Is the depressing marketing tag on the UK posters of CASSANDRAS DREAM, the current Woody Allen movie.

It then goes on to clarify, that this is of course, ‘a Woody Allen Movie’. The depressing thing is that it needed clarification, and that clarification wasn’t:’From the Director of Annie Hall, Manhattan, Deconstructing Harry, Bullets over Broadway, and about 40 other movies, of which at least 10 are works of genius and classics of cinema (and which number would NOT include Match Point), but instead ‘From the Director of Match Point’ - a mediocre thriller with average performances and a completely bullshit understanding of London and England’s social milieu.

Now just to be clear this isn’t a rant about Woody Allen. In my book the man’s allowed the odd off decade. He’s  73 for christ sake and has already given us so much (and early reviews suggest that VICKI CHRISTINA BARCELONA is a return to form) my problem is with a movie marketing industry so craven, and a film audience so ignorant and woefully short on memory, that ‘From the Director of Match Point’ is a considered, no doubt on some good evidence, a better marketing tag line than ‘From Woody Allen’.

I’m reminded of a comment I overheard in the cinema at a screening of ‘MEET THE FOCKERS’ - a young woman, probably in her early 20s asked her boyfriend - who’s that actor, you know the one playing the father with the fake breasts. I paused, captivated and horrified to hear what his answer would be: ‘You know him’  came the quick rejoinder in a tone of disbelief (phew at least the boyfriend knows who Robert De Niro is, I breathed to myself), ‘He’s that funny guy from ANALYZE THAT’

Or so those of us who work in this industry, but who maintain a sense of social responsibility, would like to believe. We would like to count ourselves in Margaret Mead’s small group of committed citizens. But are we? Can movies really change the world? This months TIME magazine looks at some data on the subject and is worth a read, article HERE

I’m off on Holiday for a week today. NY, NY for some much needed R&R. In my absence, I leave you with the first trailer that’s moved me to wonder since some little Hobbits took to the silver screen

I’ve loved this story in book, on stage, in script - and I’m so looking forward to seeing it on screen. Don’t disappoint me brothers Weitz.
Trailer here

Honestly, that’s a sentence I never thought I would write. I have long loathed BB above all reality shows both for its appeal to the lowest common denominators in the human psyche and even more so for its interminable dullness. These views have left me on the wrong side of the water cooler for six long years, and I have been patiently waiting for the tide to turn…
And now it has. But not in the way I expected. For the first time in years (in my view EVER) Big Brother is offering (a) gripping television (b) international news and (c) relevant and useful socio-culutral debate.

Recent events have so permeated the news that unless you have actually been IN the Big Brother house, there seems little reason for me to recap; but here is a neat summary and here is a photo of some naked models protesting the racism against Shilpa Shetty.

My two cents about it all:

• I support Andy Duncan, CEO of C4’s position that this type of “uncomfortable viewing” is useful in the context of exposing attitudes that any of us with brown skin who actually live in the real England, know are common place.
• But I simultaneously agree, from what I’ve seen, the actual “racism” has been of the fairly mild, garden variety, confusion and discomfort about difference, and reaching for the easiest weapon, rather than anything really cruel or evil.
• So I find it interesting that public opinion against racism seems to be so wide spread and voracious that it now has economic force: see how commercial brands ran a mile from Big Brother and the perpetrators of the alledged racism, forcing them to recant (but how did they know their careers were crumbling - that seems to imply that their agents had communicated with them -which is in breach of BB rules… hmmm)
• And I’m concerned that this is less about an attempt to get systemic about an understanding that Britain is a multi-cultural society, that needs to engage in a systemastic debate on race and culture, and more knee-jerk polictical correctness.

Still, score one for the power of popular culture to shape the agenda of the day…