Unlike the real hardcore film critics, I don't spend my entire waking day in film screenings, subsisting off tiny sandwiches and crisps, but last week I saw two new films in one evening and the timing was perfect. One was "Swordfish", the flashy new John Travolta heist thriller from "Gone In 60 Seconds" director Dominic Sena; the other "Urban Ghost Story" from young British producing-directing duo Chris Jones and Geneviève Jolliffe.
You may recognise their names. They also authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook in 1996 whose punk rock catchphrase "Get a camera. Get some stock. Go shoot a MOVIE" is backed up by a dazzling catalogue of practical advice. As Living Spirit Pictures, Jones and Jolliffe have now made three feature films, although "Urban Ghost Story" is the first to get a theatrical release, albeit limited. It's kind of "Poltergeist" meets "Ratcatcher", a very original and nicely realised combination and it was made for around Β£220,000.
Yes, Β£220,000. This is a professional film with professional actors (Jason Connery, James Cosmo, Elizabeth Berrington) and two major stunt sequences, shot partly on location in a tower block and partly in a studio at Ealing. It looks economical and real but not cheap and nasty, and here's the crux of the matter: it's better than "Swordfish", which cost in the region of $80 million.
What does that tell us about the disease that's eating the heart out of Hollywood? Expensive blockbusters are finding it tougher and tougher to make their money back these days (look at "Pearl Harbor"). Meanwhile a thrifty little gem like "Urban Ghost Story" has to spend two years in distribution hell, the fate of so many smaller, British films. Let's hope a few people seek it out and leave the distinctly average "Swordfish" playing to itself on half the screens in your local multiplex.
Perhaps Chris Jones and Geneviève Jolliffe might actually make some money. It would be the first time.
I'll be interviewing the ebullient and inspirational Chris Jones in the next couple of weeks for Back Row. The last time I met him I was so enthused I almost went straight out and made my own film!
Andrew Collins presents Back Row on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 on Saturday July 14th at 5.30pm. You can listen to Back Row then, or Radio 4 at any time, using RealPlayer and your computer.
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