Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Scott Pilgrim Fever
time. The official trailer for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World has finally
arrived.
Based on the comic by Bryan Lee O'Malley and brought to the screen by
the directorial genius behind Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz,
Edgar Wright, the buzz for this film has been building for a while,
with Wright giving us an insight into the making of the film with his
video blogs and teasing us via his twitter feed.
Now finally we get to see what it's all about and like Kick-Ass and
The Losers this looks to be another comic based must see this year.
And I'm not the only one who seems to be very pleased with how this
one is looking, judging by the reaction across the web just minutes
after this trailer went online.
Still clueless as to who Scott Pilgrim is and why this film is set to
be one of the biggest hits of 2010 - when watch this awesome trailer
and start counting the days until the film arrives here in the UK in
August.
Now that looks to be An Epic of Epic Epicness. Now go tell your
friends about this film and get them to tell their friends and then go
buy the books on Amazon and then watch the trailer again...
Oh, and judging by this and his performance in The Losers, it's
looking like Chris Evans is going to make a fine Captain America.
Friday, March 19, 2010
I'M HERE
There are few directors who beguile and inspire me, but Spike Jonze is definitely one of them.
I am lucky enough of have been part of the preview of his new online short film 'I'm Here'. The whole experience is astonishing - the integration with Facebook, the use of music from Aska Matsumiya and the beautiful, heartfelt film itself made feel something unlike any other web experience to date. I'm not really a fan of viewing films online, I'm still way too attached to the sofa/TV ways of old, but this film has been presented in such a way as to make me think there may be something in this whole online film thing.
I'm not going to tell you anything more about the film as I feel it'll take some of the magic away from your first viewing, I only hope your as blown away by this as I was.
I dream of being someone who can make films and 'I'm Here' is an inspiring masterpiece, I recommend you get yourself in the line to see this as soon as possible.
Predators - First Trailer
I posted about the upcoming Predators movie a few days ago, where we were given a sneak peak of footage from the film.
Today the first official trailer was released - and things are looking good. From the opening starfield fade to jungle canopy, this is feeling closer to the original two Predator films than either of the Vs. versions.
I have high hope for this film, but with Kick-Ass, Iron Man 2, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and The Losers looking like the benchmarks for this seasons blockbusters it's going to have to be one hell of a ride to win back fans of the franchise.
Anyway, here's our first look at Predators -
Monday, March 15, 2010
How To Train Your Dragon
I was lucky enough to see a preview of the upcoming DreamWorks Animation film 'How To Train Your Dragon' this weekend. Based on the books by author Cressida Cowell, the film is a loose reworking of the adventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and his dragon Toothless.
Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois of Lilo & Stitch co-directing and writing fame are in charge and create a exciting and beliveable world of Vikings and Dragons. There are some great set pieces including a fantastic opening battle sequence and the animation is top notch throughout.
The voice talent includes Jay Baruchel as Hiccup with notable turns from America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson and even David Tennant in the supporting roles. It's being released in 3D at the end of March in the UK and I recommend you find an excuse to see it if you have any love for either Vikings or Dragons.
Still not convinced then have a look at the trailer and see for yourself.
Now I only need to find a dragon to train.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Predators
I've been a fan of Robert Rodriguez for some time and I'm quite interested in his take on Predator. This latest venture for the Predator is directed by Nimrod Antal, written by Rodriguez, Michael Finch and Alex Litvak. The cast is pretty heavyweight and includes Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. It's all looking good but we've been burned before.
With this and Ridley Scott's Alien prequel in pre-production can two of the greatest screen aliens be looking at a return to form?
You can catch a sneak peek of Predators over at the official website - let's hope the final film lives up to expectations.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Silence is Virus
Some of you may have noticed I've been a bit quiet over the last few days on Twitter and the like. A couple of automated bits and bobs went out but nothing new from me.
This is all down to one of natures most amazing organisms - the virus. It never ceases to amaze me how something so small can render the human body unusable in so short a time. From fully functioning member of society to bed ridden zombie creature from the depths of hell in under 24 hours - astonishing! Anyway I'm now no longer a zombie, just a shell of a man - on the road to recovery, with my trusty bottle of Lucozade by my side (other brands of energy drinks are available).Hope I didn't miss anything exciting.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, March 08, 2010
Iron Man 2 - Latest Trailer
Saturday, March 06, 2010
President Obama: Replace Rahm with Me ...an open letter from Michael Moore
President Obama: Replace Rahm with Me ...an open letter from Michael Moore
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Dear President Obama,
I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.
I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.
I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.
And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.
Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY! I AM IN CHARGE! I WILL ORDER ALL OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUTTA MY WAY! IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DON'T LIKE WHAT I'M DOING THEY CAN THROW MY ASS OUT IN 2012. IN THE MEANTIME, I CALL THE SHOTS ON THEIR BEHALF! NOW, CONGRESS, DROP AND GIVE ME 50!!"
Then we will put on our jogging sweats and run up to Capitol Hill. We will take names, kick butts, and then take some more names. If we have to give a few noogies or half-nelson's, then so be it. In our pockets we will have a piece of paper to show the pansy Dems just how much they won by in 2008 -- and the poll results that show the majority of Americans oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and want the bankers punished. Like drill sergeants, we will get right up in their faces and ask them, "WHAT PART OF THE PUBLIC MANDATE DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, SOLDIER?!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"
I know this is the job Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be doing.
Now, don't get me wrong. I have always admired Rahm Emanuel (if you don't count his getting NAFTA pushed through Congress in the '90s which destroyed towns like Flint, Michigan. I know, picky-picky.). He is what we needed for a long time -- a no-apologies, take-no-prisoners fighting machine. Someone who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and pound the right wing into submission. Far from being the foul-mouthed bully he has been portrayed as, Rahm is the one who BEAT UP the bullies to protect us from them.
That's certainly what he did in 2006. After six long, miserable years of the middle-class getting slaughtered and the poor being flushed down the toilet, Rahm Emanuel took on the job of returning Congress to the Democrats. No one believed it could be done.
But he did it. Big time. He put the fear of God into the party of Rush and Newt. They had never been so scared. More importantly, though, he instilled a sense of hope in the Democrats that they could actually score the mother of all hat tricks in 2008 -- and with you, an African American no less, in the pole position!
It worked. The Darkness ended. The vast majority of nation wept with joy on the night of the election (those who weren't weeping went out and bought a record number of guns and ammo). Unlike the last president, you didn't "win" by 537 votes in Florida (although Gore won the popular vote by a half-million), you beat McCain nationally by 9,522,083 votes! The House Democrats got a walloping 79-vote margin. The Senate Dems would caucus with a supermajority of 60 votes unheard of in over 30 years. The wars would now end. America would have universal health care. Wall Street and the banks would, at the very least, be reined in. Hardworking citizens would not be thrown out of their homes. It was supposed to be the dawning of a new age.
But the Republicans were not going to go quietly into the night. You see, instead of having just one Rahm Emanuel, they are ALL Rahm Emanuels. That's why they usually win. Unlike most Democrats, they are relentless and unstoppable. When they believe in something (which is usually themselves and the K Street job they hope to be rewarded with someday), they'll fight for it till the death. They are loyal to a fault to each other (they were never able to denounce Bush, even though they knew he was destroying the party). They dig their heels in deep no matter what. If you exiled them to a lone chunk of melting polar ice cap, they would keep insisting that it was just a normal "January thaw," even as the frigid Arctic waters rose above their God-fearing necks ("See what I mean -- this water is COLD! What 'global *warming*'?! Adam and Eve rode dinos...aagghh!!... gulp gulp gulp").
We thought we were all done with this craziness, but we were mistaken. Like a beast that you just can't cage, the Republicans convinced not only the media, but YOU and your fellow Dems, that 59 votes was a *minority*! Precious time was lost trying to reach a "consensus" and trying to be "bipartisan."
Well, you and the Democrats have been in charge now for over a year and not one banking regulation has been reinstated. We don't have universal health care. The war in Afghanistan has escalated. And tens of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs and be thrown out of their homes. For most of us, it's just simply no longer good enough that Bush is gone. Woo hoo. Bush is gone. Yippee. That hasn't created one new friggin' job.
You're such a good guy, Mr. President. You came to Washington with your hand extended to the Republicans and they just chopped it off. You wanted to be respectful and they decided that they were going to say "no" to everything you suggested. Yet, you kept on saying you still believed in bipartisanship.
Well, if you really want bipartisanship, just go ahead and let the Republicans win in November. Then you'll get all the bipartisanship you want.
Let me be clear about one thing: The Democrats on Election Day 2010 are going to get an ass-whoopin' of biblical proportions if things don't change right now. And after the new Republican majority takes over, they, along with a few conservative Democrats in Congress, will get to bipartisanly impeach you for being a socialist and a citizen of Kenya. How nice to see both sides of the aisle working together again!
And the brief window we had to fix this country will be gone.
Gone.
Gone, baby, gone.
I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter -- not of Republicans, but of the left. He called those of us who want universal health care "f***ing retarded." Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up! Time to bring me in to get you pumped up every morning! Go Barack! Yay Obama! Fight, Team, Fight!
I'm packed and ready to come to D.C. tomorrow. If it helps, you won't really be losing Rahm entirely because I'll be bringing his brother with me -- my agent, Ari Emanuel. Man, you should see HIM negotiate a deal! Have you ever wanted to see Mitch McConnell walking around Capitol Hill carrying his own head in his hands after it's just been handed to him by the infamous Ari? Oh, baby, it won't be pretty -- but boy will it be sweet!
What say you, Barack? Me and you against the world! Yes we can! It'll be fun -- and we may just get something done. Whaddaya got to lose? Hope?
Retardedly yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Just to give you an idea of the new style I'll be bringing with me, when a cornhole like Sen. Ben Nelson tries to hold you up next time, this is what I will tell him in order to get his vote: "You've got exactly 30 seconds to rescind your demand or I will personally make sure that Nebraska doesn't get one more federal dollar for the rest of Obama's term. And then I will let everyone in your state know that you wear Sooner panties, backwards. NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Bus Roulette
Apologies in advance for the content of this post, it’s pretty stream of consciousness, with all the accompanying spelling and grammatical errors and reflects how I view events but if you feel the same in anyway please comment.
Once again this morning I was left waiting at the bus stop whilst my bus did not arrive at the time printed on the timetable. This isn’t the first time as many of you who follow my Twitter and Facebook updates will know. This got me thinking about the legality of the timetable. In most services a provider supplies a service for a fee and there are binding agreements to ensure we get what we pay for. And if we don’t we complain and get redress for failure. But when it comes to Public Transport it appears that this is not the case.
I pay for my travel in advance by buying a monthly pass. I am therefore out of pocket for a service I have yet to receive. Surely it is not to much to ask that I am provided with a service that works as advertised. If the timetable says a bus is due at 9:55am it is not unreasonable to assume it will arrive at that time. I’m happy for it to be a few minutes either side as I can plan my journey to allow for some flexibility. More often than not I’m left waiting for 20 minutes or more for a bus to arrive. Often the reason will be that the traffic was bad or that bus that has arrived is the later bus and is in fact running to time. This all ends up in my being late for work or being late to some other event I have paid out hard cash for. If it’s work I then have to make up the time and if it’s something else I just lose out, hard luck I should have allowed for all possible eventualities and got there yesterday in order to avoid delays.
If I worked out how much of my time I have lost due to delays on public transport and the actual cost of that, I bet I could retire tomorrow quite comfortably to an island in the Caribbean. And yet the public transport companies seem to get away with it all. No refunds, no upgrades, no apologies, just the same old excuses as to why it’s not their fault. We are quick enough to get up in arms about less important things (any of the save this or that campaigns based around what at the end of the day is just entertainment) but something that actually costs us as individuals money or more importantly actual time we seem to look the other way. I’d like to see some kind of legal reparations for a failure to deliver a service as advertised. If you can’t stick to a timetable or supply us with suitable up to the minute information about delays, then we should be able to claim compensation. It is us who have to work that extra hour or write off the cost of those tickets not the public transport companies and it’s us who keeps giving them the money to keep treating us so badly.
Airlines seem to deal with this quite well and airline passengers are quick to let the airlines know when they are not happy, it even makes the news if airlines are delayed. Trains try to keep passengers informed at least even if they still can’t run on time.
But buses – buses seem to operate in a different world. A world of transport roulette. And I always bet on the wrong numbers.
Monday, March 01, 2010
CiB Shop Now Open
Are you interested in local art talent? Are you a local artist who wants the world to see your work and better yet have the public buy it?
Then the Created in Birmingham shop is the place for you. The brains behind CiB have just opened a store in Birmingham's Bullring Centre in a prime location with the friendliest staff your likely to meet.
The shop opened it's doors to the world last Thursday so if you haven't had a chance to get over there, do so as soon as you can.
Find out more about CiB and the store over at http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/
Thanks to Red Annie of We Are Frilly for this time lapse video from the opening night -