Home Alone

So Lisa's buggered off to Wales for 4 nights. Which leaves just me and the cat left to fend for ourselves!! She went yesterday and I already miss Lisa loads - just don't know what to do with myself. But that being said I can always find things to distract myself - I've got loads of little tweaks to do with the BV album mixing, I'm learning how to use Final Cut properly (God it's sooo fuckin in-depth and professional! FACTOID: The Coen Brothers used Final Cut to edit and colourize one of my favourite films - No Country For Old Men)



I've also got The Force Unleashed to play - which is totally frickin awesome! Absolutely love the storyline in this. If you're a Star Wars fan (which I clearly am) then you have to check this out because the story is mindblowing!



Last night I finished off watching series 3 of Battlestar Galactica. Woah, what a finale?!?!?! Battlestar is, IMHO, probably one of the the best sci-fi shows in the history of all TV ever - it's sooooo realistic and dark and the characters are deep and ... and... I could go on but I won't!

Before Lisa left we popped into ASDA to grab a few things and just as you walk in they had boxes and boxes of Carlsberg and Kronenberg (18 bottles) for a fiver each!! So we grabbed a box of each - there were loads of freshers there buying them by the trolley load! So, all in all, I've got loads to keep me occupied, 36 bottles of beer in the fridge and a chippy/chinese/indian take-aways just round the corner .... I think I'll survive!! :)

Polish Film Posters

I've just stumbled upon this incredible collection of Polish Film Posters. They are so different from the American/English/Rest-of-the-world's posters it's unbeleivable. I don't know much about why they're like this. I can only assume that there was some weird copyright laws involved and so they had to draft in artists to create new designs. Some of them are so far removed from the actual film content. It's completely blown my mind. I will say that some of them are shit by todays professionally photoshopped examples but you have to understand that these were probably made on a zero budget, most in the 70's or 80's, they had to completely design their own font (not download from the internet it like you would today) and work with awkward and messy screen printing processes.




Apocolypse Now



STAR WARS - The Empire Strikes Back



Alien

Click me to see the rest...

The Watchmen

I've just started reading this last night....



I'm only about 30 pages in but already I'm hooked. I'm reading it in preparation for the movie. Here's the trailer...



Boner!

GTA has got me and not letting go!

Sorry about the lack of posts. GTA IV is to blame mostly! Whenever I got a spare moment I'm on that thing plugging away at those missions, sniping people, stealing cars, killing prostitues etc.

That being said, I HAVE been having a life....



I went to see Iron Man with Lisa (after a really nice meal in Wagamamas). 2 words about the film ... 'fucking incredible'! Robert Downey Jr is amazing as Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Jeff Bridges is unbelieveably brilliant! The storyline is totally believable and solid, the acting is superb, the sprinkling of comedy had me laughing out loud, the effects were seamless and it had the best cameo of Stan Lee ever! It will have to be owned on Blu-Ray when it comes out.

I've been to 60 Million Postcards this week twice - once to see Maz perform her RubyMusic stuff live and give her a bit of support, and the second time was to go to the 'It Came From Japan' evening (I write about that on my Bi-Polar Bears blog)

I've been to see my dad during the bank holiday weekend

I watched the Snooker final.

...and the footbal final with Chealsea V Man U (that's probably my only football entry on this blog!)

Been getting back into Heroes


I received my NIN Ghosts Deluxe Edition in the post this week. Chuffed!

We played a gig at 60 Million Postcards for Solid Air - everything went really smoothly... apart from the very end where the last track fell apart because of technical difficulties (although, nobody in the audience actually noticed - they all thought it was part of the song!)

Oh and I've shaved my head!

What? You mean batman wasn't REAL???

Can't believe it! Next they're gonna tell me that wrestling is fake!

Film night

Just watched Clerks. Hadn't seen it in a while but it was still a great film. We're now in bed watching Clerks II cos I haven't seen it yet. I've had it in my DVD collection for ages but I just haven't got round to watching it. I dunno how much I'll get through before I fall asleep though (not that I'm saying it's a boring film .... well I haven't watched it yet so I could be !! But I doubt it cos it's a Kevin Smith film... although there was Jersey Girl (I know, I'll just shut up and continue!))



Anyway, Me and Lisa have been watching Hellboy over the last couple of nights and have fell asleep during it. We've now spread it out into a Hellboy mini series. Still got part three to watch. Which reminds me Hellboy II is coming out soon. I read a news story on Digg about Hellboy II recently saying that they're gonna have Kung Fu in it! Not sure about that. Goodnight

New Cloverfield Viral Footage

Since I heard about this film last year I've been been following the secrecy of JJ Abrams latest venture called Cloverfield. For those that don't know it's basically a moster movie where the plot 'Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.' (imbd) From what I've read it's going to be filmed in a Blair Witch style using nothing but hand held cameras, which should be interesting.

Anyway, a couple of short viral films have surfaced recently which show fake newsreel clips from around the world about an incident at an oil rig. One of the films is below...

...the rest can be found HERE - but they're essentially the same thing but in German and Spanish.

Lots of exciting stuff...

There's a lot of stuff I'm excited about at the moment. Just stuff that's either coming up or stuff that's just happened. Obviously my main excited thing was moving in with Lisa. The rest are as follows...

Star Trek XI
They're currently in pre-production stages of the new Star Trek movie. In case you didn't know, this movie goes back BEFORE the ORIGINAL Star Trek and will likely covers things like Spock and Kirk at the Space Academy. Recently they've done a casting call for extras. Would love to be in America right now!!
Click here for more Extras info

iPhone
I'm sure that most of you would've heard about the iPhone and that it's just come out over here in the UK. I want one sooo bad - can't wait for January 19th.. that's when I can upgrade my phone!

Super Mario Galaxy
Coming out on the 19th!! Check this clip...

...say no more.

Wanted trailer
Next up, a trailer has been going round on the internet for a film called Wanted. It stars James McAvoy (from Channel 4's Shameless), Angelina Jolie (in over-the-top clack eye make-up!), Morgan Freeman and Terence Stamp. The trailer looks good... a bit Matrix-esque but I've got a feeling it's gonna be a bit tame. Hope not. There's some amzing thought out visuals such as climbing up and falling train carriage and the bit where Jolie pulls a skid in that red car and bumps McAvoy's character into the car. It's also another in a long line of comicbook-to-screen adaptions that seem to be the in thing at the moment.


Blade Runner Final Cut
Ridley Scott wanted to re-shoot a few scene's for his classic film Blade Runner. I'm sure everyone's heard about this film so I'll skip the synopsis. Basically, in view of all the latest High Def TVs being the way forward and that older films are being converted to HDDVD and BluRay, Ridley became increasingly aware of some scenes that are 'passable' on VHS but become blindingly obvious on High-Def ultra realism... namely the scene with the stripper replicant crashing through shop glass. It was obviously a stuntman in a bad wig! There are also some originally unused footage that has been restored. It should be available to buy soon and I can't wait to see one of my favourite films of all time in the way it was originally intended.

Aliens vs Predator - Requiem
A trailer has been out for a while on this one - but recently a whole 3 minutes of one of the key scene's has been released just in time for Halloween. You can see them HERE. They are pretty graphic and with strong language so a short age verification will need to be done. Fingers crossed it will be a million times better that the first Aliens vs Predator mess of a film.


I've also been getting into podcasts recently. Namely Totally Rad Show, Smodcast and Web Drifter. The Totally Rad Show podcast is a video podcast featuring Diggnation's Alex Albrecht and is basically about films, video games and comics. Smodcast is an audio podcast with Kevin Smith and some friends. It's totally addictive listening. Web Drifter is kinda like a Louis Theroux type video podcast in that the shows host, Martin Sargent, will be traveling across America taking you behind some of the most fascinating, shocking, and groundbreaking sites on Internet.

Friday's Day Off

I took the day off work on the 26th. I just fancied a long weekend and a trek into Southampton with Lisa. We did a bit of Christmas shopping and got a few odds-n-sods for ourselves. Southampton was full of loads of school kids 'hanging out' in the highstreet and the shopping mall on their half-term which was a tad annoying. One of my missions on this journey was to buy an external hard-drive. I had a budget of £100 and wanted to get at least a capacity of 500gb. First stop was the Apple Store - they sold them for about 160 quid!! Couldn't believe it! I came out a bit disheartened but I was spell-bound by the new iMacs. I ended up buying an external hard-drive from Argos for just under 80 quid! Brucey-bonus!
Lisa's mission was to buy a generous sized vanity case. Now I'm no expert but I was surprised to find out how hard it is to get one. Out of all the department stores and other such places like Superdrug and Boots we found just 1 vanity case that was the right size... but the pattern on it was really granny-fied! (Is that a word? Hmmm, it is now!)



I also bought something I've been meaning to get on DVD for a long time - Escape From New York. That film is sooooo flippin' good. And it still stands the test of time. It was on TV a while back but I only caught the end of it. I absolutely LOVE the feel of the film mainly thanks for John Carpenters inventive lighting and excellent soundtrack (which was scored by John Carpenter himself - something he's done quite a few times) I also bought Fisher King and Look Around You series 1.



After a long day shopping we headed back for the car via West Quay. We passed the Apple Store again as it was on the way but this time it had the shutters half shut, staff outside (except for one staff member polishing the surfaces), and queue of about 50 people with their macbooks in their hands. I had to find out what was going on so I asked one of the staff. He explained to me that Apple's new operating system, Leopard was about to be released as of 6pm. As soon as he started to say "Apple's new operating system..." I instantly knew what he was talking about. This was a relief to him cos before I asked him I saw him explaining it in full length to nosey OAP's with glazed looks on their faces. I felt sorry for him. I mean, how do you explain to someone what an operating system is to someone who has never even used a computer?!

Lisa's Birthday

It was Lisa's Birthday on Thursday 21st. I had the day off work so we could spend the day together. I bought her a pink iPod Shuffle - she loved it! She couldn't wait to wake up on Thursday so I let her open it on Wednesday night after midnight. Everytime she looks at it she forgets how small it is!

Also on Thursday, Simone Hudsbith finally gave birth to her first child - Amelie Jane Hudsbith. Congrats to her and Gary. So that's two people I know's birthday's that fall on the Summer Solstice. Speaking of which I woulda liked to have gone this year but the nasty weatherman told us it was gonna rain... but it didn't. Nevermind, we had a great day anyway.

Simone's not the only one to have a new addition to the family. Me and Lisa got ourselves a kitten. She's a little bit older at 6 Months (she was born on the 29th January 2007 - 9 days after my birthday!) and she's a mental bundle of loveable fluff. Completely dizzy and has mad spells - but on the flipside she comes looking for cuddles. Perfect.

Last night me and Lisa sent out a round robin text go get some people to come out for a pint at the Malt & Hops to celebrate Lisa's birthday. It was a bit last minute - we were expecting rain - so it was a small affair. Rachel turned up first. We hit the pool table for a couple of games. Then Kate and Glen turned up - they got the taxi. Had a few more games of pool. We were just getting into the swing of things and ready for some serious drinking when they called time at the bar! No fair. So me and Lisa went back to Lisa's flat with Glen and Kate to have a couple more drinks and introduce them to our new cat and watch a bit of Rambo II on the tele. Top night.

Neglect is an ugly thing!!

Ok, it's 11th June, so here we go with what now seems to be a MONTHLY blog post! Why am I leaving it so long to actually post something I do not know. Will have to sort it out. The thing is, I've done sooooooo flippin much in this last month that if I sat down to go through it all it would be July 11th!

So let me summarise what I've done in real quick fashion...

. Me and Lisa were going to have kittens (YAY!)
. The Kittens died! (BOO!)
. Lisa's parents came down to stay for 10 days. It was nice.
. My band played a gig at 60 Million Postcards. It was nice.
. We've written some new tunes. They are nice.
. My mum bought a new TV. It's bloody HUGE! (47" HD-LCD!!)
. Mum complains that she STILL can't see the TV!! WHAT?!
. I'm growing my hair!
. Went to a local mini-festival organized by the Fire Dept. It was great!
. Went to bhone's all-dayer at The Gander before it closed down. That was amazing.
. Discovered Tarantino/Rodriguez's double bill film called Grindhouse! Excited.
. Enjoyed reading the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels vs Betika nonsense on solidair's message board. Ridiculously pointless but heart-stoppingly entertaining.
. Bought Tomb Raider Anniversary! Totally amazing!!
. And finally met up with Kim and Paul on Friday after work and had a wicked random night out in town.

There! Hope that covers it all. There are lots of pretty pics in my flickr account covering a few of the above events. Go check it out.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and keep this up to date.

Oliver Stone joke bombs!

I was watching the 2006 British Comedy Awards on ITV with Lisa last night. After it finished on ITV it continued with more awards and backstage stuff on ITV2. It was on this part of the show that Oliver Stone came on to present an award. He told a really bad-taste joke about the Suffolk serial killer. He said "It's great to be back in England. I feel like the Jack The Ripper days are back. Nothing ever changes here." Realising that his joke fell flat on it's face he tried to dig himself out of the hole by saying "You're a wonderful audience"

For the full story of events that night check HERE

Local Short Films...

Me and Scott were surfing a lot on Google Video's last night and we searched for Pokesdown (cos that's were we live!) to see if anything has been posted. This is what we found....


That was episode 3. You can see the rest HERE. It was a bit weird to watch at first but we found that it actually made us laugh quite a bit. NSFW (cos of swearing)

Quiet times

I know I've not posted anything sinse November 1st, but to be brutally honest, Not a lot has happened. I've just been trying to save money these last couple of weeks - y'know tryin to get the ol' bank balance back in the black. Which ultimately means not going out and not buying DVD's, Games, Music, Magazines.... basically ANY type of media. I've been trying to keep food shopping and clothes shopping down. By that I mean not buying sandwiches during lunch everyday and make my own food where-ever possible. And why do I always think it neccesary to buy new clothes every month?.... saying that I have bought some new clothes but only a scarf and a beanie - last year's scarf shrank in the wash.

Since the last entry we've had fireworks/bonfire night. Me and Lisa went to Poole Quay to see some. It was pretty good fun, lots of festivities such as kiddies rides, bands and DJ's, jugglers, stilt walkers and lots of food and booze. Not much to say about this except the fireworks were pretty and there were massive queues at the bar. You woulda thought the pubs woulda put more staff on seeing as it's November 5th. Bad pub management all round! (also, the firworks didn't look as impressive as they do on the official link above. In fact they've super-imposed those fireworks in - they're not even in the right place!)

Also, we went to see The Prestige at the ABC Cinema last week using some free cinema tickets that my mum gave me a couple of months ago. The film was absolutely amazing and I thoroughly recommend you go see it. It's got lots of drama and intrigue and keeps you guessing right up to the end... although, being the clever soul that I am I worked it out about 30 mins before the end but hey, there were still some surprise bits at the end. I've got a feeling that it will be a love-it-or-hate-it type film. I'm in the love-it camp! I good movie for smart people - a confusing one for the dumber half of the population. Extra information for the fact finders: the film was directed by the same director as Momento and Batman Returns. Below is the trailer...

Halloween

So last night was Halloween. Or, to use a more traditional term, All Hallows Eve. Lisa, Scott and I weren't up for any parties this year (we're all trying to save cash) so we cooked up a crackin' curry and watched these two films...

Texas Chainsaw Massacre


Slither

They were ok. I mean, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was kinda unintentionally funny. It was just silly. We were ticking off the horror movie cliches as we went along. College students (check), pick up a hitcher (check), someone does some drugs (check), killer has some sort of disfigurement or limp (check), thunder (check), they think it's the killer but it's just an animal in the cupboard (check), a shadow flicks across the screen in the foreground (check), everyone dies except the bimbo (check), the car won't start (check), freaky kid (check), running in the woods away from the killer then fall over (check).... I could go on but I won't. In fact the only thing that made the film interesting was Jessica Biel's tits!...

After that we watched Slither. Now I though this film was great. It had that same sort of B-Movie feel to it that Tremors had. The film doesn't take itself seriously, it's has one liners and lots of outrageous gore. The special effects were amazing. The little alien slug things are really creepy and were really well done. And, yeah, of course there were some horror cliches in it too but, although this is supposed to be a micky-take of the horror genre, didn't have as many cliches in it as Texas Chainsaw Massacre - a film that's supposed to be a proper serious horror movie.

Maybe I'm just getting older and just don't find scary films scary anymore. I remember watching classics like Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and absolutely shitting myself. But then when I watched these I was still at school and was about 14 or 15. We used to all talk about them in the playground as if we'd all seen something we're not supposed to see.

But then saying that I still haven't seen The Ring. I can't bring myself to watch it cos it freaks me out. I own The Grudge on DVD and that's a wicked film - totally freaked me out when I first saw it. And I s'pose The Exorcist still creeps me out a bit. The Shining is s'posed to be one of THE scariest films of all time but it never scared me - I just though it was a good little film with great ideas and great camera work.

Oh well, next year when it comes to choosing a scary film I'll have to do a little bit of research!

Gig Preparations Underway...

After finalising a slot for Blind Voyeurs' first gig with Conrad of Solid Air preparations began straight away and now things are really starting to take shape. Up until now we were just jamming and writing new tunes constantly and now have, like, a million tunes and ideas just floating around in the ether. Now that we've actually got a date to work towards we're all a lot more focused of making a set number of tunes gig-able.

Word on the street is that Conrad is planning a new regular event for 2007 and beyond. The event will be more arty than the previous Solid Air with local talent showcasing not only music but other forms of art, such as films, photography, poetry, maybe performance art too. We've been booked for the first night and other acts are yet to confirm (wishlist: Sancho, Brenda, A&E Line) Scott and James from Blind Voyeurs are also going to be DJ'ing before and between acts.

On Friday 13th October, 2006 Blind Voyeurs got together to have a thorough think through (how many words beginning with 'th'??) about what we're gonna play. Although it wasn't intended we jammed a new tune for the intro to our set and then decided on what songs we should string together. We're gonna steer away from the 'play a tune then audience claps then play a tune then audience claps' approach. We're going to tie all tunes together in, what classical composers call, movements.

On Sunday Scott, Lisa and myself have started shooting for a short film which we're going to project behind the band. Ideas have been coming thick and fast since then and, after a couple of late nights, already have a good 5 minutes of film editted together nicely. We're going to edit the film to roughly fit the mood of the songs of our set. More news of this when it arrives.. in the meantime here are a few stills from the shoot...