The Damned United

Loved this. Mainly because Michael Sheen is an incredibly gifted character actor - he's just so good as Brian Clough. Memorable lines, a memorable performance, and plenty of...well, it's not nostalgia if you're not old enough to remember, but an affectionate evocation of an entirely different era in football.

In reading about it afterwards, though, I was a bit concerned to find out how far the story had been fictionalised, and that a lot of the people portrayed in it were very against the film, and the novel that it was based on. I do have a bit of an issue with this. I could never have written it myself because I'd be so uncomfortable with the idea of making real living/recently deceased people into my little fiction puppets - do writers have that right? I will be pondering this.

In the film's defence, for me all involved come across well - especially Cloughie, for all his faults - just because of the quality of the performances (with the possible exception of Billy Bremner, and I think that's just because Stephen Graham reminds me of Fred West). You can even make the case that this is a nicer version of events than the real one. However, I think if it had been my dad, I'd have been pissed off too.

Now, I also thought Michael Sheen was great in The Queen, and I didn't have any moral objection to that, so I need to think about this one more...