The British suck - says a Brit

In a good article in Standpoint about the imminent demise of the British Film Council, consisting largely of a long quote from Oscar-winning Julian Fellowes, Peter Whittle concludes:

The travails of the UK film industry (as with so many of our problems) are always described in terms of lack of money. Proper support would open the dam which currently holds back the talent that would otherwise be gushing through. But I am not convinced by this endless boosterism. Having reviewed movies in one form or another for nearly twenty years, I have sat through more than my fair share of simply terrible British films, which in their crassness, amateurism and ineptitude leave one depressed and (like audiences at local multiplexes) heading straight for the nearest Hollywood blockbuster.

In other words I am not so sure that there are such great reserves of talent there, waiting to be tapped. If you think this is too harsh, just watch Sex Lives of the Potato Men. It is not so much about the money as the culture, and ours right now is downwardly aspirational, often nihilistic and polarised between the morbidly miserablist and the sexed-up nostalgic. No amount of financial support will alter this.