I love this movie so much

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

...it's odd how this story about the best of 90s Britpop (although it claims to be about more than just music) starts at about the time I'd pretty well lost interest in pop. It wasn't a feeling of 'the music was better in my day' - I was in my early-to-mid 30s in the early to early-to-mid-1990s - just that I'd grown up. It was a strange feeling when one day I realized I'd heard a lot about Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, but had no idea what it sounded like.But, having seen Live Forever, I now can't stop thinking about the song Live Forever (which I'd never heard before), Wonderwall, and Blur's Parklife (which I'd also never heard before). And some internet research has revealed that the song I'd heard just once, years ago, and never been able to get out of my mind, was Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy (sic).I did have some contact with the music - indeed, virtually the only pop album I bought during the period was the Trainspotting soundtrack, which features in this film. (Pulp, Blur and Sleeper are on it, and all their lead singers are interviewed here.) But my knowledge of Oasis was limited to Wonderwall (including the Mike Flowers easy listening version, which I appropriately first heard on supermarket muzak) and Don't Look Back in Anger. I could take them or leave them. And the Oasis/Blur Battle of the Bands? Never heard of it. See what I mean about Rip van Winkle? Noel Gallagher's (and others') comments that 'Britain was dead in the 80s', musically as well as politically, are of course nonsense. But I can't get too worked up over that: they're par for the course for any British pop act over the last 40 years that takes itself oh-so-seriously. 'Yeah, well, there was nothing happening, know-what-I-mean?' Nevertheless, the best of their music does still stand up.By the way, Noel Gallagher is not interviewed sitting in his Georgian mansion - the director's commentary on the DVD reveals he's actually at Knebworth Castle.(Personal postscript - during 1990 Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot that features at the start of the film, I was just a few blocks away at Leicester Square. I saw smoke in the distance, and people coming into the Tube station carrying anti-poll tax placards, but didn't put the two together till I got home and saw them on the news. Damn, missed A Defining Moment in the History of Modern Britain.)

Live Forever is a worthwile attempt at documenting the interesting post-Thatcher revival in British music exports to the US, labelled as Britpop by the NME and other such music magazines. Previous comments have already highlighted the emphasis that the film places on Oasis, and especially on Noel Gallagher's commentary on the scene and the times, but what else (realistically) could you expect from a film that uses an Oasis song as its title, made by a director that makes no secret of his adoration for the band. Nevertheless, I was shocked to note that the film earmarks a Stone Roses festival gig as the genesis of Britpop, and makes no reference to the debt that the Gallaghers, Liam especially, owe to Shaun Ryder's bands the Happy Mondays and Black Grape.Petty gripes aside, the film makes a clear and unashamed attempt to link the musical revival of Britpop with the revival of the Labour ideology - an easy task when Noel Gallagher is a valued customer at number 10. However, I believe that the political link that the film tries to make is at best tenuous, and at most non-existent. Specifically, Live Forever falls victim to its own hyperbole - that the music, created by youngsters who grew up during Thatcherite rationalisation, was among, if not the most important aspect to the general political and social change that ended God-knows how many years of Tory rule. I believe that the film deflates a little with this argument - it sort of chokes on its own self-importance. As for the rock stars, only Jarvis Cocker comes out of the film with an improved stature. Damon Albarn seems bitter, twisted and fed up (all traits of the archetypal great artist I might add), Noel Gallagher is the original hypocrite as he puts on his best working class whinge while sitting in an antique armchair surrounded by the trappings of newfound wealth, and I won't even bother with Liam.Before I close, I should mention that despite my own whinges, I actually did like this film. It was funny, poignant and affecting in turns, and it dealt with a subject that was very close to my heart. I can only say that I am glad that no mention was made of Radiohead or PJ Harvey.

"Live Forever" is a brave attempt to document what has come to be known as'Britpop'. Unfortunately, it fails miserably. Most of the 82 minutes running time is devoted to the band Oasis, and the band's frontmen, Noel & Liam Gallagher - is Liam Gallagher that much of a dimwit? While Damon Albarn, and Jarvis Cocker,leaders of Blur & Pulp, respectively, don't get too much of a look in. In fact, after sitting through "Live Forever", you could be forgiven for thinking these were the only bands around.

Why was this film made? 'Britpop', as a phenomenon (if it was that) finished less then a decade ago. Indeed, it hadn't even started a decade ago according to this film. At least some time should have been given to see how history remembered certain events, rather than embellishing them almost as soon as they've occurred. Why would anyone would want to see or hear the views of 'wonderwall', a shockingly witless oasis tribute band, when the film can afford more insightful perspectives of Jarvis or even Noel? Damon does himself no favours in this documentary. as the frontman of blur, one of the greatest pop bands we've had in the last 20 years, he tries to come across too much as a social commenatator, rather than the purveyor of just simply great pop songs. His refusal to comment on certain events merely riles the viewer, and his self-importance is rightly satirised in the closing sequence as we see him losing himself as he plucks away at a banjo(?). Noel, however, is the main source of interest, and his brother provides the humour and arrogance which made oasis so exciting in the first place. Louise Wener is perhaps the most articulate of the lot, the frontwoman of sleeper-turned-author retains a sense of keeping her feet on the ground.Although some of the music is indeed brilliant and some events were as equally exciting (common people came at a perfect time, and pulp heroically headlined glastonbury at the last minute), the inclusion of massive attack (although my favourite group) just furrowed my brow - why include them and not radiohead, not the spice girls? Radiohead in particular, who have gone on to arguably greater success than oasis. maybe they had a few problems getting interviews with the actually relevant people of the time?There are too few interviewees for this to be a broad essay on the scene in the mid '90's (maybe this is why they had to include Wonderwall?). whereas 24 Hour Party People managed to entertain, excite and sympathise with some of the absurdities and fickleness of the music world, this film fails to be a worthwhile exercise in anything other than over-glorifying a period which has effectively only just ended.Although as i've said, some of the music is great...