The great days of Brit-pop seem long gone now. After the failure of Oasis to make a satisfying album after 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory, Blur taking to the sidelines to sit the battle out, and Pulp not capitalising on the success of its breakthrough single Common People, the momentum was lost.

Add in the increasingly furrow-browed Radiohead, and bands like Ocean Colour Scene, Suede and Menswear falling below the radar, and the way was open for Robbie Williams and all those earnest young men like Coldplay and Travis.

It's not the same as Liam and Noel Gallagher slagging off Blur in the NME, is it?

This fascinating film follows the rise and fall of Brit-pop from the Stone Roses' Spike Island gig in '90 (which made Noel think, "I'll have a bit of that") through to the rise of Robbie against the political context of Thatcher and Tony Blair's Labour Party which manipulated Britpop to its own Cool Britannia ends as a populist people-reacher.

Some have whinged that this doco sets up winners (Oasis, sort of) and losers (Blur, and Jarvis Cocker, who admits defeat by drugs and fame as he sits in what looks like a terrible cold-water two-up). But there is much more to it than that. While John Major's seven-year regime from '90 is given scant attention - it's almost as if Blair ousted Thatcher - this is very much a story of how musicians responded to the fallout of 80s Thatcherism.

It captures the thrill (for the British) of hearing such Anglophile anthems as Blur's Park Life and Common People, and of having their own popular culture reflected after a time when American bands (Nirvana and Pearl Jam) swept over them. And how living under the thumb of Thatcher, the IRA threats and sheer miserablism of the 80s made it hard to be proud of being British. That might look silly from this distance, but it was the reality as these people - and the grim footage of cities like Manchester - confirm. That Oasis v Blur became a class war seems a tragic but oh-so-English trait.

There are excellent video clips from the period scattered throughout, and intelligent observations from Massive Attack's 3D, Sleeper's Louise Wener and a wounded and wiser Damon Albarn. It is bookended by two funny and drunk guys from an Oasis covers band.

The stars are, of course, the two Gallaghers. Noel is witty and astute (he refers to the current crop of Top of the Pops acts as being like special-needs kids) and Liam seems wilfully inarticulate, but very amusing. Each time they appear they will have you in fits, unlike Jarvis Cocker, who says when success came he felt immediately redundant. He stares out the window and smokes.

The big sell-out was when Noel went to Downing St and hob-nobbed with Blair. As Liam says, politics means nothing to him, he doesn't care, he plays rock'n'roll. But this is the Liam who wanted to be called John, says the equally Beatles-fixated Noel.

It is a sad reflection on the rise and fall of Brit-pop, the promise it held and the failure of the warring bands and fellow travellers to rise above their pettiness to make the great music they kept promising. Sad, but often hilarious

source New Zealand Herald