Mrt’sblog First Anniversary Special: An ignorant review of The A-Team

A year ago this month I started this blog. I had always written and always wanted to write. I’d always imagined my life with some form of writing in it and hoped that I could do it for a living. And now thanks to this online archive of my work, I do live to write; about films, politics, football, books, television and more. I lack a particular speciality but so many things interest me that even if it hinders the expansion of my readership I cannot see myself settling on the one subject. And even with my scatter gun approach this blog has grown into something I couldn’t have envisioned a year ago.

I write regularly for a film website, Flickering Myth, that’s stuffed full of quality contributions. Recently it celebrated its own anniversary, a second birthday, not long after placing high in several online polls of movie sites. Occasionally I contribute to the national football blog, and epicentre of passionate debate, Caught Offside. My political pieces join those from other politically active and intelligent thinkers of the younger generation over at Demo Critic. Links to all these sites that are worthy of regular visits, can be found in my blog roll to the right.

I suppose I should update the “About” section for this blog, written over a year ago now. It’s very vague and as I’ve already said I still lack a specific focus; but I do now commit a great deal of time and hopefully productive energy to these articles and reviews. In the coming months I plan to attempt progressively more ambitious projects for the site. I’m aware that my blog is still perhaps only properly read by a few sympathetic friends and the odd one-off viewer. But for even one person to find my work and appreciate it means an awful lot. Perhaps someday the better pieces in this catalogue can provide a helpful showcase of my promise and interests.

I know this post is proving to be rather self-indulgent. It’s a bit of a drawn out and elaborate begging routine I suppose; a plea for anyone who likes anything at all they see here to come to stay at the virtual home of my mind again sometime.  It’s especially grovelling when I throw in that today I’ve attempted to connect the blog to Twitter, a social phenomenon I’m unfamiliar with, in order to spread the word. You can “follow” me, like the obsessive and drooling delusional stalker you are, by clicking this link: http://twitter.com/Mrtsblog#

For me, writing this post is also quite soppy and loaded with sentiment. Because a year on from the start of my blog, my life is very different and drastically altered. I have both changed and remained the same. My views and opinions have evolved, whilst some values remain steadfastly in place. Most pathetically of all, I am far happier than I was a year ago. To quote half an advertising slogan, “the future’s bright…”. Against seemingly gloomy odds I’ve found a chunk of satisfaction and a handful of essential ingredients I had always lacked to be happy. This blog was part of the undulating and youthful, but ultimately tame, journey of the past year for me. At one time I felt the need to vent on here as if it were a diary. Now I look back on that as naive and immature. That part of me has evaporated and I look to the future with a grateful smile on my face. Older and wiser with those that I’m close to.

“SHOOT ME NOW!” you cry with stinging tears of irritation burning your angry face. Unfortunately I still have a tendency to ramble on a bit. I apologise for that overemotional detour. But I assure you I’m getting to the point. In fact, I’m about to get this infant’s birthday party started (it’s ok because I’m the parent). If I have such a thing as a “regular reader”, they may have wondered, and continue to do so, why this blog is called “Mrt’sblog”. I know from the handy stats tool provided by Word Press that every now and then the odd fan of The A-Team or Mr T stumbles across the green expanse of my page , via Google or other equally able (but let’s face it less well known) search engines, probably only to leave rapidly with a sense of disappointment. You see I never watched the original TV series of The A-Team and I’m not even much of a fan of Mr T himself.

The incredibly snappy, but uninteresting story behind this blog’s name, that proves brevity is rarely a virtue, goes as follows: an old History teacher of mine, one I still have fond recollections of, started calling me “Mr T” at some point during lessons, purely on account of my surname beginning with that letter of the twenty-six strong crew that is the alphabet. There was lots of what a certain type of annoying person might call, “legendary banter”, in these lessons. I cultivated with unhealthy and unnatural pride a slight cult of celebrity around this Mr T persona at school, with those in my class fully aware of my hotshot funny man status, solidified by the teacher’s jokey approval. It’s a level of fame I miss. Yes reader I live a narrow and dull existence. But then when starting out in the mysterious entity of the blogosphere, stretching tentative tentacles in exploration, unsure of what exactly to do with my own blog, I recalled the nickname from school and adopted it on a whim. Anything was preferable to exposing my shy face as it is to the world.

As I’ve said then, there is no connection to The A-Team. The music of course is iconic. As are some of the catchphrases. But for people from my generation the tune is unavoidably accompanied by two moustachioed fun-runners singing “ONE-ONE-EIGHT! ONE-ONE-EIGHT!” in oddly booming voices, offering to solve rare and strange occurrences. Equally the more memorable one-liners and personalities that no doubt originate in their best and purest form from the TV series, have tended to only crop up for me in adverts. Such as Mr T urging me to “Get some nuts” and rush out to buy a Snickers from the turret of a tank. Unfortunately I don’t own a tank and I don’t think my arms would be long enough to reach down to the counter and pay from way up there, perched on the gun. So I declined his command. Also I don’t like nuts.

Knowing that my blog’s birthday was coming up though, I decided its present would be a short and ignorant view of the film The A-Team from last year. I promptly elevated the DVD to a top priority title on Love Film and hoped it would arrive before the end of the month. Luckily I just about scraped the deadline. Hopefully my blog won’t hate me too much for missing the precise date.

THE A-TEAM opens spectacularly and the action is pretty much non-stop throughout. The bigger action set pieces are heavily reliant on shameless CGI effects. Normally this would ruin a film for me, but the core characters that make up The A-Team are so likeable and funny, bouncing off each other and generally not taking things too seriously, that you can look past the blatant lack of realism or stunning visuals most of the time. There’s something inexplicably endearing about these men falling about inside a tank as it supposedly hurtles through the air. At times I swear my eyes just saw actors mucking about in front of a green screen, but that’s still funny right?

I think I’ve stressed quite enough I know nothing of the original A-Team, so I am judging this film purely on its own merits. For all I know it could be an absolute travesty for fans of The A-Team, but to me the casting of the key players and the dynamic between them worked well. Liam Neeson is always assured in my opinion and here we see a funnier side to him. The suitably named Quniton “Rampage” Jackson takes on the Mr T, B.A. Baracus role, and more than looks the part. Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley are excellent as the quirkier members of the foursome.

The highlight of The A-Team for me was a scene in which the loony Murdock, played by Copley, is broken out of an asylum by his fellow team members. Murdock is sent a film to watch with 3D glasses and the film plays with a jeep hurtling along a road, only for it to burst through the wall to the amazement and delight of the patients, sporting their retro 3D specs. Murdock promptly escapes, wearing his set of specs, exclaiming as the team are shot at that the bullets look so lifelike in 3D. In a film full of simple gags, here was some physical, action packed humour that also doubled up as cutting satire of the current 3D trend.

All of the action in The A-Team is fun, if not groundbreaking or gripping. A scene with abseiling, gun toting baddies on Frankfurt skyscrapers with lots of smashing glass is quite inventive and hard hitting though, whilst still having the laughs present throughout the story. The plot itself is fine but uninspiring, as the gang attempt to clear their name and reclaim some stolen plates for printing US dollars. Patrick Wilson as mysteriously named CIA agent Lynch is particularly wonderful and amusing. He gets many of the best lines and delivers them in the believable style of a man with the heart of an easily impressed teenager. Watching an explosion from a satellite view, he gasps “wasn’t that just like Call of Duty?”. I may have missed many A-Team in jokes, but there were lots like this one that were up to date enough for the modern generation. Generally Wilson plays a refreshingly cynical and hilarious shady villain.

The A-Team was a film that exceeded my expectations. It’s a perfect pick me up and two hours of harmless fun with even recurring jokes like burly Baracus’ reluctance to fly, still making me smile by the end.

Happy first Birthday blog! Finally a post relevant to your name.

Whatever happened to managers?

Gerard Houllier’s appointment as Aston Villa’s new manager on a three-year contract has highlighted the growing complexity and difficulty of selecting a Premier League manager. Choosing a new man to pick the team, train the players and generally steer the club in the right direction is clearly always going to be a big decision, but these days things are complicated further by numerous additional roles. Houllier for example has just left the French Football Federation from the mysterious role of “technical director” to the national team and due to Randy Lerner’s apparent liking of caretaker manager Kevin McDonald’s coaching style there was talk of Houllier taking a similar role at Villa at one time, with McDonald handling the coaching of first-team affairs. Villa fans, whatever their views on Houllier, ought to be counting themselves lucky that they have at least appointed a manager and not adopted an incomprehensible system, inspired by continental clubs, that has produced only failure when tried in the Premiership before.

Personally I think it’s a shame Villa didn’t appoint Alan Curbishley and give an obviously capable and talented English coach a chance with a decent sized club. Curbishley had a torrid time with the board room at West Ham and deserves a more stable environment in which to try and manage a top club. However it remains to be seen whether Villa’s moneymen are content, given the circumstances under which O’Neil left the club and the telling words in the club’s statement which suggest Houllier was a candidate willing to compromise about lack of funds: “Two of the key qualities in our search for the new manager were experience of managing in the Premier League and a strategy for building on the existing strengths in our current squad, and Gérard Houllier comfortably satisfies these criteria.” I certainly find it odd that Villa should turn to Houllier given his exile from the English game since his departure from Liverpool. Articles reporting the appointment emphasize Houllier’s glittering CV, but much of his experience is with French clubs a long time ago. Since Liverpool he has returned to his French comfort zone and can hardly said to have been successful in whatever it was he was asked to do as “technical director”, given the French’s disastrous World Cup. As manager Raymond Domenech got the barrage of blame but Houllier had a role and it was hardly part of a successful set up.  

Indeed whenever I have seen them enacted systems involving a “technical director” or “director of football” do not seem to bring success. Certainly in the English game it would seem from the evidence that clubs who put their faith in a talented coach over a long period of time stay at the top of the game, such as Arsenal and Manchester United. When Chelsea tried a system involving “sporting directors” or something similar, “the special one” clashed with both Frank Arnesen and Avram Grant, with disagreements between Jose and Grant eventually leading to the Portuguese’s departure. Following this Chelsea entered a period of decline, allowing United to reclaim dominance and they have only recovered to wrest back control since trusting two excellent coaches in Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti to run things their own way. “Technical Directors” or their equivalent always appear to be the owner or chairman’s spy, breathing down the neck of the manager and meddling with his transfer budget to create conflict and a climate of paranoia at clubs that does not breed a the unified vision and team spirit necessary to win trophies. Equally though the system has not worked well at clubs at the opposite end of the league, those in need of new impetus to avoid relegation. Dennis Wise was handed a role at Newcastle United by hands-on owner Mike Ashley that did nothing to revert the Toon’s slide to the Championship, but grabbed plenty of dramatic headlines. Portsmouth too experimented during their topsy-turvy period of ownership and poor performances, to no avail.

Like many people at the moment I have succumbed to curiosity and bought Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey. In the first chapter he touches on the opposition he met from the Civil Service for bringing special advisers into the affairs of state, but makes a convincing argument that modern governments need such expertise on hand immediately to deal effectively with situations. I imagine the fascination with “technical directors” stems from a similar realization that the modern game of football requires a variety of top level experts. However Blair’s memoir also makes it clear that he and he only was leader, he felt that individual burden and we’re all aware of the complications between him and Gordon Brown over who should be leader that eventually ended his time in office. Football clubs today still require a leader, someone who has the final say and whose vision should always be behind day to day decisions. “Directors of football” and other such roles may have their place, but particularly when the person appointed to such a role has a high profile they cease to be an adviser and ally to the manager but become an inspector and internal threat to his authority. Too often these positions are merely waiting rooms for the next manager, from which the “technical director” shall opportunistically spring as the pressure rises. Even if the person taking such an advisory position has no ambition to take over as manager, the culture of the game in this country has not changed sufficiently for the manager to be unconcerned by such an appointment. In an age where foreign managers and all the communication problems that come with them are commonplace, it is surely better to at least keep the management structures of a club simple and have the best man at the helm, supported by staff of his own choosing. This man should then be judged on the way he deals with the various pressures of the modern game and whether he gets results; not constantly assessed internally by an observer that adds unnecessary weight to the burden of management.