"Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce," she said. "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."
And:
"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. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis."
Instead of going out to sing karaoke last night, I decided to stay in, drink red wine and go to bed early. Because I'm a bored housewife, clearly. Wound up watching The Beast. A surprisingly good movie (Much of what's bad is forgivable - it was filmed in the 80's, after all) about a Soviet tank lost in Afghanistan being hunted by Taliban rebels.
What makes it stand out is that the film's overwhelmingly pro-Taliban (They were the good guys, after all, once upon a time) and all the 'Soviets' are played by Americans who don't try to disguise their American accents, use American military terminology as well as American weapons and tanks.
So basically it's about today.
Anyway, it's worthwhile checking out if you're in the video store and all there is to rent is it or Sleepless in Seattle. The ending's pretty original and it was interesting how they included a proto-feminist angle to the whole Taliban thing. What else would you expect from the director of classics Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Waterworld?
Couldn't find a trailer so here's the first 10 minutes of the film. The whole thing's been uploaded to Youtube so you can save yourself a trip to the video store.
Saw the movie yesterday and it's definitely one of the year's best. The trailer doesn't do it justice and they make it look like the kind of feel good date movie that should feature the kind, chubby, androgynous face of Tom Hanks radiating false empathy. I would say it's more akin to City of God than Marley and Me. The important thing to remember is that it's directed by the dude who did Trainspotting and 28 Days Later and he's not going to let you down (Even though there were 100% less zombies in this than 28 Days Later). The best part of the film is the very end where the twist is that you suddenly realize you've been watching a Bollywood film for the past 2 hours.
Here is the trailer, though it will probably only excite Oprah Book Club members and single hipster girls who are all about knitting in Starbucks and talking about how edgy they are:
