Ave, Paolo

More madness from the world of football, this time courtesy of Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio. He's addressed the controversy over his "Roman salutes" during Lazio games by saying he considers himself a "fascist, but not racist" and that his salutes are simply a gesture to his fans, with no political connotations whatsoever. He did however reaffirm his desire to see all Roma fans sent to the gas chambers.

*Insert ape pun here*

Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong scaled to the top of the US box office with a haul of $50.1 million for the weekend. While that can buy you lot of bananas it compares poorly with other the big blockbuster releases of the year such as Star Wars: Episode III ($104 million), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($102 million) or even the less hyped Chronicles of Narnia ($66 million) released the week before.

After receiving plenty of hype and favourable critical reviews, Kong had been tipped to open considerably stronger and possibly end up as the year’s top-grossing film. Instead its weak opening was a disappointment and a further blow to a US box office that has been mired in a slump for most of the year. Kong's debut will be causing particular concern at Universal Studios, who are on hook for up to $207m in production costs for Kong, including Jackson's $20m paycheque.

Kong is under little threat of ending in the red; international revenues and DVD sales will see to that, and it may yet demonstrate "good legs" and avoid the steep declines blockbusters typically experience after their initial opening weekend. But one casualty will surely be Universal's thesis that Jackson's name could sell the movie in the manner of an A-list actor or actress.

By agreeing to the highest ever salary for a director, Universal were paying for not only Jackson's talents as an Oscar-winning director but a star name in the same price range as Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts. The Rings trilogy made Jackson a huge favourite amongst the "fanboy" audience of action, fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts, but Universal clearly overestimated the pull of his name amongst the general public. The film's leads Adrian Brody, Jack Black and Naomi Watts are all well known, but not amongst the top tier of Hollywood stars who command the kind of fee paid to the director. The real star of the film, apart from the titular giant ape, is Jackson; Kong is a circus where the spotlight is on the ringmaster instead of the performers.

But money matters aside I'm happy to report that as a movie, Kong is already a success.

Naomi Watts may play the beauty who steals the heart of the beast, but the real inter-species love affair is between Jackson and his simian star. Remaking Kong has long been Jackson's ambition, and his affection and reverence for the big ape is palpable from the moment we first glimpse him through the jungle mists up until his last stand atop the Empire State Building.

Played via motion capture by Andy Serkis, (who also gave life to Gollum in Lord of the Rings) Kong is a fascinating mix of animal brutality, alpha-male egotism and childlike-naivety all wrapped within a 25ft frame. The marvels devised by Jackson’s WETA animation team have allowed him to up the ante not only in terms of destruction and carnage, but emotion; the CGI Kong’s facial movements and expressions elicit greater empathy than the stop motion model or men in rubber suits of past iterations ever could.

There are moments of genuine pathos; even more than his inevitable demise, the scenes of Kong’s capture and subsequent display as Broadway freak attraction are the most harrowing. It’s during these scenes that the racial and historical subtexts are clearest, though Jackson doesn’t dwells on them. Kong is the noble savage, torn from his jungle homeland by supposedly more civilised men to be exploited and humiliated for profit in musical stage parody of his native culture, complete with blackface dancers.

Weighing in at an epic 3 hours, double the running time of the 1933 original, Kong can’t help but feel somewhat bloated. The middle hour of the film in particular sinks into excess as Jackson indulges his passion for creature features which first made his name. Why settle for one T-Rex when you can have three? And then why not throw in giant leeches, insects, bats and a Jurassic Park quantity of dinos.

Nevertheless Kong is still probably the best remake since, well, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. It demanded to be made due to opportunities allowed by the advances in CGI. It’s just fortunate that in it fell to a director with the passion and vision to make it worthwhile.

Winners and losers

In the interconnected world we inhabit today progress on one front can often mean trouble on another, winners in one instance resulting in losers in elsewhere. So it has proven today.

In Brussles Tony Blair gets himself in the good graces of everyone in the EU (save perhaps in Britain) by sealing a deal over EU budget for 2007-2013. Britain has agreed to give up £7 billion of its rebate over the period, and in return there will be review of agricultural spending in 2008 (unlikely to amount to anything) and a smaller increase in the total budget. In doing so Blair has opened himself to criticism from eurosceptics at home, who will portray this as a capitulation to France and Germany. In reality it's more of a concession to the newer Eastern European members, who will now be getting access to the EU aid they need to fund infrastructure and economic reforms.

In Hong Kong the WTO talks are in deadlock, with any substantive deal seemingly out of reach. Outside the conference centre representatives of farmers from across the developing world are rioting, demonstrating their anger and contempt at the proceedings going on behind the barricades. The agreement of the EU budget probably means that European agricultural subsidies will see no significant reform over the next 7 years. This simply confirms of what most already knew coming into these talks; that developed nations have reached the upper limits of what they are willing to concede on agricultural tariffs and subsidies.

Given the absence of any progress, developed countries (principally the US and EU) will eschew the WTO and instead seek bilateral deals with major developing nations (such as China and India) and regional organisations (such as ASEAN) on terms more flexible and favourable than could be reached under the WTO. Developing countries which have the markets, labour, exports and investment opportunities which Western multinationals crave should have no fear of being shut out as a result of failure in Hong Kong. The real losers will be smaller, mainly agricultural-producing countries on the fringes of the world trading system.

The history of the development and enlargement of the WTO simply provides another example of the problems of making large scale, multilateral organisations work. From its origins as GATT, the WTO has steadily expanded from being a small club of mostly wealthy, industrial nations to a one which includes a majority of the world's countries, rich and poor. As it has grown the WTO has become more and more unwieldy and less able to accommodate the greater diversity of interest amongst its members. Much as the UN proved ineffective in dealing with the crisis leading to the Iraq War, the WTO seems like it cannot extract the concessions on agriculture from developed nations which are the key to any deal. And as with Iraq, when the big boys are unable to get their way multilaterally, they will go it alone unilaterally with any willing allies in tow.

What else is new?

Picture for the Day

I just felt compelled to share this wonderfully surreal image with the rest of you. Enjoy.

Passion of the Witch

I've been to see Narnia, and it's good. The 4 children are all excellent, Liam Neeson reprises his Qui-Gonn Jinn persona to voice the Christ-lion Aslan and the supporting cast of fauns, centaurs and talking beasts are all well realised. Thankfully dirctor Andrew Adamson doesn't import the one liners and SNL-style humour of Shrek, instead sticking with old fashioned English understatement and irony. It's also rarely guilty of the modern film-making sin of dwelling on its special effects (call it Lucas syndrome), leaving the focus firmly on the characters and story. The christian allegory is there only for those looking for it, the rest of us can instead enjoy the universal themes of redemption, courage and sacrifice played out in a charming fantasy tale.

As is so often the case, it's the villian which steals the show. Tilda Swinton is fantastic as the White Witch, a vast improvement on the pantomine camp of her BBC television predecessor. Her character remains compelling throughout, thanks mainly to the numerous guises she assumes over the course of the film. The sweet, seductive lady with whom Edmund is instantly smitten (along with much of the audience, I'd bet) is gone all too quickly, replaced by a cruel, shrieking tyrant. She morphs into a pagan priestess when presiding over the ritual slaughter of Aslan in a Stonehenge-like arena, surrounded by her braying, heathen hordes. Donning the lion's shaven mane around her neck, she leads her army to battle on chariot as a sword-flailing Boudicca-like amazon. Her stern beauty, icy complexion, frozen blonde braids and piercing dark eyes make her utterly sinister and completely irresistable.

Ultimately, despite offering superior entertainment, this adaptation fails to acheive the heights of any of the 3 Lord of the Rings movies, often feeling competant rather than inspired. It lacks the depth and richness of Peter Jackson's films, which, like Star Wars before it, has set the bar for fantasy adventures so high we are unlikely to see it matched for some time yet.

Bring it on!

Well there will be no Ashes rematch at the World Cup, not in the group stages at least. Instead England get a near ideal draw of Sweden, Paraguay and Trinadad & Tobago. Ideal for some that is; Simon Barnes in the Times instead argues that if England are good enough to win it, they should have no fear of who they draw at any stage of the competition. Better in his mind to go out all guns blazing in a "group of death" than to surrender meekly in the quater-finals after an easy progress before that. I'm inclined to agree.

As it turns out the group of death is comprised of Argentina, Holland, Serbia & Montenegro and Ivory Coast. Argentina will be haunted by memories of 4 years ago when they crashed out at the group stage, while Holland are still largely in rebuilding mode after coach Marco Van Basten jetissoned most of the Ajax '95 generation of Davids, Kluivert, Seedorf et al. It would be no great shock to see one of those two fail to get out of the group. All the other favourites all have seemingly easy draws except for Italy, who have the Czech Republic, Ghana and the USA for company.

Seeing the draw in full reinforces my feeling that after the lesser teams had their moments in the sun in 2002, this World Cup will see the established major nations returing to the fore. Playing in Germany should give European teams a "home advantage" boost, the relative inexperience of the African teams counts against them, and surely Japan and Korea will not enjoy the success they did 4 years ago as hosts. Brazil with their unmatched firepower remain clear favourites, but should they fail the path to glory would open up for a number of teams, England being one of them.

Under Eriksson England have progressed slowly since 2001, but can now be considered the foremost amongst the European contenders. The left side of midfield remains a question, but in Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and captain David Beckham they have possibly the best all-round midfield in the world. The defence is solid, Rio Ferdinand's sorry decline compensated for by the presence of John Terry and Sol Campbell. Gary Neville and Ashley Cole are proven performers and Paul Robinson is a talented goalkeeper, if still prone to occasional errors of judgement.

The key for England will be the dynamic duo of Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen upfront. Rooney is a genius, the best young player in the world, and he will go to Germany trying to remove any qualifier on his status. Owen, though his own wonderboy aura has faded since 1998, remains one of most lethal strikers in the world, as Argentina will testify. Together they compliment each other ideally, with Rooney as a deep-lying creator frequently dropping into midfield and Owen streching the defence and waiting to pounce further upfront. The paucity of striking options beyond them (including the much maligned Peter Crouch) makes it crucial to England's chances they stay fit.

All that amounts to a team which should be considered joint second favourites with Argentina behind Brazil. This is the best England side since the one that defended the World Cup in 1970. Brazil could be their undoing once again, but England should fancy their chances against anyone else.

Ashes rematch?

England coach Eriksson is keen to avoid an "Ashes rematch" of England vs Australia at next year's World Cup. I'm praying for it. Australia are mostly comprised of current or ex-English League players who won't hold any suprises for England; better to face Oz than be ambushed by some Eastern European or African team who could spring a suprise. With the possible expections of Viduka, Schwarzer and fit Kewell, none of the Australian team would figure in the English squad, let alone first team. If there's any team England should be totally confident of beating, it's Australia.

Furthermore facing England in a competitive match at the World Cup would be the biggest football match in Australian history. It would do much to help the growth of football down under and give huge boost to the fledgling A-League.

Secularism is not anti-clericalism

The-most-anticipated-movie-event-of-the-year^tm, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (phew!) is almost upon us. With the end of the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series, Hollywood has decided that CS Lewis' works are going to fill the gap in the market for an epic fantasy movie franchise. Taking a que from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, producers Disney and Walden Media are playing up the story's Christian elements, pitching the movie to church groups and religious organisations. This in turn drawn the ire of some on the left.

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian says Narnia "represents everything that is most hateful about religion", embodying the "perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America" and advising that the secular amongst us "may need a sickbag handy". Phillip Pullman, who has written an entire trilogy of best-selling books with precisely the opposite aim of Lewis, slams them as "religious propaganda", riddled with misogyny and racism.

To me such hyperbolic and hysterical attacks are, in this day and age, beating a dead horse. Christianity in the West is an aging, declining, ineffectual sect and a soft target. Like that other pet hate of the left, the monarchy, the Church is an institution largely stripped of its former power and prestige, no longer wielding any great influence on our way of life. Particular issues such Catholic Church's runious stances on contraception and homosexuality may be objectionable, but these are not the basis of the wholesale and fundemental condemnations made by the anti-Narnians.

They seem especially hollow from those who would shirk from equivalent criticisms of Islam for fear of appearing "racist", despite the fact that issues of freedom, tolerance, women's rights, homosexuality and religious belligerence are far more pressing in relation to Islam than Christianity. Furthermore Christianity is increasingly no longer a "white" or "Western" religion which licences scorn and criticism. As church-going numbers dwindle across the developed world, most of the flock of the faithful is located in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Even in Bush's evangelical America, the appetite for religion is greatest amongst blacks, Asians and Latinos.

Secularism is not anti-clericalism; it should not seek the advance of atheism or to drive religion completely from the public life. Secularism should be an attitude of neutrality towards religion, not Jacobin-like hostility. Its goal is to immunise our political and state processes and institutions from religious interference, but not to try undermine it beyond that.

Secularist (amongst whose number I include myself) need not indulge in pointless sniping at Lewis’ gospel-dressed-as-fantasy. Liberals should have no objection to the religious point of view being propagated in the free market of ideas.

Mutatis Mutandis

Hello loyal readers (you are out there aren't you? aren't you? Hello........?). You may have noticed the numorous subtle changes to the layout of the blog every once in a while. It's evolution, folks.The originl layout was a stock template from blogger.com and I've been making small changes to it every once in a while. The intention is that as I gradually develop my html and web design skills, ACPOV can get it's own newly designed layout, migrate to its own site and maybe evolve into something else. Im still getting a handle on what ACPOV will focus on and trying to adapt my writing to style appropriate to the blog format, so please bear with me. In the meantime please continue to log on and read the blog. Thank you all for your support.

Also please leave comments, as I have no other gauge of the interest (or lack thereof) this blog is attracting. Maybe I'll get round to installing a hit counter sometime.

Econo-masochism

The latest act of monetary self-harm by the European Central Bank has seen them raise interest rates by a quarter of a %. ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet justifies this by saying:

"We are expected by 311 million people to provide price stability," Mr Trichet said, and went on to underline that the best way to ensure low interest rates is to control price growth.

He also pointed out that economic growth and job creation would be best served by steady price growth.

No, Monsieur Trichet, the people of Europe (from whom you are splendidly unaccountable) expect the ECB to create conditions for economic prosperity, of which price stability is only one concern, and certainly not at the expense of flatlining growth rates and high unemployment. The outdated monetarist dogma of price stability uber alles has made the Eurozone by far the weakest of the world's major economic blocks since 1999, ritual repetition of it will not make the policies based upon it any less ineffective. Current upward price pressures are a result of higher energy costs more than anything else, penalising the entire Eurozone economy on that basis is short-sighted and counter-productive to say the least. And price stability the best way to ensure low interest rates? The less said about that philosophy the better.

Discontented European voters should soon realise that ranting against their elected national officials is useless so long as the monetary mandarins in Frankfurt are unwilling to utilise interest rates as an active tool to promote growth, especially with regards to Germany. The experience of the Bank of England post-ERM crisis should be instructive; since casting off the restrictions of the ERM the British economy has seen by far the fastest growth rates and lowest unemployment amongst the major European economies whilst successfully keeping inflation within the Banks mandated 2% limit.

Ultimately, for all the willful incompetance of the ECB, the mistitled Growth and Stability Pact was authored and approved by politicians, and it will require political action to reform it. But the woeful lack of political courage, unity and leadership in Europe scarcely inspires any confidence that will come about soon.