oi!

..and so I got fat and drank too much and said hello to a new year in typically anticlimactic fashion; setting off a collection of rubbish fireworks and eating a greasy kebab served up to me by some of scarborough finest polish gastronomes.
and then came my resolution. a chance to better myself, or put an end to one of those ugly little vices that's been eating away at me over the years. i opted for something productive: to learn french.
then i realised that learning french is something i actually want to do, and probably will, given time. i thought to myself that resolutions are not to be kept, they are to be broken! after all, who ever seriously gives up chocolote or starts jogging for longer than a week? quitters, that's who!
so i've now opted for something that is quite impossible to maintain:
an end to the viewing of mindlessly violent cockney gangster films.
case in point: Rise of the Foot Soldier.
I made the decision after watching this turgid piece of celluloid a couple of days ago. I know deep down in my cold black heart that similar films will come and go in the future, and no doubt I'll see some of them. Maybe even some will be watchable.
But in all honesty, the English gangster film has become a joke. I am preying for something that rivals the classic Mafia movie a la Goodfellas, The Godfather etc. A film that's as extreme in it's portrayal of violence as is subtle in it's psychology. In other words, not two dull hours of chiched cockney wideboy stupidity, culminating in an orgy of unrealistic gore. Call me oldfashioned.

On a more upbeat note, I am forever being impressed by the charm and austere of Shane Meadows. Last year I was blown away by 'This is England' which lead me to his earlier film 'A Room for Romeo Brass'. Here is a movie where only the threat of violence is twice as poweful as a hundred mangled fat heads. It's central performance by Paddy Considine had me crying with laughter and slightly scared at the same time, which is no easy feat.

Here's to more films like that and less Guy Ritchie flake-offs.