Entertainment For Lively Minds
The return of Chris Morris
Posted by Four Eyes on 21 January 2010 - 3:17pm.
I've just posted a version of this in reply to a comment on the Persuasionists thread, but thought it might be of wider interest to some, hence the slight doubling.
Chris Morris has had this project in the pipeline for years:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/mar/19/broadcasting.channel4
but it now seems to be almost ready:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/57013,news-comment,entertainment,chris-mor...
I'll be straight off to the multiplex when it comes out.
Anyone care to guess exacly how big a deal the Daily Mail etc will make out of it?
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I'm looking forward to it too
I know someone working on the film who told me the cast and crew screening was recently, and that it is VERY funny.
I don't think it has a distribution deal or anything like that as yet, so there's no confirmed cinema release date, but I'll be straight to the flicks too.
I'm sure the Mail are preparing their references to the Brass Eye Special as we speak.
I now Chris's agent pretty well...
...she said it's 'fucking hilarious' and fully expects a 'BAN THIS SICK FILTH' reaction. She has the Brass Eye Daily Mail (The Sickest TV Show Ever) front page on her office wall, of course.
The film premieres at Sundance.
http://sundance.bside.com/2010/films/fourlions_sundance2010
The Daily Mail
won't be calling for it to be banned. Not as it stands anyway -- if it's an Un-PC comedy that runs the risk of enraging Muslims ('fatwa proof'? we'll see).
Presumably Chris Morris' agent knows something we don't.
I used...
...'BAN THIS SICK FILTH' as an example of their journalism (even though I doubt it was theirs in the first place), not as a statement of their intent. In hindsight I should have used a different example. Sorry about that.
Actually it's not just you, PC
I've read about this elsewhere online (not to mention the two comments above yours) and there seems to be an assumption that the Daily Mail will be cross about the film. Though on what grounds is never made clear.
They are just cross
bout EVERYTHING. That is what the Daily Mail does.
They Go
For the "splutter factor"
They're taking their time
the film was announced years ago.
I would have thought that the fact they haven't published anything yet means they don't want to risk allying themselves with radical Muslims, who would be the group most likely to come out against a Jihadi comedy. After all, full marks to Chris Morris for at last taking on the one target that scares everybody else shitless.
Splutter factor? BUTTER factor!
This week The Daily Mail (and Clarissa Dixon) got angry about Margarine, and how doctors were trying to take our great British butter away. Bit of a slow news day; nothing much happening apart from some earthquake, apparently.
I think it's pretty safe to assume...
...that the Mail will have something to say about the film, and their comments won't be entirely positive. Heaven forfend the rag should use the film's release as an opportunity to stir up any ill-feeling between its readership and whatever minority group the Mail sees as the film's 'target' (even though, from what little I thus far know, the film makes a point broadly similar to that contained in the Brass Eye paedophile special.)
What's the betting the first thing the Mail says about the fim is that it was made by the same sick mind that came up with the aforementioned Brass Eye episode?
No, the Mail wouldn't do that, would it?
I expect the Mail will say that about Brass Eye.
It would be rather remiss of them not to.
Remiss...?
...The Mail? Never. Paragon of journalistic virtue.
Hardly.
They and the Telegraph both ran stories about Health & Safety warnings given over residents clearing ice from their drives, then did not allow the IOSH's rebuttals on their website. Plus they then allowed Max Hastings to write a column about it, repeating the same falsehood. Here are the links..
http://www.iosh.co.uk/news_and_events/news/latest_member_news/iosh_gritt...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1242771/Why-picture-neighbours...
In other non-news, The Mail also ran a story about Mylene Klass being told off by police for brandishing a knife in her own home, and again it was cited in a column by Richard Littlejohn, even though, according to Herts police..
http://www.herts.police.uk/statements/myleene_klass.php
See, these are actual examples of bad journalistic practice by the Daily Mail, rather than assumptions and silly posturing, which is where you seem to coming from -- and sounding rather Daily Mailesque if you don't mind my saying so.
I'm very well aware...
...of the examples you cite - and many others. Hence my attitude. Thanks for the lesson, anyway.
So why hold the conversation back then?
I was genuinely interested in how and why the Daily Mail might come out against this particular film. Fine, you just want to toss around the same old generic sarcasm, but you're hardly saying anything new, are you? "What's the betting they'll mention Brass Eye"? Of course they will. Everybody will.
Well....
...no, but citing stories everyone already knows is hardly adding anything new either, is it? If the day ever dawns when it comes to be accepted that there's something wrong in giving the Mail a good shoe-ing without citing their long history of wrong-ness (supporting Mosely, anyone?) then we might as well switch off the Internet and subscribe to the People's Friend.
I had rather hoped
that your access to Chris Morris's agent might give you some insight into why he or she expects a reaction from the Mail. Or at the very least you might have a view on it beyond the already established-to-the-point-of-tedium fact that the Daily Mail is bad. Oh well.
But yes, the Daily Mail are bad, they supported Mosely, blah blah blah...
That the Mail is bad...
...is tedious, yes. It's an accepted truism by all but its dwindling readership. That it will react to the film in its usual blustering, fear-mongering fashion is a certainty, inasmuch as one can be certain of anything. As I haven't seen the film, I can't comment on exactly how the paper will respond to it; Morris's agent has seen it, but doesn't work for the Mail and can't second-guess their front page any more than I.
I'm sorry I haven't any further insight. The Mail is bad, though. Grrr.
Pax?
.
In terra...
...definitely. I offer this laurel, and hardy handshake.
Of course they will
not for any majorly idealistic reason, but because they have previous with him and they know it will push some buttons amongst parts of their audience. It'll shift units, so why wouldn't they?
Me? I'm looking forward to it [the film, that is].
Actually from the Daily Star rather than Mail...
... but I always liked this juxtaposition of news stories as a perfect example of media hypocracy... a big picture ogling "chest swell" 15 year-old "big girl" Charlotte Church opposite an article railing against Brass Eye...
(Pic too big to post, go to http://chilled.cream.org/graphics/charlotte.jpg)
I'm looking forward to this
immensely but then again I am one of the few who liked Nathan Barley
Peace and fuckin' yeah? Awesome fucking Welles
Yeah
Well plastic.
You should come, Dollsnatch...
...it's gonna be total fuckin' Mexico.
Yeah?
it'll be well jackson. Keep it foolish
Anyone for a game of
cock, muff, bumhole?
The Mail
I imagine the Mail's ire would be provoked by the 'Dad's Army for the jihad' concept. That is to say they wouldn't be offended by a satire that mocked bombers, but any attempt to humanise them might result in some frothing outrage.
Whistle while you work
Mohammed is a twerp, he's half-barmy, so's his jihad army, whistle while you work!
Your name will also go on the infidel list!! What is your teddy bear's name?
And so on.....
The Guardian today has a clip from it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/jan/21/chris-morris-four-lions...
I hope...
...that clip's not representative of the film's overall funny-ness.
I know it's unfair to judge on a clip that long
but it was like something from a weak BBC3 sketch show.
I don't know...
I think the beard thing was nicely reminiscent of Spkie Milligan's "I Got it written on this piece of paper" gag for the Goons.
I rather suspect this is going to be at the Nathan Barely end of the spectrum, no bad thing as far as I can see.
I thought it was very funny
It was inevitably going to be about some dumb people making a complete cock-up of being terrorists, and it did it pretty well. It also demonstrates the film's intention to go where others wouldn't - the whole set-up rests on the fact that they're (presumably) getting bomb-making equipment together, and that one idiot has bought it all from the one shop.
For some reason it reminds me of the scene in the (otherwise deadly serious) Paradise Now, where suicide bombers are filming their 'martyrdom' films but keep on messing up their lines.
I was pleasantly surprised
I'm looking forward to it way more now I've seen this; it looks as though he's remembered to be a comedian rather than a clever clogs.
Trailer seems to have been replaced?
I watched a very funny trailer from the movie this afternoon on MSN (quite a few times actually, it was good) but have gone back to show other half this evening and its replaced by the good, but less funny one, with the peroxide. Seems thats now the only clip available anywhere on the net. Where did the other one go?