roryosullivan.co.uk

I’m a Shane Meadows newbie, I’d not seen This is England or Dead Mans Shoes so didn’t have any expectations of the film. I knew the basic premiss in advance from the trailers and knew of the Eurostar affiliation but that was it.

The film shows the growing friendship of two young out of town boys bought together through odd circumstances in the Somers Town area of London.

Beautifully filmed in black and white the story of Tommo and Marek flips from farce to farce via affection for a particular female and the gritty London some of us love and hate. With Tommo crashing at Mareks without the knowledge of the laters father and the boys earning cash from a neighbour their friendship expands as the boys get to know each other. Shane Meadows does extremely well to show how differing personalities and cultures form part of the heart of not just friendships, relationships and parental love but the places around us.

The young actors playing the two lead roles are brilliant, the dialogue is delivered beautifully like a real conversation between teenage boys and not an overly scripted attempt to make people think that it is what kids talk like that seems to be in mainstream media

Despite a slightly sentimental ending that doesn’t really take away anything from the film this is definitely worth a watch

rating: 4 stars

A few friends have been chatting about  music recently and the plethora of compilation CD’s. After a while we each decided to put together a playlist of songs. The requirements were simple, It had to fit on an audio CD. After much deliberation I finished mine. I’ve stuck it up here with links to videos or web pages where you can hear the songs in case you were wondering what I came up with. There were many more songs I could have used and having seen the tracklists of some of the other cd’s there was a wide variety of songs and artists everyone picked. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

1. (Love Is Like A) Heatwave - Martha Reeves And The Vandellas

2. May This Be Love - Jimi Hendrix

3. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding

4. Voodoo Juju - The Voodoo Trombone Quartet

5. Something In The Air - Thunderclap Newman

6. Surf Wax America - Weezer

7. Midnight In A Perfect World - DJ Shadow

8. Stars - Dubstar

9. Steal My Sunshine - Len

10. Whole Lotta Amore - Senor Senor Click on track in player

11. Happiness (Ashley Beedle Mix) - Shawn Lee

12. Singing Winds, Crying Beasts - Santana

13. Electricity - Spiritualized

14. The Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

15. Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy - Queens Of The Stone Age

16. Mr Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra

17. One Day Like This - Elbow

18. Lower Your Eye Lids To Die With The Sun - M83