This weeks award for banal speculation masquerading as journalism" has to go to our friends at everybodys favourite reactionary, pitch-fork wielding broadloid,
The Daily Mail. The culprit being Baz Bamigboye, the newspapers film correspondent, notorious only for being chewed up and spat out- metaphorically speaking- by Lars Von Trier at the 2009 Cannes film festival, during the press conference that followed the debut of the Danes sexual horror opus, Antichrist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx1kbQVaGVk Baz is keen to inform us this week- from a publication that doesnt usually maintain standards this strong- that his industry contact made the following off record statement concerning the possible casting of
Sean Penn and
Robert Downey Jr in
Tom Hoopers forthcoming
Les Miserables:
There are a number of well known actors who can sing, and we have to evaluate them, an executive working on the film told me. The question is: Who are the potential tenors to play Valjean? And who are the potential baritones to play Javert? For instance, what do we know about the vocal range of someone like Robert Downey Jr? We know he can sing, but whats his voice like? Is he a tenor or a baritone? Same with Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn, Michael Sheen, Benedict Cumberbatch and Keanu Reeves...
He then goes on to name at least
another dozen actors.... Yes, what Mr Bamigboye would have us believe from this quote of suspicious vagueness and congruent banality is that The King's Speech director Tom Hooper- whom
we reported weeks ago was set to adapt the musical in his first post-Oscar project- and his screen-writer,
Bill Nicholson, are considering potential leads PRIOR to researching their singing abilities for one of the most vocally demanding musicals ever penned. Of course, this is conceivable, and the failure to name a source makes it ultimately disprovable, and it is not unreasonable to assume that few would wish to lay claims to statements so inane.
Baz goes on at some length to speculate upon who may be appropriate for the various roles along with revealing supposed insider knowledge- of the potential actors singing abilities. All of which is infinitely too tedious to go into in any detail. But be assured, Daily Mail readers are going to be hearing a great deal about the forthcoming Les Mis production, even if the content of said articles is characteristically unsubstantive. It is after all, the perfect project for the shame of British newspaper journalism: middle-class, middle-brow and middle-Britain, and not too many ethnic minorities. I suspect that Baz will be responsible for a great deal of this forthcoming coverage, but we may sleep soundly in the knowledge that he maybe foolish to once again engage in a battle of wits with the Danish master of provocation. Roll on Cannes 2011.