By Jason Apuzzo. I am going to keep hounding Libertas’ readers until you go see Four Lions! (See my recent review of the film here.) Aint It Cool News’ Harry Knowles even raved about the film over the weekend. Here are the money quotes from his review:
I’m not real sure what I thought I was seeing with FOUR LIONS. I think in some ways I was expecting something more cartoonish, perhaps even bloody. What I wasn’t expecting was the most biting satire that I’ve seen since DR STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB …
I seriously have no idea why this film didn’t get picked up domestically before Tim League of the ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE had to create a distribution company just to distribute it, but man. Here in Austin, they’re gonna make some serious money with this thing.
The audience was laughing throughout and enjoyed the hell of it. It is incredibly smartly written.
Four Lions opened in select theaters nationwide on Friday. Check here to check when the film will be coming to your area.
***SPOILER ALERT***
The scene above is the one in which Omar and Waj, trying to destroy an American drone, accidentally blow up Osama bin Laden’s tent.
By Jason Apuzzo. Regular Libertas readers know that we’ve been raving about Mao’s Last Dancer for months (read the LFM review of the film here). This past weekend the LA Times did a nice new feature on the break-out success of the film at the indie box office – which has come particularly outside the big cities, and (predictably) without the help of the American critical establishment.
Despite a tough climate for specialty films, the largely English-language movie is nearing the $5 million mark in U.S. box office ($4.5 million coming into this weekend) — an impressive run that’s lasted nearly three months. More people have gone to see “Mao’s Last Dancer” than they have some much higher-profile, star-studded specialty films this year, including the Carey Mulligan-Keira Knightley dystopian drama “Never Let Me Go” and the Ben Stiller dramedy “Greenberg.”(The biggest stars in “Mao’s” are the the workaday actors Bruce Greenwood and Kyle MacLachlan; Li is played by the Chinese ballet dancer Chi Cao.)
The movie’s returns have also surpassed far more publicized films such as the social-media thriller “Catfish.”
“Mao’s” has done all this despite fading quickly in independent-film strongholds such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Instead, it has garnered the lion’s share of its audience in cities such as San Diego and St. Louis, where it continues to play, according to its distributor Samuel Goldwyn/ATO Pictures.
“It’s more of an audience film than a critic’s film,” said Michael Silberman, the president of distribution and marketing at IDP, the company that releases Goldwyn and ATO films. “Critics respond with their heads, but audiences respond with their hearts.”
Older audiences in particular have embraced the movie, Silberman and theater executives said, sparking to its redemptive story of a man who, through talent and determination, was able to defy and defeat a powerful government.
I’d just like to mention that the film works quite effectively if you have a head, as well, and not just a heart. (I’m a little uncomfortable granting film critics such a vital part of our anatomy.) In any case, do yourself a favor and go see this film! You’ll be glad you did.
Incidentally, you can read LFM Contributor Jennifer Baldwin’s review of the newly restored, ‘complete’ Metropolishere, and you can also read my long-ago review of the ‘original’ cut of Metropolishere.
SPECIAL NOTE: DON’T FORGET TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK AN HOUR TODAY.
[Editor’s Note: the review below is a revised and updated version of my Four Lionsreview from this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival.]
By Jason Apuzzo. Chris Morris’ scintillating new film Four Lions is so wickedly funny, shatters so many taboos, and is so brazen in its satire of Islamic terrorism – and the vacuous, Western political correctness that supports it – that it’s a wonder Morris isn’t in a witness protection program right now. Not that he would need to be protected from jihadis, whom I imagine spend little time watching indie cinema – but from the Western cultural establishment, whose protective covering over the lunacy of Islamic radicalism Morris rips away with comic gusto and flair in this marvelous new film that opens in select theaters nationwide today.
Four Lions was a big hit at last year’s Sundance and this summer’s L.A. Film Festival, and has already done killer business at the indie box office in the UK (it opened the same weekend as Iron Man 2, yet had a better per-screen average), yet after a long and successful tour of the festival circuit the film only recently secured distribution here in the U.S. from first-time distributor Drafthouse films. Having seen Four Lions during its much-discussed festival run, it’s not hard to understand why. This uproariously funny and sophisticated film, that had the audience at the L.A. Film Festival in hysterics from the opening scene on (Four Lions was eventually voted Best Narrative Feature by audiences at the LAFF), is nonetheless so subversive in its vision of Islamic terrorism – so thoroughly and mercilessly dismissive of any justification for terrorism – that by the end of the film any lingering shred of sympathy that might exist toward the terrorists’ point of view has simply been pulverized. Imagine starting up a heavy-metal band fresh off watching Spinal Tap, or becoming a French police officer after watching Peter Sellars play Inspector Clouseau, and you can imagine the kind of effect Four Lions must have on young Brits thinking of starting up a terror cell.
Four Lions is about a bumbling UK terror cell living in Sheffield. The two key leaders of the cell are Omar (Riz Ahmed) – the only reasonably sane or professional one in the group, around whom most of the film revolves – and Azzam al-Britanni (or ‘Barry’ to his friends, played with Falstaffian flair by Nigel Lindsay), who’s actually just an abrasive, working class white-guy convert to Islam. Nigel Lindsay’s portrayal of Azzam al-Britanni almost steals the whole show; the combination of belligerence and stupidity he brings to the character is pitch-perfect. Other guys in the terror cell include the sweet but utterly moronic Waj (Kayvan Novak), and Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) – a mumbling doofus who for some reason is convinced he can train crows to be suicide bombers. A fifth member of the group, Hassan (Arsher Ali), is a pretentious wanna-be rapper (his music conducts a ‘jihad of the mind’) who is recruited while Omar and Waj are in Pakistan botching their terrorist training.
Terrorists as total morons: Faisal in Chris Morris' "Four Lions."
The film follows the different members of the group as they struggle to conceal their activities, aided only by blind luck – and a kind of inane cunning – with the film climaxing in the terror cell’s effort to bomb the London Marathon. That last sequence in particular is a tour-de-force of action, comic-timing, suspense … and ultimately, great emotional power. Without giving away the film’s ending, let’s say simply that Four Lions does not pull punches about the full tragedy and inhumanity of terrorism. Indeed, much to the contrary, by the end of Four Lions one has the sense that the film’s manic humor has only been a ruse – a clever set-up – for what is actually a devastating and deeply moral payoff at the end.
What struck me the most about Four Lions was the intelligence and sophistication Chris Morris and his actors brought to this material. The trailer for the film (see above) captures the opera buffa aspects of Four Lions – but not necessarily the anarchic, Paddy Chayefskyian verve, insight and verbal wit of the film’s satire. Having made a film on this subject matter myself, I can tell you that Morris has accomplished no small feat in bringing out the sheer lunacy of the terrorist worldview – while keeping the tone light, and respecting the earthy humanity of the characters.
Check this clip out below for an example – it comes from one of my favorite scenes in the film, as rapper Hassan gets recruited by the completely insane Azzam al-Britanni while attending a ridiculous academic conference on jihad:
The inevitable question that films like Four Lions or The Infidel or Living with the Infidels or Kalifornistan always inspire is: is the film ‘humanizing’ terrorists? And the answer is, of course, yes … which is exactly what real-world terrorists, intoxicated with their self-image as divinely inspired warriors, never want. As we know only too well at this point, real-world terrorists do not consider themselves mere human beings … but jihadis, divinely inspired by Allah. This is the pompous bubble that Four Lions exists to pop. And pop it the film does, with the force of an atomic blast. Continue reading LFM Review: Four Lions as Cinematic Tea Party
The Free Thinking Film Festival is designed by its founder Fred Litwin to celebrate “limited government, free market economics, and the dignity of the individual.” We’re very honored that Kalifornistan was chosen to open the festival for its Opening Night Gala, an event which will also serve as a fundraiser for the Military Family Resource Centre – which helps military families in Canada. Tickets for this event are available here.
Other films in the festival lineup include: Cyrus Nowrasteh’s The Stoning of Soraya M (Closing Night Gala, with Cyrus attending), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others, Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn, HBO’s documentary For Neda (which we showed in its entirety here at Libertas) and a multitude of interesting documentaries including: Crossing the Line, Outside the Great Wall, Decryptage, The Cartel, Generation Zero, Do As I Say, Mine Your Own Business and others. The full festival line-up is available here.
We want to thank Fred Litwin and his team for choosing Kalifornistan to open the festival. We’re very honored to have Kalifornistan in the company of the many exceptional films and filmmakers being gathered together for this exciting event. I’ve put the trailer for Kalifornistan above, and you can visit Kalifornistan’s website here.
Again, our thanks to the Free Thinking Film Festival, and we encourage everyone to get their tickets for this great event today. The Free Thinking Film Festival will be taking place at the National Archives – adjacent to Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Canada. Incidentally, Govindini is a proud Ottawa native, and is delighted that free thinking films are coming to the fine citizens of Canada’s capitol.
By Jason Apuzzo. Now that the election is over, I thought it would be a good time to introduce a new feature here at Libertas that I’ve been contemplating for some time: Invasion Alerts!
As regular readers know, for the past several months we’ve been covering the massive new wave of politically-charged ‘alien invasion’ projects that will be unleashed on moviegoers over the next several years. This wave was just kicked off this past week with Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (see our review here), and will be continuing through next week’s Skyline, and is guaranteed to proceed at least through James Cameron’s second Avatar sequel, which is currently slated for 2015. There will be a lot of projects in between those dates – and some potentially gigantic ones even beyond 2015, although you’ll need to keep reading to find out more about those …
A poster for "Battle: Los Angeles."
Based on recent developments such as, for example, Roland Emmerich’s announcement from last week of his own alien invasion project, The Zone – and a multitude of other projects that we’ve already documented here – I’ve decided that there will be more than enough material coming out of this genre in coming days to warrant its own, special feature here at Libertas. So today, the day after the election, we’re going to kick off this feature with our first Invasion Alert!
Why link this feature to yesterday’s election, one might ask? In brief, because I think Hollywood – as well as the indie film scene – has been channeling a lot of the anxieties on display yesterday well in advance of the election. To put matters simply, the country currently feels like it’s under siege – like it’s being invaded – from forces on the outside (terrorism), and from within (political radicalism). And so it should come as no surprise that filmmakers as otherwise different as, say, Michael Bay and Tim Burton would currently be contemplating (or already shooting) alien invasion films of one kind or another.
But there’s another reason, as well: I think that explicitly ‘political’ cinema in America is currently dead – to the extent it was ever alive, to begin with. And so a lot of political ideas are getting channeled into mainstream science fiction.
Yet there’s more going on here than filmmakers simply resorting to the ‘safe’ medium of science fiction in order to make potentially controversial statements; indeed, I actually think science fiction films are currently ahead of the curve in predicting certain developments in our culture, rather than behind it.
From next week's "Skyline."
I say this because it seems to me that the really big changes coming in our society, changes much larger than what happened yesterday, haven’t really taken place yet … but are only going to happen once the Baby Boomers finally ease into their retirement, at which point a major reckoning is going to take place with respect to their legacy. That reckoning – which will have financial, cultural and even geo-political aspects to it – is unlikely to be pretty. This, in essence, is the major ‘revelation’ that I expect these new science fiction films to contain: that our American future is highly precarious, and fraught with perils not imagined since the 1930s.
I’ll have more to say about this in days ahead, but let’s get on with our alerts, shall we?
One final point: the fact that the most attractive women in the industry tend to work in this genre has absolutely nothing to do with my deciding to do these alerts. Nothing whatsoever. More or less.
New international poster for "Tron: Legacy."
• As you probably know by now, James Cameron has finally committed to his two Avatar sequels – likely to be shot simultaneously – which are now scheduled for release in 2014 and 2015, respectively. No surprises here, but this also effectively puts that Angelina Jolie 3D Cleopatra on hold (poor Cleopatra, scorned again!). Incidentally, if you’re interested in reading a review of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra biography – which the film would be based on – you can catch the Wall Street Journal’s review of the book here. I’m not really thrilled by Schiff’s approach, frankly. In other Cameron news, he may have found a director for his Fantastic Voyage remake – Louis Leterrier, who did the abysmal Clash of the Titans remake. That would be a horrible decision, after what that guy did to deface Ray Harryhausen’s classic.
• The J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg Super 8 has a release date: June 10th, 2011. Circle that date on your calendar, because that film should really be interesting. I’m expecting something like a nasty version of E.T.
• Skyline is coming out next week, and a bunch of clips have leaked on-line (see here and here). You can also hear an interview with the Strause brothers here. Interestingly, the movie is not being screened for critics. Does that guarantee that the film isn’t any good? No, but it likely means that the film’s word-of-mouth (which is generally good) probably can’t be improved any by getting the critics involved. We’ll know by next week …
Susan Oliver, from the original "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage."
• With Steven Spielberg having committed to doing Robocalypse, there’s some potential consternation at Dreamworks because Tim Burton may also be doing Monsterpocalypse there, as well. Robocalypse is about a massive robot uprising; Burton’s film (which he hasn’t yet committed to do) would involve robots being used to combat a massive alien invasion. My advice? Combine both stories into MonsterRobocalypto in which robots and aliens join forces to battle Mel Gibson – and release it as a video game.
• You can check out a new video interview with the cast of The Thinghere.
• Based on this current rumor, I’m betting that the new villains of the next Star Trek film are going to be … the Talosians, a cool and sinister alien race from the original Star Trek TV pilot The Cage of long ago … which would be a great choice, precisely for being so old-school. In any case, it does not look like Khan will be appearing, which is probably just as well, as we’ll be spared somebody trying (and failing) to duplicate what Ricardo Montalban did.
• Monsters’ Gareth Edwards talks here about his next project, which will be similarly sci-fi related; plus, he also does a new interview here about Monsters. Some people other than me are already commenting, by the way, on the obviousness of the politics in Monsters; Edwards’ political intentions for the film are quite obvious and on-the-nose, which is part of the film’s problem.
• The sci-fi project that’s currently everywhere, though, taking up all the oxygen in the room, is clearly Disney’s Tron. Daft Punk’s “Derezzed” music video just got released (see here), and there are 2 new clips (see here and here) and a new ad – all of which are revealing different aspects of the film … and none of which are relieving my concerns that the film is going to be vapid, if gorgeous to look at. Plus, some people have already seen 20 minutes of the film (the same 20 minutes that Disney is about to preview in 3D IMAX theaters) and are already expressing concerns that the film seems too dour in tone. I don’t know. I’m currently assuming that this film is going to be shiny on the outside, insipid on the inside. I’m hoping I’m wrong about that.
• AND I’VE SAVED THE BEST NEWS ITEM FOR LAST. This would, of course, be the ultimate rumor of all-time … if true: there’s some chatter that after all these years George Lucas may, indeed, be contemplating doing a third Star Wars trilogy, which would be set after the events of Return of the Jedi – but likely not involve the Skywalker family at all. [IESB, the source on this rumor, has been pretty good on these things.] The idea would apparently be to have the first film of this new trilogy ready for release sometime after Return of the Jedi 3D comes out, likely around 2015 or 2016. [Incidentally, there’s another hot rumor right now that the Indiana Jones series is about to be converted to 3D, as well.] As this current Star Wars rumor goes, George has apparently been energized by the success the Clone Wars animated series, the Star Wars video games and also the huge success of Avatar.
This rumor makes a certain amount of sense, and I’ll discuss this whole matter further in another Invasion Alert! down the line … If true this new trilogy could represent the topper of this whole genre.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … I thought we’d take a look at Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, in this photo (above) from the set of Michael Bay’s forthcoming alien invasion sequel, Transformers 3. Do the glasses work for you? They work for me. And from her badge, the pretty Ms. Whiteley (Megan Fox’s replacement in the new film) appears to work at The White House, which is currently under a different form of ‘invasion’ today – the kind involving angry Democrats who just received their pink slips …
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front.
