24 Hour Party People - Michael Winterbottom (2002, DVD)
Dramatized biography of Tony Wilson and the rise and fall of the Factory Records label, roughly covering the decade of the 1980s, bookended by the formation of Joy Division on one end and the whimper-and-bang failure of Happy Mondays to deliver a bestselling album to the label in time to avoid bankruptcy on the other. The film cleverly interweaves stock footage (closeups of the Sex Pistols in performance) and new (long shots of stand-ins recreating the same performance). Steve Coogan portrays Wilson as a fool you can't help liking, if not exactly admiring. About half the major characters portrayed actually get cameos in the movie, and Coogan/Wilson points them out through fourth-wall-breaking narration which somehow manages to amuse more than irritate. Interesting, entertaining.
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