this is england..film for now

[spooKs]

ach its alright, good soundtrack and a good subject to cover in a film, think shane meadows has better films out there though.

A room for romeo brass is pretty dark, as is dead mans shoes.

Once upon a time in the midlands is meant to be fucking brutal, ive not seen it myself though.

someone's mugging you off mate, definitely by far the most lighthearted of his films. MAYBE that's because i saw this is england and room for romeo brass in the same week as it but no...no i'm SURE even objectively it's quite a non-brutal film. really funny.

[concept_]

i didn't really rate this is england to be honest. It wasn't bad but just so bait from the off- different culture but american history x tackles racism in a more interesting, emotional way in my opinion.

Properly rate dead man's shoes though- one of my favourites and clever storyline...though the "teamaking" bit near the end is dark and horrible.

Need to catch some of the others people are mentioning.

[frebentos]

i liked this is england but found it pretty ahrsh at the end...upsetting.
And yea, spooks, dead mans shoes is excellent.

[spooKs]

room.
for.
romeo.
brass.

[pre-thought process]

Decent movie but they got some minor period details wrong about the punk/skin subcultures of '83. Worth a watch tho

I wasn't around at the time, but i'm pretty sure you didn't have black guys in skinhead crews. Still a good film.

fucking excellent. check the directors other films especially dead mans shoes!

This a badman film

[elbe]

I don't rate it tbh, thought the lines were stiff, didn't evoke much interest at anypoint for me, was a bit like watching a student theatre group/film...got that sense it was trying to make me feel something but failing utterly.

In fact I thought it was shit. Only thing in its favour was it was better than Greenstreet (think thats the name) another a film I watched recently because of its hype and found completely disappointing.

once upon a time in the Midlands is much better.

havn't seen the other but I'll check them out

[le_hardcore_chiefus]

From reading this thread I got the idea that nobody realised that 'This is England' was actually on TV an hour after the thread was started. It was on Film 4 at 9pm.

I only say this because nobody who was posting on the thread appeared as though they were watching it while this thread was being posted on.

Did anybody know it was actually on at the same time as everybody was posting in this thread?

course i did ..do u think all them pills have muddled me that much

[darkmatteruk]

i've been waiting to see this for months...

anyone know if its in the States yet?

you can get it from dc downloads, free of course

[diss04]

once upon a time in the Midlands is much better.

EPIC SMH

[pk-]

Decent movie but they got some minor period details wrong about the punk/skin subcultures of '83. Worth a watch tho

I wasn't around at the time, but i'm pretty sure you didn't have black guys in skinhead crews. Still a good film.

that's the point of it, the hijacking of the 'skinhead' movement and turning it into a racist one.

the reason the term skinhead has such racist connotations these days is because of the sort of thing that happened in that film

[elbe]

once upon a time in the Midlands is much better.

EPIC SMH

nah mate, This is England was shit and completely unentertaining.

once upon a time was at least fairly funny and slightly entertaining.

[diss04]

lol ok elbe

[pre-thought process]

Decent movie but they got some minor period details wrong about the punk/skin subcultures of '83. Worth a watch tho

I wasn't around at the time, but i'm pretty sure you didn't have black guys in skinhead crews. Still a good film.

that's the point of it, the hijacking of the 'skinhead' movement and turning it into a racist one.

the reason the term skinhead has such racist connotations these days is because of the sort of thing that happened in that film

Yeah I understand the fact that originally 'skinheads' were not all racist and it was the involvement of certain political parties/views that intervened and bred such movements as C18. I suppose in a way they were kind of like a re-emergence of the mods.

[alphacat]

Skinheads were essentially the blue collar subset of Mod culture. We're talking about the 60's, now...

The inherent conservatism of Mods (aesthetically informed by subtly & sometimes tacitly Fascist art movements, like Italian Futurism) appealed to lots of Britons living in poverty, because its emphasis on dignity, Nationalism, and "traditional" values like hard work and neatness gave people something to strive for while living in the middle of dingy squalor. At the same time, the Mod love of American R&B extended into the Skinhead appreciation for Bluebeat and other R&B flavored Jamaican music.
They were not originally about racism in the least; there were Black skinheads, and the interplay between the newly-arrived West Indian population from the Caribbean end of the Commonwealth and the native born poor White people laid the foundation for all of the Jamaican-isms that are still found in urban British music - especially Dubstep!

That's not to say that they were necessarily champions of open-mindedness. There was a strange tendency for Skinheads to pick on Pakistani immigrants, even back then - some think it's because the West Indians already spoke English while the Pakistanis generally didn't until they arrived in the UK. Skinheads also used to get into it with Rockers, men with long hair, Mods that were considered too effete, and other Skinhead "firms" (aka gangs, crews, whatever). The whole Skinhead uniform was actually tailor-made for fighting; skinny braces give your opponent less to grab onto - same with flight jackets and tight pants - and a shaved head, for that matter. Steel toed boots are an obvious weapon. This aspect of the Skinhead culture merged seamlessly into football hooliganism as time went on.

So into the 70's...

The younger brothers and late comers to the mostly dead Skinhead scene by the mid 70's were living in a different time; Punk was on the ascendency as far as British street culture, Thatcher came into office and put the country on a solidly conservative course in all aspects - financially (trying to target dole recipients) and culturally. The National Front, a far-right & openly Fascist political group, was encouraged by the increasingly reactionary vibe in the land and started actively recruiting at places where young, violent, disenfranchised men hung out (sound like anyone we've been talking about previously?)... Places you wouldn't think Fascists would go solicit their points of view - like shows by bands like Madness and other ska bands - were becoming breeding grounds for the new nationalism, which blamed immigrant populations for "stealing British jobs" (and there's a lesson in there for the U.S. as regards our immigration views) and all sorts of other cop-outs which caused these jobless, angry young fellows to take to the street as the new Skinhead: a jackbooted thug paying lip service to working class values but not actually working honestly, much less even trying to. Bands like Skrewdriver formed to give this viewpoint a rallying cry. And now?

Now everybody thinks being a Skinhead means being a room-temperature-IQ-having racist moron.

Ah, well... things from the past are best left there anyway. Anyone trying to pull of the Skinhead thing now - whether it's the original 'Trad' 2-tone/ska thing or the modern sieg-heiling corruption thereof - is living in the past as much as any hippie... or for that matter, any punk rocker, any rockabilly-types, any of that. That's just my opinion anyway.

The future is much more interesting for its possibilities than what we think we can know about the past.

[blizzardmusic]

Pretty good film, I think the fight with Milky was quite uncalled for, and where they all mess up the house was weird. Good film, pretty sad at the end where he throws the england flag into the water. Combo (or whatever his name is) seems like a prick, and I would have put a gun to his head if I had one.

[le_hardcore_chiefus]

combo was in lock stock right...sure he was a bag head too

[diss04]

nah he was in snatch

[buzzy]

From reading this thread I got the idea that nobody realised that 'This is England' was actually on TV an hour after the thread was started. It was on Film 4 at 9pm.

I only say this because nobody who was posting on the thread appeared as though they were watching it while this thread was being posted on.

Did anybody know it was actually on at the same time as everybody was posting in this thread?

course i did ..do u think all them pills have muddled me that much

Lol...No it's just that nobody said that they are watching it right now, or that they just watched it.

I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. But for some reason it seemed to go too quick even if though was about 2 hours long.
It just felt as though the story was just getting started and I was surprised that it finished where it did. I was expecting more story and then it seemed to abruptly end when it felt like the story was just getting going.

Loved Dead Man's Shoes.

Didn't like Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. Well it was okay but I thought it was pretty weak for Shane Meadows.

I haven't seen A Room for Romeo Brass though. So I'm looking forward to seeing that.

[le_hardcore_chiefus]

oh really hahaha

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FMATtWgXLiI

[echo wanderer]

Skinheads were essentially the blue collar subset of Mod culture. We're talking about the 60's, now...

The inherent conservatism of Mods (aesthetically informed by subtly & sometimes tacitly Fascist art movements, like Italian Futurism) appealed to lots of Britons living in poverty, because its emphasis on dignity, Nationalism, and "traditional" values like hard work and neatness gave people something to strive for while living in the middle of dingy squalor. At the same time, the Mod love of American R&B extended into the Skinhead appreciation for Bluebeat and other R&B flavored Jamaican music.
They were not originally about racism in the least; there were Black skinheads, and the interplay between the newly-arrived West Indian population from the Caribbean end of the Commonwealth and the native born poor White people laid the foundation for all of the Jamaican-isms that are still found in urban British music - especially Dubstep!

That's not to say that they were necessarily champions of open-mindedness. There was a strange tendency for Skinheads to pick on Pakistani immigrants, even back then - some think it's because the West Indians already spoke English while the Pakistanis generally didn't until they arrived in the UK. Skinheads also used to get into it with Rockers, men with long hair, Mods that were considered too effete, and other Skinhead "firms" (aka gangs, crews, whatever). The whole Skinhead uniform was actually tailor-made for fighting; skinny braces give your opponent less to grab onto - same with flight jackets and tight pants - and a shaved head, for that matter. Steel toed boots are an obvious weapon. This aspect of the Skinhead culture merged seamlessly into football hooliganism as time went on.

So into the 70's...

The younger brothers and late comers to the mostly dead Skinhead scene by the mid 70's were living in a different time; Punk was on the ascendency as far as British street culture, Thatcher came into office and put the country on a solidly conservative course in all aspects - financially (trying to target dole recipients) and culturally. The National Front, a far-right & openly Fascist political group, was encouraged by the increasingly reactionary vibe in the land and started actively recruiting at places where young, violent, disenfranchised men hung out (sound like anyone we've been talking about previously?)... Places you wouldn't think Fascists would go solicit their points of view - like shows by bands like Madness and other ska bands - were becoming breeding grounds for the new nationalism, which blamed immigrant populations for "stealing British jobs" (and there's a lesson in there for the U.S. as regards our immigration views) and all sorts of other cop-outs which caused these jobless, angry young fellows to take to the street as the new Skinhead: a jackbooted thug paying lip service to working class values but not actually working honestly, much less even trying to. Bands like Skrewdriver formed to give this viewpoint a rallying cry. And now?

Now everybody thinks being a Skinhead means being a room-temperature-IQ-having racist moron.

Ah, well... things from the past are best left there anyway. Anyone trying to pull of the Skinhead thing now - whether it's the original 'Trad' 2-tone/ska thing or the modern sieg-heiling corruption thereof - is living in the past as much as any hippie... or for that matter, any punk rocker, any rockabilly-types, any of that. That's just my opinion anyway.

The future is much more interesting for its possibilities than what we think we can know about the past.

Almost all of this is true.

However,I am bit surprised you don't mention Suedeheads(who became the Glamrockers),Bootboys(who became Oi!boys and set the blueprint for the skinhead look),and Oi! as well.All those subsects came from Mod too,not just skinheads.And speaking of Skrewdriver,they did NOT start out as a neo-na.zi band,the were an punk rock and Oi! band.After the first incarnation disbanded,they adopted the skin look and that's when the new facist movements began to take notice of them and became thier main audience.Unfortunatley,they also adopted the facist manifesto,due to the fact that the new members were believers in it.In fact,Ian Stuart played in Rolling Stones cover bands before he started Skrewdriver.

As for being a trad skin,I was one in the 80's.I was also 2Tone.The roots are still in me.It's really the SHARPS who gave a lot of us a bad name(here in the states),in my opinion.Neo's were violent,but small in numbers,whereas SHARPS were more a popular trend,and far more violent,attacking pretty much ANYONE they deemed racist.A lot of the neo's here were redneck/racist metalheads who thought punk sound was far more "tough" than metal,as it was becoming too glam in the 80s.In fact,just before the first "Crosover bands" came about(ie:DRI,who predated thrash metal by about 5 years),the "dirtheads"(as we punks used to call them) began calling themselves "Hessians",which refers to German mercenaries employed by Britain during the Revolutionary War,and can also refer to German nationalists of WWII.

I concur that it is sad that the media lumped he whole of shinhead culture under a banner of facism because of a few boneheads.The media were the ones who gave the facists the name "skinhead",though the term was originally coined in Jamaica as a "clean-cut young man"(also see "baldhead").There are countless interviews out there with Laurel Aitken in which he mentions that racists used to come to his shows in the late 70's,but never gave him problems because ska and Oi! had so many connections.