Billy Elliott is surely the most offensive movie of the season. Rocky II goes to ballet school and proves that High Culture can be good for working class stiffs if only they would stop drinking beer long enough to make sacrifices for children who wish to become ballet dancers. Much of the action takes place in a boxing ring; the crusty but lovable trainer is the ballet coach (a woman); the protagonist’s best friend is gay; the memory of his dead mother will be vindicated. All of which is laid obscenely against the backdrop of Thatcher’s reign of terror over the coal miners. In the end, as in every Hollywood movie, everyone applauds. This movie proves that when England goes Hollywood, the result is pure Hollywood—which is to say, pure bullshit.