Brief forays into the world of ciao from dooyoo...
Will ciao hook me too?
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Brief forays into the world of ciao from dooyoo...
Will ciao hook me too?
Watch this space!
Member since:10.09.2000
Reviews:26
Members who trust:12
...the rest is cruising!
"There's Only One Jimmy Grimble" - the title does the film absolutely no favours. A tedious and cumbersome label for what is in fact a lively and captivating modern fairytale.
Jimmy Grimble is miserable. He's bullied, cowed and about to lose his mother to a pretentious Harley-riding martial-arts fake. The one thing Jimmy lives for is football. Only problem is that the fancy footwork which he kicks up around the back streets of Manchester where he lives is lost the minute he knows anyone else is watching. That is until he meets an old streetlady who gives him her magic boots........
Living in Manchester and attending Greenock High School, Jimmy (Lewis McKenzie) is one of the few males in the area whose heart does not beat for Man United. Instead he supports the underdogs of the area, Manchester City. Once upon a time his mum Donna (played by Gina McKee) had a boyfriend they both liked. He used to take Jimmy to see Man City play, they were a
family. That was until they discovered he was married and the happily ever after bit all fell apart.
Johnny-2-dogs, wannabe tough-guy, who is successor in his mothers affections, agrees to follow the family Man City-watching tradition established by the ex-boyfriend Harry (Ray Winstone) and takes Jimmy to the match. Only thing is, he's intercepted in the pub by someone bigger and tougher and Jimmy realises he's onto a loser.
Greenock High need a new sports facility. They need it desperately, and local businessman Burley offers to help - IF the failing team can make it to the finals of the Manchester Schools' Cup. A team less likely to succeed is hard to imagine, and they are less than inspired by their games teacher/coach Mr Wirral, whose utter apathy leaves him not caring about anything let alone whether his team win or lose.
Jimmy gets onto the team almost by default and his passion for the game cannot even be dampened by the malevolent presence of not only the appropriately-named Psycho, but the school heart-throb/bully Gordon Burley who continue to make Jimmy's life a misery. Gordon also just happens to be the much-feted striker son of the man who is offering a substantial carrot to Greenock High, and who, having himself played for Crewe Alex-bloody-andria fancies the coach job in place of Wirral...
This is a beauty of a film. British through and through, it is both a believably accurate look at life in Manchester at the turn of a new century and a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek view through the eyes of a 15 year old growing up as so many others, part of a struggling single-parent family. Brutally real but hilariously funny in parts, this movie is both totally magical and yet fully satirical. A difficult combination which actually works here.
The real magic begins when Jimmy decides to go on a quest to discover the apparently legendary owner of the magic boots whose very ownership has imbued them with unbelievable power. His quest takes him unwittingly to the home of a man who knows more than most about the Man City team, his teacher Eric Wirral (Robert Carlyle)
This is a movie for football lovers everywhere. It's a movie which transcends its' undeniable local roots to become a fairytale for our time. It has a universality in its themes which cannot fail but to draw you in, and yet a twist or two to ponder. It's no deep treatise, but rather a commentary on how things are and how they might possibly be.
The urban backdrop is contradictorily stunning, the dialogue is real, and the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard. No arbitrarily thrown-together songs here, they are uncompromisingly sharp and relevant. Oh, and there's a love interest for Jimmy too - the beautiful new girl Sara, as much of an outsider as him, but comfortable with it...
I liked this movie a lot - it floats perilously close to unreality at times but somehow manages to stay rooted firmly enough in today and its' very northern English heritage to make watching it an inspiring and very funny experience. The acting is faultless and McKenzie's debut deserves to be followed by further more widely recognised successes. This seems to me a seriously underrated movie. Watch it for an experience of escapism which isn't quite escapism at all....funny, witty, relevant and satirically British, it's a film which should be more widely recognised and appreciated than many of the more hyped offerings I've recently seen.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1995 - Drama - Director: Ang Lee - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Production Year: 1995 - Drama - Director: Ang Lee - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy
Jimmy Grimble would do anything to become a football pro but a lack of self-confidence on ... more
the pitch is standing between him and his childhood dream.His misery is compounded further when his mother invites her latest moronic boyfriend to move in rather ...
Jimmy Grimble would do anything to become a football pro but a lack of self-confidence on ... more
the pitch is standing between him and his childhood dream. His misery is compounded when his mother invites her latest moronic boyfriend to move in rather than ...
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Advantages: Truly a happy-go-lucky film. Very entertaining. Excellent acting on all counts, and top music. Disadvantages: We've seen it all before. Very predictable, and quite cliched as well.
![There's Only One Jimmy Grimble [DVD] [2000]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78532796.jpg "There's Only One Jimmy Grimble [DVD] [2000]")
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