Hahaha. I just went to see Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is a frankly ludicrous film, but entertaining nonetheless. However, on my return I noticed on the BBC website that the members of the Russian communist party are calling for it to be banned on the basis that it "distorts history". They said that teenagers watching it would be "completely unaware of what happened in 1957" (when the film is set) and that "[events in the film are] rubbish... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the US."
Now I'm fairly sure that the Russians have a point here and that communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the US (or indeed throughout Peru, which is where the running with crystal skulls actually takes place in the film). I'm also pretty sure that a bunch of Hobbits never walked all the way to Mordor to throw a magical ring back in to the fires of Mount Doom, that Michael J Fox never went back into the past and then back again to the future in a De Lorean and I'm pretty damn sure a giant ape never climbed the Empire State building, but it doesn't mean we haven't enjoyed watching films about such events in the name of entertainment over the years.
In the words of Boney M: '"Oh those Russians".
Showing posts with label films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label films. Show all posts
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Glowing...
Firstly a quick reminder that Sam Jackson's Secret Video Diary is now available for download here. Pay as much or as little as you like, and while you're about it, you can download Beyond Fiction, the documentary about the making of the mockumentary. As you are all my friends/family/aquaintances/randoms who read my blog I'm sure you want to support me and my friends by doing so! Thank you very much.
Secondly - and I can't believe it's taken me a week to tell you guys about this, given my natural urge to show off at any opportunity - but I have been voted Employee of the Week (Inside Category) here at Sunshine. Not bad for my first month, eh?! It stemmed from an incident involving two Senior Alpine Ski Clubbers who left their skis near our ticket windows and I found them and took them back to their hotel for them, so they could ski at another ski hill the following day. They were very grateful and I got a $10 tip! I'm not exactly sure who put nominations in the Employee of the Month box on my behalf (although I know one of them was Zander, who I roped in under duress to help me carry them to the hotel). Apparently they have a committee of Supervisors who take all the nominations throughout Sunshine (approx. 800 employees), as well as all the comments that come into our website, and vote on who they think deserves the title. Then the winners (there are several categories, Inside, Outside, Behind the Scenes etc.) get invited to a swanky dinner prepared by our head chef (apparently it's amazing food) and prizes, which consists (I think) of a trail sign with our name on it. Can't wait for the dinner, which is on Jan 4th - will post pictures natch.
Secondly - and I can't believe it's taken me a week to tell you guys about this, given my natural urge to show off at any opportunity - but I have been voted Employee of the Week (Inside Category) here at Sunshine. Not bad for my first month, eh?! It stemmed from an incident involving two Senior Alpine Ski Clubbers who left their skis near our ticket windows and I found them and took them back to their hotel for them, so they could ski at another ski hill the following day. They were very grateful and I got a $10 tip! I'm not exactly sure who put nominations in the Employee of the Month box on my behalf (although I know one of them was Zander, who I roped in under duress to help me carry them to the hotel). Apparently they have a committee of Supervisors who take all the nominations throughout Sunshine (approx. 800 employees), as well as all the comments that come into our website, and vote on who they think deserves the title. Then the winners (there are several categories, Inside, Outside, Behind the Scenes etc.) get invited to a swanky dinner prepared by our head chef (apparently it's amazing food) and prizes, which consists (I think) of a trail sign with our name on it. Can't wait for the dinner, which is on Jan 4th - will post pictures natch.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
T-6
So the big countdown commences. Not to Christmas (though that's coming up at some point too, or so I'm led to believe). No, the countdown to the big release of Sam Jackson's Secret Video Diary. This was the last film I made with some friends of mine and if you don't remember me telling you the story behind the film being made, I suggest you check out the website (particularly 'The True Story' page) for the whole strange tale. The director Guy Ritchie - oops sorry Rowland - is writing a blog about the release (he's reality media-crazy!) so you can check that out here.
On Friday 28th December, the film, alongside a documentary detailing the back story, will be available for download from the website in a pay-as-much-as-you-like-Radiohead-styley (who's fabulous High & Dry is featured on the soundtrack). It is the first film to ever be released in this way! Yay us! Please download it (should only take around 15 mins on a good connection) and if you like it, do make a donation, as 20% of the proceeds will go to Leukaemia Research and Missing Persons charities respectively.
Finally, Guy will be talking about the film and the historic release on Radio 5 Live at about 07.55 on launch day, Friday 28th December. You can listen live or Listen Again, as is your wont!
Go on, you know you want to.
On Friday 28th December, the film, alongside a documentary detailing the back story, will be available for download from the website in a pay-as-much-as-you-like-Radiohead-styley (who's fabulous High & Dry is featured on the soundtrack). It is the first film to ever be released in this way! Yay us! Please download it (should only take around 15 mins on a good connection) and if you like it, do make a donation, as 20% of the proceeds will go to Leukaemia Research and Missing Persons charities respectively.
Finally, Guy will be talking about the film and the historic release on Radio 5 Live at about 07.55 on launch day, Friday 28th December. You can listen live or Listen Again, as is your wont!
Go on, you know you want to.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Stampeding to Calgary
Chris, Amy, Gravy & I hired a car today, getting a sweet deal from our housemate Kevin who works for Budget, and road tripped over to Calgary to buy...well, loads of stuff to be honest. Living in a resort town don't come cheap, so you need the big city to get essentials at a reasonable price. Our first stop was Wal-Mart, where I bought a few grocery items - cornflakes were 2 bucks cheaper than Safeways in Banff for example - and some jersey sheets. Mmmm. As I may have mentioned before, once you've slept on jersey, you never go back.
We headed off to have lunch with some friends of Gravy's and arrived about 10 minutes before them. Lethal. Next door to the restaurant was the Ski Cellar, a mecca for my new obsession with ski wear. 10 minutes later a new pair of ski pants in bright green were mine, for a bargain price...compared to how much they were to begin with, that was. Believe me, you don't want to know. But I live in a ski resort and when I'm not working, I'm skiing, so I think I can justify the investment*.
However, our main task of the day was to go to Ikea, where I intended to buy a duvet. In Canada, people use flat sheets under something called a 'comforter', which is basically a thin synthetic duvet with a fixed and often lurid cover, with possibly a blanket over the top. It's bloody rubbish. Firstly, it's not warm enough, particularly for a winter where temperatures can go down to -30. Secondly, as anyone who is old enough to remember England before duvets became the norm, you invariably wake up with the sheet squished over onto once side, the comforter over to the other, and the rough woollen blanket fallen off the bottom of the bed. Thirdly, thin synthetic duvets do not cover you properly, they just lie over the top of you and create cold gaps either side of you. Last night I was freezing all night so today I practically ran round Ikea in order to buy myself a lovely down duvet.
Naturally they didn't have the cheap one I wanted, nor did they have the slightly more expensive one in the size I wanted, so I ended up spending $72 on a king size, but still, 36 quid for the pleasure of being warm and comfortable at night for the next 5 months is a bargain if you ask me. I had planned to buy a cheap duvet cover - they had a rather unpleasant yellow circley designed one at $12.99 - but spotted a jersey duvet cover in green, which I was naturally unable to resist, despite it being a fair bit more expensive. I also bought a couple of packs of twinkly lights, one red, one green, to put round my windows to make it a little more festive. I hope you like the effect. My room rocks.
After Ikea we went to the Chinook Centre, a big shopping mall, where we planned to go to the IMAX cinema to see Beowulf in 3D. We bought our tickets before browsing round the shops, and returned to discover that, irritatingly in the extreme, they had sold us tickets to the wrong showing. The IMAX 3D version had started half an hour before, and we had tickets to the regular version. The boys were devastated to miss the opportunity to see Angelina Jolie's gold nipples side-swiping their faces, naturally.
The film was purest comedy gold. I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be a comedy, but we laughed our arses off all the way through it. If it wasn't for Ray Winstone's East London accent saying "I'm Beowulf, and I've come to kill your monstaaaahhh", or Beowulf's penchant for removing all his clothes before he fought said monstaaaahhh, necessitating a whole 10 minute sequence where something was always placed strategically in front of his - ahem - tackle, it was Angelina Jolie performing a particular act upon a sword with an inevitable, slightly messy, and surprisingly graphic conclusion. Well worth seeing: 9 out of 10 for comedy value, though only 2 out of 10 for achieving the original aim. My private theory however, particularly given the abundance of British actors in the film, is that they decided to see how utterly ridiculous they could make the film, and still get the Americans to buy into it completely.
Oh, just a quick update before I publish this: I slept last night on my jersey sheets/duvet combo and it was purest heaven.
*I'm doing a good job of justifying this to myself, aren't I?
We headed off to have lunch with some friends of Gravy's and arrived about 10 minutes before them. Lethal. Next door to the restaurant was the Ski Cellar, a mecca for my new obsession with ski wear. 10 minutes later a new pair of ski pants in bright green were mine, for a bargain price...compared to how much they were to begin with, that was. Believe me, you don't want to know. But I live in a ski resort and when I'm not working, I'm skiing, so I think I can justify the investment*.
However, our main task of the day was to go to Ikea, where I intended to buy a duvet. In Canada, people use flat sheets under something called a 'comforter', which is basically a thin synthetic duvet with a fixed and often lurid cover, with possibly a blanket over the top. It's bloody rubbish. Firstly, it's not warm enough, particularly for a winter where temperatures can go down to -30. Secondly, as anyone who is old enough to remember England before duvets became the norm, you invariably wake up with the sheet squished over onto once side, the comforter over to the other, and the rough woollen blanket fallen off the bottom of the bed. Thirdly, thin synthetic duvets do not cover you properly, they just lie over the top of you and create cold gaps either side of you. Last night I was freezing all night so today I practically ran round Ikea in order to buy myself a lovely down duvet.
Naturally they didn't have the cheap one I wanted, nor did they have the slightly more expensive one in the size I wanted, so I ended up spending $72 on a king size, but still, 36 quid for the pleasure of being warm and comfortable at night for the next 5 months is a bargain if you ask me. I had planned to buy a cheap duvet cover - they had a rather unpleasant yellow circley designed one at $12.99 - but spotted a jersey duvet cover in green, which I was naturally unable to resist, despite it being a fair bit more expensive. I also bought a couple of packs of twinkly lights, one red, one green, to put round my windows to make it a little more festive. I hope you like the effect. My room rocks.
After Ikea we went to the Chinook Centre, a big shopping mall, where we planned to go to the IMAX cinema to see Beowulf in 3D. We bought our tickets before browsing round the shops, and returned to discover that, irritatingly in the extreme, they had sold us tickets to the wrong showing. The IMAX 3D version had started half an hour before, and we had tickets to the regular version. The boys were devastated to miss the opportunity to see Angelina Jolie's gold nipples side-swiping their faces, naturally.
The film was purest comedy gold. I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be a comedy, but we laughed our arses off all the way through it. If it wasn't for Ray Winstone's East London accent saying "I'm Beowulf, and I've come to kill your monstaaaahhh", or Beowulf's penchant for removing all his clothes before he fought said monstaaaahhh, necessitating a whole 10 minute sequence where something was always placed strategically in front of his - ahem - tackle, it was Angelina Jolie performing a particular act upon a sword with an inevitable, slightly messy, and surprisingly graphic conclusion. Well worth seeing: 9 out of 10 for comedy value, though only 2 out of 10 for achieving the original aim. My private theory however, particularly given the abundance of British actors in the film, is that they decided to see how utterly ridiculous they could make the film, and still get the Americans to buy into it completely.
Oh, just a quick update before I publish this: I slept last night on my jersey sheets/duvet combo and it was purest heaven.
*I'm doing a good job of justifying this to myself, aren't I?
Saturday, June 23, 2007
He is really Stanley's Dragon, isn't he?
I received in the post today a copy of Stanley's Dragon, a TV series/film I made back in, oh I don't know, 1993 or thereabouts. I hadn't realised it was out on DVD until I stumbled upon it on Amazon a few weeks back (Region 1 disc only, of course) and thought I'd order it for nostalgia purposes. I haven't seen it for about 10 years and thought I'd just check the DVD worked but, inevitably, ended up watching the whole thing. A few things struck me:
- It was ever so slightly rubbish, but in a very sweet, kids' drama kind of way
- If it had been made today, the dragon would have been CGI. I'm so glad we had a big hydraulic rubber thing to act with, it was so much nicer and - in my humble and old-fashioned opinion - looks nicer too
- I can't believe how ruddy young I look. I mean, I know I was only 19 but bloody hellfire I look like a tiny tiny child; a fetus almost*
- I'd forgotten how much fun it was to make, even if the director was a bit of a knob and the assistant director was a total total arsehole. God I hope he's not still in the business
- I found Judd Trichter on imdb.com and boy has he grown up!
- I got to drive a lorry. It was fun
- My hair looked really rubbish all the way through, but I supppose you expected this kind of thing in the 90s
- I notice that on most of the reviews on t'interweb I'm described as a 'cute junior reporter'. Hey! I'm cute!
- Nevertheless, my STARmeter on the imdb has taken me down 4% in the past week. Aw shucks
*this might be a slight exaggeration
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