Merry Christmas, America! Too early, you cry? Christmas officially begins tonight, at least here in London, because Jim Carrey says so. Actually, let's not shoot the messenger -- it's officially Christmas tonight because Walt Disney has paid for it to be so. A lot. Tonight's Christmas lights ceremony will be marked by two firsts: the first time an American star has had the honour of flipping the switch, and the first time that the lights in both Oxford Street and the intersecting Regent Street will share a unifying theme: Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol, premiering in Leicester Square right after. "We are delighted that 'Disney's A Christmas Carol will literally light up London with this spectacular holiday event", says Disney Chairman Dick Cook. No sh*t.
The Oxford Street/Regent Street lights first appeared in the 1950s, and only in recent years has this slice of super-prime real estate been bought by Hollywood's highest bidders. Over the years, snowflakes and sleighs have been replaced with less traditional imagery: In 2006, holiday shoppers were treated to the sight of those wonderful, iconic toilet-rodents from Flushed Away leering over their heads; 2007 was the turn of Enchanted. This year, Disney is practically taking over the whole city, with two of the film's other stars, Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth, on hand elsewhere to turn on yet more lights, set off some fireworks, and spread peace and goodwill to all. And to tell us to go and see Disney's' A Christmas Carol - in 3-D! It's all very heartwarming. I went down to the aforementioned intersection this morning to see the wonder of the lights myself, and I can report that only now do I truly understand the meaning of Christmas. Thank you, America. Here's how you've magically transformed the busiest road-crossing in London. Just imagine how glorious it will look when it's lit up!
I don't mean to seem ungrateful. We're happy to have your money. God knows you're happy to have ours. The London Film Festival came to a close last week, and, as I reported, derived most of its glamour from big American films. Some were excellent - although for every Coen brothers, there was a Harmony Korine. (Seriously, I'm jealous of every single one of you who hasn't had to sit through Trash Humpers. 80 minutes of Harmony Korine dressed as an old person masturbating plants?) Naturally, the same applied to Britain's contributions, but the good ones, such as Sam Taylor-Wood's Nowhere Boy (chronicling the early life of John Lennon) and Malcolm Venville's 44 Inch Chest (by the writers of Sexy Beast), were fantastic. And in one instance, America, we came together in perfect synergy with The Men Who Stare At Goats, which was developed by us and funded by you.
The film is adapted from the excellent 2004 book written by Jon Ronson (pictured, right), a British journalist who has made documentary films on UFO enthusiasts, pop-star paedophiles, kidney-donating Christians, and Stanley Kubrick. In The Men Who Stare At Goats, Ronson travelled America meeting warrior monks, psychic super-spies, and a whole host of other military figures who have attempted to use paranormal powers to serve their country. It's certainly rich material, packed with drama, comedy and insanity, although, as the film's producer Paul Lister pointed out, it doesn't "really present itself as a movie", and the adaptation's method of solving this, by reinventing Ronson as American journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) and superficially padding him with problems of his own, is clumsily shoehorned in. Still, the film's really all about George Clooney, who's a blast as New Earth Army conscript Lyn Cassady, and inevitably hogged the writer's limelight on the red carpets in Venice and Toronto.
"It's a very strange mix," Ronson told me. "On the one hand you're standing on the red carpet in front of 20,000 people and 200 paparazzi photographers, and on the other hand every single one of them doesn't give a f*ck about you, so it's kind of grounding." In fact, the whole 'George Clooney's making a movie about my book' experience has been grounding, he says, including seeing a version of himself being played by Ewan McGregor: "I wish it had been more surreal, watching it for the first time, but really I was just sitting there as an audience member, enjoying it. On my deathbed, I'll probably be bemoaning the fact that I wasn't more childishly delighted at things because I spent so much time being neurotic and anxious."
Ronson has made a living from meeting eccentric, obsessive characters, and his passion for such material stems from his affinity with these people, he says. His previous book, Them: Adventures With Extremists (which has its own Mike White-penned adaptation, to be directed by Edgar Wright, on the way), dealt with Bilderberg Group conspiracy theories and people who believe there are Satanic, 12-foot-tall lizards among us disguised as humans.
"I've always thought I understand eccentric people the best because I'm a bit like that, in my own way", says Ronson. "I'm much more rationalist than a lot of people I write about - I don't believe in the paranormal or conspiracy theories, and I know they're not true - but I think the general OCD nuttiness that I have is the same thing, in a way. Anything on that spectrum, OCD, paranoia, autism, it's all linked, and the people that I write about are all on that scale, and that's what makes what they do so interesting and resonant. And powerful, you can even argue; I sometimes wonder if that's what makes the world go around. If everybody was completely rational it would be a kind of still pond. It takes people like that to shake up the world."
And you can't argue with that. Personally, I'd like to see some 12-foot lizards lumbering through the streets of London, picking up cars and throwing them at the Christmas Carol lights. That would shake things up nicely.
Tally ho, bitches.