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Oh dear Michael, do you really feel it necessary to jump on the Attack the Block bandwagon?

Nothing wrote:Oh dear Michael, do you really feel it necessary to jump on the Attack the Block bandwagon?

I know you're obsessed with the "UK press cabal", but I knew literally nothing about the film going in, apart from a brief scan of the press notes just before the lights went down. And my review was filed some time before any other British media coverage appeared.

But Top 10? It doesn't take press notes or a secret meeting to see the giant UK Film Council and Film 4 logos at the head of the film. Those logos don't tell you to write a rave review, no, but they do tell you that if you write a genuinely bad or dismissive one then you're going to be in trouble with your editor... They also get you into the cinema in the first place (eg. did you bother to see/review Tony Scott's Unstoppable, just to take one random high profile example?) Even speaking of that thing in the same sentence as Le Quattro Volte and Essential Killing - two bonafide international successes that were selected for Cannes and Venice - betrays a certain mindset, subconscious or otherwise.

Nothing, have you even SEEN "Attack the Block"? Thus far you've said nothing to indicate that you have, though I imagine you must have if your speaking of it like this.

Nothing wrote:But Top 10? It doesn't take press notes or a secret meeting to see the giant UK Film Council and Film 4 logos at the head of the film. Those logos don't tell you to write a rave review, no, but they do tell you that if you write a genuinely bad or dismissive one then you're going to be in trouble with your editor... They also get you into the cinema in the first place (eg. did you bother to see/review Tony Scott's Unstoppable, just to take one random high profile example?) Even speaking of that thing in the same sentence as Le Quattro Volte and Essential Killing - two bonafide international successes that were selected for Cannes and Venice - betrays a certain mindset, subconscious or otherwise.

I've highlighted that last bit in bold because of the delicious irony arising from the fact that your entire post is a near-perfect betrayal of your own mindset (subconscious or otherwise).

For instance:

1. Your pathological (and, I strongly suspect, deeply personal) hatred of the UK Film Council;
2. Conspiracy theory #1 - that Sight & Sound critics are ordered to write positive reviews of UKFC films, on pain of having their pieces spiked or subbed beyond recognition;
3. Conspiracy theory #2 - that Sight & Sound assigns particular writers to particular UKFC films because they're more likely to react positively to them;
4. These conspiracy theories being presented as fact to someone who has written hundreds of pieces for the magazine since 2002 and who therefore knows first-hand that he's never been asked to take a particular editorial line in advance, and that the section editors often haven't seen the films that they ask me to review - at least not at the time of commissioning;
5. A random aside about a film that has no connection with what's being discussed (or at least I assume it's unrelated: you don't offer any explanation, I haven't seen it, and a synopsis leaves me none the wiser);
6. Aggressively confrontational phrase #1 - not "did you see", but "did you bother to see", as though the only reason for me not keeping up to speed with Tony Scott's oeuvre was sheer laziness;
7. Aggressively confrontational phrase #2 - a contemptuous dismissal of a film as "that thing";
8. The comment about Cannes and Venice isn't contentious in itself, but it's expressed by someone who's delighted in pouring entire vats of vitriol over such selections in the past - Hunger, Uncle Boonmee, anything by Andrea Arnold, you name it.;
9. The strong implication that a film primarily designed to entertain (and, worse, to entertain multiplex-goers) is by definition worthless;
10. The strong impression that you haven't even seen the film you're dismissing.

I could be wrong about (10), of course, but as a general rule I tend to assume that you haven't actually seen a particular film (and/or DVD/Blu-ray transfer in motion) unless you explicitly state otherwise. Given your track record, this seems prudent.

But it would be remiss of me not to thank you for giving me the day's biggest belly laugh - no small achievement given that the morning was spent watching this. (An upcoming S&S review, believe it or not, thanks to its inclusion in a box set alongside significantly better films).

Michael, most anyone with any genuine interest in British art cinema had serious issues with the UK Film Council from the word go, including many award recipients, whether they would come out openly and say so or not (unlike, say, Chris Atkins, many in the industry have of course been afraid of burning bridges, or, like Mike Leigh, despite earlier criticism, felt they owed the organisation too much personally to criticise in later years) - your magazine has even printed some negative opinions itself, however not until the organization was on its last legs and the BFI was positioning itself for a piece of the pie (this timing itself should tell you something...). There was a very telling interview with one of the Fund head honchos a year or two ago where his defense in response to a negative piece was basically "Nick, what you SHOULD be writing about is this..." - ie. a sense of shock and a hurt belief that fault lay not with his organisation but with S&S for running the negative criticism in the first place, for not holding up their end of a tacit deal that had been in place for the best part of a decade, an agreement that can no doubt be rationalised, consciously or subconsciously, as a national duty to promote our 'British national cinema' (in fact the institutional definition thereof, which is a very different thing). The self-interested reasons for the BFI's betrayal of this arrangement are of course now clear... HOWEVER... Since the UKFC has been operating under the auspices of the BFI there has been a marked silence, a sense that the necessary correction has been made, that the BFI has got what it wanted and that's the end of it - even though, in fact, the regulations and the staff haven't changed at all, including the unique and uniquely embarassing final cut clause, and whilst there may be a shake up in spring 2012 the presence of Chris Smith and Tessa Ross on the advisory panel makes this doubtful. So it's back to business as usual and British art cinema looks to be just as fucked as it has been since the end of the BFI Production Board, which would be a great shame considering the opportunity at hand. Nb. Whilst the circumstantial evidence for editorial complicity is compelling, I've also had info from quite a few inside sources at the BFI over the years, although obviously we can't go into that in any detail as this incident demonstrates.

Anyway, my original point being that I've rarely if ever seen you take any interest in light multiplex genre entertainment (the American-produced, British-directed Unstoppable - which you predictably haven't seen - being a good example of such), let alone mention such a film in the same sentence as uncompromising and internationally recognised arthouse fare like Le Quattro Volte and Essential KIlling (!), so I'm just interested in what makes Attack the Block - which also just happens to be one of the year's biggest releases from two of the UK's three major national funding bodies - so very exceptional... I say this also because I'm expecting you won't be the only UK journalist to make this exception come list-making season (shall we place a bet on it being the only pure genre title in the S&S Top 10? :-")

Have you seen Attack the Block? It very well could be a very good movie.

Your argument makes no sense, Nothing. If there is some mysterious cabal of people at S&S demanding that no negative reviews of certain films run, that wouldn't actually affect the reviewers' opinions- so unless you think MichaelB's editor is reading his posts here to make sure that he not only avoids saying bad things about the movie but actually goes out of his way to promote it, then I have no idea of what the hell kind of a case you're trying to make.

The only relevance bringing up Unstoppable has is essentially the claim "you only like that movie because you've seen it", which is pointless. As you yourself obviously haven't seen the movie, there's really no way for you to know that they're comparable, except by your kneejerk assumption that 'genre movies' are pretty much all the same.

Nothing wrote:Michael, most anyone with any genuine interest in British art cinema had serious issues with the UK Film Council from the word go, including many award recipients, whether they would come out openly and say so or not (unlike, say, Chris Atkins, many in the industry have of course been afraid of burning bridges, or, like Mike Leigh, despite earlier criticism, felt they owed the organisation too much personally to criticise in later years) - your magazine has even printed some negative opinions itself, however not until the organization was on its last legs and the BFI was positioning itself for a piece of the pie (this timing itself should tell you something...).

This is all perfectly fair comment, but it doesn't remotely address your contention that Sight & Sound explicitly orders its contributors to big up the UKFC. Obviously, I can't speak for anyone else, but they've certainly never done this to me - and I'd be gobsmacked if they ever did.

Incidentally, you may be interested to know that between late 2008 and when I left at the end of March 2011 I was actually banned from reviewing BFI releases in Sight & Sound, on the grounds that my status as a salaried BFI employee and regular contributor to BFI releases might be seen to compromise my independence, even if I had nothing to do with the title in question. I know of at least one other person similarly affected (presumably to this day, as he's still there), and there may well have been more.

There was a very telling interview with one of the Fund head honchos a year or two ago where his defense in response to a negative piece was basically "Nick, what you SHOULD be writing about is this..." - ie. a sense of shock and a hurt belief that fault lay not with his organisation but with S&S for running the negative criticism in the first place, for not holding up their end of a tacit deal that had been in place for the best part of a decade, an agreement that can no doubt be rationalised, consciously or subconsciously, as a national duty to promote our 'British national cinema' (in fact the institutional definition thereof, which is a very different thing).

In other words, contrary to your original allegation, Sight & Sound does run negative pieces about the UKFC, they get miffed about it and try a PR charm offensive. All of which is perfectly normal behaviour on their part - but I don't see how this comes anywhere close to supporting your allegation.

Nb. Whilst the circumstantial evidence for editorial complicity is compelling, I've also had info from quite a few inside sources at the BFI over the years, although obviously we can't go into that in any detail as this incident demonstrates.

As it happens, I think that incident (all of whose parties I know very well indeed) was badly mishandled - but it was an internal BFI matter that had nothing to do with the UKFC.

Anyway, my original point being that I've rarely if ever seen you take any interest in light multiplex genre entertainment (the American-produced, British-directed Unstoppable - which you predictably haven't seen - being a good example of such), let alone mention such a film in the same sentence as uncompromising and internationally recognised arthouse fare like Le Quattro Volte and Essential KIlling (!),

But surely the fact that I don't normally review multiplex genre entertainment and have a strong bias towards arthouse fare makes a nonsense of your suggestion that I was asked to do it because I'd be more likely to react positively? The reviews editor knows my feelings about British genre films, particularly genre spoofs crammed with nudge-nudge film references - I ripped Doomsday to shreds and took advantage of my Attack the Block piece to have a swipe at the overrated Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. He hadn't seen the film at the time of commissioning my piece, and on paper it looked pretty dreadful. So if he was required by his own higher-ups to deliver a positive review, he was taking a gamble, as the chances of me disliking it must have been pretty high.

Mind you, I suppose he could always have spiked my piece and commissioned somebody else - but that's never happened to me before, and I've written plenty of negative reviews of British films. (I can't recall how many were UKFC-backed, as it's not an issue that particularly concerns me when reviewing individual films).

so I'm just interested in what makes Attack the Block - which also just happens to be one of the year's biggest releases from two of the UK's three major national funding bodies - so very exceptional... I say this also because I'm expecting you won't be the only UK journalist to make this exception come list-making season (shall we place a bet on it being the only pure genre title in the S&S Top 10? :-")

I think you're making the mistake of assuming that because I gave Attack the Block a good review and that it currently sits on my work-in-progress 2011 Top Ten list, I think it's some kind of epoch-defining masterpiece. In actual fact, I've seen maybe 25 new releases this year (for various domestic and professional reasons, the overwhelming majority of what I watch is considerably older), and while I'd absolutely defend its inclusion right now, if I was lucky enough to see eight more films as good as Essential Killing and Le quattro volte it might struggle. But it certainly deserves its critical and popular acclaim - in fact, if babysitting issues hadn't conspired against me, I was only too willing to pay to see it a second time when it opened theatrically, which is something I hardly ever do.

Sadly, I'm going to have to bow out of this for the rest of the day, as I'm combining strike-enforced childcare with meeting multiple Sight & Sound deadlines. Come to think of it, my job would be infinitely easier if they really did dictate in advance what editorial line to take...

Okay, fair enough (at least in regards to your own review!)

Although I think the broader questions do become even more pertinent now that the BFI is actually funding these films - are all BFI staff to be banned from reviewing BFI films? How is that even possible, and how can S&S even claim to be impartial now? I guess this issue was also apparent back in the 70s/80s with the Production Board, and some cheerleading no doubt went on (one thinks perhaps of the pages and pages devoted to some of the lesser Jarman films), but at least then there was a clear anti-establishment tenor to the kind of work that was being produced.

Nb. another area where I wish S&S had been more impartial, and critical, over the last decade is the digitisation of British cinema networks. This is fast turning into the death of the theatrical experience as far as I'm concerned - contemplating, for example, that I'm almost certainly going to end up seeing Tree of Life, a 35mm (+ 65mm and IMAX!) originated film on a weedy fucking 2k digital projection makes me very sad, and for less anticipated works I will usually just wait for the BD these days, the quality differential being negligible. Even for older 35mm films screening in repertory, 'digital re-releases' seem to have become common practice, and where one of those isn't available venues will commonly resort to projecting BDs or even DVDs, without announcing their intention and taking it amiss if anyone complains. The whole thing revolving around cost, of course, meaning that even if a filmmaker wants to insist on 35mm distribution these days they're going to have a hard time of it, unless they're Quentin Tarantino (who did successfully get Inglourious Basterds released on 35mm, although whether he can still get away with this for Django Unchained remains to be seen). The cinema experience, which for me is a celluloid experience, is very close to being literally dead.

MichaelB wrote:Come to think of it, my job would be infinitely easier if they really did dictate in advance what editorial line to take...

I can do that for you, for a fee

Nothing wrote:Although I think the broader questions do become even more pertinent now that the BFI is actually funding these films - are all BFI staff to be banned from reviewing BFI films? How is that even possible, and how can S&S even claim to be impartial now?

It's not merely possible but easy. As a full-time salaried employee of the BFI (at least until three months ago), it was considered inappropriate for me to review BFI-produced titles because there was seen to be a potential conflict of interest, even though I'd obviously never formally review something I'd contributed to directly. Those titles were still reviewed, but by freelance contributors with no permanent ties to the BFI. For instance, all three of the BFI DVD releases that I produced myself were covered by Kim Newman, a freelancer who writes for a wide range of different publications and who therefore doesn't count as "BFI staff". (I imagine he'd be horrified by the idea: he's proud of never having had "a proper job").

I guess this issue was also apparent back in the 70s/80s with the Production Board, and some cheerleading no doubt went on (one thinks perhaps of the pages and pages devoted to some of the lesser Jarman films), but at least then there was a clear anti-establishment tenor to the kind of work that was being produced.

But Sight & Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin have run plenty of negative reviews of BFI Production Board projects in the 1970s, 80s and 90s - as one might expect, given the inescapably variable quality: if things are funded to be risk-taking, it's statistically inevitable that some risks won't pay off. So I imagine it'll be business as usual. I certainly have no intention of modifying my views because of a film's funding source, and I get plenty of British films on my reviewing slate.

I can't comment on your digital cinema point because I'm not editorial staff and I've never written about the subject - but in any case, my own position is nowhere near as one-sided as yours.

Nothing wrote:that I'm almost certainly going to end up seeing Tree of Life, a 35mm (+ 65mm and IMAX!) originated film on a weedy fucking 2k digital projection makes me very sad,

It says something that The Tree of Life played at the Max Linder Panorama in Paris (a cinema with an 18 metre wide screen) in a digital presentation. I don't know if that was 2K or 4K though. I notice that the same cinema is currently showing a digital presentation of Once Upon a Time in America...

MichaelB wrote:It's not merely possible but easy.

They can find freelance reviewers of course, but this is ultimately an editorial issue, and not just in regards to the slant of the reviews but in regards to placement, feature articles, festival coverage, opening comment, etc.

MichaelB wrote:In any case, my own position is nowhere near as one-sided as yours.

How is it "one-sided" to want to see 35mm films projected on 35mm - especially films that were designed that way by directors long dead - and to want to see the BFI address this as an artistic issue, as opposed to just rolling over for the money. Which is what this all about, of course - digitial projection is massively cheaper for distributors, that's the only major advantage. It may also be interesting / appropriate for some digital films such as Public Enemies and Antichrist, but certainly not (ffs!) for a film like Once Upon a Time in America, or indeed Deep End or the Ponting film. But, of course, we're once again getting to heart of why you were writing for the BFI in the first place - this BBC-like ability to 'see both sides', which inevitably translates itself into a disinclination to ever take a strong position, especially one that is critical of the establishment. Which isn't to say that your opinions aren't genuinely held, simply that the editorial staff know the difference between 'one of them' and 'one of us', eg. to answer your earlier question, no, I would rather eat warm shit from a horse's arse than watch Attack the Block, or any other debut film produced by the UKFC. I've had my senses offended too many times; am too closely aware of the procedures by which such products are created; the first thing that occurs to me on seeing the trailer for this film is what the fuck is Joe Cornish doing making a debut film about a bunch of black kids on a council estate, other than ticking the 'diversity' box with a large felt marker in order to compensate for his clearly distasteful skin colour, sex and social background (see the excerable Bullet Boy for more of the same). You'll no doubt say I'm being dismissive, and yet you're quite happy to dismiss a film like Unstoppable when the establishment says it's okay to do so...

So... your argument is essentially that Sight & Sound is biased in that it hires contributors who, unlike you, are willing to watch Attack the Block?

Just keep digging, Mr. Nothing. Or go see the movie. You know, either or.

JMUL - I'll go and see a debut film produced by the BFI Production Fund (UKFC) if and when they return final cut to the director and focus on supporting talent as opposed to forwarding ideology.

It's to my best knowledge that Cornish did have final cut and it's safe to say he has talent. Good or bad talent I don't know, but it's talent and funding a film is a sure sign of support.

Knives, it is a long-standing condition of UKFC (now 'BFI') funding that their 'creative' executives take final cut. On your second point, the question is what evidence was there of Cornish's directorial talent before the film was funded? Although I'll admit this is a somewhat controversial view, I personally don't think public funding should be offered to any first-time filmmaker in a developed nation such as the UK. On the one hand, the means of production are now so freely available that anyone in this country can knock together a debut feature if they really have the desire. On the other, this would allow directors to develop their own personal voice without being cherry-picked and moulded according to the narrow ideology of a government quango (I would however keep unilateral co-production treaties with third world nations in place, in much the same way that one might offer a scholarship to a student from an underprivildged background, although the poverty of each indiviual candidate would first have to be verified, ie. a US-trained hi-so director who happens to have been born in Uzbekistan would not be eligible...). Of course, this approach would be anathama to the establishment, since the whole point of the exercise is to shape the ideological outlook of 'British national cinema' to their liking.

I suppose I should have said happy with the present cut. Though I suppose that rule would put a hamper on all the potential Don Levy's out there. Personally I love the idea of just taking potential up off the street, though I suppose putting them in assistant roles on senior projects would be a smarter idea than just giving them a budget right away. I know if there were an apprenticeship program like that available in the US for people without resources I'd jump on the opportunity.

It's a real pain in the ass just to find film for sale (at least in the US) let alone purchase it and I don't know about you, but I'd rather they get the resources to shoot on film rather than some DV nonsense. Even if their present mold is imperfect it has to be better than the nothing we have here in the US.

Nothing, beaurocratic bullshit and "mission statements" aside, here's the thing: filmmaking is a fucking business. First time director or not (and for what it's worth, Cornish had done plenty of behind-the-camera work for TV shows et al), an alien film directed by Joe Cornish and produced by Edgar Wright has major appeal in the UK and the US. Considering it's budget, it's gonna make damn good fucking money. So why the hell wouldn't they finance it? What could possibly justify turning down a surefire profit?

Nothing wrote:But, of course, we're once again getting to heart of why you were writing for the BFI in the first place - this BBC-like ability to 'see both sides', which inevitably translates itself into a disinclination to ever take a strong position, especially one that is critical of the establishment.

No, it's because when I write for Sight & Sound, I know that I'm writing for a longstanding journal of record, and the style guide makes it clear that I should be as fair and balanced as possible, with all points being backed by checkable evidence and a minimum of gushing or overly sweeping statements. The reviews section is not an appropriate platform for aggressively opinionated ideologues - I often have to consult old issues of S&S and the Monthly Film Bulletin for what is often the only really substantial coverage of obscure films from decades ago, and it's incredibly frustrating digging out reviews consisting of someone ranting about a long-forgotten political bugbear instead of tackling the substance of the film itself. If I believe that the film's failings are down to external factors at the funding/postproduction stage, I say so (see below for an example) - but I try not to concoct ideological objections based on personal hobby-horses, as I don't think they're especially helpful in that context. (Criterion Forum postings are another matter, of course).

I'm particularly conscientious about this because I often review titles that aren't discussed elsewhere in much detail (at least in English) - Attack the Block is a rare exception. But even with that I'd filed my review long before any other British reviews appeared: the only indication I had of a "bandwagon" was the ecstatic fanboy reception that it had at its SXSW world premiere, but that's as likely to make me suspicious as anything else.

eg. to answer your earlier question, no, I would rather eat warm shit from a horse's arse than watch Attack the Block, or any other debut film produced by the UKFC. I've had my senses offended too many times; am too closely aware of the procedures by which such products are created; the first thing that occurs to me on seeing the trailer for this film is what the fuck is Joe Cornish doing making a debut film about a bunch of black kids on a council estate, other than ticking the 'diversity' box with a large felt marker in order to compensate for his clearly distasteful skin colour, sex and social background (see the excerable Bullet Boy for more of the same).

What's particularly hilarious about this latest diatribe against a film that you haven't seen (someone should really start compiling an anthology) is that this was pretty much my mental picture of the film before I actually watched it. I was deeply suspicious of its motives, made precisely the same assumption about cultural-diversity box-ticking that you did - in fact, this was the closing paragraph of my review of Life & Lyrics...

Sight & Sound, November 2006 wrote:This is one of many sparky touches that hint at the little gem the film could have been, had more attention been paid to characterisation and emotional truth and less to ticking the cultural-diversity boxes beloved of film-funding bodies while at the same time angling for international appeal (via a gratuitous and contextually incongruous open-topped bus ride through tourist-trap London). While Life and Lyrics is enjoyable enough for what it is, it’s telling that Danny and Fable spend so much time reflecting on opportunities missed. They’re not the only ones.

...and once you also factored in my instinctive dislike of genre spoofs containing endless namechecks of other people's films, expectations could hardly have been lower. But thanks to what some might consider the radical step of actually sitting down and watching the film from beginning to end, I found that it completely won me over well within the first ten minutes, and didn't let up until the end. Pretty much everything I was dreading about it was either neatly side-stepped or directly (and wittily) addressed.

You'll no doubt say I'm being dismissive,

Everyone will say that you're being dismissive, because no reasonable person could reach any other conclusion. You're ranting vitriolically about a film that you haven't seen, and because you're rigidly convinced that your mental image of it is the correct one, you not only make it clear that you have no intention of seeing it, but you reinforce this by means of a vividly scatological metaphor - while at the same time assuming that people who've reviewed it favourably must be paid-up lackeys of "the establishment". How much more dismissive is it possible to get?

and yet you're quite happy to dismiss a film like Unstoppable when the establishment says it's okay to do so...

Absolutely not. Literally everything I've ever written (or said) about Unstoppable is in this very thread - and it amounts to next to nothing because I had no opinion about it until you brought the subject up, and because I haven't seen it and know little about it aside from skimming an IMDB synopsis, I still have no opinion about it. I'm more than happy to accept that it might be terrific entertainment, and just because I haven't had either the personal inclination or the professional need to see it doesn't remotely mean that I'm "dismissing" it, any more than the fact that I've never got round to reading Virginia Woolf means that I'm "dismissing" her.

In fact, I'm still not sure what point you were trying to make by bringing it up - are you citing it as an example of a widely-panned film that you thought deserved better treatment? And if so, was this opinion based on you actually watching it, or because you think that Tony Scott (a Jancsó fan!) is a legitimate auteur and therefore must be taken seriously regardless of the film's actual content?

matrixschmatrix wrote:So... your argument is essentially that Sight & Sound is biased in that it hires contributors who, unlike you, are willing to watch Attack the Block?

A handy thing about Sight & Sound's theatrical reviews is that you can be pretty certain that the reviewer has actually watched the whole film, because we're required to submit a detailed synopsis along with the review. Press notes often contain "synopses", but they often fizzle out about a third of the way through and so are useless for our purposes - and there are rarely any other sources at the time of the early press shows (you're unlikely to find full written synopses of unreleased films online - certainly not accurate ones).

Sadly, this meant that I had to suffer The Human Centipede until the bitter end - in fact, unlike Attack the Block, I was actually looking forward to that one, as I wrongly assumed that a film with such an eye-openingly original premise must have quite a bit going for it.

I'm going to pull a Nothing and attack a movie I haven't seen, but wouldn't a detailed synopsis of The Human Centipede be about nine words long? "Dude sews faces to asses. Consequences ensue. The end."

Sadly, I know exactly what would have happened if I'd done that: one of the sub-editors would have returned it with a note asking me to spell out exactly what consequences ensued. In fact, as a general rule, my synopses get queried much more frequently than my reviews.

Tragically, our very own Anthony Nield has also slavishly bowed to the diktat of the UK press cabal by having the temerity to give the Blu-ray a good review.

If only he'd kept himself pure and unsullied by not actually watching it first.