A podcast with Chris Morris, the writer/director of Four Lions

By Adam Lippe

Here’s a podcast with Chris Morris, the writer/director of the suicide bomber satire, Four Lions. While Morris is not particularly well known in the US, he has a huge following in the UK, where his satirical TV shows like Brass Eye, Nathan Barley, and the surrealist shock comedy Jam, have made quite an impression. And for those who wonder why the notoriously press-shy Morris consented to an interview (he hadn’t volunteered for one in almost 15 years), I certainly asked that question, as well as about the inherent homoeroticism of the military, and how a journalist can chase his own tail searching for an overall meaning in a comedy. That last part refers to Morris’ brilliant hipster parody Nathan Barley and as I’m aware that not everyone has seen Morris’ TV work, like my podcast with Jordan Brady, I’m providing a visual glossary below for the many references made to Mr. Morris’ work.

Visual Glossary:

Click on each link for an image that explains the term.

Pervert Mechanics

“Trust-me” trousers

The baby lawyer

Gay terrorists

Barry praying in the background.

Confused face?

No, not confused face

The actual podcast is below:

Download the full interview.
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Roadracers

By Adam Lippe

Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.

Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]


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On Cold Fish:

Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”

Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.