Load of rubbish!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely brilliant

"They've never been on a building site. Not to say that that's, you know; not to say that the dirt under your fingernails is some sort of badge of honor. It's not. It's just a fact, you know. They never had a paper route, you know. I had a milk route and stuff like that. I've working on building sites. That fundamentally makes my soul a lot more purer than theirs." --- Noel Gallagher on the rivalry with Blur. The best part is that he said it with a straight face.

On the whole, I was disappointed with 'Live Forever'. Angered by some of it. It seemed to be crafted with a similar lack of creativity as the much of the actual music from the phenomenon itself ... I expected more than a 90 minute interview montage. But anyway, Britpop itself was an invention of the tabloid press and yet we only get one interviewee from a publication of the time (the editor of 'Loaded') which to my knowledge had little say in that tabloid invention, merely jumping on it's bandwagon as I recall. Also, to make matters worse this guy didn't really know what he was talking about. Maybe nobody else was available ... however .... that's no excuse for some of the distorted facts and angles portrayed in the film. For a start, they present to us that nothing in the UK culture happened or emerged in the 80's. Nonsense. That's simply the angle portrayed because nobody in the film liked what was done in the 80's. I could quite easily come along in 2010 and make a film about whatever the next cultural phenomenon may be and dismiss the 90's as dull and boring, simply because I didn't like it. Truth is, Britain has always had a music scene develop through every generation or decade ; most recently, late 70's punk - the 80's new romantics, the early 90's madchester scene. Britpop was just the next one in line and yet it is presented as some kind of saving grace that nobody ever expected or imagined. Now, I hated the 80's music scene, hated the new romantic phase, hate looking back on it I should say (I was born in the 80's afterall) and I was very much the standard 'Britpop kid'. But I'm not gonna say that it awoke a dreary, sleepy Britain like the documentary did, because Britain was not like that. They wish it was but there was great British music happening in-between all phenomenons and continues to be today. A positive side of the film is that it does present to us the one thing Britpop did do which was say to a lot of people, mainly 'the kids' as Oasis would call them, that they could all pick up a guitar, write a tune, get on top of the pops as they were. the bands in britpop made you feel that way (the songs were easy, anthemic, had mass appeal and the look was so easy to achieve) the music in retrospect wasn't great but the message was. it defined the era. but unfortunately the only sniff of this we get in the film are tedious interviews with a bunch of losers who still play in an Oasis tribute band. Basically, the only other truthful statement made by this film is that between 1994-1996, two or three good records by mediocre British bands were made (and were for a change, given some press). The rest of it is garbage. At the end you're meant to think 'what a wonderful thing that Britpop was' but whereas if you overlook the spin and representation of the thing - the only thing you're left thinking is 'was that really ALL britpop was?!' example : the political issues the film deals with. This documentary would have you believe that Britpop was all about the bands that made the music. Nope. The people that really made the scene (aside from the press who just invented it) were the people like myself who went out and bought the records. did we think we were making some political statement? no, we thought these were cracking good tunes with a great image to them. you can't add weight to this thing by coinciding Britpop with the fact that Britain elected a new political party into power around about the same time (a good 3 years AFTER the phase had started). Are we to think that Labour would not have been elected if it were not for Britpop? nonsense .. the man in the street with no musical interest was always gonna do whatever they could to get that tory government out. the makers of this documentary would love you to think otherwise. Also, they include the topic of Diana's death. Excuse me, but with the greatest amount of respect to Princess Di (think what you might of her) I never saw her with a guitar and I don't own any one of her albums. we mourned for Diana and so Britpop died?! B**locks. Britpop didn't die suddenly, it merely faded away due to a number of things, not least with the press who were bored of it and wanted to present something fresh (which just happened to be attractive solo artists and/or more subtly marketed and manufactured music) Not a bad thing either as we were all quite frankly tired of hearing the same tune re-written by 40 different bands. Like all cultural phenomenons, they do as much harm as they do good in the long run ... but this documentary wouldn't dare reveal that to us. the only down side of Britpop presented here are the drugs that went along with it (as if they didn't happen with most Rock n Roll bands all over the world for many a generation) There also really aren't many interviewees here worth anything. Liam Gallagher is a big name and yet as much as I admire his voice, he doesn't really know what he's talking about. Of the rest, Noel Gallagher and Jarvis Cocker give the film some depth .. Damon Albarn seems lost and as if he doesn't give a s**t anymore (fair enough but it doesn't make interesting viewing), the girl from Sleeper is cute but has nothing interesting to say apart from some rubbish about Noel apparently killing Britpop by visiting Downing Street ..... sour grapes most likely .... And yet if all the serious stuff above fails, well surely it rescues itself with the much promised humour and comedy tag that comes with the teaser poster or cover .... well it would have had it just been Noel and Liam sitting in a room talking and/or arguing for the duration (they are genuinely funny people together but here there are hardly any great, amusing anecdotes or opinions that I've heard from them over the years). And I really don't know why they didn't do this ... at least 65-75% of it is about Oasis. Maybe on a second viewing I'll lighten up. But I feel a bit cheated having just seen it. For me, 'Britpop' wasn't about any of this. And even if it was, this wouldn't fill me with pride. 5/10

There`s a saying that " If you don`t read newspapers you`re uninformed. If you do read newspapers you`re misinformed " and that`s the problem I had with LIVE FOREVER , if you`re uninformed about Britpop you`ll be misinformed if you use this as your starting point , dangerously misinformed . The very first caption is from Alistair Campbell needs clarifying : yes in 1996-97 Britain was exporting music ( To the USA )again but this was only down to a select handful of artists namely The Spice Girls , Bush , Elton John , The Prodigy and Radiohead and in no way was this period a golden age for British record exports . Noel Gallagher follows this caption by saying " The eighties were f*** all " - NO THEY WEREN`T . In terms of record sales they were the golden age of British musical export . One week in July 1985 had eight of the top ten acts in the US billboard charts by Brits while 40% of the billboard 100 were by British artists . At the Band Aid concert held the same month each and every act at the London concert was from the British Isles while over 30% of the acts appearing at the JFK stadium were Brits . " The 80s were f*** all " ? I don`t think so Noel The other thing I disliked about this documentary is it`s political bais towards Tony Blair`s New Labour government where we`re force fed Peter Mandelson`s opinions of Mr Blair`s standard of guitar playing ! Completely superflous in my opinion , though there is a bit of irony in all this when Noel Gallagher ( Yes him again ) tells us Oasis songs sum up the 1990s . Yeah well I think Heartland by The The ( Written in 1986 ) sums up Tony Blair`s New Labour government and life in modern Britain perfectly , at least compared to the drinking songs Oasis released , and make no mistake that`s all they are - drinking songs Despite falling international sales British music in the mid to late 90s was far superiour to ten years earlier , but let me just repeat very very few British bands sold any records in the USA at this time which means LIVE FOREVER works only as a nostalgia piece with a good soundrack and not as a historical or cultural document since it leads us to believe Britain was the centre of the musical , cultural and political universe which sadly it isn`t and probably never will be again

7.5/10I thought that Live Forever was an excellent documentary capturing the phenomenon of the Britpop passage. It is worth noting that I think that even if you didn't get the whole Britpop experience it is still worth watching to try and understand exactly what the period of time tried to encapsulate. Dragging Britain from a period of being totally dormant, to generating great music and creating an aura of genuine invincibility.Live Forever features the obvious candidates that are Oasis and Blur as the battle for number one captured a nation, whilst also giving an analysis of movie culture and the feel good factor that took over Britain during those 2/3 years. Massive Attack were also undoubtedly another factor in the way that Britain seemed to transcend itself to another plain, and although many will be put off by some of the language used it is worth remembering that the laddish behaviour of that period was a factor that boosted the industry and re-ignited interest in British pop/rock.The documentary also takes perspectives from a political sense whilst also highlighting perhaps a more sinister undercurrent to Britpop and the way it was used by stragglers and then dumped once the period was over. Whatever your perspective, it made me feel alive and was more than happy to re-visit that golden few years where the music was on another level and the country was swept with the feel good factor. Nirvana was the catalyst for the whole period that saw the change, and I was more than happy to re-visit Cobain's angst ridden voice, Oasis' brilliance and the competition that was Blur.