The Minority Rules

The year was 2002. Staying in on Saturday nights was all the rage. Britain was in the grip of reality television hysteria. The joy of watching people of humble origins become overnight sensations through democratic programming had made the possibility of becoming a celebrity a tangible reality for all of us regardless of looks, skills and discernable talents. Some television shows revelled in their lowbrow brilliance while others made more of an effort by purporting to be talent shows in the search of credible singers. The BBC had its Fame Academy which had an audience of two-dozen; the ITV had its Pop Idol which had an audience of everyone residing in the British Isles. By 2002 the success of Pop Idol had spawned a one-off spin-off show called Pop Stars: The Rivals, in which two gender distinct pop bands consisting of five elected members were borne. The girl band became the beloved Girls Aloud; the boy band went on to become something none of us can remember. It was survival of the fittest and the best band won. Girls Aloud become the biggest girl band in Britain because they had all the right elements. The people of Great Britain had exercised their democratic rights and voted for Nadine Coyle, Cheryl Cole, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh to form the principal components of this fantastic new musical movement. And in doing so the British people had decided to eliminate the bookies favourite, Javine Hylton- the only black contestant left in the show. ITV declared it to be a fair contest but others were not so permissive. People claimed the show had been rigged and that when they had dialled the number to vote for Javine Hylton they were rerouted to a recorded message thanking them for voting for fellow contestant, Sarah Harding. ITV denied any vote rigging and the matter was soon settled by Girls Aloud going on to an amazing pop career, while Javine Hylton became an ad-hoc 'z-list' celebrity appearing on any number of pedestrian reality television shows.

Most ethnic minorities have a pretty good life in Britain and are pleased they're not living in the times of their parents' when blatant racism was de facto. Britain's minority groups go by the notion that anything is achievable if they work for it and demonstrate the talent to excel. We are told Britain is a meritocratic society in which ability is king. That's what I thought until I watched Sunday night's X FACTOR: all my notions of meritocracy and talent going straight out of the window as Cheryl Cole eliminated every single black finalist from the under 25s female group of this year's show. This wouldn't be a big deal if the aspiring black contestants had been poor in comparison to their Caucasian competition, but they weren't. They were, by and large, really fucking good. The white girls, on the other hand, were really fucking shite, with Madonna wannabe- Katie Waissel, and favourite to win- Cher Lloyd, getting through to the live shows despite both of them forgetting their lyrics during the final audition. Cher Lloyd gave up during Sunday's show, transforming into a mumbling wreck when Cheryl Cole asked her to sing for her and guest judge, prick.i.am. The only finalist to have any trace of colour was Rebecca Ferguson, but she is mixed-race, thus ostensibly more palatable to Ms. Cole. Cheryl Cole's bizarre final choices meant the viewers' favourites, Gamu Nhengu, Anastasia Baker and Treyc Cohen, were totally fucked over. I scratched my head and so did thousands of others who have launched social networking sites proclaiming their loathing at the decision.

If something like this had happened in America then there'd probably be mass protests and all-out race rioting. There's a passivity to minority groups in Britain who are letting this slide when it really should be made into a big deal. I hate to say it, and may regret saying it, but what I saw on Sunday night seemed like abject racism. A kind of racism I abjure. What happened was not fair and totally wrong. Cheryl Cole has had a tough time of late with her marriage collapsing and suffering a bad bout of Malaria, but we all know these celebrity judges don't decide on whom the finalists' are- it's a bunch of executives calling the shots. Sure, Cheryl Cole did punch a black cloakroom attendant back in 2003 and allegedly called her a series of racist slurs, but I don't think the buck stops with her. Sure, prick.i.am is a black man who's been paid lots of money to pretend to be Cheryl Cole's friend and participate in selecting her finalists, but he doesn't really have any real say. This is a calculated move on the part of white, middle-class, largely male executives who know that the real support of middle-England will not be with women of colour.

Yes, Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke are ethnic girls who have won X Factor but their success came at a time when they were the only few black people to make the finals. Believe me, both Leona and Alexander were working 50-times harder than any other contestant on the show that year and were 100-times more talented than the competition. This year was the first time I have seen a pool of black contestants who were head and shoulders above the competition and were potentially perceived as a threat because the number of ethnic finalists may have usurped the more accessible white talent. Could there have been a fear that audiences outside of cosmopolitan areas- meaning pretty much everything outside of London- would have shunned the show if there were not more Caucasian contestants to root for? I hope not because that would be a totally depressing thought. For any black kid watching last week's X Factor, the institutional racism demonstrated by ITV was despicable. It's an insult to think that young black people won't be shocked by the decision because many of them have been vocal in their anger at the X Factor. This is coming at a time when despite record investment in inner-city state schools, black pupils are still significantly underachieving, with 55% of 14-year old black boys having a reading age of seven or less. The problem is getting so much worse that this month's Prospect magazine reports on how a group of black boys were taken to Jamaica for a summer science camp in order to expose them to university lecturers, doctors and sundry professionals who looked just like them, thus instilling a sense of inspiration sorely lacking in their birth country. It's not easy being a black person in Britain and the covert racism of ITV exemplifies that.

It seems ITV is perturbed by the claims of racism and the other black contestants that didn't make it through will be given the opportunity to compete in the live shows as part of a new 'wild card' feature. To me it looks like somebody is feeling rather guilty. But this isn't good enough because even if one of the talented black girls finally makes it on a tokenistic wild card then that still doesn't repair the overall damage perpetrated by ITV. I say fuck the X Factor. I'm boycotting the bastard this year and watching Strictly Come Dancing with Brucie instead. Then again, Brucie is the same tosser who defended Anton du Beke when he called his dancing partner Laila Rouass a "Paki" in last year's show. Fuck that old coot Brucie as well. Fuck British television. I'd rather read a book.

Why Is Everyone So In Love With This Book?

I hate reviewing things. If you're not a trained and paid journalist then it comes across as a pretentious exercise. Nonetheless, I was writing an e-mail to someone who lent me David Nicholls' One Day and a brief exchange of thoughts became something denser and it got me thinking just how a book- not a movie or album- can become a significant cultural force. Most people I know don't read books but there are certain novels that really manage to extend their reach. One Day is most definitely that rarity: not just a novel but a story that readers' become possessive about.

I thought One Day was very well written and special in its narrative style. It is a modern epic about life and love. By epic I don't just mean it's a story spanning three decades, I mean that it's hugely emotionally epic. It runs the gauntlet of emotional representations; from the dizzying heights to the soul destroying defeats encountered in young adulthood. David Nicholls has an absolute understanding of his leading characters- Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morely. They are characters he has thought through entirely. You never get the sense he's trying to figure out his characters in the actual writing process; he knows them and he's aware of the exact trajectory of their lives. In that sense he's an author who has an impeccable understanding of the human condition and the individualistic failure of real people.

This brings me on to the fact that although the writing is masterful, I don't think One Day is quite a masterpiece. I have major misgivings about the story. I think the innovative trick of structurally focusing on St. Swithin's Day over 20 years to tell the story is an interesting narrative device, but merely a device. The idea may have been to use 15^th July as a metaphorical light that glows intensely for 24 hours, the peripheries of this metaphorical light give shine on events of the previous 12 months. These giant ellipsis take a lot of getting used to and the author shoehorns too many implausible events into his strict time frame, which means you do at times struggle to suspend disbelief. I am also a critical of his depictions of Dexter and Emma. I feel that authors as clever as Nicholls should avoid cultural clichés such as people working in the media being personally and socially destructive while those in teaching being grounded and only marginally flawed. I am also of the belief that the story would have better resonance if it had been edited a little more judiciously. There are episodes that are tiresome and dragged out. I also thought the first 100 pages read like an episode of Friends. It's after this point the novel gets really good and remains really good till the last 50 pages which seemed less interesting than what had come before. I think the whole Dexter grieving thing became annoying and self-indulgent, though I'm willing to accept this may have been intentional. I also found both Dexter and Emma to be characters that are relatable and recognisable, but hard to admire. Once gain this may have been intentional. Still, having gone through this immensely immersive journey I think there is something inherently universal about the themes at play. Ultimately, it's a book about identifiable people and I suppose that makes this a story we can all relate to. Although I'm not entirely convinced by David Nicholls' take on love, he presents an image of fraught/ complex bonds that is hugely compelling. I guess there are many ways of loving someone and the love between these guys is so pure that it gets contaminated by their own emotional/ class/ intellectual repressions.

On the flipside, this is a novel packaged to be a bestseller. Nicholls is a fantastic storyteller and is giving the reader what they want. The emotional psychology of his characters is very matter-of-factly spelt out meaning it's not so much the reader who has to use their own emotional intelligence to try and figure where Emma and Dexter are emotively at. It's a novel that doesn't require work on the part of the reader other than to read what's written and empathise. There's hardly any moment where I was second-guessing if a character meant what they thought. I have found that the modern British way to sell stories is to make them rampantly safe and middle-class. I find this regressive as there was a time not long ago when writers like Alan Sillitoe and David Storey were writing great books about the emotional complexities of working people. They wrote stories that were seemingly parochial but travelled well internationally. That's not the case now as contemporary publishing in England has gotten as bad as the film and music industries in that everyone is looking for a safe bet. Sorry to say it, but One Day is a publisher's dream as it's a major safe bet, albeit a safe bet that's a good read.

I prefer the medium of cinema over any other. I realise that any producer worth their salt will jump on One Day because it's a very well told story with great characters and interesting situations. That's why Nina Jacobson optioned it immediately. The movie only finished shooting last week. Focus Features will release it this time next year and these are the first publicity stills released from the production. I know many British people don't like the casting of Anne Hathaway but I think she'll be brilliant. I'd hate to see Gemma Arterton or 'Ikea' Knightley play Emma Morely. None of those actresses can play believable 'everyday' characters whereas Anne Hathaway carries all her movies like an iron rod. I hope they keep Emma Morely's Yorkshire origins in tact because the North/ South divide is a major theme in the book. Then again after seeing Josh Hartnett's cringe-inducing rendition of a Yorkshire man in Blow-Dry I won't blame them if they decide to water down the character's provincialism. I'm more concerned about Lone Scherfig directing the film because I think she's dull and overrated. I thought An Education was a pretty looking film with some solid acting, but little else. I also hope they don't turn this into a high-concept romantic comedy and make a huge thing of the "One Day, Over Three Decades: Two People Find Love". One Day isn't corny but I feel a movie adaptation unintentionally may be.

The Social Headache

I know I've talked far too much about the genesis of David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Now that the movie is coming out in 2 weeks I'm pretty certain the film will be unable to measure up to the brilliance I've reserved for it in my head. Still, there are a few films coming out that are either about the phenomena of social networking like Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman's demented CATFISH (voted TIME magazine's most anticipated film of this autumn), or about landmark internet discoveries such as Groundswell Productions adaptation of Googled: The End of the World As We Know it. One of the most curious aspects about these movie treatments of geekdom is the casting opportunities it presents. I'm sure that Shawn Parker- former president of Facebook and co-founder of Napster- never thought that Justin Timberlake will be playing him in a major prestige film tipped for serious awards recognition. But that's exactly what has happened.

We're living in really interesting times and have been ever since the internet became a populist force 15 years ago. In that short time it's changed the lives of everyone and the means by which we access information, socialise and entertain ourselves. When Shawn Parker and Shawn Fanning developed Napster in 1999 we all discovered we were suddenly able to download every song in the world at absolutely no cost. Napster shook the music industry in a profound way; a way it really didn't see coming and has never recovered from. Despite a slow start, the last decade has seen entertainment industries fight tooth and nail to re-educate consumers to the virtues of paying for the music and movies they download. Their efforts have been earnest, desperate to try and reform a generation before they become accustomed to the notion of music being something you simply smash and grab. Feargal Sharkey has renounced his former life as an awkward punk from Derry who sang about wanking in his bedroom, to now spending his time excoriating Britain about the moral failings of downloading illegally. In his role as Head of UK Music, Sharkey has become the voice of a music industry attempting to save itself from extinction. Too bad none of them saw the launch of MULVE coming last weekend. Mulve is without a doubt the biggest threat to the music industry in a decade. Just when it thought things couldn't get much worse it's all gone totally tits-up. Mulve has emerged offering users millions of tracks to download for free. A Mulve representative said, "Without giving too much away, I can tell you that we are obviously not a P2P client and in fact we don't search open FTPs. Instead, we directly connect to a few other servers overseas (most probably in Russia) which store the music. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal which these are." Mulve allows users to search the web for a song and download it to their computer whilst staying completely anonymous. Mulve is never fully a part of your computer as once downloaded it stays in limbo where you can use it but nobody can track the fact you have it. The program is completely free. It has been tested for viruses and is an entirely innocuous application.

It's too early to tell what legacy Mulve will leave. (Producers are advised to hold off from optioning Mulve's life story just yet.) At a time when most internet phenomena's demand you to register and join their network of followers, Mulve requires no membership and has no sense of feigned community. It's almost as if the makers of Mulve have stuck two fingers up at everything most internet entrepreneurs are precious about. It's a breath of fresh air: a type of fresh air Feargal Sharkey must be choking on right now.

Pop Goes The Willow

Willow Smith is the 9-year old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Her brother is the 12-year old incipient action-star Jaden Smith- who starred in this summer's mega-hit remake of The Karate Kid. You've probably seen Willow Smith in I Am Legend in which she played the challenging role of Will Smith's daughter. It seems both Smith offspring's are channelling different aspects of their father's career as Willow Smith has signed with Jay-Z's Roc Nation music management company (British acts signed to Roc Nation are Ting Tings and Mark Ronson) and is releasing her new song WHIP MY HAIR BACK. Before anyone dismisses Willow's track as trite paedo-pop, I ask you to listen to it because it puts some of her more established R&B peers to total shame. The track is produced by neophyte music producer Jukebox, and was written by the 9-year old Willow (yes, an infant wrote it!). The beat is dope and balances tuneful ingenuity with kid-friendly melody. No matter how cynical you want to be about WHIP MY HAIR BACK, you have to give props to the kid.




While Willow Smith is not the first actor to become a recording artist, there are very few movie stars who manage to do it with aplomb. Russell Crowe in 30 Odd Foot in Grunts, Juliette Lewis in Juliette and the Licks, Dennis Quaid in Dennis Quaid and the Sharks and Keanu Reeves in Dogstar are examples of embarrassing musical vanity projects where the actors should never have given up their day jobs (not that they ever did). These bands are case studies in the arrogance of actors who conceitedly assume the public's adoration for them will materialise fruitfully when they put their capped talents to other creative ventures such as music. Thankfully, the public are not as dunce as what your average movie star presumes as none of the acts mentioned have anything more than a sycophantic niche following. None of us are thick enough to buy into bands coasting by on the celebrity status of one of its members, in doing so denying more deserving groups the chance to score record deals.

As much as I can't hack egotistical movie stars forming inane bands, there are some actors who kind of deserve their success in the music world. Johnny Depp wasn't always a film star whose international box-office so far exceeds $6 billon. No sir; Depp had originally come to Hollywood in search of a record deal after having spent his formative years playing in sundry garage bands in Owensboro, Kentucky. It was only after a chance meeting with Nicholas Cage, and the failure of his band Six Gun Method, that Depp decided to become an actor on 21 Jump Street. The rest is history. More recently I've been pleased to see Jared Leto's band 30 SECONDS TO MARS win Best Rock Video at last week's MTV Video Music Awards. This is not to imply I have any love for 30 SECONDS TO MARS' music or videos. In fact, I think they're a shite American pop band that makes even shitter music. But I do like Jared Leto. Just like Johnny Depp, Leto came to Hollywood in search of a record deal but to make ends meet fell into acting, playing Jordan Catalano in Winnie Holzman's stupendous 90s teen drama, My So-called Life. His pretty-boy looks meant he was never taken too seriously as an actor, nevertheless he went on to co-star in classic movies like Fight Club; Girl, Interrupted; Panic Room; Alexander; Requiem for a Dream and Lord of War. Each one of these movies was directed by greatly esteemed filmmakers who no doubt saw something special in Leto; yet still he has never been taken seriously as an actor. To put an end to this, Leto took on the role of infamous psychopath Mark Chapman in Jarrett Schaefer's 2007 dramatisation of John Lennon's murder, Chapter 27. In an injudicious demonstration of method acting gone wild, Leto gained 70 pounds to play Chapman by drinking liquidated pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil: daily. This was such a medically dangerous endeavour that Leto suddenly had to use a wheelchair due to the stress the sudden increase in weight put on his body. None of these sacrifices would have mattered if Chapter 27 had worked for Letto. Alas, the film was derided by audiences and critics alike. Sean Lennon went on record calling the film, "tacky." It seemed Leto had truly failed to shake off his handsome aesthetics; never being acknowledged as the seriously minded actor he is. None of this matters now as Leto's band has the momentum of a speed train. Last year's album This is War in the week of its release sold over 67,000 units in America and did pretty well in other territories too, having sold in excess of 100,000 copies in the UK. What's more, Leto's past experiences with great movie directors seems to have served him very well as he directs all of 30 SECONDS TO MARS' award-winning videos under the moniker of Bartholomew Cubbins.

So Willow Smith has any number of examples she can follow on her musical voyage to ultra-stardom. What will be surprising is if she follows Joaquin Phoenix's (who did give up his day job) example in I'm Still Here, meaning her whole hip-hop act is simply a meaningless charade designed to fool us all for no apparent purpose other than trying to make monkeys out of us. Casey Affleck- director of I'm Still Here and Joaquin Phoenix's brother-in-law- stated this week that Joaquin's reinvention as an urban artist was pure make-believe that duped the entire world. No it didn't. We just didn't care. Here's wishing Willow Smith better luck.

The Indians are coming

Picture yourself as a white middle-class British person with a passion for cinema. Better yet, picture yourself as a white middle-class British person who's so into cinema you're working in either film production or distribution. You're the smartass of the company and everyone you know considers you the motherfucking Oracle of cinema. All your colleagues defer to your judgement on everything to do with movies. You come into the office every Monday morning and log on to EDI to see what's done good business over the weekend at the UK box-office. Everything is always pretty much as you expected. You were right in your assessment of what movie would rule and what would flop. You've also even seen pretty much everything on the chart... but one film. It's a film with a funny sounding title that's come from nowhere and has the highest screen-average of anything in the charts. You go online to read up on this bastard film as you know you'll have to discuss what's been happening at the UK box-office in your company team meeting. You discover the funny sounding film is some Bollywood movie that's storming the nation, but you had no idea it even existed. You arrange to meet your token Asian pal Deepak (although you've anglicised his fucking name to 'Deeps' because, he too, is more comfortable with it that way) and arrange to meet for drinks that evening. Deeps and you hook up and you ask him about this pesky Indian flick. It's at this point you realise that Deeps is as clueless and middle-class as what you are. Since Deeps started dating some white chick called Audrey who works as an assistant to a talent agent, he's pretty much shunned anything that isn't bland. This is a problem for you. You need to find out- not just assume- why these Indian movies are catching you by surprise. You ask me to investigate.

It seems that every week sees a new Bollywood movie come crashing into the box-office and then fade away just as fast. Indian cinema's international profile is booming right now and the movies it's producing are earning big money. It's not uncommon to see Indian titles sitting comfortably in the UK, US and Australian box-offices. Exclusive Indian film distributors like Eros and Yash Raj have global offices in all important markets and the multiplexes are riddled with Bollywood fare. In an earlier post I talked about how KITES was the first ever Indian movie to crack the US Top 10 Equally, last week saw I HATE LUV STORYS (sic) oust more expensive Hollywood blockbusters and nest comfortably in the UK Top 5. These movies may attract a significant audience, but that audience often comprises exclusively of Indian sub-continental diasporas. In recent years the Hindustani film industry has been very focused on the international market. Despite big-budget Bollywood movies like VEER, RAAVAN, KITES and BLUE struggling to succeed in India, they have done rather well internationally. The bone of contention for the Indian film industry is how to fully maximise profits by getting white folks to take their films seriously. Studios like Sony (Saawariya), Disney (Roadside Romeo), Fox (My Name is Khan) and Warner Bros. (Chandni Chowk to China) have made pathways into investing in Indian films, often with inauspicious results. The Indian film industry has attempted to appease Western palates; whitewashing the ethnic strength of their films by giving them Western hybrid sounding titles (God Tussi Great Ho, Jab we Met, Singh is King). I suppose the greatest obstacles preventing mainstream crossover for Bollywood movies is largely due to their odd nature. Bollywood makes movies marred by superficial content and hyperbolic sentiment. There is never really any intelligent subtext or sophistication to them other than intoxicating production values. They're mostly unreal stories, and the notion of characters breaking into random song is simply weird. Indian films have tried to shorten their intimidating running-time, but that's still not been good enough. To top it all, Bollywood movies are rampantly camp and a suspension-of-disbelief is hard to develop when watching them.

I suppose what really matters is that Indian films are making a lot of money overseas and have a lucrative following known for spending money on movies. It's totally understandable why American studios want to get in on the act. The recent success of Indian themed movies has spurred many into taking the whole thing very seriously. What is all the more surprising is that the real crossover Indian themed films of recent times have not been written nor directed by personnel of Indian lineage. Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire and Chris Morris' Four Lions are films about the Asian cultural experience, but made by white middle-class men. Both of these films have been massive successes and as a result the bar for these kinds of pictures is now set very high. There was a time when Gurinder Chadha could get away with making insipid ethnic comedies that play to the lowest denominator, but her last film It's a Wonderful Afterlife died on arrival. Filmfour is pressing ahead with their pointless sequel to East is East but it's questionable whether there's still a sizable audience for it. Britain has a big Asian market and one that is known to adore Bollywood films. The key is producing films that stretch beyond the perceived core audience. There are innumerable UK film producers wanting to strike it rich with Asian audiences, but they need to craft great original stories that are inclusive of the Asian experience; not just ethnic for the sake of making money. There is the underlining danger of commissioning executives expecting too much too soon from the Asian market. That's already happened in radio with BBC Radio 1 ghettoising their once primetime Asian music show, and now announcing they're shutting down the BBC Asian Network because of competition from other Asian themed stations. (Why the same argument can't be applied to closing BBC Radio 6 is baffling as there are as many 'white boys with guitars' radio stations out there competing with it.)

The real question here is can Bollywood movies actually crossover into the Western mainstream? Maybe it can, but not without multilateral thinking. I get the feeling Indian filmmakers are assuming they know what will click with Western audiences, but falling short. Likewise, producers in Britain seem to be over-embracing the zeitgeist and rushing to make silly films about caricature Indians and their cute idiosyncrasies. For me, the project to keep an eye on is Danny Boyle's BOMBAY VELVET (a thriller set in the 1940s and based on real criminal incidents that occurred in Bombay), which the former will produce and Anurag Kashyap will direct. Boyle has been taking his role on this film very seriously and has been commuting twixt London and Mumbai; successfully negotiating the involvement of leading-man Aamir Khan. Boyle's commitment to creating quality Anglo-Indian movies is further exemplified by him optioning Suketu Mehta's Mumbai set non-fiction book MAXIMUM CITY. If anything, to create successful crossover films the two industries- East and West- have to truly inspire one another, collectively. There can't be any second-guessing about whose vision is superior. It must be a combined prediction focused on creating universal stories: not just superfluous marketing exercises destined for failure.

Fincher for President

Gus Van Sant has a new film called RESTLESS coming out in which Mia Wasikowska plays a terminally ill girl who falls for a boy who attends funerals for fun and one day they both encounter the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot from World War 2. It sounds like a tough sell and one that distributor Columbia Pictures is not entirely sure how to market. Regardless of how RESTLESS has turned out, it seems Gus Van Sant's follow up to the Academy Award winning Milk should have been released within the next 3 months so that it can be considered for Oscar contention. Not so. RESTLESS will be dumped in American cinemas on 28th January, 2011. This means it will miss out on the prestige picture shebang and awards season race. It seems rather harsh treatment for a guy whose last movie was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, of which it won 2. RESTLESS cost $15 million to produce, not expensive but not necessarily cheap either. No matter how esoteric the actual movie is, one still would've thought Columbia Pictures may try and cash in on the success of Milk by giving RESTLESS a 2010 release. Then again, Columbia Pictures has their award movie in the bag as David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK is out 1st October, 2010 (15th October, 2010 in the UK) and reports are Amy Pascal (Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc, and listed as number 1 on the 15th annual Women in Entertainment Power 100 list) is so convinced by the brilliance of Fincher's new masterpiece that she's ploughing all her awards marketing muscle into it. The only other Sony release vying for awards recognition is perhaps Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's THE TOURIST, but that film hasn't got the momentum of Fincher behind it.

David Fincher is arguably the most prolific youngish Hollywood filmmaker making movies right now. His films are made, marketed and seen on strength of his name alone. Sony is so in awe of his work on THE SOCIAL NETWORK that they've tapped the filmmaker to helm their remake of Stieg Larsson's GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, to be released Christmas of next year and starring Rooney Mara as the infamous Lisbeth Salander. Rooney Mara is one of the main actresses in THE SOCIAL NETWORK and was cast at Fincher's insistence, that despite the studio wanting everyone from Carey Mulligan to Keira Knightley for the role of Lisbeth Salander. That's not all as Andrew Garfield, who plays Eduardo Saverin in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, has been cast as Peter Parker in Columbia Pictures' SPIDERMAN REBOOT, even though the studio was screen-testing everyone from Josh Hutcherson to Jamie Bell for the part. It seems Garfield's potentially award-winning turn in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and Fincher's recommendation, finally clinched it for him. Fincher is a cinematic god right now. This is evinced by today's report in the Hollywood Reporter that states Media Rights Capital is negotiating with Fincher to produce movies under his own signature. Details are sparse at the moment as they've yet to actually put ink to paper, but it looks like Fincher will get to put his own spin on at least two films as part of the deal. MRC has done a similar deal with M. Night Shyamalan to develop and oversee a series of supernatural movies under his moniker: Night Chronicles; the first in the series is John Erick Dowdle's DEVIL which is released today, and will be followed by Daniel Stamm's REINCARNATE next year. The best news about all this is that Fincher's MRC films could be similar in tone to his famed thrillers like Seven, Panic Room and Zodiac. MRC is heading for deep, dark, and downright creepy projects. If this is any indication of their direction for the Fincher deal, we could be looking at his departure from drama and a welcome return to the reprehensible. It's exactly the kind of movies we need right now.

At a time when first-dollar gross movie stars are struggling to open movies, the burgeoning proliferation of savvy movie audiences are watching films based on directorial talent associated with pictures. This summer's Inception was mainly marketed on Christopher Nolan's name and less on DiCaprio's involvement. Inception worked wonders for Warner Bros. There are a crop of filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Timur Bekmambetov who could equally generate branded film concepts like the current MRC deal with Fincher. These films will hopefully be talent driven. It's a good thing because it's putting power back into the hands of the creative minds that make great movies and not on some vanity driven movie star or money obsessed Hollywood producer.

Hammering it Home

There's Panic on the streets of Carlisle; Dublin, Dundee, Humberside: and especially at the London HQ of Hammer Films who are bracing themselves for their first movie release in over 30 years, Matt Reeves' LET ME IN- released October 1^st, 2010 in the US and 5^th November, 2010 in the UK. LET ME IN is the English language adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's Swedish vampire novel Let the Right One In, originally made into a highly acclaimed 2008 Swedish film of the same name by filmmaker Tomas Alfredson. Lindqvist's love of The Smiths and Morrissey is peppered throughout his literary work, hence the initial title (and my clever opening), but the American remake has simplified things by keeping its title short in effort to make the movie more ominous and less arty. The aim is to capitalise on the young folks' love of all things vampires and deliver a box-office hit for Hammer Films that establishes them as a newish force in horror. LET ME IN was screened at last week's Toronto International Film Festival 2010 as the opening night movie of Fantastic Fest. Early reviews in the trades have been rather brilliant, but the internet reviews from younger film critics on movie websites has been less appreciative. That's worrying when one considers that Hammer Films will need the support of these guys in order to drum up excitement for the film. After all, American film critics were supper supportive of Alexandre Aja's remake of Piranha 3D last month and that film topped out with little more than $24 million at the US box office, barely enough to cover its production costs.

 

Hammer Horror started in 1934 by comedian William Hinds and found its stride in 1955 with the production of gothic horror movies based upon classic myths. Many of these stories had already been made in the 30s and 40s by Universal Pictures but Hammer Horror gave these old tales a distinct tone, upping the sexual quota with buxom titillation and subtly heightening themes of social unease between the rich and poor. Hammer Horror also had a uniquely sumptuous visual aesthetic, the likes of which greatly inspired India's Ramsay Bros. horror movies, and more recently Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Hammer movies were very British and travelled well internationally, especially in America where the Hammer Horror films were distributed thorough Warner Bros. (Universal Pictures were not interested in partnering with Hammer). Hammer was on a winning streak, cranking out classic after classic; that is until the 1970s when big-budget horror movies like The Exorcist and The Omen revolutionised the genre. Lower budget American horror movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween brought a grittier feel to horror content, debasing Hammer Horror. Hammer upped the tits and blood content of their luridly gothic horror films but they still seemed off-kilter with the new horror wave that now set its stories in the real world, not vicariously vintage Europe. Hammer tried to get hip with the kids, releasing Dracula A.D. 1972, where the eponymous vampire stalks the streets of trendy London, disco-dancing with groovy young bastards before sucking them dry. Hammer went bankrupt, both financially and creatively. By 1979, Hammer Horror was no more than a great legacy in British cinema. That is until the Noughties when private equity companies and savvy media capitalists like Simon Oakes of Exclusive Media Group decided to resurrect the Hammer corpse in order to generate some money off of its brand recognition.

 

Simon Oakes' re-launch of Hammer Films at once seems honourable yet cynical. For a British horror shingle, it's disappointing their first releases will be American set horror films. THE RESIDENT (ironically filmed before LET ME IN but still awaiting release), which stars Hilary Swank and Hammer icon Sir Christopher Lee, is a New York based psychological thriller. However, Hammer Films announced last month the all-British production of THE WOMAN IN BLACK, starring Daniel Radcliffe, to be released next year. Oakes also confirmed in this month's Empire that Hammer Films has ambitions beyond horror and will launch new intellectual properties via live theatre, television, internet, comics and novels. He also claims the ongoing development for remakes of Hammer's CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPIRE HUNTER and THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES (the original being a fun but shameless attempt to cash in on the Shaw Bros. kung-fu craze of the 1970s: it failed badly). News of Hammer remakes seems odd when Oakes has stated: "I always felt we had to prove ourselves with new movies rather than mine the back catalogue". With the exception of THE RESIDENT, all upcoming Hammer releases and development projects are remakes. Much like the new Ealing Studios, Hammer Films may just crank out irrelevant genre movies and perfunctory remakes that will hardly make the type of impact their predecessors made. It's a shame because Hammer Films has a real opportunity to try and kick-start the genre by finding projects that will rejuvenate horror. Audience appetites are cyclical and once this generation of youngsters is usurped by a kids who aren't going to understand their elder siblings' penchant for 3D street-dancing movies, they'll no doubt return to horror films, but a new type of horror film, one that's yet to be hatched. This is where Hammer Films can really come into its own by sourcing visionary young talent that really understands and loves horror; talent that wants to bring something totally innovative to the table. The truth is that although LET ME IN may be a commendable horror remake, it does look a tad dull and may struggle to outmatch PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 and SAW 3D, both due out next month. The Hammer Films brand means nothing to average audiences and by engaging in a series of unwanted remakes and producing tedious American horror films, it may have dug its own proverbial coffin before it's even had a chance to breathe properly.