The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 16 Dec 2011 04:02 PM PST DEC 17 — It might be the last weekend before Christmas, but there's not much festive cheer being directed by Blackburn Rovers fans towards their manager Steve Kean or the club's owners, the Indian poultry company Venky's. Rovers are rooted firmly in the Premier League relegation zone, having won just two games so far this season. Even the most recent victory — a 4-2 home success over Swansea a couple of weeks ago — did little to raise spirits amongst the Ewood Park faithful as the post-match talk was dominated by a heated debate over the rights and wrongs of some fans booing striker Yakubu when he celebrated a goal by running over to receive the congratulations of his much-maligned manager. Rovers now face a potentially decisive pair of home fixtures: today against West Bromwich Albion, and on Tuesday night in a relegation six-pointer Lancashire derby with bottom-placed Bolton. If Blackburn fail to win either of those games, they will face a long and hard struggle to avoid relegation — especially as their following two fixtures are away at Liverpool and Manchester United; a pair of home wins, though, could propel them away from the relegation zone and inject a rare dose of positivity before Christmas arrives. And how they need some positivity. It's been a tough year for Kean and the Venky's, who have continually lost the PR battle since their arrival at Ewood Park last November. In the emotive world of professional football, that PR battle can often be decisive: it's not necessarily what you're doing that counts, it's what the fans think you're doing. Upon arrival in Blackburn 13 months ago, the Venky's quickly set themselves up for a fall by declaring their intentions to turn the club into regular Champions League contestants and sign players of the stature of Ronaldinho and David Beckham. That's a dangerous game, especially when the talk isn't followed up by action, and the Venky's failure to follow up their hot air with a significant transfer kitty was a cause for alarm. It immediately looked like they didn't really know what they were doing — whether that was true or not, that was the impression created. Instead of signing superstars, the new owners' most significant early move was to sack experienced manager Sam Allardyce and replace him with his coach, Kean, who had never previously managed any club. That move prompted a chorus of complaints from supporters, and it's a chorus that has never been quietened as fans continue to clamour for the dismissal of a man they believe is out of his depth. I have a lot of sympathy for Kean, a former colleague of mine at Reading (where he was a member of Tommy Burns' backroom team) who has been placed in a very difficult situation not of his own making. He is a hard-working and decent man who clearly understands football inside-out after spending more than a decade as a coach at Reading, Fulham, Real Sociedad, Coventry and Blackburn. When the owners decided to sack Allardyce and offer Kean the job, what was he supposed to do? Say "no thanks, the fans might not like it", or take the opportunity that had come his way and try to make the most of it? There was only one option, and Kean doesn't deserve the vitriol that is being poured in his direction. But whether he deserves it or not, the criticism won't abate (unless, of course, he leads the team on a six-game winning streak including victories in those away games at Anfield and Old Trafford). That's simply how fans work: they're not happy, so they're going to show it by booing and calling for the manager's dismissal — even though everybody knows that Kean isn't the underlying cause of the team's woes. In fact, the current plight at Blackburn provides an interesting example of the rights and obligations of supporters: are Blackburn fans correct to direct such intense and sustained protests because they sincerely believe they have the club's best long-term interests at heart? Or should they just put their negative views to one side and focus all their energies into supporting their team through an extremely challenging period? After all, it can hardly help the morale amongst Blackburn's players to have one of their goalscorers booed by his own fans for celebrating with his manager — and the players are not the ones blamed by Blackburn fans for their current situation. Fans being unhappy with an owner or a manager is hardly a new scenario, and by now you'd have thought that supporters would have worked out the best way to show their discontent in a constructive fashion. The ideal solution, surely, would be for fans to come together and agree on an organised campaign which insists on protests taking place only before and after matchdays, with nothing but a positive, supportive display of solidarity during the actual games. That way, fans could make their feelings known whilst still remaining supportive of the team, aiming their anger in the direction of the right people and avoiding the potential of being blamed for bad results by creating a negative atmosphere. However, that would be a rather clinical, rational and unimpassioned way of dealing with the situation, and that's not how football fans are. Supporting a football club — or any sporting team — is a strange and irrational business that gets to the heart of human relationships in all their complexities. Fully grown adults with responsible jobs and loving families spending a small fortune and getting themselves all worked up about 22 men running around a field? On the face of it, being a football fan is a faintly ludicrous occupation. Yet it possesses the power to stir deep feelings amongst people of all shapes and sizes all over the planet, so it cannot be dismissed as worthless or pointless. Due to the very nature of the activity, though, it cannot be approached from a rational point of view — you can't think logically if you want to understand what being a fan involves. So although it might make sense for Blackburn fans to realise that their players are struggling and therefore need help and encouragement, that common-sense approach just won't happen. Instead there will be frustration, boos, chants, insults and self-destructive anger. And when a club sets off down that negative road, there's a word for the likely destination: relegation. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 16 Dec 2011 03:46 PM PST DEC 17 — By the end of this month, a total of 42 Malay films would have been shown in local cinemas this year. With the exception of two films that have yet to come out at the time of writing, I've only failed to see nine of them, because I either couldn't find the time to do so or simply because I have no interest in seeing them, which might be the result of a very bad trailer or it being made by a director whom I've given up hope on. If you add non-Malay-language Malaysian films like "Great Day", "Nasi Lemak 2.0", "Year Without A Summer" and "Petaling Street Warriors" (all of which I saw in cinemas) and films that didn't go through the Skim Wajib Tayang like "2 Alam" to the equation, it's even clearer how exceptionally productive Malaysian cinema has been this year. As a keen observer of Malaysian cinema all these years though this is still no bumper year in terms of quality, I've sensed a general improvement in quite a few areas, which can only serve as reason for optimism for the future. First amongst these is the amazing box-office numbers crunched up by a very healthy number of films. All of Malaysia already knows about "RM20 million man" Syamsul Yusof who scored big this year with "Khurafat" (RM8 million) and "KL Gangster" (RM12 million). What people might not realise is that there are around seven to eight other films scoring more than RM5 million this year, including non-Malay films like "Nasi Lemak 2.0" and "Great Day". "Hantu Bonceng" and "Kongsi" both grossed upwards of RM8 million, with current box-office sensation "Ombak Rindu" (reportedly bulldozing with RM5.5 million in just one week) armed with a very realistic chance of joining the RM8 million club, and maybe even more when the film finally finishes its run in cinemas. What this shows is that there is an audience hungry for and willing to spend their money watching Malaysian films in cinemas, and not just Malay films at that. The variety of the films hitting box-office gold this year also shows that we're not hungry for just one type of film, which can only be a good thing in the long run. Another very interesting development, at least for me personally, is David Teo's Metrowealth blossoming more or less into a sort of mini-studio, or at least a small scale Malaysian version of a movie factory, usually coming out with at least one or two movies per month. It's an interesting business model — keep the costs low, churn them out fast, and with the law of averages pointing to at least two or three of them striking good at the box office, the costs and risks for the entire operation will be more or less be covered by the hits. And when you have to keep the costs low and churn them out fast, the cheapest and easiest way to do it is to give new and young filmmakers a chance, which indirectly provides a training ground for new filmmakers to learn on the job. Remember Roger Corman and his trashy B-movie factory of the late '60s, which saw people like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme and so many others cut their teeth there? Scorsese didn't start with "Mean Streets". No sir, his first "real" film (discounting his student film "Who's That Knocking At My Door?") was a trashy B-movie called "Boxcar Bertha", made for Corman. Coppola, the legend that he is now having made "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now", started with a trashy B-movie called "Dementia 13", also made for Corman. So before you dismiss David Teo and his merry gang of newbies at Metrowealth, have a think about the eventual impact of Corman and his merry gang of newbies, especially considering the gradual improvement and variety of Metrowealth's films this year. And speaking of improvement in quality and variety, I would also like to highlight a few films that caught my eye but seem to be overlooked this year. For fans of horror, do yourself a favour and hunt down the DVD for "Seru", a found footage horror film that's got some truly effective scares and artfully clever storytelling. I think it failed at the box office because it opened just a week after "Penunggu Istana", a pretty weak and annoying found footage horror film, which I think put people off giving "Seru" a decent chance. To all you lovers of romantic comedy, do check out "Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak", a sweet and funny hybrid of romantic comedy and horror, if only because the hero falls in love with a female vampire. If serious dramas are your thing, then make sure you don't miss "Songlap", playing in cinemas now, probably the bravest and most uncompromising Malaysian mainstream film that I've ever seen so far. A bit further off the beaten path is the new film directed by Namron titled "Jalan Pintas", which I managed to see at a relatively unpublicised screening, but is very much worth your time. And finally, what's a year without a disaster or two, right? Even though the words "Malay films" and "disaster" go hand in hand more times than anyone would comfortably want to admit, there was one stretch of the year where the disasters played back to back with alarming rapidity, the crowning glory of which is the movie "Abuya", a totally unmitigated disaster of a movie if I ever saw one (this despite all the lovely ladies starring in it). Filled to the brim with WTF moments and unintentional hilarity, this is one movie you'll have to see for yourself. And when even the disasters turn out to be quite morbidly entertaining, I'd say it's not been a bad year at all, don't you think? * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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