Content, Themes And The Dream Factory

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recall part of George Michael's original spat with Sony Music was triggered by his sense of deep outrage at their insistence on referring to his music, his creative output, as 'content'. Railing against what he considered to be this most egregious phrase, our George was clearly onto a loser from the get-go.

Never a great movie buff, I have not disgraced a cinema in many a year, I prefer to watch my films on EK on the basis that a) I wasn't doing anything else for those 120 minutes, just sitting in an aluminium tube five miles up in the stratosphere breathing the foetid air expelled by some 500-odd other carbon-based lifeforms b) it's not costing me Dhs35 c) I can switch off (if not walk out) any time I want. This arrangement suits me fine, given that 99% of the films on offer on Emirates' impressive ICE entertainment system are clearly total drivel. The other 1% turn out to be mostly drivel on viewing. This is not, I hasten to add, because Emirates offers anything other than the brightest, spangliest, newest films out there. Rather, I suspect, it is precisely because they do.

On the flight to Blighty last year, I watched Guy Ritchie's 'Man From UNCLE', which was a stylish, if obvious and stilted, pastiche. There were many visual treats on offer, some annoying split-frame sequences and a exhilarating lack of intelligence, plot, wit and dialogue. This didn't stop the film from being mildly entertaining, a little in the spirit of an indulgent uncle finding the clunky piano playing of a favourite niece entertaining. I must hasten to add that I do not have a piano playing niece. Drums, yes, but the ivories have so far been thankfully untinkled.

I also watched 'Bridge of Spies', a Spielberg classic in which Tom Hanks plays Tom Hanks brilliantly. Mark Rylance puts in a wonderfully understated performance as Scottish-accented Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. There are some obvious bits that make you writhe in your expensive seat and threaten to upset your tray-table, but otherwise the film is a fine entertainment that underscores the obvious fact that our system was so much better than their system and we should Be Thankful For Our Great Democracy and the values we represent which are so much more fundamentally good than the other side's. It takes, of course, Tom Hanks' great humanity to bring this point home because our guys in authority insist on behaving in the same way as their guys  in authority. But I cavil - the film is well worth watching.

On the flight back I was horrified to find, despite it being not only a new month but a new year, the film selection hadn't changed. Having watched the only two films in the whole 70 million item catalogue that didn't look woeful, I was reduced to the prospect of spending eight hours staring at seat back, talking to my wife or something even more terrible. The comedy channel on ICE, incidentally, features no comedy whatsoever unless you are a protozoic life form whose brain has been replaced by expanding foam and who considers the very zenith of humour to be 'Family Guy'. And there's no 'Top Gear', of course. Damn. Not, you understand, that I consider Top Gear to be the best thing since sliced Hovis. It just gives gentlemen of my age hope that they could become rich and famous even this late in the game.

Reduced to sheer desperation, I watched 'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials'. It might not be called this, but I can't be bothered to Google the title. I'm probably better off not wasting your time in describing the film much at all, really, other than to note that it's utterly shite on every level. There's a great deal of running around, peppered by people shouting 'Come on' and 'Hurry' frequently. There are swathes of rubbishy CGI victims of a virus who have been turned into zombies who screech and vomit black ink for some reason. The love interest looks like an anthropomorphic egg with a wig on and the baddies are called WICKED in case you didn't know they were really bad. I made it through to the end and sat back feeling guilty and abused, a little like that feeling you get when you've eaten a Big Mac.

I tried to watch Mr Holmes, which is about Sherlock Holmes as an old person. He's played by Ian McKellen, who looks a lot like a benign alcoholic tortoise with a very big nose. He's got dementia, which was last years' Great Theme for the entertainment industry. If you'd written a book back then about someone who can't remember things and thinks family members are there when they're not, you'd be quids in, mate. The film starts with a small boy mistaking a wasp for a bee, much to McKellen's dislike as Retired Holmes is, we find out quickly, a bee-keeper. I got to the third episode of forgetfulness and switched off, trying not to feel self-importantly angry because my father died of dementia and I didn't like to see it trivialised. I failed in this.

I also tried to watch 'Mad Max: Fury Road', which didn't go so well. I'm embarrassed to tell you I watched the original Mad Max as a teenager and loved it. It was the film wot launched Mel Gibson's career, a low-budget Australian sci-fi effort which went what I suppose we'd call viral today. Looking back at the original, it's amazing how much impact it had at the time, because it's incredibly clunky and low-key. But I recall how mad and, well, just 'out there' it was. The sequel was equally brilliant, adding a huge amount of pizzaz to the dystopian style of the original. By the time Tina Turna pitched, I'd fallen off the bus: style had eclipsed content and the whole point about the original Mad Max is it was a brilliantly and stylishly told story of brutality and revenge, not just a collection of shinies trotted out like a dumb game show's glittering prizes.

Fury Road isn't even that. It's just lazy, woeful pants. The trouble is, for a work of imagination ('content') to turn into something wonderful, it needs to be anchored in reason. Even dystopia needs reason - the trick, ask William Gibson, is to warp the reason and build tottering towers of suspended disbelief on that twisted logic. There was no reason on offer in this film, just a lazy freak show that reminded me more of Duffo than Gibson's vengeful cop. I got as far as the flying car with four drummers on the back and a CGI bloke playing a flame-shooting flying V on the front bumper before switching off. I was amazed, in retrospect, at my staying power.

I tried not to let myself be plunged into black depression. Looking out at the dawning sun over the dark cloud, I was in awe. So this is the best the Dream Factory can conjure up? The greatest stories mankind can tell itself? It likely is. It's probably my fault. I'm clearly out of step with everyone else.

Thank God for the Kindle. That's all I can say...

Diana And Downfall

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hadn't realised this, mostly because I'm not really into films to the point where I only ever watch them when I'm flying Emirates, but the new and critically panned film Diana which was premiered last Thursday, was directed by none other than Oliver Hirschbiegel. Here's the trailer.

Oliver Whowhatable? German film director Oliver Hirschbiegel is perhaps best known as the genius who gave us Downfall, the film that spawned the meme that is 'Hitler finds out about...'.

You'll likely remember the meme even if you haven't seen the whole film. Hitler raves at his closest aides, racked by Parkinsons, bitter, furious and clearly already defeated. The gag is that it's in German, so all you have to do is add funny subtitles and you've got a hilarious backdrop for dialogues such as Hitler finds out there's no camera in the iPod Touch or the monumental (over 8 million views) Hitler finds his XBox Live account has been terminated. The meme takes us to Hitler's reaction that Twitter is down and, of course, his reaction to the iPad. There's even the rather chucklesome Hitler is fed up with all the Hitler rants.

Someone somewhere is going to get a thesis, by the way, out of the fact that every single one of these have awful spelling or grammatical errors in the subtitles. The Internet, it would seem is highly amusing but woefully illiterate.

It's perhaps a testament to the power of actor Bruno Gantz's portrayal of Hitler and the realism of this rant scene that the meme has run like this - in fact, the studio tried to stem the tide of parodies with a takedown attempt, but in the end you can't turn back the sea. There are hundreds of the things out there, more still - over three years later - being added every day with each new event that someone, somewhere cares about enough to slap a few subtitles on that little piece of film history. Some of the best, original clips succumbed to the takedown. Many are, of course, merely lame. But they generally still have the power to bring a grin to your face.

Much of the humour comes from the fact this man is the most reviled figure in human history. The idea that he wants to tweet about his dog dying, that the AT&T network's no good or any of this stuff is part of its brilliance. But it's the best thing to do to evil, really: laugh at it, no?

So now Hirschbiegel has created a film about Diana which the critics have queued up to have a pop at. The Guardian's reviewer noted that sixteen years after that car crash, Diana has died a second awful death and the gag, albeit a tad obvious and even mildly obnoxious, neatly sums up London's reaction to the film.

I can't wait, personally. I can't wait for the parodies to start. I wonder if they'll have German subtitles?

Meanwhile, do feel free to share links to any notable 'Hitler rants' in the comments!

From Dubai to Moscow

 (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Could this be the story of the making of the worst film of the year? Those long in the tooth may remember I posted in 2007 and again in 2009 about a film script called 'Dubai', written by 'tyro' writer Adam Cozad and duly sold to Paramount.

A copy of the script was posted online but has now, tragically, been taken down. As I pointed out back in 2009, when it became clear that the GFC meant 'Dubai' was DOA, it was a slab of utter crap layered with some more crap and sprinkled with crappy hundreds and thousands. Written by a man who had not only never been to Dubai but wouldn't know Dubai from a pickled wombat if it hit him in the back of the neck, it trotted out every tired, vapid cliche in the book and complemented these with some woeful silliness, racism and a nice dose of unbelievable stupidity.

You might think I'm going overboard here. Trust me, I'm being kind. As I said back in 2009:

We are introduced to our hero in a shot where he is playing his regular game of tennis with his gorgeous wife. The camera pulls back to reveal that the game is taking place on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab. The whole thing goes downhill from that low point with such pace that it's like being on a theme park 'drop' ride.

 It now appears that 'Dubai' spent a couple of years in a cupboard somewhere at Paramount before someone realised they'd wasted real money buying the unlovely turd-like thing and decided to use it as the script to relaunch the Jack Ryan franchise. And so 'Dubai' became 'Moscow', with a number of writers, including ('briefly' according to Slash Film) Cozad hired to rework the script into, presumably, something at least viewable by mentally retarded macaques - a major task if the script that was 'Dubai' was to be polished to gleam like true Hollywood gold.

It remains to be seen if the film will open on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab or perhaps a game of tennis in Red Square. Will there be a snowy dacha and a sexy vodka love scene on a bearskin rug in front of a open fire? A skating scene with perhaps someone dying under the ice? There's bound to be at least one sauna/steam bath scene. And, of course, lots of gangsters and oligarchs. Will the idiotically helpful Sikh crane driver make it through?

It almost makes the whole thing worth watching. Not.

(Thanks to an eagle-eyed pal Talal who spotted the 'Moscow' news and my old post and put two and two together)

Kidon - You're Kidding!

Nightscape of the high-rise section of Dubai, Unitd Arab Emirates. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the facts of a matter are uncomfortable, you can always give them the Hollywood treatment.

7Days reports today on the making of a new film set in Dubai, called 'Kidon'. The film is a fictionalisation of the events around the now infamous 'hit' on Hamas' Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, carried out in Dubai by a large team of Israeli intelligence operatives using third country passports.

Mossad got caught with its pants truly down by Dubai police, which operates a large and sophisticated camera network - from the second you land to the moment you leave here, you're under some sort of surveillance, as the boys and girls from Tel Aviv found when their fake identities were compromised following Mabhouh's extra-judicial murder. Dubai police amassed almost 650 hours of footage as it tracked the movement of the gang. This caused a great deal of embarrassment to Israel, which had previously undertaken to stop using third country passports - of the 29 suspects Dubai Police identified, 12 had British, six Irish and four Australian passports. All three countries subsequently expelled Israeli diplomats. In the case of the British passports, all were found to belong to Israeli residents with dual nationality. In all, a great deal of information was unearthed about Mossad's operations (including the payment systems they used), much of which we must assume has been kept private and quietly used as currency between various agencies.

And so now we have 'Kidon', an Israeli-French film by Emmanuel Naccache which will dramatise the killing of Mabhouh, including the interesting plot twist that he wasn't actually killed by Mossad but by a 'small time gang' which is attempting to frame Mossad. Kidon (Hebrew for bayonet) is the name of Mossad's assassination and kidnap arm.

Neatly, the plot twist maintains that precious 'purity of arms'. At the same time, the story's also been changed to have Al Mabhouh lured to his end by a seductress. So he gets nicely smeared, too. In fact, as the film (which is set post-hit) unfolds, we find that Mossad was completely innocent and the shadowy forces behind the gang that actually carried out the operation are... Iranian.

The film, tellingly, is not being shot in Dubai. Oh, no. It's being shot in Eilat with an all-Israeli cast. So you can expect lots of fake sheikhs, idiotic Arabs and camel-riding caricatures. And, most wonderful of all, it's a comedy. About a murder. Nice.

Wedding Night

Sabina England, or Deaf Brown Trash Punk as some will know her, is a colourful character at the best of times. I first met her on authonomy where her entrance, characteristically led by a greeting laced with the 'C' word, caused outrage amongst the serried ranks of tank-top wearing literary aspirants. Her book, 'Brown Trash' was a stunning read - fresh, challenging and with so much voice you'd want to cover your ears to block out its strident call. If you did, you'd get a taste of Sabina World, because she is (as you may have worked out from the above sobriquet) profoundly deaf.

Sabina's silent movies have been popping up on YouTube for a while now and have earned her a growing following. Her stageplays, never less than provocative, have been produced both in the US and UK and now she's gone and written, direct and produced a bigger budget film, 'The Wedding Night' - a much slicker piece that has so far been funded by donations raised by supporters. She's not quite there yet, the film's in the can (well, on the hard disk) but she needs more money to pay for the final edit. Take a look at the trailer:

 

I wanted to bring Sabina onto the radio show I co-host with Jessica Swann every Tuesday on Dubai Eye Radio, Dubai Today, but there's a slight glitch - being deaf is a slight impediment to doing phone interviews on the radio. So we did it by text instead:

What inspired the idea of ‘The Wedding Night’?
I was inspired to write "Wedding Night," which was originally a stage play. It is a very minimalist piece with just 2 actors in a hotel room. And I thought to myself, I can turn this into a film with a very low budget. It is heavy on drama, but very light on the budget. I wrote "Wedding Night" because it is a feminist response to the hypocrisy of sex and women's bodies in Indian-Pakistani culture and amongst Muslims. It is widely accepted for males to have had sexual experience and to have many female partners, yet if a woman dares to explore her sexuality and have sex with just 1 man, she is shunned and shamed by society. Also, I was inspired and disgusted by countless real-life stories I have heard about forced arranged marriages and the tragic consequences that come out of it.

Who are the actors? Are they trained?
The actors are Alpa Banker (actress) and Sanjiv Bajaj (actor). Alpa is a professional actress who lives in Los Angeles. She does theatre, commercials, modeling, and film. Sanjiv Bajaj is a doctor who graduated from Princeton University and founded an independent South Asian theatre company. They were both amazing in their roles.

What was the greatest challenge in conceiving, filming and directing this?
The greatest challenge to make the film happen was getting started in the first place. I didn't know who I was going to hire to shoot the film. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a goddamned clue how to go make this happen. But after consulting many Facebook friends who have worked in the film industry, I got some very good ideas and began raising funds through IndieGoGo. I also posted ads online seeking crew and actors. And soon, all these people were coming up to me and they wanted to work with me.

What’s your hope for it?
I don't have any hope for "Wedding Night." I just made the film because I've always wanted to be a filmmaker, it was always a dream of mine to write, direct and produce my own film and call my own shots. Well, I did it, and I'm glad.

Conflict runs through your work; you hit issues head on all the time and relish holding their little corpses up to show us. What was your one BIG target here, among all the little targets you’re hitting?
My big target in Wedding Night? It's just a big fuck you message to all these narrow-minded male chauvinists in our society. Misogynists, chauvinists, old-fashioned, sexist males and even sexist females, who believe that sex is a bad thing, these people who look down at women for even daring to speak out about sex and for having the courage to explore their sexualities. Sexual liberty is one of the most important rights for human beings, yet most people won't acknowledge that. "Wedding Night" is also a film that proudly shoves female aggression in your face. It's a film that says "hey, women have rights, too and we're not going to let you push us down."

It’s very slick, the trailer. How much did it cost and how did you raise it/convince people to take part in it?
The trailer didn't cost me any money. I just salvaged the film footage from the storage drive and then I created it on my laptop. But the real money will be pouring into post-production. It will cost me $4,000. Post Production includes: editing, colorization, sound synching, music, credits, and so on. When I first began to raise money for the film shoot, I used IndieGoGo and convinced a lot of people to donate to my film project. I raised over $1,000. I said that if you wanted to support a Deaf South Asian Muslim female filmmaker, this is your chance to help me. Hollywood is notoriously racist, sexist, and misogynistic. There are plenty of successful female filmmakers, yet they are ignored and shunned by the Hollywood studio system. Men are always favored over women. And then white men are always favored over non-white men and people of color. And then of course, most people cannot name a successful Deaf person working in Hollywood. So I said, if you're tired of the Hollywood studio system and you want to help someone make a film on her own, this is it. And that's how I got a lot of donations from the public.

Why would anyone in their right minds fund a revolutionary film-maker who’s made a habit of confronting taboos and prejudice so violently and graphically?
I have a little bit over $1,500 in donations for my Film Finishing Fund now, but I need more. If you can donate as little as $10 or $100, that would be great. If you're wondering why you should help me out, all I can say is this: if you go to the cinema and you complain about how mediocre, stupid and pathetic the female lead is, or if you read an article about Hollywood or Bollywood and you complain about the lack of successful female filmmakers being ignored, or if you complain about how film awards are always being handed out to men instead of women, then do something about it. Take out your wallet and give money to an aspiring female filmmaker. Encourage a Deaf person to become a filmmaker, artist, or writer and make their voices be heard. Encourage more filmmakers to make strong, interesting films about strong female leads instead of always creating bimbo, weak, pathetic female characters. Encourage young Muslims and South Asians to go out there and create a film, novel, play, or music that's not typical or cliched. Give me your money and I'll make more films with even better storylines that'll smash the mirror and shove it in people's faces.

The Internet has given you a voice and audience you otherwise wouldn't have, hasn't it?
I think in the Digital Age, in the age of youtube and Vimeo, in the age when crowd-sourced funding is becoming so common, we will face an even bigger change coming onto the filmmaking field. Today, you can create a webseries and put all the episodes online and people will watch. You can put your film online and people will watch. You can even get press attention from it, too. It's nice. More people are discovering that they don't need to get an agent or approach a film producer to get their scripts produced. You don't need to move to Los Angeles to be a filmmaker!! Who cares about Hollywood or Bollywood? Who cares about these irrelevant, pointless networking parties? You don't need an agent. You don't need famous friends. Write a script, set up an online fundraiser, ask people to donate money. I made a film on my own, and so can you. Hollywood is a place that needs to be destroyed. Hollywood keeps churning out pointless remakes and sequels. Hollywood keeps churning out the same, tired, sexist, racist, homophobic stereotypes. Hollywood is a white boys club where women and people of color are struggling to get into. Well, guess what? The studio system is rigid and it's time for Hollywood to collapse and crumble down.

Sabina's website is linked here or you can find her on Twitter: @jihadpunk77.

Xero Error

This is the trailer for Xero Error, a 7-minute GCI science fiction film that was made by a guy called Ashraf Ghori and a group of people that volunteered their time, expertise and talent to make the film a reality. As many are aware, Ashraf and a number of his team came to the last GeekFest Dubai and talked  about the experience of making the film and Ashraf's desire to take it 'to another level' and get some serious funding behind making a full length film around the concepts and characters he starts to explore in 'Levity'

This is the YouTube link. And this is the film's IMDB entry (up 922% in popularity this week!)

I am constantly stunned by how this film was made in Dubai - Xero Error features an amazing soundtrack, great voice talent and really, really good CGI graphics - as good as anything I've seen on screen.

They're taking it to Cannes this week, where it'll be entered for the Short Film Palme d'Or (Palme d'Or du court métrage, actually, dahlings). The film festival starts Wednesday, volcano permitting.


It's great that a GCI movie was made in Dubai in the first place (in the year that gave us City of Life, a home-produced world-quality film made in, and about, the UAE). But wouldn't it be glorious if it took a Palme d'Or?