Four Lions - Photo from Chris Morris' new film

From the brain wrong that brought you Jam, The Day Today and Brass Eye (all works of genious in my opinion) comes the film Four Lions.

Described by Bleeding Cool as a “comedy of terror”, it’s the story of four North England young Islamic extremists and their attempts to create a terrorist atrocity, focusing on the errors, mistakes, clashes and diversion common to any project that, well, involves people.

So controversial and highly funny as usual. One of the policemen appears to be the actor Kevin Eldon (TMWRNJ, Dead Set, Big Train and more) and he's always brilliant.

Bleeding Cool also had this about the film:

In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other’s feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says “what was the question again?” On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.

Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.

Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.

I think this will be one to watch.

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UPDATED: Faintheart - Trailer for Brit battle re-enactment comedy starring Eddie Marsan, Jessica Hynes and the actor Kevin Eldon

I'd not heard anything about Faintheart until I saw a poster in today's Metro. It stars the actor Kevin Eldon (Dead Set, Big Train, TMWRNJ) and Jessica Hynes (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead) so it has some coolness about it.

UPDATE: An anonymous poster asked in the comments if this was a MySpace film. Digging a little deeper I came across this article which shows how MySpace helped make the movie.

Here are a few bits from it:

When the heads of MySpace recognised a growing community of film fans on
the site, they set out to make the world's first feature film created entirely
by internet users. The result is Faintheart.

Although the film took less time to shoot than a Hollywood blockbuster,
involving the online community in every stage of film production was a long
process. In February 2007, aspiring directors were invited to submit a short
film proposing their idea to be developed in a feature for a chance to land a
£1m budget, supplied by Vertigo Films, the UK Film Council and Film4. Some 800
hopefuls uploaded videos, which were narrowed to a shortlist of 12, from which
three were selected by a panel including the actress Sienna Miller and the
director Kevin Macdonald. When proceedings were handed over to MySpace users, it
was British director Vito Rocco they voted in.

The film took just eight weeks to shoot and even the battle sequences of
the film's last 10 minutes were completed in just two days. Marsan welcomed the
change from the big budget Hancock. "When I do big films there's a lot of
waiting around, but this was full on."

For the director, the main benefit of making use of the MySpace
community was in the casting. Character profiles of the roles up for grabs were
posted online and users could upload their audition made on homemade videos or
webcam. More than 1,400 MySpace users auditioned for the roles. "I was very keen
to represent the world properly, to have as many unknown actors as possible. The
casting process was fascinating. People were able to audition at home and I
watched them," Rocco says.

A couple of crew members were also recruited from the site and MySpace
members supplied five tracks on the soundtrack, which featured alongside Katie
Melua's work. While Lemon penned the script, sections were posted online for the
internet community to comment on and suggest better lines. "The results have
been phenomenal," James Fabricant, the director of MySpace Europe and one of the
film's producers, says. "MySpace works together with more traditional media
companies to drive innovation and help shape the future of the entertainment
industry, and Faintheart is a great example of what can be achieved."

Pretty cool that it was the voices of the MySpace masses that helped shape and create the film. A bit like the way Snakes on a Plane developed . It also reminded me of the way horror movie Perkins' 14 was made (members of massify.com submitted story pitches, poster art, audition tapes and opinion to mold the film). Just need to see it now to see if that process worked.

Faintheart is directed by Vito Rocco and stars Eddie Marsan as Richard, a homestore employee with a nerdy passion for Viking re-enactments. However, when his latest battle causes him to be late for his father-in-law's funeral (and turn up in chain mail), his long suffering wife Cath (Jessica Hynes) realises she's had enough and begins a trial separation. Richard is convinced he can win Cath back, but he hasn't reckoned on the attentions of slimy PE teacher Gary (Paul Nicholls), who's also getting closer to Richard's son Martin (Tim Healy). Meanwhile, Richard's Star Trek obsessed best friend Julian (Ewen Bremner) begins a tentative relationship with the mother (Bronagh Gallagher) of a fellow Trekkie he met online.

What do you reckon? Comedy gold? Check out the official site.

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Dead Set starts tonight - Big Brother v Zombies

Charlie Brooker's Dead Set begins on E4 at 10pm tonight. When I first heard about this I thought it was going to be absolutely dreadful. I'm still not sure whether it will be any good but the zombies look pretty convincing and it does feature the actor Kevin Eldon (Big Train, TMWRNJ). The above photo is of a zombie Davina McCall.

Britain has a big problem. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. The people they kill get up and kill – and it’s spreading like wildfire. Curiously, there are a few people left in Britain who aren’t worried about any of this – that’s because they’re the remaining contestants in Big Brother. Cocooned in the safety of the Big Brother house, they’re blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside. Until an eviction night when all hell breaks loose.

Kelly, (Jaime Winstone) the production runner working on Big Brother finds herself caught in the impossible position of trying to fend off the walking dead alongside the remaining housemates, Davina herself, a host of former Big Brother housemates, her producer boss Patrick (Andy Nyman) and boyfriend Riq (Riz Ahmed).

Over the ensuing days, in a cruel reflection of the game show they thought they were entering, the contestants fall victim, one by one, to the hungry masses outside. Staying alive requires teamwork – which is tricky when you’re a group specifically selected by TV producers to wind each other up.

So the jury is still out on this one. I'll be watching the first episode tonight to see whether it works or not and it runs all this week. Below is the latest trailer for it. What do you think of it? Let me know if you watch it tonight and whether you enjoyed it or not.

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