This is the Neeewwwws

How refreshing, to come into contact with your heroes and not have to endure the metaphorical equivalent of a custard pie in the face. I had spoken to a few journalists before the appearance of Chris Morris at the Bradford International Film Festival on Thursday who had told me that, in the past and on numerous occasions, Morris was a loose canon in interviews, unpredictable. The rumour was that Morris wouldn’t even attend the festival as himself, instead donning the costume of a middle aged woman and conducting the whole ceremony in character. Absurd, yes, but not completely beyond the realms of possibility. This is the same man who sabotaged his own career at BBC Radio Bristol by pumping helium into the newsroom.

Morris was in town for the UK premiere of his new and fairly unique jihadist comedy Four Lions, and upon arriving on the red carpet, I bump into friends Larry and Paul, who have their own show on the commercial Leeds station Radio Aire. (Larry, incidentally, was half way through a 24 hour charity broadcast at the time for Magic, designed to raise money for the station’s Cash for Kids foundation, and his ability to be coherent after such a length of time without sleep is truly commendable, especially considering that most of this time was being spent live on air). We quickly run through a few questions to ask Morris, the most obvious ones being, “What is the letter of the law?” and, one of my favourites, “Do you think people spend too long saying things?”

Of course that kind of behaviour (ie. quoting ‘The Day Today’) would really piss you off after a while, which is no wonder why Morris is rarely seen giving interviews. Actually, let’s rephrase that, he’s rarely seen at all. Which is why the prospect of 15 minutes, one to one, with the man himself seemed unlikely. And it was, because the interview was cancelled, and we ended up loitering on the red carpet like scornful lovers after being stood up on a date.

But Morris did appear, both to introduce the film and for an interview at the end of the screening. The film is pure farce, as hilariously acerbic and on-the-button as Morris’ most potent work, even if it’s bumbling bombers plot does slightly confuse itself between actually making a point and relentlessly hammering at your funny bone. Morris was erudite, funny and intelligent when it came to explaining the movie, merely feet away from my seat on the front row. Does he feel that the film is an insult is Islam? “I would like someone who actually thinks that to ask me that question.” Could the Americans get away with making a comedy about terrorism? “They have. Did you not see United 93?” Is it right to make a comedy about something so real as home grown Islamic fundamentalism? In preparation for answering this one, Morris met relatives of the victims of the 7/7 bombings (of which the film is most closely associated, from the homemade bombs to the northern accents) and discovered that, of the few he did meet, overall consensus was one of apathy, just “as long as it’s done well.”

I have written a more detailed review here for Leeds Guide magazine (http://www.leedsguide.co.uk/review/film-review/four-lions/14035), but suffice to say that the film went down a treat in Bradford. Watching it with a mostly Asian audience (the screening included a break for pray, which is the first time I have experienced this in a cinema), the film is broad and far from a slight against Islam: in fact, I would go so far to say that I’m yet to see a more accurate, detailed look at what it must be like to be a young, disaffected, second generation British Muslim living in the UK today. It’s as relevant as East is East, and a lot funnier.

The knives will be out for Morris (again) over this one - mostly by those folks who haven’t actually seen it yet - but you have to commend him on being brave enough to have even made the film in the first place. He seemed humbled when facing his audience, and in case you’re wondering, no, he wasn’t in drag: a mop of curly hair, skinny jeans and worker boots make him look evidently more fashionable than most men approaching 50, especially when fellow script writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong join him on stage, both formidable comedic talents, but practically crusty by comparison.


I don’t think I’ll be spending money to read the rest of the content on the Times website; the BBC and Guardian tend to be my personal favourites, and they’re free. For the time being, of course, unless Murdoch gets his own way which, as we know, he normally does. After all, we’ll be seeing the BBC limit their online funding by 25% in the next few years, thus purposely downgrading their service for reasons that seem ultimately quite baffling: is it to pre-empt and tally favour with a new government who will probably hit the license fee pretty hard when they come to power? Or perhaps it really is to do with the Beeb’s current monopolising of the market, thus making it unfair for private companies and competition to flourish in a rapidly commercialised broadband environment? If the comment and analysis that you find in the Times is your favourite source of journalistic nourishment, then why shouldn’t you pay for it, like you would a newspaper?

With newspapers now being handed out on street corners, the idea of the so-called ‘fourth estate’ being as viable a business as it once was has become a nonsense, it is a false economy, and who can blame those media men for trying to find a quick buck in the millions that have already been lost. Which is why the Times, I fear, is only the first in a long line of websites that will start to charge for their content, and this could indelibly alter the way we read and interpret the news in the future.

Of course if I started charging for these Toxic Math updates, just think of the routes of expansion open to me on the web today: regularly updated newsletters to always keep you in the loop, instant messaging to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. I’m sure my advertisers could slip in discounted products and giveaways for my most valued customers. But then you’ll probably delete my iPhone app when you get a bit bored and something better comes along, like a virtual online toilet which allows you to take a piss so you don’t have to physically use the bathroom anymore, or something. We‘re a fickle lot these days, and therein lies the problem - just ask Bebo, just ask Yahoo, just ask MySpace, still ploughing on but usurped by things that we hold with a much greater short term value.


I thought this was a nice story to follow on from my blog a few weeks back regarding Mother’s Day, and the film Motherhood starring Uma Thurman, which appears to have only made £88 in its opening weekend. Of course, there are numerous reasons for why something like this could have happened, far above and beyond a film just being really, really bad - because Motherhood isn’t actually that bad at all, and I know this because I appear to be have been one of only a handful of people in the country to have seen it. The marketing for it was misleading, focusing more on the knockabout comedic elements of the movie and the chaos of controlling pesky children rather than the more introspective look of a young career woman struggling to find purpose within the traditional family unit. That’s what they should have done, and I guess only sending it to a few selected Apollo cinemas didn’t help much either. Anyway, here’s the link, read and LOL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/26/uma-thurman-motherhood-flop