Four Lions: USA Podcast Interviews With CM/Jimmy Fallon Appearance Next Week etc

[weirdbeard]

15 minute Morris interview, on video, here.

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/interview-director-chris-morris-talks-minor-league-terrorists-gallows-humor-and-four-lions.php

Also, new press release with cinema info.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/four-lions-the-acclaimed-comedy-from-director-chris-morris-will-open-in-select-cities-on-november-5-104512569.html

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Drafthouse Films announced today that Chris Morris' new comedy Four Lions will open in select cities on November 5.  The film will expand wider in the weeks following the November 5th opening.  The current list of cities and theaters includes:

Angelika Film Center, New York, NY
Regent Westwood, Los Angeles, CA
E Street, Washington, DC
Kendall Square, Boston, MA
Ritz at the Bourse, Philadelphia, PA
Lumiere, San Francisco, CA
Shattuck, Berkeley, CA
Varsity, Seattle, WA
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - South Lamar, Austin, TX

Four Lions is a whip-smart laugh out loud comedy that illuminates the war on terror through satire and farce. Blitzing the notion that a comedy about jihadists is a contradiction in terms, the film grossed an astounding 3M pounds sterling at the UK box office and was hailed by critics as "a brilliant film – astonishingly funny" causing "so many different kinds of laughter it's almost incredible."

Writer director Chris Morris based the idea on extensive research. "These cells have the same group dynamics as bachelor parties and five a side basketball teams.  Plans are upset by arguments, egos, testosterone and idiocy. Terrorism is about ideology but it's also about doofuses."

Four Lions has taken the festival circuit by storm. Following its sell-out success as the buzz hit of the Sundance Film Festival, Four Lions packed the coveted closing night slot of South by Southwest, won the Independent Camera Award at Karlovy Vary and was voted Best Narrative Feature by audiences at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Beginning on October 26 and through November 4, director Chris Morris will tour the country in advance of the film's opening.  Stay tuned for further updates on the tour schedule.

For more information on the film, visit http://www.fourlionsfilm.com

[Squink]

Terrorism is about ideology but it's also about doofuses."

Ha. Wasn't that originally "Terrorism is about ideology but it's also about berks"? It's hard to imagine Morris saying "doofuses".

[small_world]

Also, five-A-side basketball?

Soccer more like. Eh lads?

[DeGrise]

Basketball teams have five players.

Lazy PR - change only terms that readers won't understand or relate to without worrying whether the sentence makes sense or the speakers sounds like an idiot.

Still, US release! Yay!

[webbtje]

3M pounds sterling, yeah? Good to know.

[weirdbeard]

Alternative US poster for Four Lions

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/10/19/exclusive-jon-contino-and-olly-moss%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98four-lions%E2%80%99-poster/



Also, expect Morris to mine the content of this story in his interviews

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/18/7-7-bombers-assumed-roles-a-team

The 7 July bombers joked in the hours before the bombings that they were like the characters from 1980s TV series the A-Team.

In a series of text messages between Mohammad Sidique Khan, the mastermind of the attacks, and Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people on a Piccadilly Line train, the pair assumed the roles of Face and BA Baracus, two of the main characters from the series.

Using the "operational" phones they had bought specifically to plan the bombings, the pair also referred to the character "Howling Mad" Murdock and repeatedly used Baracus's catchphrase, "I ain't getting on no plane".

In the series – made into a Hollywood film this year – Baracus had a fear of flying and could only be got on a plane if sedated.

At 2.23pm on 4 July 2005, Khan texted Lindsay to say: "Face you mutha fucker il rearange ya face if ya stab me wiv dat needle cos i said i aint getting on no plain [sic] fool."

Lindsay appears to have taken offence, insisting the character of Baracus was his. He replied, at 2.32pm: "Fuck u bitch, dats my line, il stab u wid a fucking needle jus 4 da fun of it. And 2hear u scream like a blatch!!! Now lets get dis right. I aint getting on no plain! fool!"

Just before 1am on 6 July, the day before the bombings, Khan texted Lindsay: "Yo BA big nackers you on dat plane or wat. fool."

Lindsay replied, at 1.55am: "I ain't getting on no plane fool."

The messages were retrieved by police from the remains of Lindsay's phone, which was recovered from the scene of the bombing.

They were shown to the inquests last week, but the coroner banned their publication until now.

The restrictions were lifted following applications from the media.

The inquests have already heard that the attacks may have originally been planned for 6 July, but postponed by Khan, even as he was sending his co-conspirator the texts.

At 4.35am on 6 July, Khan texted Lindsay, saying: "Havin major problem cant make time will ring ya when i got it sorted wait at home." Lindsay replied, at 4.41am: "No bullshit doctor! fix it!"

At 5.15am, he texted Khan again: "I aint getting on no plane! Murdock tel dis fool." Khan replied at 5.33am saying: "Il ring you in afternoon twoish."

Fifty-two people died when Khan and Lindsay, along with fellow bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain, detonated bombs on three London underground trains and a bus.

[An tSaoi]

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/10/19/exclusive-jon-contino-and-olly-moss%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98four-lions%E2%80%99-poster/

Oh that's wonderful. Can you buy it over here?

[weirdbeard]

Brief Morris interview with the Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-indie-focus-20101024,0,5254409.story

Indie Focus: 'Four Lions'
British comedian Chris Morris is no stranger to ruffling feathers, but he says his black comedy about a bumbling cell of jihadists shouldn't be controversial.
By Mark Olsen, Special to the Los Angeles Times
October 24, 2010

At a glance, "Four Lions," the debut feature from director and co-writer Chris Morris that first played at the Sundance Film Festival in January, seems certain to upset people on all points of the cultural and political spectrum: It's a dark comedy about a cell of British would-be jihadists who bumble through the planning of a suicide bomb plot.

The cell's putative leader ( Riz Ahmed) is depicted as a conscientious family man struggling to reconcile his religious beliefs with the realities of his daily life. The film's most straight-ahead buffoon is a laughable blowhard named Barry (Nigel Lindsay), an Anglo-English convert to Islam who acts extra-militant to prove his convictions.

With the film's stinging blend of dense wordplay and slapstick physical comedy, it's easy to see the aspiring terrorists as harmless bunglers until bombs do, in fact, start exploding and lives indeed are lost and Morris' movie shifts tone to deeper shadings.

Morris defends the film, which opens in nine cities, including Los Angeles on Nov. 5, as being grounded in truth. He did more than three years of extensive research, interviewing everyday citizens, trained jihadists, police and terrorism experts and reviewing court transcripts and other documents. He said the story really began to take shape after he came across a recounting of a failed terror plot in which a Yemeni group of would-be bombers overloaded a boat with explosives only to watch it sink.

"You can't anticipate what's going to strike you as funny," said Morris, 45, during a recent phone call from his home in London. "But you have five guys standing around a sunken boat and they look like a reaction shot. And I just thought, 'Who spoke first and what did he say?'

"There's no reason why guys trying to organize something shouldn't be funny," he continued. "Why wouldn't it be? There are going to be clashes of personality, differences of opinion, there are going to be mistakes."

Morris is no stranger to ruffling feathers. Earlier in his career he collaborated with Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci (director of last year's Oscar-nominated "In the Loop") on a news parody show called "The Day Today." Appearing as something of a puffed-up prototype for Stephen Colbert, Morris created a show called "Brass Eye" that notoriously ran a 2001 special lambasting the media's obsession with pedophilia.

The British media has at times referred to Morris as "the dark lord of comedy" and "the most loathed man on TV."

"Some of the most offensive things I've done have not been called the most offensive things I've done because they've been done in a different way," Morris said. "Now ['Four Lions'] will look like it's going to be offensive, you say 'comedy about terrorism,' and it seems like a contradiction in terms. But I knew that what we delivered would not match that. Actually my concern is we get called controversial when we can't even enjoy the idea of being controversial. It seemed to me entirely beside the point. I wanted people to see the film for what it is."

Perhaps the truest test of the film's hot-button status, whether real or perceived, was that no American distributor picked up "Four Lions" after its premiere at Sundance or in the months subsequent, even after it won the audience award for narrative feature at this past summer's Los Angeles Film Festival. In early September it was announced the project would be brought to theaters as the first release of a new distribution entity, Drafthouse Films.

"I was very smitten with this film," said Tim League, founder and CEO of the Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse theaters. He said he decided "Four Lions" would be the best start for Drafthouse Films after noticing how the film had "slipped through the cracks" of existing distributors.

From recent dust-ups over the so-called ground zero mosque or threatened Koran burnings, the anxiety over Islamic extremism and its connections to terrorism has only grown in the months since "Four Lions" first premiered.

"We feel pretty confident it's not inflammatory toward the religion at all, and all the Muslim audiences can embrace the film," League said. "Using anecdotal evidence from his research, Chris has crafted a very careful storyline that's really, really funny and really thoughtful and insightful and actually engages the dialogue that's live right now in this society about Islamophobia in a very real way."

There has been little to no actual protest or disagreement about the film. With Morris aiming for sensitive rather than sensationalistic, "Four Lions" might prove to be more a conversation starter than controversy magnet.

"The people who thought we were controversial were always the people who knew the least," said Morris, noting how any negative responses to the film are often rooted in generalizations and predetermined assumptions. "The most common [comment] was, 'Now, obviously this is going to upset the Muslims.'"

[weirdbeard]

NY Times interview.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/movies/24lions.html?_r=1

The Gang That Couldn't Bomb Straight
By DENNIS LIM
Published: October 22, 2010

IN "Four Lions," the first feature directed by the British comedian Chris Morris, a group of British Muslim fundamentalists hatch a plot to blow themselves up during the London Marathon. From this decidedly unfunny premise the film finds multiple occasions for laughter.

It opens with jihadist-video bloopers and uses the firing of a rocket launcher for a slapstick punch line. One of the gang argues that bombing a mosque is the best way to radicalize Muslims and tests his theory by punching himself in the face. The would-be terrorists communicate on a children's chat site called Puffin Party, shake their heads from side to side to avoid being identified in closed-circuit video footage and attempt to thwart surveillance efforts by swallowing their SIM cards.

Nearly a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorism and the war on terror are still more or less off limits for screen comedy, and the handful of exceptions — Albert Brooks's "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," the stoner farce "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," the militarist spoof "Team America: World Police" — have been relatively circumspect, dealing mainly with Western attitudes and avoiding the specter of the Other.

But Mr. Morris, 45, an institution in British television comedy since the mid-1990s, has no fear of hot-button issues. His most distinctive talent may be for tackling nominally controversial material in a way that reveals the irrational roots of the controversy.

Equal parts social satirist, media critic and surrealist prankster, he created — with Armando Iannucci, the director of "In the Loop" (2009) about the diplomatic maneuvers that led to an Iraq-like war — the influential fake-news BBC program "The Day Today," which was billed as "Facts x Importance = News" and anticipated the likes of "The Daily Show." Mr. Morris followed that up with "Brass Eye" (1997), a mock newsmagazine show that specialized in the elaborate duping of gullible public figures (as Sacha Baron Cohen would go on to do with his various alter egos).

A tall, imposing man with a prominent mop of curly hair, Mr. Morris has earned a reputation for elusiveness. The truth of the matter, he explained, is that he has simply avoided speaking to the news media when they are the primary targets of his satire. In an interview in Manhattan last month, fresh off a plane from London, he proved an affable and erudite conversationalist.

"It's an impatience with easy, short-cut thinking," he said, describing the impetus for "Four Lions," which opens in New York on November 5. Starring Riz Ahmed (who appeared in Michael Winterbottom's "Road to Guantánamo") as the beleaguered cell leader, the movie is the first release of Drafthouse Films, the new distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse cinema in Austin, Tex.

It is no surprise that Mr. Morris, with his keen appreciation for the comedy of faulty logic (and particular contempt for fear-mongering rhetoric), would be drawn to the big red flag of fundamentalist terrorism, which tends to deter rational thought among adherents and outsiders alike. "Resistance groups don't seem to be outside our understanding," he said. "But if it's a movement that ends in blowing yourself up, that seems to flatten all the understanding that would be available."

In a recent phone interview Mr. Iannucci described Mr. Morris's knack for confrontation as a "natural tendency to head towards the fire." Mr. Morris remains most notorious in Britain for a "Brass Eye" episode that skewered the moral outrage and alarmism around pedophilia. He recruited unsuspecting celebrities to compare the genetic makeup of pedophiles to that of crabs, and to warn of toxic fumes from computer keyboards that make child targets more suggestible. The show drew more than 1,000 viewer complaints and a public scolding from cabinet ministers; The Daily Mail branded Mr. Morris the "Most Hated Man in Britain."

Mr. Morris said he did not conceive of "Four Lions" as a provocation: "It wasn't about getting the least likely subject for a comedy and then making a film about it, but the other way around." After 9/11 — and with greater intensity after the 2005 London bombings — he immersed himself in books and articles on Islamic history and culture, not knowing where his research would lead.

"I wanted to understand what was going on," he said. "Once I started reading I found things that made me laugh."

As he pieced together a ground-level view of Islamic extremism — talking to a wide spectrum of British Muslims, interviewing security experts, poring over transcripts and documents from terrorism trials — he noticed an abundance of plans gone wrong and a pattern of incongruous situations and idiotic behavior: the makings of farce, in other words.

There were the would-be terrorists who set up a training camp in the woods but slept in their van because they were afraid of mice. Recordings by the MI5 security service of a London cell turned up "reams of rubbish dialogue," Mr. Morris said, "like debates about who's cooler, bin Laden or Johnny Depp" and puzzled questions about the exact purpose of all that fertilizer they had purchased.

"These guys were behaving like Keystone Kops," Mr. Morris said, citing a ruse in which one radical impersonated a British secret agent. Mr. Morris also encountered what he described as unwitting "sitcom-style" humor in some of his conversations with extremists.

One man told him that the world should be run under an Islamic caliphate. When asked about imposing sharia law in his own house, the man replied, "My wife won't let me."

With "Four Lions" Mr. Morris does more than undermine the stereotype of the terrorist as an evil genius; he replaces it with an image of the terrorist as a total doofus. "It's the sort of chaos you get with blokes in claustrophobic situations," he said. "They could be guys on a football team, or at a stag party."

This central conceit allows "Four Lions" to function as a goofball comedy, but it also connects to what the former C.I.A. official Marc Sageman has called "the bunch-of-guys theory" of terrorism, which accounts for peer pressure and social forces. "You're much more likely to get people hanging together for positive reasons than negative reasons," Mr. Morris said, "and those reasons have to do with companionship and common views."

The Web site for "Four Lions" (four-lions.co.uk/) features a background reading list, including Mr. Sageman's "Understanding Terror Networks" and Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit's "Occidentalism," a history of anti-Western thought (which Mr. Morris was rereading while in New York).

Mr. Morris has long been a stickler for accuracy. For "The Day Today" he and Mr. Iannucci took news-broadcast courses so they could properly lampoon the medium. "I don't want to sound like I'm showing off," Mr. Morris said. But he noted that effective satire is necessarily well informed. " 'Spinal Tap' has research in it," he said. "There's a lot of deep cultural knowledge in a film like that."

In "Four Lions," a farce that recognizes the limits of humor and the existence of tragedy, comedy is a means of illuminating the rhetorical confusion and knee-jerk pieties surrounding a charged subject. "It doesn't go for easy laughs," Mr. Iannucci said. "I thought Chris was quite mad to be spending the amount of time he did getting underneath the skin of the subject. But when I saw it, I thought all the work has been worthwhile. He's come up with something honest."

The British premiere of "Four Lions" was held in Bradford, a northern city with a large Muslim population, and Mr. Morris said the response from Muslims has been overwhelmingly positive. He admits to having felt anxious about reactions in the United States, but the film was enthusiastically received at the Sundance and South by Southwest festivals, and he seemed thrilled that the driver who picked him up at Kennedy Airport, a Pakistani man, had seen the trailer.

Just as "In the Loop" showed how self-deceiving politicians who have backed themselves into nonsensical conclusions can plunge countries into war, "Four Lions" zeroes in on the fairly mundane factors that might drive someone to terrorism: the desire for community, a persecution complex, flat-out stupidity. But while the movie strives for a demystifying clarity, Mr. Morris said he had no intention of making terrorism seem less scary. "If something explodes, you're still going to jump," he said.

As he sees it, though, there is value in framing the terrorist mind-set as not just ridiculous but also, in some way, familiar.

"It's making them seem like you or me, I suppose," he said. "That goes back to the observation I picked up time and again that these people are abundantly, goofily frail. It doesn't alter the fact that they're terrorists. But I think it improves your understanding of what's going on. Or it at least gives you the opportunity to do that."

[Neil]

Where's this reading list on the official site, that's mentioned in the above interview?  I can't see it. 

Thanks for keeping us up-to-date, weirdbeard, not had a lot of time for puters of late.

[weirdbeard]

Morris is at a screening and Q&A in LA tonight.  Not sure if tickets are still available so if you're in the area, you might get lucky if you give them a buzz.

http://www.cinefamily.org/calendar/events.html

There's going to be another Morris interview in audio available here from tomorrow.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/listen-a-special-podcast-tribute-to-john-carpenter-with-guest-scott-weinberg

Drafthouse Films have put up the Esquire profile which appeared at the time of Lucian Randall's book, which was the source of a lot of it's info, IIRC.

http://www.drafthousefilms.com/449/director-chris-morris-profiled-in-esquire/

[Neil]

Only just got round to watching the video interview.  Really, really good.  Fascinating and quite fun, too.  I particularly enjoyed Morris laughing at the idea of making a film which would end terrorism, but then immediately going along with the idea, and thinking about how best to approach it.  This happens again with the social networking idea - it seems like Morris doesn't really close himself off to any possibilities/ideas, but is always willing to engage with them for the creative excercise.  His instincts just seem to take over, it's as if he believes there's no locked doors.  Of course, this attitude is prevalent in his work, but that was a really lovely example of it happening spontaneously.

The thing about Osama Bin Laden and Prince is brill, too.  Very good video.

[weirdbeard]

Morris is doing a Q&A tour of the US over the next couple of weeks.

http://screencrave.com/2010-10-26/watch-four-lions-with-director-chris-morris-in-person/

Four Lions will be hitting theaters soon and though it is quite possibly the funniest film of the year it's also one of the controversial. It will undoubtedly pick up a lot of complaints, especially by over-sensitive Americans who don't like watching a comedy about suicide bombers – touchy! You're definitely going to want to catch this film while you can.

Lucky for you (if you live in one of the following nine cities) Drafthouse Films is kind enough to be screen the film WITH the director Chris Morris in toe. Trust me, you're definitely going to want to be able to see it with him there so you can ask him important questions "how big are his balls?"

Find the full list of Q&A screenings below...

    * LOS ANGELES – Tuesday, October 26 at 7:00 PM /Arclight Hollywood
    * LOS ANGELES – Tuesday, October 26 at 8:00 PM / Cinefamily
    * SAN FRANCISCO – Thursday, October 28 at 7:00 PM /Lumiere Theatre
    * SEATTLE – Friday, October 29 at Midnight/Varsity Theatre
    * WASHINGTON DC – Saturday, October 30 at Midnight/E Street Cinema
    * WASHINGTON DC – Monday, November 1 at 7:00 PM / E Street Cinema
    * BOSTON – Tuesday, November 2 at 7:30 PM/The Brattle Theatre
    * NEW YORK – Wednesday, November 3 at 6:50 PM / BAM HYPERLINK "http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=40″ cinématek (Brooklyn)
    * NEW YORK – Wednesday, November 3 at 10:00 PM/Jackson Heights Cinema (Queens)
    * NEW YORK – Thursday, November 4 at 10:00 PM/ReRun Gastropub Theatre (Brooklyn)

Additionally there are free word-of-mouth screenings without Q&As in Austin, Chiecago, Lubbock, San Antonio and Seattle. We'll try to find out when and where they are as soon as they release the info!

Watch the trailer, read the official synopsis and check out photos from the film now!

Tagging along will be Devin Faraci, editor-in-chief of the Alamo Drafthouse's new nerd lifestyle site, Badass Digest. Devin will be keeping a video diary from the road, sharing his adventures with readers of Badass Digest, as well as documenting the Q&As.

For RSVP instructions, please check the official website www.fourlionsfilm.com. The film officially hits theaters November 5th!

[Revelator]

Thank you Weirdbeard--I live in San Francisco and wouldn't have heard about that screening without your post. Iannucci came through here to promote In the Loop and I got to shake his hand--I hope for similar luck on Thursday.

[Ambient Sheep]

I've just given up even trying to watch that video interview -- it's taking forever to load, and every time it's paused, a little pop-up ad about some superhero appears with a soundtrack five times louder than the interview.  That's quite apart from the big pop-over ad from Optimum Releasing that covered half of Chris up at the beginning.  Pointless.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Are you using Chrome? I couldn't get it to work either but got it working in Firefox.

[Ambient Sheep]

Nope, Firefox 3.6.something.  I might try again tomorrow when I'm more awake and have more patience, although I did wait a couple of minutes.

[YoungAmerican]

A)  That's very nice of you to say.
B)  Couldn't agree more.  I busted my hump to try and book Morris, and came up with nada.  GreenCine is sort of like Netflix - a rent-by-mail video service.  Their angle is that they're artier.  The interviewer did a perfectly good job, but I really, really wanted to book that interview.  Oh well.

So I just got back from interviewing Chris.  He was a wonderful guest, and the show will go up next week.

[Madison]

I just saw the news on Twitter, very much looking forward to it, cheers Jesse. TSOYA interviews with British personalities are always interesting, David Mitchell, Nick Hornby etc. People we've basically grown up being seen by fresh eyes, sort of thing.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

From Ain't it Cool News:

Mr. Beaks Hails Chris Morris's Brilliant Terrorism Satire, FOUR LIONS!
In the days and weeks following the attacks of 9/11, the idea that terrorism might one day be grist for satire was unthinkable: the World Trade Center was still smoldering, war was looming, and the patient, expertly-trained operatives of al-Qaeda seemed poised to strike again - perhaps with suitcase nukes or chemical/biological weapons this time! The threat was real and seemingly omnipresent (these terrorists could be your neighbors or your friends); ergo, it was always going to be "too soon" because people were never going to stop being afraid of the Islamist bogeymen.

This outsized, increasingly irrational fear should've been the satirist's friend, but, aside from the "Derka! Derka!" puppets of Parker & Stone's TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, no one had the stones to confront head-on the evil mastermind status accorded Osama bin Ladin and his scattered-to-the-wind sleeper cells. Perhaps they were leery of the overwhelming backlash such irreverence might inspire; maybe they were worried about reprisals from the notoriously humorless jihadis. Most likely, they were all just waiting for Chris Morris to get around to it.

Having fearlessly spoofed every sordid aspect of British life for two decades via radio and television (with such brilliant programs as ON THE HOUR, THE DAY TODAY and BRASS EYE), Morris is as qualified as anyone to satirize the thorny subject of religiously-motivated mass murder. But rather than go the mockumentary route, Morris has brashly imagined the planning and execution of a terrorist act as an Ealing-esque caper comedy. Written with frequent collaborators Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Simon Blackwell, Morris's FOUR LIONS is a twisted, uproarious and ultimately heartbreaking tale of U.K.-based extremists attempting to wreak explosive havoc at the London Marathon. As is the case in most caper comedies, the team is comprised of individuals who are inept in unique ways; however, unlike your typical heist yarn, these jokers don't need to be precise, or even a little lucky, to succeed. They simply require explosives and the film belief that their suicidal errand will be rewarded in the afterlife. Much easier than smuggling bullion.

There's an anarchic quality to FOUR LIONS that's clearly reminiscent of The Marx Brothers, but Morris doesn't let his audience off the hook by structuring his narrative as a series of cynical, madcap set pieces. While several of his characters are outlandishly stupid, Morris and his writers draw the jihadis as somewhat likable eccentrics; for the most part, their commitment to martyrdom seems like a passing phase from which they could be easily distracted. The only truly frightening member of the cell is Barry (Nigel Lindsay), an older, manipulative white paranoiac who argues for the bombing of a mosque as a means of uniting moderate and radical Muslims against their common foes; Barry's schemes may be harebrained, but he's disgruntled enough to see them through (e.g. he bloodies his own nose to prove the wisdom of his mosque-bombing idea). The only person keeping Barry in check is Omar (Riz Ahmed), the brains of the outfit, and a devoted family man whose wife and young son support his dreams of martyrdom like he's a struggling musician trying to drag his misfit rock band to the big time. Omar may not be significantly more competent than his cohorts (he washes out of a Pakistan training camp in disastrous fashion), but he's earnest, introspective and, one hopes, smart enough to back away from the abyss.

Though goofy and good-natured in the early going, the laughs begin to bruise as one realizes Omar and his fellow jihadis are actually going to carry out their London Marathon plot - as they must, because suicide bombers experiencing crises of conscious would make for half-assed satire, and Morris simply doesn't do half-assed satire (watch the "Paedophilia" episode of BRASS EYE if you doubt this). The jihadis' conscience is clear: they are doing what they believe is right in the name of God, and they will either succeed or fail. They will not back out.

As a dark comedy goofing on a very real threat to civilization, FOUR LIONS recalls the fearlessness of Ernst Lubitsch's TO BE OR NOT TO BE, which made light of the Nazis before the tide of World War II had turned in favor of the Allies. But while Lubitsch's film was castigated for being way too soon at the time (it hit theaters a scant three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and, coincidentally, two months after the tragic death of its star, Carol Lombard), Morris's ingeniously scabrous satire feels long overdue. The world has had more than enough time to acclimate itself to the wild-card reality of terrorism; it's a rotten wrong place/wrong time conundrum into which innocence isn't factored - and it's utterly absurd. As one of the characters helplessly admits near the end of the film, these attacks are often carried out by people who don't really know what they're doing. The only element they've got a firm grasp on is "why" - and that's because it's the one part of the proposition they aren't supposed to question. This is the painfully funny tragedy of FOUR LIONS, and, in many ways, of modern life.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks

Chris Morris is currently touring the United States with FOUR LIONS. He'll be participating in Q&As in San Francisco (October 28th), Seattle (October 29th), Washington D.C. (October 30th and November 1st), Boston (November 2nd) and New York (November 3rd and 4th). There will also be free word-of-mouth screenings without Q&As in Austin, Chicago, Lubbock, San Antonio and Seattle. For times, locations and instructions on how to RSVP to see one of the best films of 2010, click here.

FOUR LIONS opens theatrically November 5th.

[weirdbeard]

'nother Morris interview.  25 minutes with some of the anecdotes from what I've heard so far.

[Neil]

I wouldn't have been at all surprised by an appearance on The Daily Show (still wouldn't), but it seems like he's going the podcast route instead.

Here he is on the Motion/Captured podcast: http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/listen-the-mcp-sits-down-with-chris-morris-to-discuss-the-incendiary-four-lions

[weirdbeard]

I wouldn't have been at all surprised by an appearance on The Daily Show (still wouldn't), but it seems like he's going the podcast route instead.

Next weeks Daily Show/Colbert show guests are announced tomorrow, so we should know by then.  I'm desperately hoping for one of the other.  He's in NY next Wednesday & Thursday.  I don't think he'd be on TDS on Wednesday, as they record at 7pm, and that seems to clash with the Q&A that day.  The Thursday, he's not due at the Q&A until 10...

[Neil]

Next weeks Daily Show/Colbert show guests are announced tomorrow, so we should know by then.  I'm desperately hoping for one of the other.

He's always quick to point out luvviness, and excuse compliments he makes about Bain & Armstrong etc, and given his work in general, I can't imagine he'd relish having Jon Stewart subjecting him to one of his gushing, chummy interviews.  Morris with an in-character Colbert would be extraordinary.

I always focus on the song, and not the singer, but the intelligence he displays in these interviews temporarily makes me into a bit of a drooling fanboy.  The greatest comedy mind since Lenny Bruce. 

Off out now, so I'll get stuck into this latest podcast.  Another one is being recorded tonight, too. 

Sheepy, I'm ripping the audio of that video, so I'll fire it over. 

[Ambient Sheep]

Ooooh, ta!!

I have to say, I have never had such a fanboy moment (not even seeing Pink Floyd live when I was 15) as when I was sat in my seat at Bradford waiting for the film to begin, heard a slight commotion behind me, turned round to look over my left shoulder and found myself staring at Morris from a distance of about eight feet away.  (He'd just come through the door and was on the stairs, waiting to come down them to do his intro.)  He hadn't even said a word yet but I was dumbstruck by his sheer physical presence in a way I just simply wasn't expecting.

My only regret about this is that when he was then taking questions afterwards, I was far too shy to even approach where he was standing...I just knew I wouldn't have anything useful to say to him whatsoever, and just shaking his hand and saying "thanks for everything" would have seemed a bit crass, so I just reluctantly walked out.


_{^{By the way, I'd just like to take this opportunity to once more thank MissInformed for her immensely kind surprise gift of a ticket and the loan of her car and the petrol to get me there.  It was a lovely present, and something I'll remember for the rest of my life.}}

[Revelator]

I went to the San Francisco screening last night at the Lumiere Theatre, which is too small (the screen is the size of a large sash), but was over 4/5ths full. Before the screening Morris was introduced and explained to the crowd why he made the film by reeling off several presumably oft-told anecdotes about incompetent terrorists. It was my first time seeing the film--given the enormity and sensitive nature of the subject matter, I was afraid it would make a wrong move, especially toward the end, which must have been extremely difficult to get right. I doubt that anyone has made a more incisive or comprehensive film about the subject, and the film's ability to make the audience alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) identify with, laugh at, laugh with, and abhor its protagonists is perhaps its greatest achievement. The audience was at first a bit slow to respond  (the rapid dialogue takes time to get used to due to the heavy accents, and many of the cultural references went over peoples' heads) but came around. I was seated at the front, and the people in that area were laughing loudly and heavily.

As for the Q&A: Having never seen Morris speak in public, I was struck by his self-assurance and how happy he seemed to discuss the film with a captive audience. His demeanor was almost bouncy. He mentioned how amused he was by critics who tried to mention inaccuracies, and when someone asked about if any animals had been injured while making the film, he said several had been killed, then backtracked and admitted not really but several had been stunned, and went off on a very funny tangent. I recorded much of the Q&A, having made the impulse decision to buy a small tape recorder minutes before the screening, but made the stupid mistake of getting one that came with a 30 minute tape. (That's what happens when you're broke and buy cheap.) I'll have to listen to the tape to see what was captured.

After the session Morris hung around the theater answering further questions--sometimes with infinite patience and diplomacy, as when a grimly serious man asked him (at length) what he knew about FBI honeypots. In response to other inquiries he said that he might do radio again, and that the film's best audience was at the SXSW festival--the reactions were more in tune than any of the British audiences'. He mentioned flying into LA and spending the whole day at the hotel talking to interviewers for the press junket, and how he ended up giving answers long after his mind had stopped working. He regretted that the whirlwind pace of the promotional tour left him little time for sightseeing and exploration, especially during election season. He listened with interest as various people predicted the Tea Party's chances. (He has the avid listener's habit of looking intently and directly at whoever is speaking to him.) After a while he began getting ready to go. Though I had stood around with the other people, I hadn't said anything--nevertheless, he looked at me and said "Thanks for coming." I showed him my DVD of BrassEye and said "Would it be possible to get a..."  "Oh sure!" he said. He looked at my pen, said he could get a more robust one, and fished a sharpie out of his bag. After he finished he thanked me again for coming. I said "It's a real honor to meet you" and got to shake his hand. And now I am the proud owner of a BrassEye DVD whose cover reads "Real Proper Name. CM."

[Dark Poet]

Ignore.

[Revelator]

Ignore.

Your post or mine?

[Neil]

Presumably he posted in the wrong thread.  A good time to thank you for posting that up, Revelator, very interesting.  It's a damn shame there haven't been more international fans of the movie commenting on here, but these days, I think most people just write a 140-character "review" on their way out of the cinema, and then forget about it.

[Tbazz Why?]

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but Devin Faraci (former editor of Chud.com) is posting tour updates for the Four Lions US promo tour.

Firt one:
http://www.badassdigest.com/2010/10/29/on-the-road-the-four-lions-tour-part-1-los-angeles