A ‘Gilmore Girls’ quote that perfectly sums me up. I hate to run or do anything that could be constituted as a sport… I don’t even like the idea of walking. So for me to do the 5k Race for Life run is a huge deal. My personal best in jogging is 10 minutes before I keel over, wheezing and panting like my life depended on it…
My grandad (He was the coolest)
My granddad died a few years ago from cancer and since then I’ve wanted to do something for a cancer charity. But other than doing a lame bake sale I hadn’t really come up with anything that I really wanted to do. I want to do something that will be a challenge and for me this is certainly it.
My wonderful friend, Liberty, is going to do the race with and together we hope to raise £500 for the charity. We would tremendously grateful if you could help us by donating what ever you can whether it be a tenner or even a pound. You can donate through this link: http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/minuandlibs
Thank you!
x
Ps. I will be keeping you up to date on my training etc in this blog.
It’s a very sad day for comedy as Funny or Die UK announce they are shutting down on Friday, due to merge with the US Funny or Die site. I forsee that the British clips will inevitably get lost in a mass of American ones and of course no more new videos from James Serafinowicz, Al Campbell and the Dawson Bros. To read more about what’s happened behind the scenes of FoDUK shutting down take a gander at this article: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-funny-or-die-shutting-uk-site-/
On a final note I want to say THANX to the FoDUK team for making me laugh hysterically and keeping me busy while I’m bored at work for the past 18 months.
Back in 2007 for some reason I now can’t recall (read as I can but it’s boring and long and well too darn boring to go into) I decided to keep a note of every film I see from January 2008. I didn’t expect to keep track after a month 2 years and 4 books on I’m still going. I don’t have an end game I don’t know when I’ll stop but until then I thought I’d share the list. If anything so I have the list on something I can ctrl+f and search to see if I’ve already added the film to the list or not. I have too many books to sift through to do that.
The only rule is that I can’t put a film in twice. So for example Amelie, which according to the list I saw it in June 2008 but that’s not to say that I didn’t see it a billion times before January 2008 or a billion times after June 2008 – which by the way I did.
I also made a list of films I want to see which I’ll be putting on a separat blog post.
In this blog post it’s 2008, for 2009 click here http://wp.me/pIF2C-1n for 2010 here http://wp.me/pIF2C-1r
Jan 2008
Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (1993)
Finding Neverland (2004)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Cry Baby (1990)
Ed Wood (1994)
Darr (1993)
Secret Window (2004)
The Village
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
Aaja Nachle
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Signs (2002)
Bring It On (2000)
Bad Boys II
Just Friends
Girl Next Door
No Country For Old Men (2008)
You Got Served (2004)
Police Academy 2 : The First Assignment
Star Wars (1977)
Charlie Wilson’s War (2008)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Family Guy presents Blue Harvest
Tommy Boy (1995)
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi (1983)
Feb 2008
Cloverfield (2008)
Sweeney Todd (2008)
The Ten
Vacancy
Juno
Secretary (2002)
Clerks
Beaches
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Bourne Identity
Tremors
March 2008
Bad Education
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
S1m0ne
Gone Baby Gone
White Noise
Mona Lisa Smile
Spanglish
Step Up
Step Up 2 : The Streets
Spiral
The assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
April 2008
Walkabout
The Monster Squad
She’s the Man
Memento
Om Shanti Om
It’s a Boy Girl Thing
27 Dresses
Darkness
The Wedding Date
The Last Day of Left Eye
In Her Shoes
May 2008
Grindhouse (double bill)
The Hitcher
The station Agent
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Spongebob Squarepants The Movie
Madagascar
Over the Hedge
Karate Kid
June 2008
Mr India
Amelie
Dumb and Dumber
Karate Kid Part II
Semi Pro
Night at the Roxbury
The Onion Movie
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
Say Anything
Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story
I hardly ever review music, in fact I generally make a point not to just because music is so subjective more so than films and books in my opinion. This review and a brief interview with ‘The Rakes‘ I did at college are my only contributions to the world of music reviews etc. Upon hearing the debut album ‘Too Soon‘ by ‘Airport 85‘ I felt the need to put what I liked about it into blog form. True I know the man behind the band, Nat Saunders, but that aside it’s a genuinely good album. Everything you hear, except obviously the female backing vocals, is done by Nat which deserves kudos on that fact alone.
Listening to the album ‘Too Soon‘ makes me yearn for the Summer. I can just imagine listening to the album whilst sunbathing in the garden or out on a drive with the windows down and the cool wind on a hot day whipping through your hair. The Devine Comedy is usually my go to band for summer driving tunes but this album is definitely a strong contender this summer.
There’s a definite Britpop tinge throughout the album. It sort of reminds me of ‘Ash‘ from back in the early Charlotte Hatherly days. One of my favourite tracks on the album is ‘Japanese Movies‘ as it has this fun upbeat feel to it and I find myself humming the tune every so often. A testament to a good song is when your inexplicably humming the tune randomly. Although there are no music videos to any of the tracks yet, I can imagine that a lot of fun could be had in picturising this song, possibly using a mashup of old school Japanese animation for starters. My second favourite track is ‘Night Crossing‘, slightly more punkier than the other songs on the album. For some reason it reminds me of this little American punk band from the late 90s called ‘Student Rick‘ but only a little. Possibly because the song evokes the similar kind of feeling I get whilst listening to ‘Student Rick ‘.
Usually a song or an album you heard growing up will remind you of that time in your life when you hear it back now. For me though this album, although released in 2010, has that same effect on me. It reminds of being a kid in the 90s and for that I adore it.
You can follow the band on Twitter: @airport85 and the man behind the band @ratbanjos
You can buy the album here (Amazon) and here (iTunes).
It’s been announced that ‘Hatchet 2′ (2010) is to be commissioned, which got me thinking as to how the original ‘Hatchet’ (2006) came to be made. Adam Green (Writer/Director), Sarah Elbert (Producer) and Will Barratt (Director of Photography) simply took a handheld mini DV camcorder and flew out to New Orleans to film a teaser trailer in an attempt to prove to potential investors what they’re capable of. They took a swamp tour to get the footage they needed and a friend’s daughter provided the chilling narration for the trailer. Although the trailer is fairly basic what struck most people was the story line. Internet rumours ran amok. Some claiming the film had already been made, when the opposite was in fact true.
Below is the teaser trailer that got the ball rolling:
And here is the trailer for when the film actually came out:
It’s inspiring to know that if you work hard enough on a good plot and have the skills to pull it off people will have faith in you to succeed. As well as gaining funding for the project through the success of the trailer, the ‘Hatchet’ (2006) team garnered some loyal fans. A horror blogger, Ryan, after seeing the trailer, had so much faith in the project that he decided to call it real. Off the back of this other blogs followed suit.
Having an internet following for a yet to be made film helped investors to visualise the potential the ‘Hatchet’ (2006) had. Adam Green even managed to get some horror heavyweights on board, a few familiar faces of the likes of Kane Hodder (Jason), Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) and Tony Todd (Candyman).
Last year I came across two trailers for ‘The Day The Dead Weren’t Dead’ (2007). The first, an earlier version of the second. The parts of the plot that can determine from the trailer is an interesting take on a comedy horror. A zombie plague is upon us and the only person who knows why and how to stop them has amnesia.
Version 1:
Version 2:
The first attempt of the trailer which appears to have been directed by one of the producers is amateurish at best. It has good intentions but doesn’t quite pull it off. It comes of as a university pet project. The second version of the trailer whilst keeping a fraction of the old material it has new footage and some scenes which have been re-shot. The second version it appears to have been directed by the Trost Bros who also produced and wrote the piece. The Trost Bros, Brandon and Jason Trost, come from a cinematography and special effects background and both have dabbled in acting. You can see Jason as Hawk ‘Hawk-Eye’ Jones (the dude with the eye patch) in the trailer. From the second trailer it is clear to see that they have a lot potential and I’m looking forward to seeing their future ventures, one I hope will be this trailer as a fully fledged feature. Just like the humble beginnings of ‘Hatchet’ (2006) this little trailer appears to be following in its footsteps and I hope it goes all the way. A feature script has now been written since it has gained popularity on the net and winner of the Kern County Film Festival. A simple google search reveals that some people believe the trailer to be real and are searching far and wide to find the full feature.
On a final note if this project does get picked up, I hope they leave the Trost Bros with full control over it, cos its clear they know what they’re doing and their combined movie making experience is plenty to pull this off.
A few weeks ago ‘My Little Eye’ (2002) was on the telly. To be honest when I started watching it I wasn’t all that keen or impressed. For starters I missed the beginning so it took me a while to figure out what was going on, which of course isn’t the fault of the film but my own. Second of all the film is a cross between ‘Big Brother’ and the ‘Blair Witch Project’ (1999) . You are viewing what the ‘audience’ see, through non film camera’s so it has that low-budget look. I’m a woman of contradictions I don’t particularly like that low-budget look but I did love the Blair Witch Project.
Initially I carried on watching because Kris Lemche is in it and I quite like the TV shows he has been in (Joan of Arcadia, Psych). I’ll be frank, he’s also easy on the eyes. As the film progressed it began to show signs of promise. The show was on quite late and as I had work in the morning I had no intentions of watching the entire film even with Lemche in it! I usually stick to my ‘if I’ve missed the beginning, don’t watch it’ rule, but for some reason it kept me hanging on. Although on the surface it seems rather predictable, we’ve all seen big brother and horror films and for the most part it lives up to that. Underneath the surface though it packs an enigma punch. It had me hooked right until the end even though it meant being awake until 2am! (Although luckily for me it was daylight saving and it was actually 1am – Glorious!)
The film is about 5 total strangers who have to live together in an isolated house in the wilderness of America. The house is littered with cameras filming their every move. The premise is that they are here for a brand new internet show in which they have to live together for 6 months. The catch is, to win th $1 million, no one can leave. If one person leaves they all lose. Predictably their weekly packages containing their rations serve as a form of mental torture to test them by the production team. Food rations turn to nothing and they begin to get surprises that reveal their inner most secrets. This is just the beginning for the household. For one of the characters, Danny, his morality is tested when he is told his Grandfather has died. Should he leave to go to the funeral, which means they all lose, or does he stay for the money? On the other hand will the other housemates stop him if he does decide to leave?
There is so much more to the film but I couldnt possibly reveal anymore without giving away crucial plot turns. What info I have been able to divulge is only the tip of the iceberg. One thing I can say, If I havent sold this film to the fellas there are boobs in this film. I know that will make a lot of guys go and see this film! Haha. Oh and nude Bradley Cooper for the ladies!
I’m looking into getting hold of the film on DVD (not because of the above! you guys have filthy minds) and when I do I shall blog about it. The special feature on the DVD has me rather intrigued. As I mentioned before it’s filmed in a Big Brother style with multiple cameras. On the DVD you can flip between these cameras while your watching it, I think you can only do this on a few scenes but even still it’s definitely worth investigating. So watch this space!
The trailer looks like a bad university film but dont let that put you off.
