!"
"Hairdryers Off!"

http://www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/80s-casual-classics-the-firm-the-business-this-is-england-86-hanna-5247.html

http://www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/images/www.80scasualclassics.co.uk/Image/this%20is%20england%20spear.JPG

^ here's the Kirk Brandon dude, they've really got that look nailed. Still don't know what it's called though.

Needs a fringe jacket though.

Oh right, mopeds not scooters (xxp)

here's the Kirk Brandon dude, they've really got that look nailed. Still don't know what it's called though.

Spear of Destiny fan? Just a kinda indie kid really? Not really a subculture as such.

yeah - it's a kind of George Michael-meets-Morissey kinda look right?

Not sure he'd have been much of a Wham! fan, but I suppose there is something a bit Smiths-y (esp. Andy Rourke) about him.

Would probably have been into early Cult, Killing Joke, the Damned, that sort of thing.

He wears a Cramps t-shirt a lot too.

The Moped Lads are just what were known where I grew up as "kevs" aren't they? Or basically "yer average townie oik".

I do remember kids revving those kind of bikes up and down the street when I were a lad. I wasn't really aware of pop culture in 1986 though, I was 10.

Hmmm, kind of a disappointing final episode there. Plausibility hacked to death with a rusty clawhammer.

Is this better than the film? Thought that was awful music vs thatcher simplistic rubbish.

Not as good as the film imo. Like the film, it built towards this one horrible, disturbing scene, but the whole way the narrative was resolved after that was just plain silly. Quite good on 80's youth cult detail though.

Boo hiss, plausability! I definitely didn't see the twist coming at the end with Combo. Great episode, and very challenging TV. I felt like I'd done all the rides at Thorpe Park after watching it. That said, they didn't really seem to wrap up some of the other narrative strands too well and by the end the other plot points had become eclipsed by the evil Dad vs Lol/Combo storyline. There didn't seem to be much point in Woody gathering up all his mates to propose to Lol in the end, but maybe this was created to distract from the twist in the tale.

Awful music Ronan?

Could have done without hearing Billy Bragg last night, that's for sure.

House remix:

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jul/30/this-is-england-90-exclusive-trailer-shane-meadows

Meadows is such a hack and as terrible as his movies are this type of nostalgia shit is probably amongst his worst crimes.

Meadows does have hacky qualities it's true, and yes there is a thick layer of nostalgia with all the youth culture stuff, but even while i liked it on that level, at the same time that last series was some of the grimmest, most horrifying drama i think I've ever seen on tv. A hell of a prformance from Vicky McClure too

Wait I might be getting my series mixed up - have mostly forgotten what happened in 88

Throughout history idealised peasants is often the worst art, would equally apply that criticism to Millet or to some of the Ken Loach cannon. But fucking Meadows really pisses me off even more for some reason. I'm sorry for disagreeing Nick, but his TV work is even more abject than his movies to me, horrifying in a different way to me.

haven't watched much meadows (dead man's shoes, this is England [the film]), but does he idealize peasants? certainly not in the loach manner, i.e. didactic social-realism, where the poor characters are intelligent, or preternaturally gifted, or committed to the political advancement of their class, they're foiled by the crushing system which refuses to recognize their brilliance, or seeks outright to extinguish it. i don't see this, iirc, in meadows.

No he frames them in some other equally restrictive and boring manner.

my abiding memory of this is England is how deeply weirded out I was by a scene in which an actress who looks to be pushing 20 makes out with the small boy protagonist o_0

was he wearing a The Jam t-shirt or a Happy Mondays one? That is the difference between whatever garbage he is making.

im enjoying this meadows hate