Change Your Image
martinpercival-1
Reviews
The Four Year Plan (2011)
What a mad house.....the story of Queen's Park Rangers 2007 to 2011
This film is extremely well made and will appeal to anyone who likes an interesting documentary. You do not have to be a Queen's Park Rangers fan, or even a football fan for that matter, to find the film fascinating. This is due to the characters involved, some of their actions plus the storyline and the way the film has been skillfully created. It's all the better for the fact that there is no narration whatsoever - the film tells it's own story.
The Four Year Plan was shot by the Ad Hoc Films team over the period of 2007 to 2011. It vividly depicts the emotional roller-coaster ride that this period was for QPR fans. Flavio Briatore who, together with his F1 colleague Bernie Ecclestone, became a joint owner of the club in August 2007 comes over as someone who is completely clueless about football and who has to rely on fellow Italian Gianni Paladini, a former players agent who bought a share of QPR in 2003, to provide advice and guidance. Ironically "The Four Year Plan" was what the new owners claimed they had to get the club promoted back to the Premiership for the first time since 1996. Incredibly this goal was achieved in May 2011, but the film gives the distinct impression that this was in spite of the involvement of Briatore and Ecclestone, not because of them or because any real plan as such actually existed. One fan in fact refers to "The Four Minute Plan" at one stage!
The infamous QPR managerial merry go round from 2008 to 2010, where there was seemingly a different incumbent in the managers chair every few weeks, is depicted for all of its infamy. Each manager is usually described at some stage in the film as "that idiot" by Flavio Briatore but with his comments often made in Italian and with the film's sub titles revealing what is being said, often within the earshot of the person. What of course never occurs to the two main club owners is that these "idiots" were in fact their appointments.
The DVD extras consist of 12 interesting deleted scenes (over 900 hours of film was recorded). In a shirt design decision meeting in 2009 Flavio Braitore rejects a shirt design with red piping and goes for silver instead. Needless to say the red looks better, and you can tell the Lotto shirt manufacturer representative thinks so too, but she goes along with what the boss says.....
Another extra is footage of the club's Manchester United Carling Cup away game in October 2008 with Gareth Ainsworth, the QPR assistant manager, pumping the players up saying "you can be playing here in the league". At the time many people would have thought that highly unlikely but, less than 4 years later in April 2012, that is indeed what will happen.
In years to come I think QPR fans will look back and be pleased that the film was made as it really does capture a period in the clubs history that would be tough to describe without an excellent film to depict all of the events. In the meantime fans of other clubs will view the film and inevitably think "what a total mad house", but at the same time enjoy the film for the well made documentary that it is.
Unmissable
Punk: Attitude (2005)
Where did the Punk movement come from & where did it go to?
Sometimes it does feel like punk never happened but, peel back the surface in a great many areas, especially in much literature and many films, and talk to some people in their teens and 20s and the true influences are still certainly there, albeit maybe a little beneath the surface.
If the question "where did the Punk movement come from & where did it go to?" has ever run through your brain then Don Lett's film "Punk Attitude", together with Jon Savage's book "Englands Dreaming", are the best places (so far) to start looking to answer this. They also both help explore the ways the movement influenced many peoples lives, and not only the musicians involved, especially in regards to getting them involved - to be players and not just spectators, also clearly demonstrating that it's still relevant to the FUTURE.
"Punk Attitude" makes it very clear that punk didn't all start with the Ramones in the US and the Sex Pistols & Clash in the UK and that punk = an attitude, not a hair cut or a style of clothing - just in case people might think otherwise! Although all three bands were hugely influential when they formed in the mid 70s, and still are very much so now nearly 30 years later, they didn't come from out of nowhere and had their own host of influences back to Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and on through the British Invasion groups like the Who, Kinks and Small Faces. These groups in turn influenced the Standells, Sonics and Count Five and then on through the Velvet Underground, Doors, Stooges, MC5 plus the New York Dolls. Letts explores this cross pollination and influencing process very well in "Punk Attitude", without turning it into a boring navel gazing university thesis style analysis that would have been totally inappropriate for such subject matter.
So what makes him qualified to do this? Don Letts is one of the very best placed people to make a documentary of this type. A very early player on the UK Punk scene, and prior to this even as a rag trade rival to Malcolm McLaren and Viv Westwood, he went on to dj at London's Roxy Club in 1977 and manage the Slits. At the time he was not a musician. Punks impact upon him was to make him realise he could be a film maker. He subsequently filmed many of the key bands of the era on Super 8 for what became "Don Lett's Punk Rock Movie" featuring the Banshees, Clash, Heartbreakers, Sex Pistols, X Ray Spex and the Slits. Some of this material, plus much previously unreleased live footage and recently shot interviews, surfaces in "Punk Attitude".
Letts covers the UK 76/77 era scene very well in the film (he was THERE after all!) as well as the New York scene. LA possibly gets a little unfairly overlooked, with no mention of X being a surprising omission. John Lydon is also intriguingly omitted, especially as Letts and he were and are good friends, but it's not as if Mr Lydon hasn't had his say previously. Syl Sylvain, Arthur Kane and David Johansen from the New York Dolls also help paint the pre 1976 New York picture, with Johansen mentioning how terrible he thought the Ramones were when he first saw them! Letts also uses interviews with people who were part of the various scenes but who were not musicians, most notably fellow film maker Jim Jarmusch whose contribution adds a great deal to conjuring up the sights, sounds and smells of the late 70s, early 80s New York scene as Punk evolved into No Wave and later Hard Core.
Of the musicians the Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto interviews help highlight very effectively that Punk wasn't just a London and New York phenomenon, as does Chrissie Hynde, Wayne Kramer covering Detroit and Henry Rollins enthusiastically covering the early 80s musical evolution of Black Flag on through to Nirvana and the birth of grunge in the early 90s. So who's not included who arguably could/should have been? Patti Smith and Iggy Pop were both touring and unavailable when Letts was filming and no Lou Reed? Well, he was just being Lou Reed! ;-) Look out for the UK limited edition 2 x DVD version with a host of excellent extra features including a very entertaining interview with Dave Goodman, the Sex Pistols live sound engineer and first studio producer, who sadly died in February 2005 thus making this one of his last interviews. The limited edition DVD also includes a facsimile of 2 copies of the early UK fanzine "Sniffin Glue".
All in all this is VERY highly recommended viewing! Why only 8 stars out of 10? Probably only because Letts would have been the best person to explore the UK 1977 reggae/punk crossover and it's not covered here in any depth......but maybe he's holding that back for another day. If you want only the music then don't buy this - it's a documentary on the whole scene. One day maybe Lett's "Punk Rock Movie" will make it to DVD......and THEN you will be able to get much of the music too!