Toby Young

Documentary that outlines the 1990s and the decade the changed the world.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

Curmudgeon. Contrarian. Misanthrope. Naysayer. For all the people interviewed in this film, someone has used one of the above words to describe them. What have they done to deserve such labels? Everywhere these men and women go, something is being celebrated; they don’t get what all the celebration is about and they’re compelled to question it.

In the mid-1990s, spurred on by both the sudden world-domination of bands such as Oasis and Prime Minister Tony Blair's "Cool Brittania" campaign, British culture experienced a brief and powerful boost that made it appear as if Anglophilia was everywhere--at least if you believed the press. Pop music was the beating heart of this idea, and suddenly, "Britpop" was a movement. Oasis, their would-be rivals Blur, Pulp, The Verve, and many more bands rode this wave to international chart success. But was Britpop a real phenomenon, or just a marketing ploy? This smart and often hilarious documentary probes the question with copious interviews from Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn of Blur, Sleeper's Louise Wener, and many other artists and critics who suddenly found themselves at the cultural forefront.