Now, having seen most of his films (save for Once upon a time which, on advice of others, I've skipped so we'll just pretend it doesn't exist for the sake of this thread...) I thought it was time to bring the MoFo spotlight on him. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Meadows is a 35 year old Brit director most famous for Dead Man's Shoes, a brutal, low budget thriller shot in 3 weeks and one of the best British films I've seen in recent years. He has also directed twentyfourseven, A room for Romeo Brass, Once upon a time in the Midlands, This is England and a bunch of short films.
Now I obviously love his work, I was blown away with Dead Man's Shoes, and thoroughly enjoyed TIE and ARFRB (I had some problems with twentyfourseven which I will mention a little later). All of them exude youthful energy and have excellent soundtracks (a rare occurrence and probably a major reason why I like his films so much). However, I have noticed a reoccurring theme in most of his films, which is "the exploding man" theme. Now, even though I thought all but twentyfourseven were excellent films, I'm a little worried if this trend continues, it might get tiresome after a while (to illustrate my point, if he had used Paddy Considine instead of Stephen Graham in This is England, it would have been a little too similar to Romeo Brass no?)
The problem I had with twentyfourseven is perhaps that its story is too ordinary (I've seen more than one film where the central character is trying to achieve catharsis by "saving" the troubled youth of the projects from crime through their involvement in sports). Also, having watched his work in reverse chronological order, I expected it to be much more violent than it actually turned out to be. I think DMS is his best work because he (finally) let his fascination with violence loose and didn't save any punches.
Ok, I'll stop for now and wait for other opinions. I've also included a little poll so you can choose your favorite Meadows film.
Fire away...
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http://www.last.fm/user/diezelpower/
http://www.last.fm/user/diezelpower/