Come on you little horse!

And they're off! The nominations for the 78th Annual Academy Awards, announced on Tuesday, are a reflection of a movie year pervaded by topical, edgy and independent features. Only one of the Best Picture nominees – Steven Spielberg’s Munich – could be considered a major studio release, capping off a dreadful year for Hollywood movies. This year also brought a fresh injection of nominees into the Academy where 16 out of the 25 acting and directing contenders are first time nominees. This is a trend that has been ongoing for a number of years and has served to lower the average age of the Academy considerably and make the organisation more inclusive of smaller, indie films.

As expected, Ang Lee’s heavily lauded gay love story Brokeback Mountain leads the field with 8 nominations. It heads the Best Picture list along with melting pot drama Crash and George Clooney’s McCarthy-era journalist pic Good Night and Good Luck, both of which scored 6 nods. Spielberg turned the tide on a mountain of negative (and unjustified) criticism to land Munich nods for Picture and Spielberg himself as Best Director. The last place on the roster went to Capote, Bennett Miller’s biopic of writer Truman Capote.

Lee received his second Oscar nomination as Best Director for Brokeback whilst Steven Spielberg landed his sixth nomination for Director, having won this award twice for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). George Clooney (a triple nominee), Bennett Miller and Paul Haggis (Crash) complete the list with their first nominations for Best Director.

Golden Globe and SAG winner Philip Seymour Hoffman heads the Best Actor race, with his first nomination for playing flamboyant ‘In Cold Blood’ author Truman Capote in Capote. He’s joined by another adored character actor, David Straithairn, who plays journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck. Joaquin Phoenix got his second Oscar nomination for his Golden Globe winning role as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Australian actor Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) and Terence Howard, as a pimp-cum-rap star in Hustle and Flow, are first time nominees.

Hoffman is the early favourite, having won every pre-Oscar award going but a late show of support for Ledger could intensify the race. I think the one to watch for here is Straithairn, who was singled out for praise by Hoffman as he accepted the Screen Actors Guild award last Sunday night. Like Hoffman, he is a revered character actor who has worked with just about everyone in Hollywood and I think the end race will be between these two semi-veterans.

Reese Witherspoon landed her first nomination for Best Actress for her role as chirpy singer June Carter in Walk the Line. She’s joined by two former winners, Charlize Theron (Best Actress, Monster, 2003) who plays a sexually harassed miner in the poorly received North Country. The magisterial Dame Judi Dench, who won an Oscar for an 8 minute cameo in Shakespeare in Love (1998), got her fifth nomination for playing sprightly widow Laura Henderson in the so-so Mrs Henderson Presents. The list is completed by Felicity Huffman for her gender-bending role in TransAmerica and, in the biggest surprise of the day, 20 year old Keira Knightley for her Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.

Knightley no doubt benefited from a high profile snub from her own British Academy who failed to nominate her for a Bafta. Witherspoon and Huffman won the Golden Globes but Witherspoon gained an early advantage by claiming the SAG last weekend. It’s still all to play for but this really is a two-woman race with these very different actresses, playing very different characters, going neck and neck.

George Clooney received one of his three Oscar nominations (Director and Screenplay in addition to here) for his role in Steven Gaghan’s explosive Middle East oil thriller Syriana. Paul Giamatti, snubbed last year for his role in Sideways, gets his first nod for Cinderella Man. Jake Gyllenhall makes his Oscar debut for a lead role in Brokeback Mountain as does Matt Dillon for his revelatory turn as a racist cop in Crash. The last place was a surprise also: William Hurt for his cartoonish cameo as a psychotic mobster in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence.

This is an exceptionally strong category that could really go any way. Giamatti won the SAG last weekend and will have a well of sympathy votes this year from balloters seeking to correct such a grave wrong from last year. I’d personally like to see Matt Dillon win for his brilliant performance and he may well become the receptacle for the Crash votes as the movie is unlikely to win in its other categories. The safe money is on George Clooney, who has had a remarkable year as an all-round Jack of All Trades. He’s the Hollywood choice and might well become the first person to ever win an acting and writing Oscar on the one night.

British Actress Rachel Weisz continues her march to the podium by landing her first nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the criminally under-represented The Constant Gardener. She leads a strong field of indie actresses, amongst them former winner Frances McDormand for playing a Lou Gehrig’s stricken miner in North Country. Catherine Keener, nominated in this category six years ago for Being John Malkovich, is nominated for her turn as ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee in Capote. Michelle Williams, a former star of teen angst drama Dawson’s Creek, receives her first nomination as Heath Ledger’s slighted wife in Brokeback Mountain. The last place goes to Amy Adams for an acclaimed turn in hit indie feature Junebug.

Adams is really one to watch out for here. She has fought tooth and nail for every vote to get to this point. There is genuine support in Hollywood for this former unknown, who has built up a steady CV with turns in The West Wing, Buffy, Smallville and the American The Office. Enough voters have seen her movie to nominate it – or are at least aware of it – so she is the underdog dark horse in the race. Weisz will be hard to beat, having won the Golden Globe and the SAG but the movie’s failure to land any more major nominations hurts her chances. I’m rooting for Williams who gracefully made her mark in Brokeback by way of a sympathetic and highly expressive performance.

The Original screenplay race is between Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, Syriana, Woody Allen’s Match Point and Noah Baumbach’s divorce comedy The Squid and the Whale. Clooney would be a good choice here although Paul Haggis, nominated last year for Million Dollar Baby, will also be a strong contender for Crash. I’d watch out for Baumbach, the outside favourite for a highly acclaimed movie that has been snubbed in the other categories.
Brokeback Mountain is an almost certain bet for the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s up against the screenplays for Capote (written by another actor Dan Futterman, best known for playing Robin Williams’ son in The Birdcage and for the TV shows Judging Amy and Sex and the City), The Constant Gardener and A History of Violence. The last writing slot goes to Munich, an outside shot with an impeccable pedigree. It’s written by Eric Roth, who won a writing Oscar for Forrest Gump (1994) and Tony Kushner who received the Pulitzer Prize for his play Angels in America.

Normally nominations day becomes bogged down in debate over who and what wasn’t recognised but this year there are few serious omissions. Walk the Line missing out on a Best Picture nod is about the size of it although it is fascinating to see the swing in favour of Spielberg and Munich.

The real fun starts tomorrow when the voting ballots are sent to the 5,000-strong Academy and the annual ‘eeny-meeny-miney-mo’ box checking begins. This year’s race has the potential to be predictable on an unprecedented level, what with there being so many early favourites. It will be interesting to see if major players, such as Brokeback and Philip Seymour Hoffman, can sustain their early momentum until March 5th, when The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart compeers the show for the first time. Watch this space.

Momentum hasn't SAGged

Paul Haggis’ acclaimed melting pot drama Crash took the top award for Outstanding Cast Ensemble at the 12th annual Screen Actors Guild awards on Sunday night. This is an important boost for the movie, coming just two days before the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced.

The SAGs have grown in stature over the last few years because they are voted for entirely by actors, who also make up the largest voting block of the 5,000+ member Academy. In the past, recipients of the SAG have, with only a few exceptions, gone on to win in the corresponding Oscar category.

Character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman continued his seemingly unstoppable march to the Oscar podium by claiming the Lead Actor prize for his role as Truman Capote in Capote. Hoffman, who also won the dramatic Golden Globe in addition to fifteen critics’ prizes, has the advantage over chief competitors Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) and fellow Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line).

Phoenix’s Walk the Line co-star Reese Witherspoon established herself as Oscar frontrunner by claiming the Lead Actress prize for her superb performance as singer June Carter. Witherspoon was a bit of a surprise choice as many had expected the gong to go to Felicity Huffman, who plays a pre-op male to female transsexual in TransAmerica. Both actresses won Golden Globes so although Witherspoon has gained an early lead, the contest is far from over. Huffman is older, has a fiercely dramatic and unique role and has quickly won over the acting community, mainly by her humility, good humour – and a multi-award winning lead role on hit TV show Desperate Housewives.

British actress Rachel Weisz is almost a certainty to win the Supporting Actress Oscar having added the SAG to a Golden Globe for her haunting performance in The Constant Gardener. Weisz has the edge over her closest competitor Michelle Williams, who has been a consistent nominee for her moving and expressive performance in Brokeback Mountain. Paul Giamatti, who won an award as part of the ensemble of Sideways last year, won the Supporting Actor prize for Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man. Giamatti was the most prominent Oscar snubee last year so there is demonstrably muscular support for his campaign this year. The SAG has given Giamatti a slight advantage in an unpredictable and exceptionally strong category this year. George Clooney won the Supporting Globe for Syriana and there is also huge support for Matt Dillon’s revelatory performance in Crash.

On the TV side, the casts of Lost and Desperate Housewives won the Ensemble awards for the second year running. Kiefer Sutherland won the Lead Dramatic Actor for 24 whilst another of last year’s Sideways winners, Sandra Oh, won the Lead Dramatic Actress statue for medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) won Lead Comedy Actor whilst multiple nominee Felicity Huffman now has a SAG to add to her Lead Actress Emmy for Desperate Housewives.

Truman Was the First 'Celebody'

Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption (1994) has just been voted the Greatest Movie of All Time by readers of Empire magazine. Its ineffable and peerless mix of emotion, sentiment - and that jaw-dropping final act – has quickly established the movie as a modern popular and critical favourite.

However, there is another 1990s movie that has consistently proven itself to be the most timely and eerily perspicacious piece of film-making of the last 15 years. That movie is Antipodean director Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998). Weir, working from Andrew Niccols’ script, crafted an intelligent and profoundly moving and repercussive film with thematic preoccupations of media manipulation that foreshadowed the biggest media phenomenon of this generation: reality television.

For that reason, I argue that The Truman Show deserves the title of Movie of the Decade for the 1990s.

The Truman Show was science fiction when it was released in the autumn of 1998. Truman Burbank (an astonishing Jim Carrey) is the oblivious star of the biggest TV show on earth. His idyllic seaside town is in fact a giant television studio. The sun and moon in the sky is actually the control station from where the Christof the Creator (loaded name or what?) controls everything from the traffic lights to the weather. Christof (an Oscar nominated performance from Ed Harris) adopted Truman as a baby and built the goldfish bowl studio-town, installing thousands of secret cameras to endlessly broadcast Truman’s every move.

All of his family and friends are actors. His wife Meryl (Laura Linney) is an actress. The town’s population are all extras. One day, a fallen studio light alerts Truman’s suspicions and, as the terrible truth begins to dawn on him, he tries to devise a way to escape from his false world without anybody noticing – not an easy task when Christof and a fan base of 1 billion are watching your every move.

At the time, The Truman Show was acclaimed for its brilliant attempt to distil modern day paranoia and for its allegorical discussion on religion and philosophy. It only received three Oscar nominations (for Weir, Niccols and Harris), despite being touted as a possible Best Picture winner. Little did we know, that within a year, Dutch television would incarnate the premise of the movie and give rise to a media behemoth that has since then sought new and ever more bizarre ways to outdo their competition’s latest excess.

Since 2000, Big Brother has meiotically produced every imaginable reality TV spin-off, where regular people (and now “celebrities”) put themselves at the mercy of the public as they seek your vote to become a popstar, a TV host, a model or just to stay a part of the game. Anyone who thought that reality television was on the decline will surely have to revise that opinion in light of the astounding success of this years’ Celebrity Big Brother, a show that was unanimously decreed to be a Rorschach Test for our modern culture but that’s another matter.

Reality TV has come close to realising the presentiments offered in The Truman Show before– for instance, the disturbing clamour by execs for their show to be the one with the first on-air copulation and, even worse, birth, was a stated objective of Christof and Meryl in Weir’s movie. But this year, the powers-that-be decided to forever erase the line between ‘celebrity’ and ‘nobody’, a divide that reality television has been bridging slowly but surely for the last few years anyway. Chantelle, a Paris Hilton clone, was a mere promotions girl three weeks ago. Now she is the most famous woman in Britain. And she’s famous now because she wasn’t famous then.

Cultural Studies boffins will be producing theses about this year’s show for a long time to come. Just as Christof had the vision to place a nobody before the cameras and turn him into an (albeit unwitting) superstar just for being ordinary, Endemol productions decided to mock the very notion of celebrity by quietly placing a ‘nobody’ amongst the groundlessly self-important egos of washed-up has-beens and bitter almost-rans. Even when Chantelle’s housemates cottoned on that she wasn’t a celebrity, she was still ranked by those housemates as being more famous than at least two others in the house. I mean, it’s genius!

Just as The Truman Show’s ratings go through the roof as viewers tune in to see how their protagonist will escape, Celebrity Big Brother metastasised into a cross-media sensation, when it became clear that the ‘nobody’ stood a strong chance of snatching the victory laurel from the waiting heads of the physically, mentally and emotionally damaged gaggle of celebrities on offer in the televisual bell jar.

CBB marked a turning point in the development of reality television. In many ways, it’s a fitting bookend to a self-reflexive discourse that was started by The Truman Show almost eight years ago. Truman prefigured reality television in its most basic yet (at the time) extreme form. It was a media satire about what the next great hook will be to keep viewers and advertisers salivating.

Truman unknowingly gave us signposts as to where television was heading – how there was nothing left to put on television only ordinary people and to distort their realities in every way imaginable so as to both keep them under control and to satisfy our benighted and voyeuristic urges. Celebrities are not immune from this anymore.

Celebrities are nobodies and nobodies are celebrities. That is where Celebrity Big Brother has taken us to. Where to next? What variant of The Truman Show will all the young Christofs devise next? God only knows. Until then, behold the new phenomenon that is the Celebody – the Celebrity Nobody.

Alas dear Alias...

Over the past 4 years, Alias has established itself as the most riveting, emotionally dense and endlessly inventive show on American television. Its fans adore it and worship it with a religious zeal and those who have no opinion on the show have obviously never had the pleasure of becoming engrossed in any of the show’s astounding plot arcs (it was my visionary, flawless bud Sean that introduced me, thanks dude!). News came through recently that the fifth series, currently airing in the US, is to be the last. This season already had to improvise greatly when star Jennifer Garner became pregnant with the Spawn of the Devil aka JugHead aka Ben Affleck.

The brainchild of wunderkind J.J Abrams, who is currently the most acclaimed TV exec in the world given that he is the writer-creator of this year’s most talked-about show Lost, Alias could be given the high-concept pitch of James Bond meets Mission:Impossible meets Felicity (also from the Abrams stable) meets Dostoyevsky.

Central to the show’s success is Jennifer Garner, the hardest-working actress on television, who deftly manages to combine girl-next-door innocence with astonishing ass-kicking ability. Her consistently superb performance has seen her get an Emmy nomination every year, as well as winning a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for the role. Where the show really confounds people and why it is so fascinating, is that even though Garner’s Sydney Bristow is an action heroine, it is her emotional life that keeps bringing fans back. Very few, if any, other actresses on US television have a role as physically gruelling as Garner’s, yet her character is the most vulnerable woman on television.

It isn’t hard to understand why that is so. How stable would you be if you were working as a CIA agent infiltrating terrorist organisations only to discover that you are actually working for a terrorist organisation, and so choose to become a double agent for the real CIA to bring down your current employer and in the meantime, discover that your estranged father is also a double agent with a dark past? On top of this, your fiancé is killed when you tell him the truth (by the boss you are now striving to destroy but must work alongside every day), you must lie constantly to your friends in order to protect them (and this fails, spectacularly) and fight an intense but professionally inappropriate attraction to your CIA handler. You learn that you are possibly the central figure of a 500 year old apocalyptic prophecy that has engaged the world’s terrorist organisations in a frantic and increasingly dense and dangerous treasure hunt. Oh and then you discover that your idealised literature professor mother, who died when you were a child, is actually alive and is, in fact, a former KGB assassin and terrorist mastermind. And she’s apparently trying to kill you. As are her sisters.

And that’s just some of the plot details from the first four series. Season one sets up all of the complicated relationship dynamics as well as setting the template for breath-taking action sequences, mind-bending plots and scream-out-loud plot twists.

It’s in the second series, however, that the show delves deeper and mines the material for even more riches than you thought possible. Central to this season’s success is the mesmerising charisma of Swedish actress Lena Olin who becomes a series regular in a crucial recurring role. The twists and turns come breathlessly thick and fast, building up to a shattering final twist that completely upends the entire show.

Series three struggles to deal with the implications of the season two finale but the show recovers midway and lines up a whole reshuffling of roles and relationships for Alias’ riveting, cathartic and intentionally perplexing fourth series.

I haven’t seen any of the fifth series yet but it will be interesting to see how Abrams et al wrap things up. One thing that’s certain is that it will not be straightforward – and the details of the death of at least one major character have already been confirmed. This character was set up by the series four finale to be the crux of the last season so just what the writers are up to exactly is not clear. But for the uninitiated, I highly recommend that you check out the earlier seasons on DVD, bearing in mind this piece of advice: don’t make any plans for that period because once you start watching, you will not be able to stop. That is the only guarantee that I can promise you as far as this brilliant show is concerned.

The One Where I Become a Godfather

Apologies in advance but recent developments have left me all sentimental and broody. My brother and his wife recently became parents for the second time and made me an offer I just couldn’t refuse. They asked me to be their son’s godfather (insert obvious Marlon Brando joke here).

I now have six nephews and nieces altogether but this is the first time that a Cabinet position has been available. Of course I adopt a Marxist approach to my dealings with them: I’m mad about them all equally and each fairly receives according to their needs (and demands).

More than anything, I get such a buzz off them. And you should, right? You should enjoy their company, revelling in all their innocent wisdom as it challenges your adult stupidity. Children - at least the ones I’m acquainted with - would make the ideal journalism students or detectives for that matter, as the first thing you are taught when training for those jobs is to ask ‘Who, what, where, when, how, why’? Some of their interrogation procedures would break the toughest and most tight-lipped of criminals. Maybe I’m onto something here. Law and Order: Special Infants Unit.

Any godparent will tell you that it’s an incredible honour to be asked and in my case there wasn’t one second of doubt about accepting, apart from making it clear that this categorically does not mean that I have to suddenly grow up.

As someone who doesn’t have children and probably won’t for a long time, being a godparent takes on extra significance. I think single people appreciate these gestures more than anyone. It’s not just a sign of faith, love and trust between the parents and the person they bestow the privilege on. It’s an invitation to take on an extra role in the life of their child.

I don’t just mean the stuff that’s written clearly in the contract: the religious (Christening, Communion, Confirmation), special occasions (birthdays, exams) and miscellaneous (let’s give the chap a chance before answering this, shall we?). That’s the technical stuff. That’s the easy part.

What I find exciting about the role is the idea of having an influence in the child’s life that is not necessarily material. I have been pretty well involved with all my nephew and nieces’ lives although not as much as I’d like to be since I left the homestead for fame and riches (my address must have gotten lost in the karmic post somewhere).

But I feel that this extra role brings something different to a relationship with a child. It may seem on the surface as if we are doing something special for the baby but it’s really the reverse that’s true.

People in this country, especially the ones of my generation and those snapping at our heels, are running the risk of becoming a godless, cynical shower altogether. It was only natural I suppose. This country’s certainties have shifted, some because they had to, others because they were supplanted by something that we haven’t exactly identified yet. There is a danger that, like a lot of other aspects of life here, we are fulfilling clichés, this one being that we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

A baby should be valued and there is no price that can be put on the feelings that he or she evokes. Feelings that they most certainly do not stir, however, are contempt and irony and sarcasm. That’s just one thing that they do for us and for that, in this culture of complaining and know-it-all-ism, we should be eternally grateful for it. Without labouring the point too much, I guess they become our godparent instead, there to guide us and help us along the way. Hopefully, it won’t entail borrowing money off him though. Help me out NUJ!

I’m speaking only on the strength of my own observations and limited experience, but children need as many people to watch out for them as is humanly possible. I hope I’m not aging myself before my time but I like the idea of being a repository of wisdom, support and advice for the child, something that I am going to impose on him whether he likes it or not! As they get older, it can never hurt for kids to know that a lot of people have their back. I think children need that now more than ever before, even if they don’t realise it themselves until much later, if at all.

So, to Mr Aidan Cashin, speaking as your adoring and soon to be over-bearing godfather, I wish you a long and happy life, you beautiful, perfect little boy.

Cache Me If You Can

Anyone who believes that cinema cannot engage with contemporary cultural anxieties would do well to check out Michael Haneke's new movie Cache (Hidden), playing in the IFI and CineWorld. This ambiguous, ominous and deeply unsettling psychological drama stars French A-Listers Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche as Georges and Anne Laurent, a wealthy middle-class couple who start receiving surveillence tapes of their home in the post. The tapes keep coming, eventually with sinister drawings attached and mysterious phone calls following. Georges suspects that the person behind the stalking is someone from his childhood against whom he commited a wrong but he keeps most of this information hidden from his increasingly unnerved wife.

Cache is an astonishing movie. It's constructed in such a way that it makes it harder and harder to tell when you, as the audience, are watching one of the surveillence tapes and when you're actually watching the movie as filmed through Haneke's lens. Maybe there is no difference between the two? Haneke succeeds in shattering his characters' complacency but he does the exact same thing to us, particularly by way of two breathtakingly shocking moments of violence that jolt you out of your skin.

More than that, though, Haneke implicates us in both the stalking and and the wider issues that underpin the mysterious actions. Georges specifically traces his current problems to an incident from the past that occured after the violent suppression of French Arab protesters during the Algerian conflict in 1961. Cache is clearly concerned with addressing French colonial guilt, a point made even more pertinent to modern audiences by the deliberate prominence given to a news report about the American-British occupation of Iraq.

What makes Cache even richer, however, is that there is a chance it's not about that guilt at all. It would certainly seem so but this movie teaches us that you cannot believe everything you see or hear. Guilt certainly is a leitmotif here but it forces you to constantly rethink what exactly there is to feel guilty about. The camera never really settles - nor do the characters. I want to see it again because I don't trust any of them anymore. Something about the way they all relate to each other doesn't settle with us as an audience. Something tells me that its not meant to.

Cache may not be Friday evening entertainment but I highly recommend that you check it out. Like another recent French film, Le Clan, it points out the faultlines in modern French society, particularly with regards its race relations. These viewings are made more crucial in light of the recent riots that brought the country to the brink of a national emergency.

Rarely has a movie so unsettled and perplexed me. Cache will keep you rivetted from beginning to end but I recommend you bring someone as you will need more than one pair of eyes to take it all in and more than one mind to chew over what exactly you've just seen and what it means. And do not attempt to leave the cinema just because the credits are rolling as Cache has one of the most profoundly ambiguous final shots in the history of cinema, one that will haunt you for days and have you arguing for ever over its plethora of possible interpretations. Prepare for a repeat viewing straight after you leave the first one.

Twin Meanings

More often than not, historical movies are more concerned with the present than they are with the past. Rarely has that truism been proven more accurate than in Steven Spielberg’s polemical new movie, Munich.

Munich concerns itself with the response of the then Israeli government to the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics. It is based on a highly disputed book entitled Vengeance by George Jonas, and previously made into a TV movie called Sword of Gideon (1987). The movie and book alleges that a black op group of Mossad agents were sent to hunt down and assassinate the leadership of the Black September group across the European continent.

Needless to say, the movie has caused a huge furore, particularly amongst Jewish commentators. Whatever historical and political problems the movie may or may not have, there are two facts that cannot be disputed. Firstly, Munich is a masterfully directed piece of film-making and a riveting, provocative and unsettling thriller. Secondly, this is not just a movie about the Arab/Israeli conflict. Munich is about America and the directions that George W. Bush has taken regarding domestic and foreign policy.

The film is replete with moments that solidify that argument. The Prime Minister Golda Meir (played by Lynn Cohen) delivers lines like “Every civilisation has to find ways to negotiate compromises with its own values” while other characters state that Israel must “forget peace, we must be strong”. Others muse that “there’s no peace at the end of this” and “all this blood will come back to haunt us” to which the reply comes “It will be worth it, it will work out”.

Spielberg’s over-riding mission for this movie is to show the spiritual loss that a country endures when it succumbs to fervent patriotic and nationalistic demands for devastating revenge. Lights and lighting are major motifs in this movie, throwing into stark relief the darkness of the group’s mission and the mentality that underlies it. The lead character Avner (superbly played by Eric Bana) is, literally, a shadow of his former self by the movie’s end, his once-olive complexion now gaunt and deathly pale. Through this character, Spielberg conveys the message that, in trying to defend its life, Israel may have forsaken its soul.

Any doubt about Munich’s true didactic purpose is removed by the movie’s closing shot. Avner has just walked away from a meeting in a Brooklyn park with his Mossad boss (Geoffrey Rush). The camera scans the 1970s New York skyline with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre glaringly prominent. The credits roll but the camera stays on this image. This is no accident.

The fallen Twin Towers have cast a long shadow over all aspects of American life, not the least of which its movie output. Spielberg himself has been fictionally grappling with the consequences of 9/11 in his last few movies. His remake of War of the Worlds (2005) was very much informed by the fear of terrorism, deploying a clunky metaphorical device where an all-out attack from an ‘alien’ (i.e. outsiders and foreigners) entity brings the U.S and the world to its knees.

Spielberg’s previous two movies before WOTW also deal with 9/11, albeit it in more indirect ways. The Terminal (2004), in which a bureaucratic snafu leaves Eastern European Tom Hanks stranded in an American airport, was the first movie to reflect upon and depict the severe administrative nightmare that is the post-9/11 created Department of Homeland Security (just ask anyone who has tried to get a Visa or a Social Security card in the US over the last five years).

A year after the terrorist attacks, Spielberg brought an on-hold Stanley Kubrick project to the screen. Minority Report (2002) is a futuristic thriller in which technology is used to monitor the citizen and where authority acts swiftly to prevent crimes before they are actually committed. Even at that early stage in the War on Terrorism, Spielberg was commenting on (and even prefiguring) the contentious Patriot Act and the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence that brought the US into Iraq.

Immediately after the attacks, Hollywood shut down business down and delayed the production and release of movies that might be deemed insensitive to the national mood of grief and fear (such as The Governator’s Collateral Damage). Once the initial shock wore off, and military intervention in Afghanistan began, the multiplexes were hit by a slew of hit and miss war movies in quantities not seen since the heyday of the Reagan presidency. Black Hawk Down (2001), Behind Enemy Lines (2001), We Were Soldiers (2002), Enemy at the Gates (2001) were all released in quick succession to cash in on the America’s patriotic, militaristic mood.

Other movies were less obvious in their attempts to accommodate the effects of 9/11. Todd Fields' remarkable indie feature In the Bedroom (2001) was the best reviewed movie of 2001 and won a slew of awards. Its themes of profound grief, senseless loss and fervent retribution seemed to perfectly encapsulate the mood of the nation. M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002) was one of the first movies to go into production after the initial shutdown following the attacks. It’s a movie that perfectly captured the fear, uncertainty and paranoia that the US was plunged into, particularly in the scenes where the characters are watching what they believe to be the end of the world live on television. Shyamalan created a similar tone for his later movie The Village (2004) in which a fiercely enclosed and isolated community must suddenly confront malevolent, wood-dwelling forces on their outskirts that they always knew existed but who never struck before now.

Sam Raimi’s comic book adaptation Spiderman was the most successful American movie of 2002. The country rallied around the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), an ordinary young man, who through a dramatic change in circumstance literally becomes a hero overnight. Parker’s story was seen as a fitting tribute to the heroics performed by the emergency services in the chaotic, tragic hours following the 9/11 attacks.

Parts of the movie had to be reshot following the attacks, including a climactic face-off on the side of the Twin Towers themselves. During the re-edit, explicit references to the cultural and political shift were worked in, such as when a group of citizens defend Spiderman as he’s battling the Green Goblin. One character shouts “If you attack one of us, you attack us all”. This is the message of Article V of the Nato Charter which was invoked directly after the attacks in a moving, albeit short-lived moment of transatlantic solidarity. The sequel, Spiderman 2 (2004) further developed the theme of using ‘great power’ responsibly.

Movies have been slow to criticise the Bush Administration or question its controversial policies. Before all-out culture war was declared in 2004, movies had to quietly get their message across. The Quiet American (2002), a movie about American involvement in 1950s Indochina, certainly went against the patriotic grain as did the decidedly anti-military Buffalo Soldiers (2003). Scott Rudin, producer of the Oscar winning The Hours (2002), proudly declared that his movie was an affront to Bush’s concept of family and the insincere, black and white approach that he has imprinted on national debate about parenting, sexuality and other personal issues. Michael Moore’s documentary, Bowling for Columbine (2002) and Team America: World Police (2004) were less subtle about expressing disapproval of Bush’s America.

Moore was back in 2004 with his political hot potato, Fahrenheit 9/11, which no studio wanted to touch in an election year. Winning the Palme D’or at the Cannes Film Festival brought a backer as well as acres of column inches about the issues raised in the documentary. Jonathan Demme also timed the release of his avowedly topical remake of The Manchurian Candidate to coincide with the Democratic National Convention where the Kerry-Edwards ticket was selected to challenge Bush-Cheney. Last summer, both Joss Whedon’s magnificent Serenity and George Lucas’ semi-illiterate Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith both featured pointed commentaries on Empire and Manichean world views (with varying levels of success).

This year, Munich is just one of a series of films that are finally breaking the silence over Bush, his policies and the war in Iraq. Even a cursory glance at synopses of major new movies will show that these are most certainly concerned with the US that the world was left with once the smoke cleared in New York and Washington. Political and cultural swings and debates inform the narratives of Jarhead, Good Night and Good Luck, Transamerica, Brokeback Mountain, Syriana amongst many more. After years of kowtowing to a dubious and distorted idea of patriotism and what it means to be a ‘real’ (i.e. Bush-like) American, Hollywood is waking up and engaging with issues.

At one point in Munich, Avner remarks that the Palestinian retaliation for the Israeli mission means that “we are in a dialogue with them now”. The same could be said of Hollywood, the government and the many diverse citizens that both are trying to reach.

'Merely wires and lights in a box'

Journalistic integrity is rarely a black and white issue...but it is in George Clooney's astonishing new movie Good Night, And Good Luck. Clooney decided to shoot the movie in monochrome, a suitable move as it is set in the 1950s television era. And although the action of the movie is set in the past, its themes deliberately resound in the present.

Clooney writes, directs and stars as Fred Friendly, producer of a CBS news show anchored by now revered American journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn). The social context is made clear: it's the period of the Communist Witch-hunts headed by Wisconsin Seantor Joseph McCarthy. The movie opens with journalists Joe Wershba (Robert Downey Jnr) and his wife Shirley (Patricia Clarkson) debating whether or not to sign a forced statement that professes that all CBS employees are "loyal Americans". Murrow and Friendly decide to turn the spotlight on McCarthy and expose his hypocrisy and scare-mongering not to mention the means by which he is bringing people before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which are unconstitutional and borderline illegal. By doing so, however, the men are drawing attention to themselves and the political sympathies of their staff, and risk losing everything - their sponsors, their jobs, their reputations - in order to bring McCarthy down.

There is no actor playing McCarthy - stock footage of the man is used instead to great effect. The cast are uniformly excellent, led by the brilliant character actor Strathairn, who, one hopes, will now become the star he deserves to be. Clooney has made an avowedly poltical movie but he is no Michael Moore. He has created a loving and enthralling tribute to journalism and is a welcome discussion point in a year that will see the 30th anniversary reissue of two of the greatest movies about American journalism ever made: Network and All the President's Men.

The McCarthy era has long been subject matter for American artists, from Arthur Millers' allegorical play The Crucible to Philip Roth's coruscating I Married A Communist. Clooney is interested in drawing parallels between that period and the present, where the administration of George W. Bush has used the media to stoke fear in a traumatised nation on an unprecedented level and where anyone who dares to question their catastrophic policies will be branded unpatriotic. The movies' taglines tell you exactly what its point it: "In A Nation Terrorized By Its Own Government, One Man Dared to Tell The Truth" and "We will not walk in fear of one another".

Many of today's most pertinent issues crop up in some guise. In addition to the obvious political message, we see the insidious work of advertisers and sponsors, censorship as well as the tension between the individual versus the state. Even an interview with Liberace draws poignant attention to the issue of gay marriage - or "unions" as he refers to it. Much like Spielberg's highly polemical Munich, many lines of dialogue will resonate in the current climate such as "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty", "I don't believe in trial by hearsay" and, most strikingly, "We cannot defend freedom abroad while deserting it at home".

More than anything, Good Night and Good Luck takes aim at journalists and the television media for abandoning its responsibility to question power and authority and for just rolling over to get its belly tickled instead of taking a bite out of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all their ilk. McCarthy was threatening to tear the country asunder - much like George W. Bush has, him being the most polarising President in living memory.

This tense, articulate, beautifully written and executed tale ends with Murrow issuing a warning about television and the dangers of it not fulfilling a mandate to inform and enlighten. Murrow argues that if millions fail to receive illumination on the issues that affect the future of their country - like education, healthcare and policy toward the Middle East - then their television is "merely wires and lights in a box".

Television maunufacturers supplying the US should take heed and rebrand their products now. Alternatively, the media could kick itself up the arse and stop accepting at face value the spin, obfuscation, manipulation and downright lies of their government.

Nighty Night

Over Christmas, a friend introduced me to a little seen BBC comedy written by and starring Julia Davis. It's called Nighty Night and is, without question, the darkest, blackest comedy that the BBC have ever broadcast (apart from Tony Blair press conferences of course).

Davis stars as Jill, a demented beautician whose husband Terry (Kevin Eldon) is diagnosed with cancer. Rather than care for him or even mourn, Jill commits him to a hospice (and keeps his recovery a secret from him) and decides to get on with her life by finding a new man. She sets her sights on her next door neighbour, randy Doctor Don (played by Angus Deayton) whose wife Cathy (Rebecca Front) is partially disabled with Multiple Sclerosis. This doesn't bother the increasingly unhinged Jill however, as she demonstrates how she will stop at nothing to get the man she wants.

This 6 episode first series will leave you offended, horrified...and sore from laughing. You will HATE yourself but Nighty Night is really an equal opportunity offender. Once you get over the initial shock, it's impossible not to laugh as these horrible, selfish, mad - yet bizarrely sympathetic - characters mock cancer, MS, suicide, sexual abuse....Yes, I hate myself for even typing those words but I'm only the messenger. I heartily recommend that you dig this series up on DVD before the second series arrives and it takes off completely. It is the most shockingly original, disturbingly entertaining, morbidly funny TV show I have ever seen. Sean, thank you for bringing into our lives!