The Off Topic Topic

[The Larch]

IIRC there's a similar initiative at the EU level, I hope it goes ahead.

Didn't the EU commission agree on this a while ago, just not on a timeframe? Maybe this kicks it back into gear again.

It's apparently gridlocked at the moment between the Council and the Commission.

[Josquius]

Next step, let's just have the whole world on GMT.
I mean, it's not like February isn't called February in australia.

Josq will like this:

https://twitter.com/paddyisyoung/status/1503704042941333510?s=20&t=IxBuwItv1Jz9999JEjDZSw

"Posh Actor in Northern Film"
(1 minute video)

It does sum up the attitude of many.
Though to be fair more people making films than actors. I struggle to think of a stand out terrible example of an actor like this. Quite a few posh actors done a good turn as northerners.
I haven't seen the Duke yet of course.

[Duque de Bragança]

IIRC there's a similar initiative at the EU level, I hope it goes ahead.

Hopefully not, UTC+2 all year round (Berlin/Franco hour for Spaniards) is a mess, not just in in Spain where it's even more ludicrous.
Now, if they switched to UTC or UTC+1 (less good as a compromise) all-year round...

[Sheilbh]

It does sum up the attitude of many.
Though to be fair more people making films than actors. I struggle to think of a stand out terrible example of an actor like this. Quite a few posh actors done a good turn as northerners.
I haven't seen the Duke yet of course.

Also there's a big generation thing - we used to have working class actors. Now it's all Cumberbatches and Redmaynes and Waller-Bridges and they are often terrific but it's not great.

I never know with this stuff how much is this structured by the market and what sells overseas. It's all period pieces or slightly more contemporary period pieces touching on class/post-industrial decline (Full Monty, Billy Elliot, Brassed Off, Pride). The only other type of film I can think that we do is social realism (Loach, Fish Tank etc). Arguably even films like The Souvenirs fall into both slots - maybe Francis Lee's stuff too (God's Own Country and Ammonite).

On the one hand, I slightly wonder why there aren't American versions of this - uplifting tales of some kid from a rust-belt town discovering and being liberated by the love of professional ballroom dancing.

I wish we had properly funded film like France and we could get excited by whatever a talent like Celine Sciamma decides to do next. Instead we always sort of know

[Syt]

(Full Monty, Billy Elliot, Brassed Off, Pride)

Really choosing very recent movies to illustrate your argument.

[Josquius]

The UK both benefits and suffers by our tight involvement with the US film industry.
As mentioned before I've often envied to some extent places like Sweden where they have their own little self contained culture sphere (which isn't just low grade trash TV) whilst keeping as much to do with global culture as they want.

As ja. Seems so often you see effectively the same film in that mould. I wonder why it feels so much more common than it actually is.
We need more decent stories that just happen to be set in Liverpool or wherever rather than being a bit of a northern minstrel show.

[Duque de Bragança]

(Full Monty, Billy Elliot, Brassed Off, Pride)

Really choosing very recent movies to illustrate your argument.

Sayeth a SW nerd. 

[Sheilbh]

Really choosing very recent movies to illustrate your argument.

I tried to choose the ones I quite like

Pride's recent-ish - last decade. There's Blinded by the Light (which I haven't seen but is meant to be quite good) about a British-Pakistani boy from 1980s Luton who falls in love with the works of Springsteen. You could probably throw in the Duke (from what I can tell heart-warming tale starring Jim Broadbent of a Geordie pensioner who steals a Goya). There was the heart-warming tale starring Timoth Spall about the pensioner who uses his free bus pass after his wife's death to go back to the place of their honeymoon. There's the new Mark Rylance film - which looks like it's the heart-warming film of a Cumbrian shipyard worker and amateur golfer who somehow competes in some open or other

It's definitely a thing - I can think how all of the trailers for all of these films go because they're all the same

[Sheilbh]

The UK both benefits and suffers by our tight involvement with the US film industry.
As mentioned before I've often envied to some extent places like Sweden where they have their own little self contained culture sphere (which isn't just low grade trash TV) whilst keeping as much to do with global culture as they want.

Yeah it does really benefit as well - like loads of big blockbusters are made in the UK (at least in part), such as The Batman in Liverpool and Glasgow. Netflix and Amazon have both basically bought two of the big studios around London for the next decade for their productions (I think Netflix is in Ealing and Amazon is in Shepperton). My understanding is there are loads of very good jobs for British technical staff as well in the UK film industry - I think because we're cheaper than the US.

All of which is good - I just think we're too market driven and should try to do that plus some aggressive state funding for art

[Valmy]

As mentioned before I've often envied to some extent places like Sweden where they have their own little self contained culture sphere (which isn't just low grade trash TV) whilst keeping as much to do with global culture as they want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OOpZitfd0

Pretty glorious 

[Josquius]

Very exciting new tabloid unit of measurement

Daily Mail Online
@MailOnline
Asteroid half the size of a giraffe strikes Earth off the coast of Iceland

Somehow more vivid but I'm less able to imagine it than, say, rainforest the area of Wales is burned every day.

That's awfully specific.
Why half a giraffe? Wouldn't that be about the size of an elephant?
Or do they need to convey that it was long and thin and mostly harmless?

[The Brain]

Two American sailors from the USS Forrest Sherman have been arrested in Stockholm for buying sex.

[Syt]

https://twitter.com/Noleli/status/1499760828022607877

I made a browser extension that changes the word "billionaire" to "oligarch" and, well, it's about as perfect as I was hoping.

 

[Tamas]

That's not fair though. At least some of the American billionaries got their wealth through the market. Russian/Eastern oligarchs got theirs via backroom access to lucrative state contracts and being sold state property on the super-cheap

[The Brain]

Also, the number of oligarchs who are dollar billionaires has dropped recently.