Snatch is a 2000 crime film written and directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film contains two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small-time boxing promoter named Turkish (Jason Statham) who finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless gangster known as Brick Top (Alan Ford).

The film features an assortment of colourful characters, including gypsy Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), arms-dealer Boris "the Blade" Yurinov (Rade Šerbedžija), professional thief and gambling addict Frankie "Four-Fingers" (Benicio del Toro), American gangster-jeweller "Cousin Avi" (Dennis Farina), and bounty hunter Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones). It is also distinguished by a kinetic direction and editing style, a circular plot featuring numerous ironic twists of chance and causality, and a fast pace.

The film shares themes, ideas and motifs with Ritchie's first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It is also filmed in the same visual style and features many of the same actors, including Jones, Statham, and Ford.

Plot[link]

After stealing an 86-carat (17 g) diamond in a heist in Antwerp, Frankie "Four-Fingers" (Benicio del Toro) goes to London to deliver the gemstone to diamond dealer Doug "The Head" (Mike Reid) on behalf of New York jeweller "Cousin Avi" (Dennis Farina), who bankrolled the theft. One of the other robbers advises Frankie to first see his arms-dealing brother, ex-KGB agent Boris "The Blade" (Rade Šerbedžija), to obtain a gun. Unbeknownst to Frankie, the brothers plan to rob him of the diamond, using a third party to avoid implicating themselves.

Meanwhile, unlicensed boxing promoter and casino owner Turkish (Jason Statham) convinces local gangster "Brick Top" (Alan Ford)—head of an unlicensed boxing and dog fighting circuit—to add the matches of his boxer "Gorgeous George" (Adam Fogerty) to the bets at his bookies. However, when Turkish sends his partner Tommy (Stephen Graham) and Gorgeous George to purchase a caravan from a group of pikeys, George gets into an impromptu boxing match with Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), who turns out to be a bare-knuckle boxing champ and badly injures George with a single punch. With George injured, Turkish recruits Mickey to replace him in his upcoming match by agreeing to purchase a new caravan for Mickey's mother (Sorcha Cusack). Brick Top agrees to the change on the condition that Mickey throws the fight in the fourth round.

Boris gives Frankie a gun in exchange for a favour: Frankie is to place a bet on Boris' behalf at Brick Top's bookies, since Boris has an outstanding debt there and cannot go himself. Avi learns of this and, knowing that Frankie has a gambling problem, flies to London with his bodyguard "Rosebud" (Sam Douglas) in tow to claim the diamond. Boris hires Vinnie (Robbie Gee) and Sol (Lennie James), two pawnbrokers and small-time crooks, to rob Frankie of the diamond while he is at the bookies. The robbery goes comically awry and Sol, Vinnie, and their driver Tyrone (Ade) are caught on-camera, but manage to kidnap Frankie.

Instead of throwing the boxing match as instructed, Mickey knocks his opponent out with a single punch, causing Brick Top's investors to lose their bets. Infuriated, Brick Top robs Turkish of his savings and demands that Mickey fight again, and lose this time. Meanwhile, Boris retrieves the diamond and executes Frankie, leaving Sol, Vinnie, and Tyrone to dispose of the body. As they and their accomplice "Bad Boy" Lincoln (Goldie) are puzzling over how to do this, Brick Top arrives to execute them for robbing his bookies. He details to them his preferred method of body disposal, which is to feed the corpses to ravenous pigs. Sol bargains for their lives by promising Brick Top the stolen diamond, and he gives them 48 hours to retrieve it.

Avi and Doug hire the mercenary "Bullet-Tooth" Tony (Vinnie Jones) to help them find Frankie. When the trail leads to Boris, they kidnap him and retrieve the gemstone, closely pursued by Sol, Vinnie, and Tyrone. As they are driving, Tommy carelessly throws Turkish's carton of milk out the window of their car; it splashes over Tony's windshield, causing him to crash. Rosebud is killed, and Boris escapes from the wreck only to be hit by Tyrone's car. Tony and Avi regroup at a pub where they are confronted by Sol, Vinnie, and Tyrone. Tony quickly realizes that their pistols are replicas loaded with blanks, and intimidates them into leaving him alone. The wounded Boris arrives with an assault rifle and is killed by Tony, but Sol and Vinnie escape with the diamond, which Vinnie hides in his pants. When Tony catches up to them, they tell him that the diamond is back at their pawn shop. Once there, they run out of stall tactics and produce the diamond, but it is promptly swallowed by a dog that Vinnie got from the pikeys. Avi fires wildly at the fleeing dog and accidentally kills Tony. He gives up his pursuit and returns to New York.

Mickey refuses to fight again unless Turkish buys an even more lavish caravan for his mother, but Turkish has no money left. Furious, Brick Top has his men vandalize Turkish's gambling arcade and burn down Mickey's mother's caravan while she is asleep inside it. Mickey agrees to fight in order to avoid more carnage, but gets so drunk after his mother's wake the night before that Turkish fears he won't even make it to the fourth round. If he fails to go down as agreed, Brick Top's men will execute Turkish, Tommy, Mickey, and the entire campsite of pikeys. Mickey takes a heavy beating but makes it to the fourth round, when he makes a sudden recovery and knocks out his opponent with a powerful blow. As they flee the building, Brick Top is killed by the pikeys, who have turned the tables on him: Mickey had bet on himself to win, and waited until the fourth round to allow the other pikeys time to ambush and kill Brick Top's men at the campsite.

The next morning, Turkish and Tommy find the pikey campsite deserted. They are confronted by the police and don't know what to say, until Vinnie's dog suddenly arrives and they claim to be walking it. They are released, while Sol and Vinnie are arrested when the police find the corpses of Frankie and Tony in their car. Turkish and Tommy take the dog to a veterinarian to extract a squeaky toy that it had swallowed earlier, and discover the diamond in its stomach as well. They consult Doug about selling the diamond, and he calls Avi who returns to London.

Cast[link]

• Jason Statham as Turkish, the protagonist and a promoter for unlicensed boxers.
• Stephen Graham as Tommy, Turkish's somewhat ignorant business partner.
• Alan Ford as Brick Top, a psychopathic crime boss who runs unlicensed boxing matches and is quick to kill anyone who angers him and feed their bodies to pigs to hide the evidence.
• Dennis Farina as Abraham "Cousin Avi" Denovitz, an American criminal and jewel dealer who arranges a diamond heist in Antwerp.
• Brad Pitt as Mickey O'Neil, a Pikey who lives at a campsite and is a bare knuckle boxing champion. After he injures Gorgeous George, Turkish and Tommy recruit him to fight in unlicensed boxing matches.
• Vinnie Jones as Bullet Tooth Tony, a mercenary, bounty-hunter and gun-for-hire, recruited by Avi to find Frankie Four-Fingers, who is carrying an 86-carat diamond.
• Robbie Gee as Vinnie, a pawnshop employee who is hired by Boris to rob Brick Top's bookie and unknowingly steal the diamond from Frankie.
• Lennie James as Sol, a pawnshop employee who works alongside Vinnie.
• Ade as Tyrone, Vinnie and Sol's massively overweight get-away driver.
• Rade Šerbedžija as Boris The Blade, an Uzbek criminal and arms dealer, whose weapons have the tendency to malfunction. He is also known as the "bullet dodger" as he can apparently dodge bullets, making him nearly impossible to kill.
• Benicio del Toro as Frankie "Four-Fingers", a thief who in the beginning of the film steals an 86-carat diamond, which most of the characters temporarily possess before losing it to another character.
• Adam Fogerty as Gorgeous George, a skilled unlicensed boxer working for Turkish and Tommy.
• Mike Reid as Doug "The Head" Denovitz, a jeweller who helps his cousin Avi track down Frankie and the diamond. He also pretends to be Jewish as he finds it good for business.
• Goldie as "Bad Boy" Lincoln, a petty criminal and associate of Vinnie and Sol.
• William Beck as Neil
• Sam Douglas as Rosebud, Avi's henchman who accompanies him to London to find the coveted 86-carat diamond.
• Jason Flemyng as Darren, Mickey's best friend.
• Andy Beckwith as Errol, Bricktop's henchman.
• Dave Legeno as John, another of Bricktop's henchman.
• Ewen Bremner as Mullet, an informant, and sort of 'Huggy-Bear' character who is well informed on criminal activity in the city. Errol and John confront him for information, as does Bullet Tooth Tony.
• Nicola Collins as Alex, one of Doug's daughters.
• Teena Collins as Susi, Doug's other daughter.
• Jason Buckham as Gary, an associate or employee of Bricktop, who kills Gary for a "lack of loyalty" and then feeds his remains to pigs to cover up the evidence.
• Mickey Cantwell as Liam, who sold out Gary to Bricktop. Rather than receiving some kind of reward, Bricktop has him killed as well.
• Sorcha Cusack as Mickey O'Neil's mother.

Soundtrack[link]

Two versions of the soundtrack album were released, one on the Universal International label with 23 tracks and a TVT Records release with 20.

Track listing[link]

1. "Diamond" - Klint
2. "Vere Iz da Storn?" - Benicio del Toro
3. "Supermoves" - Overseer
4. "Hernando's Hideaway" - The Johnston Brothers
5. "Zee Germans" - Jason Statham
6. "Golden Brown" - The Stranglers
7. "Dreadlock Holiday" - 10cc
8. "Hava Nagila" - John Murphy and Daniel L. Griffiths
9. "Avi Arrives" - Dennis Farina
10. "Cross the Tracks (We Better Go Back)" - Maceo & the Macks
11. "Disco Science" - Mirwais
12. "Nemesis" - Alan Ford
13. "Hot Pants (I'm Coming, Coming, I'm Coming)" - Bobby Byrd
14. "Lucky Star" - Madonna
15. "Come Again!" - Alan Ford
16. "Ghost Town" - The Specials
17. "Shrinking Balls" - Vinnie Jones
18. "Sensual Woman" - The Herbaliser
19. "Angel" - Massive Attack
20. "RRRR...Rumble" - Charles Cork
21. "Fuckin' in the Bushes" - Oasis
22. "Avi's Declaration" - Dennis Farina
23. "Don't You Just Know It" - Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns

Reception[link]

Snatch was largely successful, both in critical acclaim and at the box office, and has gone on to develop a devoted cult following. From an estimated budget of $3,000,000 (according to the Director's Commentary), the movie grossed a total of £12,137,698 in the United Kingdom and $30,093,107 in the United States.^[2] Rotten Tomatoes lists Snatch as having 73% of the reviews (133 reviews listed in total) as being "fresh" (positive).^[3]

Snatch also appears on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time at number 466.^[4]

While the film received mostly positive reviews, several reviewers commented negatively on perceived similarities in plot, character, setting, theme and style between Snatch and Ritchie's previous work, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. In his review, Roger Ebert, who gave the film two out of four stars, raised the question of "What am I to say of 'Snatch', Ritchie's new film, which follows the 'Lock, Stock' formula so slavishly it could be like a new arrangement of the same song?",^[5] and writing in the New York Times Elvis Mitchell commented that "Mr. Ritchie seems to be stepping backward when he should be moving ahead".^[6] Critics also argued that the movie was lacking in depth and substance; many reviewers appeared to agree with Ebert's comment that "the movie is not boring, but it doesn't build and it doesn't arrive anywhere".^[5]

DVD releases[link]

The film has been released in multiple incarnations on DVD.

On July 3, 2001, a two-disc "Special Edition" was released, containing both a full screen and widescreen presentation of the feature. Also included was an audio commentary track with director Guy Ritchie and producer Matthew Vaughn. The special features on the second disc included a "making of" featurette, deleted scenes, original theatrical trailer and TV spots, text/photo galleries, storyboard comparisons, and filmographies.

On 17 September 2002, Sony released a "Deluxe Collection" set in the company's superbit format. This release contained two discs, one being the special features disc of the original DVD release, and the other a superbit version of the feature. As is the case with superbit presentations, the disc was absent of the additional features included in the original standard DVD, such as the audio commentary. (The disc did still contain subtitles in eight different languages including a "pikey" track, which only showed subtitles for the character Mickey.)

Nine months later, on June 3, 2003, a single disc setup was released, with new cover art, containing the feature disc of the special edition set. This version was simply a repackaging, omitting the second disc.

Deluxe edition error[link]

On January 3, 2006, yet another two-disc set was released. This version was set to be a repackaging of the original two-disc special edition release, containing the same features and content, but with different menu setups and decor. The box set featured a new theme represented in the cover art and included were a custom deck of playing cards and dealer button in the same theme. Also included was a supplemental booklet revealing extended filmography information about the cast as well as theatrical press kit production notes.

Soon after the set was released, it was discovered the feature disc that was supposed to contain the film in its original special edition incarnation (with audio commentary, etc.) was not included. Instead, the Superbit release, containing the higher quality version of the film, was in its place.^[7]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Snatch (film)

• Snatch at the Internet Movie Database
• Snatch. at AllRovi
• Snatch at Box Office Mojo

Snatch may refer to:

Look up snatch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Snatch (film), a 2000 British gangster movie by director Guy Ritchie
• Snatch theft, grab-and-run theft from a motorcycle, in Malaysia
• Snatch, an album by Howie B
• Snatch (game), or Anagrams, word game
• Snatch (weightlifting), a weightlifting movement
• USS Snatch (ARS-27), a U.S. Navy rescue and salvage ship
• Snatch Land Rover, used as protected transport vehicles by the British Army
• Snatch, a slang term for the vagina
• Snatch, an older intelligence term for the practice of rendition

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (January 2012) Don't speak French? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the French article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|fr|Cinéma}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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This 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term film is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies.

History[link]

A clip from the Charlie Chaplin silent film The Bond (1918)

Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film: scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scene (roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Owing to an absence of technology for doing so, moving visual and aural images were not recorded for replaying as in film.

In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional drawings in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the zoetrope, mutoscope and praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. An 1878 experiment by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the United States using 24 cameras produced a series of stereoscopic images of a galloping horse, is arguably the first "motion picture", though it was not called by this name.^[1] This technology required a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Commercial versions of these machines were coin operated.

A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film produced using a motion picture camera, by Louis Le Prince, 1888

By the 1880s the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. The first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in America was shown at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City on the 23rd of April 1896.

Ignoring W. K. L. Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the 20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience with noise of early cinema projectors, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music that would cover noises of projector. Eventually, musicians would start to fit the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I when the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood, typified most prominently by the great innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1914) and Intolerance (1916). However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric war-time progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural color", which meant color that was photographically recorded from nature rather than being added to black-and-white prints by hand-coloring, stencil-coloring or other arbitrary procedures, although the earliest processes typically yielded colors which were far from "natural" in appearance. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color replaced black-and-white much more gradually. The pivotal innovation was the introduction of the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, which was first used for short subjects and for isolated sequences in a few feature films released in 1934, then for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. The expense of the process was daunting, but continued favorable public response and enhanced box-office receipts increasingly justified the added cost. The number of films made in color slowly increased year after year.

In the early 1950s, as the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing theater attendance in the US, the use of color was seen as one way of winning back audiences. It soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and the sale of color television sets boomed. The strong preference of the general public for color was obvious. After the final flurry of black-and-white film releases in mid-decade, all major Hollywood studio film production was exclusively in color, with rare exceptions reluctantly made only at the insistence of "star" directors such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese.

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the French New Wave, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave and New Hollywood) and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 3D technology increased in usage and has become more popular since the early 2010s.

Theory[link]

Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others. On the other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life.

Language[link]

Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor's right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating the first actor is having a memory of their own past.

Montage[link]

Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film^{[citation needed]} to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumble Fish.

Criticism[link]

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.

Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.

It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

Industry[link]

Cate Blanchett at the Berlin International Film Festival. Around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries attend the event in Berlin.

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898^{[citation needed]} was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.^[2] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.^{[citation needed]} Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Associated fields[link]

Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.

Terminology used[link]

Although the words "film" and "movie" are sometimes used interchangeably, "film" is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class and "movies" more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled "How to Read a Film" would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while "Lets Go to the Movies" would be about the history of entertaining movies. "Motion pictures" or "Moving pictures" are films and movies. A "DVD" is a digital format which may be used to reproduce an analog film, while "videotape" ("video") was for many decades a solely analog medium onto which moving images could be recorded and electronically (rather than optically) reproduced. Strictly speaking, "Film" refers to the media onto which a visual image is shot, and to this end it may seem improper for work in other "moving image" media to be referred to as a "film" and the action of shooting as "filming", though these terms are still in general use. "Silent films" need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. "Talkies" refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analog sound, not just a musical accompaniment. "Cinema" either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with "Film", both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The "silver screen" refers to classic black-and-white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.

The expression "Sight and Sound", as in the film journal of the same name, means "film". The following icons mean film: a "candle and bell", as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.

"Widescreen" and "Cinemascope" refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios.^[3] A "feature length film", or "feature film", is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening.^[4] A "short" is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. An "independent" is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.

A "screening" or "projection" is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A "double feature" is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A "viewing" is a watching of a film. A "showing" is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. "Sales" refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A "release" is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A "preview" is a screening in advance of the main release.

"Hollywood" may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in "too Hollywood", or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.

Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for "film" in a specific context, such as a "porn" for a film with explicit sexual content, or "cheese" for films that are light, entertaining and not highbrow.

Any film may also have a "sequel", which portrays events following those in the film. Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are a number of films with the same characters, we have a "series", such as the James Bond series. A film which portrays events that occur earlier than those in another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a "prequel", an example being Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

Credits is a list of the people involved in making the film. Before the 1970s, credits were usually at the beginning of a film. Since then, the credits roll at the end of most films.

A Post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and they should go home.

Preview[link]

A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).

Trailer[link]

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.

Film, or other art form?[link]

Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a "film", for instance, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.

The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.

Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A "road movie" can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.

Education and propaganda[link]

Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film based on a classic novel.

Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of Michael Moore.

Production[link]

At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or without it, such as Stan Brakhage's 1963 film Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.

The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:

1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.

Crew[link]

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

Technology[link]

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.

Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown).^[5] When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras – allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design – allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters: three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black-and-white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are preferred by some moviemakers, especially because footage shot with digital cinema can be evaluated and edited with non-linear editing systems (NLE) without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still shot on film.

Independent[link]

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Lumière Brothers

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).^[6] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie, and Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

Open content film[link]

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

Fan film[link]

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Distribution[link]

When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles,^[7] and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905.^[8] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.^[9] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters.^{[citation needed]} In 1967, videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes.^[10] Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision – see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as a television movie or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own movie studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.

The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.^[11] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).^[11]

This section requires expansion with: optical disc distribution.

Animation[link]

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labor intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.^[12]

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Future state[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon^{[clarification needed]} of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts^[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters.^{[citation needed]} Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s^{[citation needed]} such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content.^{[citation needed]} In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction.^{[citation needed]} These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 21st century and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.^{[citation needed]} The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new high definition (HD) format, Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality.^{[citation needed]} Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers; 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080, a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the 330×480 offered by the first home video standard, VHS.^{[citation needed]} Ultra HD, a future digital video format, will offer a resolution of 7680×4320. However, the nature and structure of film prevents an apples-to-apples comparison with regard to resolution.^[13] The resolving power of film, and its ability to capture an image which can later be scanned to a digital format, will ensure that film remains a viable medium for some time to come.^{[citation needed]} Currently the super-16 format is seeing use as a capture medium, with digital scanning and post-production providing good results.^[14][15] Despite advances in digital capture, film still offers unsurpassed ability to capture fine detail beyond what is possible with digital image sensors. A 35 mm film frame, with proper exposure and processing, still offers an equivalent resolution in the range of 500 mega pixels.^[13]

Despite the rise of all-new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many^[who?] expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• Genre
• Fiction film basic genre
• Documentary basic genre
• Docufiction hybrid genre

• Lists

Film portal

• List of film awards
• List of film festivals
• List of film journals and magazines
• List of film topics
• List of video-related topics
• List of years in film
• Lists of films

Related topics

• Cinematic techniques
• Digital cinema
• Lost film
• Web film

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Film on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

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• Allmovie – Information on films: actors, directors, biographies, reviews, cast and production credits, box office sales, and other movie data.
• Film Site – Reviews of classic films
• Movies at the Open Directory Project
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• The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) – Information on current and historical films and cast listings.

Vinnie Jones

Jones at Comic-Con promoting The Midnight Meat Train on 2 July 2007
Personal information
Full name	Vincent Peter Jones
Date of birth	(1965-01-05) 5 January 1965 (age 47)
Place of birth	Watford, Hertfordshire, England
Height	6 ft 1.5 in (1.87 m)
Playing position	Midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1984–1986	Wealdstone
1986	Holmsund
1986–1989	Wimbledon	77	(9)
1989–1990	Leeds United	46	(5)
1990–1991	Sheffield United	35	(2)
1991–1992	Chelsea	42	(4)
1992–1998	Wimbledon	177	(14)
1998–1999	Queens Park Rangers	9	(1)
Total		386	(33)
National team
1994–1997	Wales	9	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Vincent Peter "Vinnie" Jones (born 5 January 1965) is an English actor and retired footballer.

Born in Hertfordshire, England, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team, having qualified via a Welsh grandparent. As a member of the "Crazy Gang", Jones won the 1988 FA Cup Final with Wimbledon, a club for which he played well over 200 games during two spells between 1986 and 1998. He also previously played for Chelsea and Leeds United. Jones appeared in Celebrity Big Brother 2010, where he finished in third place behind Dane Bowers and Alex Reid.

He has capitalised on his tough man image as a footballer and is known as an actor for his aggressive style and intimidating demeanour, often being typecast into roles as coaches, hooligans and violent criminals.

Early life[link]

Jones was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, to Peter Jones (a gamekeeper) and Glenda Harris Jones.^[1]

Club career[link]

Jones started his football career in 1984 at Alliance Premier League side Wealdstone, during which time he combined playing football with being a hod carrier.^[2] He played one season with second-level Swedish club IFK Holmsund in 1986 and helped them win the league.^[3]

In the autumn of 1986, Jones moved to Wimbledon for £10,000. He was part of the 'Crazy Gang' team that won the 1988 FA Cup Final against Liverpool, the dominant English side of that era.

He was transferred to Leeds United in the summer of 1989, where he was part of a young side under the management of Howard Wilkinson. During his time there, he won promotion to the old Division One from the Second division. After helping them win promotion to the top-flight as Champions of the Second Division, Jones proved that he could thrive without the illegal side of his game, and under the stewardship of Wilkinson, he received only three yellow cards in the whole season.

Jones left Leeds early in the 1990-91 season after losing his first-team place to youngsters David Batty and Gary Speed, as well as new signing Gary McAllister - much to the disappointment of the Leeds fans - in order to seek regular first-team football. To this day, he remains a hugely popular figure with the Leeds fans; Jones has a Leeds United badge tattooed on his leg (after having helped them to the 1989/90 second division championship).^[4] Jones also showed his passion for the club when he returned to Leeds for Lucas Radebe's testimonial in 2006.

His former Wimbledon manager Dave Bassett signed him for Sheffield United on his exit from Elland Road, before selling him to Chelsea a year later. After just one year at Stamford Bridge, he was on his way back to Wimbledon, where he stayed until becoming player/coach of QPR in 1998, scoring on his debut against Huddersfield Town.^[5] Jones was once rumoured to take the vacant managers post at QPR but that failed.

International career[link]

Jones was so desperate to play international football he looked to distant relations and was photographed wearing a Republic of Ireland jersey, before being chosen by Wales.^{[citation needed]} Though Jones is a common surname in Wales, the qualifying relationship was his maternal grandfather, who came from Ruthin, north Wales.

He made his debut for Wales on 14 December 1994, three weeks before his 30th birthday, in a 3-0 home defeat to Bulgaria in the Euro 96 qualifiers. The last of his nine caps came on 29 March 1997 in a 2-1 defeat to Belgium in a World Cup qualifier, also at Cardiff Arms Park.^[6]

Jones's international call-up was however greeted with consternation and even ridiculed by Jimmy Greaves, who said, "Well, stone me! We've had cocaine, bribery and Arsenal scoring two goals at home. But just when you thought there were truly no surprises left in football, Vinnie Jones turns out to be an international player!".^[7]

Playing events[link]

During his playing days, Jones was renowned for his "hard man" image, an aspect of his play that was frequently the target of criticism.^[8] He was sent off 12 times in his career, as well as holding the record for the quickest ever booking in a football match, being booked after just three seconds for a foul on the opposition player Dane Whitehouse in a Premier League tie between Chelsea and Sheffield United in 1992.^[9] In his autobiography, he recalls fondly: "I must have been too high, too wild, too strong or too early, because, after three seconds, I could hardly have been too bloody late!".

In one notorious incident in 1987, Jones was photographed grabbing Paul Gascoigne by his testicles in order to faze him.^[10][11][12] In November 1986, in a match between Tottenham Hotspur and Wimbledon, he was responsible for a dangerous challenge on defender Gary Stevens, an injury that Stevens never fully recovered from and eventually caused him to retire in 1992.^[13]

Controversy[link]

He also was the presenter of the infamous Soccer's Hard Men video released in 1992, which featured archived footage of himself and many other "hard men" of the game, and included advice for budding "hard men". After the release of the video, Jones was fined £20,000, banned for six months, and suspended for three years from The FA for "bringing the game into disrepute." Wimbledon chairman Sam Hammam branded Jones a "mosquito brain". Jones continued to find trouble. After exceeding 40 disciplinary points he was once again summoned to Lancaster Gate, but failed to appear. The FA banned Jones indefinitely. Jones explained that he had "mixed up" the date of the hearing; the FA imposed a four-match ban and told Jones to "grow up".^[14] Jones commented later: "The FA have given me a pat on the back. I've taken violence off the terracing and onto the pitch."^[15]

Many of Jones' fellow professionals were quick to condemn both the video and Jones himself. One of his most vocal critics was David Ginola, who said, "Jones does not deserve to be considered a footballer. Getting kicked is part of the job in France as well as England, but the real scandal is that someone like Jones gets to be a star, to make videos and become an example for kids."

Other football activities[link]

Jones has stated that he would eventually like to return to football, possibly to Leeds. Jones told Yorkshire Radio "I will come back without a doubt, Leeds fans gave me so much and it's a club very close to my heart."^[16]

Jones made an appearance in Ireland for Carlisle United, coming on as a second-half substitute in 2001 against Shelbourne, teaming up with friend Roddy Collins who was manager at the time.

Despite being considered just a midfield enforcer, he did show a different side to his game. In 1995, he stood in for Wimbledon as an emergency Goalkeeper against Newcastle United, due to Paul Heald being sent off, and other keeper Neil Sullivan was injured with a broken leg. Despite the Dons Losing 6–1, Jones pulled off a string of world class saves, and only conceded 3 goals in 60 minutes, as opposed to Heald's 3 in 30. Pundits^[who?] joked he would be a good replacement for Neville Southall, should the keeper be unfit for Wales duty.^{[citation needed]}

After participating in a charity football match alongside fellow British Hollywood film actor Jason Statham, Jones was approached by a Los Angeles Galaxy scout and asked whether he would go for a trial at the club. Jones laughed off the offer by saying "You're 15 years too late".^[17]

In June 2010, Jones released a press statement stating that he was donating his 1988 FA Cup winners medal to the fans of A.F.C. Wimbledon, wishing their fans the best for the future. The medal will be displayed in the club's Kingsmeadow Stadium.^[18]

Film career[link]

Vinnie Jones
Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb, and Bradley Cooper at San Diego Comic-Con International promoting the film The Midnight Meat Train in July 2007
Born	Vincent Peter Jones (1965-01-05) 5 January 1965 (age 47) Watford, Hertfordshire, England
Other names	Vinnie Jones
Occupation	footballer, actor, film producer, composer, singer
Years active	1993–present
Spouse	Tanya Jones (1994–present)
Website
http://www.vinniejones.co.uk/

Jones made his 1998 feature film debut in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He later starred in Guy Ritchie's next blockbuster Snatch as Bullet-Tooth Tony.

He became known to American audiences in the 2000 movie remake of Gone in 60 Seconds where he played "the Sphinx." Although Jones had a major role as well as significant on-screen time, he only had one line in the entire film but was portrayed as a silent tough brawler.

Jones went back to his football days to play Danny Meehan in Mean Machine, a 2001 British take of the Burt Reynolds' film The Longest Yard (a.k.a. Mean Machine for its UK release). He plays a former Captain of the English National Football Team, who is sent to prison and subsequently takes control of a team of inmates who play the guards.

His next big piece was in the 2006 movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, as the mutant, Juggernaut. Jones said that he would like to play Juggernaut in a spin-off. His line in the movie, "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!", was based on a pre-existing Internet parody.

Jones played a role of a professional killer in a Kazakhstani movie called Ликвидатор ("Eliminator"), 2011. Jones' character is an elite assassin invited from abroad in order to eliminate the main character. Producers of the film have dealt with the language barrier rather interestingly – Jones' character is mute and does not say a single word throughout the movie.

He also played a role in the Hungarian film The Magic Boys. The film was never completed and there is no known release date. The film's producer, Gabor Koltai, was arrested on major tax fraud charges in December 2010 and is remanded to the Budapest Prison waiting trial. He could get up to 8 years in federal prison. The film co starred Michael Madsen and was directed by his father Robert Koltai.^[19][20]

Jones is said to have been cast as The Kurgan in the remake of the 1986 cult classic Highlander.^{[citation needed]}

He played a major role in the 2004 Japanese film Survive Style 5+, where he plays a thuggish hit-man from Britain who kills several people and, with the help of his translator, tries to discover what everyone's function in life is.

Jones also played a part in the movie Kill the Irishman, where he played the character Keith Ritson, an ex-Hells Angels who works as an enforcer. He also played Mahogany in Midnight Meat Train. He also played the role of a sadistic former SAS agent in 'The Condemned'.

Music[link]

In November 2002, Jones released an album of blues and soul songs on Telstar called Respect in the UK, as his musical debut under the tuition of Phil Edwards.

Vinnie performed a cover version of the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on the popular British television show, TOTP2 in December 2002.

The opening track of Joss Stone 2007 album Introducing Joss Stone features a short speech by Jones.

In May 2002, Jones played a character in the music video for Westlife's single 'Bop Bop Baby'.

Television[link]

Jones also appeared in the US series Chuck – in episode 2 of the third series he plays an arms dealer (the main villain). In 2010 he was added to the cast of the NBC superhero/crime drama series The Cape.

Jones narrated the TV series Vinnie Jones’ Toughest Cops. The series commenced airing in 2008 on ITV4 in the UK. Each episode to date has examined the work of a police force in a different country in the world, concentrating on dangerous aspects of the work. The first show concerned police in Colombia.

Jones was the first ever guest host for The Friday Night Project when it first aired on Channel 4 in February 2005. In the same year he also had a minor role in the film She's the Man as coach Dinklage. He also appeared in an episode of Extras playing an exaggerated version of himself.

Jones appeared on the first episode of the second season of Top Gear in their Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. He managed to make it around the track in 1 minute 53 seconds.

On 6 December 1998, Jones appeared at the World Wrestling Federation pay-per-view Capital Carnage, where he played up his 'hard man' image, acting as a special guest enforcer for the main event. Before the match he had a (staged) fight with fellow enforcer The Big Bossman and was "red carded" and kicked out. He came back at the end of the show to drink beer with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and referee Earl Hebner. Jones returned to the promotion, now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, on 18 February 2007 at No Way Out, where he claimed he had "kicked Stone Cold's arse" on the set of The Condemned.

Brian Michael Bendis announced via Twitter on 28 July 2011 that Vinnie will be playing Johnny Royale in Powers.

Jones is also joined Eric Wynalda and Coby Jones as studio analyst for Fox Soccer Sunday broadcast of the Premier League.

[edit] Celebrity Big Brother

Jones was a housemate on the reality television show Celebrity Big Brother 2010,^[21] and celebrated his 45th birthday while he participated. He took part in the show to change the public's perception of him as a 'hard man'.^[22] Jones received loud cheers as he entered the house and was the favourite to win going into the house, however he did not maintain popularity with the public, the crowd chanted 'Get Vinnie Out' on the final night and booed him as he left the house after he finished in third place. Speaking of his experience on the show, he said: "It was like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in there – and I was Jack Nicholson."^[23]

During the 29 January 2010 broadcast of Celebrity Big Brother, Jones accused Davina McCall of 'walking like a retard', McCall responded by laughing and Jones then mimed what he meant. Despite immediate protests by disability charities, individual disabled people and a Facebook campaign;^[24][25] it was not until 12 February that Channel 4 removed the incident from its on-demand service 4oD and issued an apology, blaming the failure on the 'tiredness' of production staff. Jones and McCall issued apologies via their respective publicists at around the same time.

Advertisements[link]

Since September 2006, Jones' image and voice have been used in a campaign by UK bookmakers Ladbrokes to promote greyhound racing, a sport Jones has been connected with in the past, as a racing dog owner and an enthusiast. Jones also appeared in a series of advertisements for Bacardi.

Jones has appeared as himself in an RAC commercial also featuring his wife, Tanya. In 2000, Jones caused controversy when he appeared in an ad for a drink called "Red Devil". In the ad, Jones is pruning flowers in his garden when he sees a robin crying because its bird feeder is empty. Jones fills the feeder, and places it on the windowsill of his kitchen. Seeing the feeder, the robin flies at it, collides with the kitchen window, and slides down the pane while Jones bursts out laughing. Many parents said the ad (which drew about 390 complaints) was tasteless, and upsetting for children. Later, the ad was shown only after the nine o'clock watershed. The ad was eventually axed.

During the early months of 2012, he starred in a British Heart Foundation television advert promoting Hands-only CPR to the rhythm of the famous Bee Gees single "Stayin' Alive".^[26] His character was an obvious reflection of his roles as Big Chris and Bullet-Tooth Tony from the Guy Ritchie films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch respectively; being accentuated by the presence fellow actor Andy Beckwith who played the thug Errol in "Snatch". Jones also starred in comedy panel show Mad Mad World on ITV1

Books[link]

In 1998 Jones published his autobiography, Vinnie: The Autobiography,^[27] which was later revised and reprinted a year later to include information on his first film appearance in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Jones is soon^[when?] to be the star of a new comic book, Noble, written and drawn by Howard Chaykin.^[28]

Personal life[link]

During his football career Jones resided in Dronfield, near Sheffield. Jones married Tanya Terry (b. 1966) in 1994 in Watford. She has a daughter, Kaley Jay Terry (born 1987, Watford), by her first husband, footballer Steve Terry. She had a heart transplant straight after the birth and is a cervical cancer survivor.^[29] Jones has a son, Aaron Elliston Jones (born 1991, Sheffield),^[30] by Mylene Elliston. His son joined the British Army, completing his training in August 2008, and serves in the Life Guards.^[31] Jones, his wife and her daughter live in Los Angeles.^[32]

Jones is a staunch supporter of the British Conservative Party and has suggested standing as an MP.^[33]

Jones has had several brushes with the law. He was convicted in June 1998 of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage against a neighbour in November 1997.^[34] In December 2003, Jones was convicted of air rage offences committed on a flight the previous May. Following his conviction, Bacardi withdrew the ads in which Jones appeared. In December 2008 he was treated for injuries and arrested after a bar fight at Wiley's Tavern in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The fight is alleged to have been started over Jones attempting to join a game of pool with patrons Juan Barrera and Jesse Bickett. Jones was alleged to have dealt a headbutt to Barrera, while Bickett allegedly struck Jones with a beer glass. Jones was charged with misdemeanour assault which could have landed him in jail for one year if he had been convicted.^[35] Jones was found not guilty after a two-day trial on 15 May 2009.

In April 2010, Jones was reported to be carrying injuries after losing a fight with fellow actor Tamer Hassan.^[36]

He is a big fan of sports fishing.^{[citation needed]} He has claimed to be a fan of the death metal band Bolt Thrower.

Career statistics[link]

^[37]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• 2002: "Respect"^[38]

Singles[link]

• "Wooly Bully" (1993)^[39]

References[link]