Movies
Last night I watched a wonderful movie titled “Brassed Off”, which means, in Northern England dialect, teed off or tired of. It’s about a small mining town where the mine is about to be shut down, putting a thousand men out of work. If the mine (“pit”) shuts down so will the brass band, which is comprised of miners. The leader of this band, Danny, (Pete Postlethwaite) has his whole life wrapped up in this band and they are really good. As the movie gets started a girl blows into town who has been away getting educated. She happens to be a trumpet (flugle horn) virtuoso and, in spite of her gender, is allowed to join the band. It’ll raise the nape hair to hear her solo on that horn. The people in the town are very poor and cannot continue to afford the band and the costs of travelling to other places for marching band competitions but Danny, the leader, an ex-miner and who is afflicted with black lung, wants with all his heart to take the top contest and to play at Albert Hall in London. I’ll not go any further with this except to say I liked it so much I ordered it on DVD from Amazon. The actors are all Brits, of course, and the two stars beside Postlethwaite are Ewan Mcgregor and Tara Fitzgerald.
Huggz all,
Jerry