There's No Time To Explain Why There's No Time To Explain!

If you hate exposition you'll love this supercut from Slacktory.

Martin McDonagh's 'Six Shooter'

This short film from Seven Psychopaths' writer/director Martin McDonagh is a thoroughly entertaining bit of black comedy. As with In Bruges, it's very Shakespearean in the way that it nimbly flits between comedy and tragedy, able to make you laugh, cringe and almost cry all in the same line. The language used is also reminiscent of the bard ("That was woeful shooting, fucking woeful.") and probably a result from McDonagh's time as a playwright.

Whereas Seven Psychopaths arguably relies too much on pastiche, Six Shooter is full of originality, extreme but still believable characters and killer one liners - something McDonagh's most recent effort is also packed full with.

Top Ten Films of 2012

1) Avengers

2) Argo

3) Sightseers

4) Cabin In The Woods

5) The Raid

6) Seven Psycopaths

7) Skyfall

8) Looper

9) The Dark Knight Rises

10) Killing Them Softly

There were obvs many I haven't seen and will have to catch on deh veh deh. This list is only comprised of the films I caught in the cinema. 

(S)he's Right Behind Me, Isn't (S)he?

It's an old joke, a tired joke. It doesn't mean it can never be used again effectively, the Futurama spin - She's behind me, isn't she? No, I'm in front of you! - was a nice turn on it, but it's worth knowing how often it's been used, and how often it's not funny. And thanks to Plot Point Productions who've kindly spliced these clips together it's very evident how frequently that is.

Light Metering

Say Your Prayers

Experiments in Aperture

I've started a photography course at Create Studios in Brighton. The second week's task was to take some photos exploring aperture, utilsing it in a creative way. Directly below are some simple examples of focussing on the foreground and then the background.

In these next pictures I wanted to purposefully not focus on either the foreground or the background, hopefully making the colours blend into each other. It didn't work particularly well, the articifical lighting in the top photo created sharp shadows which made the subject pop out more than I wanted, but the idea was there. The second photo, under natural light, was slightly more successful. I ripped the concept off the shot in Garden State (good film) where Zac Braff's wearing a shirt which has the same pattern as the wallpaper he's standing infront of.

The photos below worked quite well. I wanted to have the victim in the foreground in clear focus and the assailant blurred in the background. There are numerous things that could be done to improve the shot, remove the books in the table over which the victim is hanging, or replace them with horror movies, which are the main inspiration for the shot. Also, the narrative of the shot doesn't quite make sense, the victim's supposed to be dead, so why would the attacker be raising her axe? But all in all I'm pleased with the result, I had an idea and I achieved it. I also enjoyed orchestrating the scene, from the make up on the victim to the attackers costume, and working out both their positions. 

With this shot I wish it was framed slightly better, pulling out a bit so that more of the victim's face was in the shot and her eye didn't bleed out of frame, as well as the attacker's axe being more visible, which could have been achieved with better lighting. But again, it worked, the victim's clear and in focus and her assailant lurks ominously in the out-of-focus background.

Honest Trailers - Prometheus



Prometheus wasn't a bad film but this Honest Trailer from Bloody Disgusting highlights many of the plot inconsistencies, plus, it's bloomin' funny. Considering all the hype and talent involved in the film I think it's fair to say the majority of the movie-going public left the cinema disappointed. A point I had issue with but the Honest Trailer misses, is the secondary characters who were there simply there to get knocked off. They had no lines or narrative function other than to be killed when things went awry. Slack.

Seinfeld Writing Seinfeld

"We're kinda in the middle of something here!"

The Wonder Yeahs @ The Haunt

Photo by Sam Hiscox

Review originally featured in the Brighton SOURCE

The 90s was a great decade, Will Smith was cool, Super Nintendos were all the ‘Streets Of Rage’ and Joss Whedon gave us Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The music wasn’t half bad either and the Wonder Yeahs is here to remind us that kitsch can be cool, or at least, kitsch was cool.

It was a time when the baggier your jeans were, the better, and although it’s a shame 90s fashion isn’t an entrance requisite (just imagine) it’s obvious everyone here loves the pop-punk of Weezer as much as the G-funk of Dre. The young but not student-centric crowd gets down like our Noughties’ economy, reveling in the camp as much as the classic as the DJs drop Ace Of Bass after The Fugees.

Leave your navel-gazing taste at the door and delight in a night that continually has you yelling, “Oh, I used to love this tune!”

Kubrick and Aronofsky

This Vimeo user - Kogonada - has put together some great montages of film clips that best demonstrate the themes and techniques frequently favoured by certain directors. Below are the pieces he compiled for Kubrick and Aronofsky. The latter exhibits the auteur's focus on sound, and shows it's arresting effect. The former neatly illustrates Kubrick's penchant for the one-point perspective and how regularly symmetry features in his work. Check out Kogonada's Vimeo profile for more on Tarantino From Below, and Wes Anderson From Above.

Kubrick // One-Point Perspective from kogonada on Vimeo.
 

Sounds of Aronofsky from kogonada on Vimeo.

The 100 Greatest Movie Threats of All Time

Film has provided us with some of the best put downs and most inventive threats. When the occasion calls for it, movie characters always know exactly what to say, saving face by turning their antagonist's red. It's a shame in real life most of us have to make do with taxi wit - when you think of the perfect come back while returning home in the back of a cab, crying hysterically to the driver about how you should have told David that yes as footwear goes you only own trainers, but you'd prefer to rock a crisp pair of Reebok Pumps than a cheap pair loafers bought at Shoe Zone. 

The Hero's Journey - The Monomyth

Nothing's original, everything's been done already. As Barthes stated in Death of the Author, 'The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.' This also holds true when that text is celluloid. All the stories you've seen are the same. Well, that's a huge generalisation but many of them do follow a familiar path.

Continuing on from Joseph Campbell's work, Christopher Vogler talks about the Hero's Journey - a structure and range of characters that protagonists are likely to meet in films and other stories that dates back to ancient Greek mythology and Germanic folklore. Because everything's a remix, innit.

The xx - Angels

Arguably it's a bit samey to the stuff on their first album, but when the material's so undeniably lush and melodic who cares if it's samey. 'Angels' is a sparse track with more of the delicate vocals that we've come to expect from front girl Romy, the lyrics are uttered softly yet still retain a powerful poeticism as they drift over distant guitars.

It's a melancholic tune but at least we can rejoice in the fact that The xx are making more music.

Hospitality @ Digital

Review first appeared in Brighton SOURCE mag

It seems every genre of EDM is getting prefixed by the ‘future’ tag – future house, future garage, future step. Alright, we may have made that last one up, but drum’n’bass is getting ushered into the corner with all the exciting new developments in dance music. Hospitality, however, is here to prove that it’s still alive and kick-drumming.

Photo by Zac Colbert

Nu:Tone successfully warms up the crowd, as diamond geezers thrash about with their tops off and junglettes get treated to a bass heavy remix of Adele’s ‘Rolling In The Deep’, before headliners Sigma take to the decks. Their productions err on the side of soulful liquid blends but tonight’s set opts for the grittier edge of drum’n’bass, best illustrated when they drop DJ Hazard’s ‘Mr Happy’. Digital’s raving elite gets their jubilee skank on for all of England as the ear shattering sonics pulse throughout the club. The place is rammed, so it’s safe to say that d’n’b is far from flat-lining yet.

Photo by Zac Colbert

A$AP Rocky - Goldie

On some gangster shit today son

Syrupy drawl all over your breakfast.

Fifty Shades of Disappointment

Was aiming for a satirical take, combining the recent story of porn warping young people's view of what sex is and should be, with the "literary" phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey. But I don't think I pulled it off. 

It is feared that girls growing up with clit lit like E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey are building themselves up for a lifetime of disappointment. The easy access and over saturation (there's a trilogy) of such material means that an entire generation of young women believe that multiple orgasms will be a staple fixture of their sex life. Any grown woman will tell you this is pure fantasy, as fantastical as the idea of a multi-millionaire taking days off willy nilly to seduce a virginal college girl and engage in some light domestic violence.  

Equally, men are panicking at the sudden weight of expectation that is building upon their frail shoulders. Clit lit and mommy porn novels are irresponsibly depicting men as bona-fide sex Gods, which I can assure you is not the case. Men find sex both awe-inspiring and terrifying in equal measure. Have you ever seen a man regard a dildo with anything other than utter fear or a nervous joke? Showing a woman a pleasurable time in bed is about as easy for men as committing. Maybe if there was an app for that we could maybe, possibly, potentially manage to deliver one orgasm every now and then, with a lot of work, patience, luck and lube. We need a cervical compass, a labia map and vulva orienteering tools. We need as much help as we can get. Characters such as Christian Grey, who makes Ana gush come like a salty waterfall simply by saying her name, are responsible for a distorted view that is not only unrealistic but grossly careless. Please, take a second to think about the younger generation, who will inevitably be crushed by these great expectations. It is unfair and unjust. 

There have been some unconfirmed reports that Fifty Shades of Grey is actually an elaborate initiative from the Coalition government to get people to read again, that E.L. James is merely an invention. Sources close to us didn't say, "MI5 were concerned about the lack of people reading so have begun hiding porn deep under covers, respectable covers that make the filth contained within look like proper literature. Confusion has followed because a) It's been successful and b) It comes after the government tried closing down all the libraries."

Kanye Knows

This

Obviously

x

Everything is a Remix, EVERYTHING

Every time I watch this section I learn something new. It's a great series and this one in particular, about film, articulates some really interesting points about where ideas come from, the recycling and regurgitation of these ideas. And 'sorry about colonialism' has got to be the best type of film genre ever. You can donate to Everything's a Remix here, I haven't yet but I will, promise.



Rather fittingly, of course, Kirby the author isn't writing anything new. Lev Manovich has been writing about remix culture for more than a decade and Wired mag released an issue back in 2005 called Remix Planet. As is with most things, it all ties in with Roland Barthes, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centre's of culture."

Juice Box @ Life

Originally appeared in the Brighton SOURCE

Photo by James Kendall

Saturday nights can seem a bit specialist on the seafront, alienating those punters who don’t know their Rusko from your Roska, so Life launched Juice Box to remedy the situation. With a mission statement that reads, “All Juice Box cares about is your ability to recognize the fact that ‘In the Navy’ is just as much of a tune as ‘Insane in the Membrane’” you know the night’s emphasis is firmly on fun.

A night’s music policy can make or break it, too specific and you risk being elitist, too broad and the evening will be unfocused with no theme tying the experience together. Fortunately Juice Box’s policy of pure party jams holds up under dancefloor scrutiny – Life is engorged with revelers throwing themselves around to Jay Z vs Linkin Park.

As George ‘Poundance’ Nunners selflessly drops The Offsping’s ‘Pretty Fly For A White Guy’ the upper floor throbs with banging heads and twiddling air guitar fingers, everyone’s having the time of their life like they don’t give a toss about the term guilty pleasures, and more power to them we say.

Sorkinisms

Even the best screenwriters recycle dialogue, and some of them do it a lot. A lot a lot. There, now does that make you feel better about your dialogue writing?

There, now does that make you feel better about your dialogue writing? Cuts taken from these Aaron Sorkin penned films; Malice, A Few Good Men, Bulworth, Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network.

Dirtybird Records Showcase

Are you tired of moody dubstep? Is aggressive drum ‘n’ bass getting you down? Well Audio have the perfect night for you, a Dirtybird Records showcase. The label’s founder, Claude VonStroke, will be spinning his harmonious deep house and techno delights.

Then there’s Justin Martin whose mixes make us laugh as much they make us dance. This is a DJ with his tongue refreshingly in his cheek. With a label that denounces posers and places fun at the forefront of what they do, you know tonight will be pure dancefloor japery.

TEED @ Digital

 Originally written for that rag the Brighton SOURCE.

Photo by Zac Colbert

After the release of 'Household Goods' in 2010 and 'Trouble' last year, Orlando ‘Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ Higginbottom garnered the attention of Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw and was put on remix duty by commercial artists as well as underground, from Professor Green and Lady Gaga to The 2 Bears.

Tonight his soft voice sounds frail, drowning behind the easy going electro of 'Household Goods', but this is understandable, Brighton is the last leg of a sold out UK tour. TEED's notoriously elaborate head-dress of feathers, beads and tapestry bop to the beat, rhythmically rising and falling to the sunset synths of 'Trouble'. Digital's crowd push forward straining to see the DJ behind the barrier of keyboards, laptops, samplers and a drum machine, between which he’s constantly flitting.

The gracious 'Garden' has the 8 bit blips of Crystal Castles but without the screeching mania. It's warm and affectionate, ambling into our ears and gently coaxing us to dance. As one of his most recent releases it is perhaps also the most recognisable and the crowd begin to bounce with boundless vigour. They're packed so tightly towards the stage that they move as one, unified by necessity, arms pushed down to their sides or raised aloft, the sea of haircuts swell as lasers cut the smoke above them.

With his album set to drop in June we're treated to some new material. His latest tune 'Tapes & Money' has a luscious melody with a melancholy vocal and fast tempo. As with all his work he manages to create a harmonious sound from seemingly contrasting elements. As a producer of the future his bars are anything but Jurassic.

Even @ The Tube

Review first appeared in the Brighton SOURCE, which has a sexy new website.

Photo by James Kendall

Typically, headlining DJs only get an hour or two to entertain you, but Even throws the rule book straight out the window. The philosophy behind this club night is to book one big act and let them loose on the decks for as long as they want. Last year Ben UFO had four hours playing to the sweaty heads filling The Tube and this month Appleblim’s getting similar treatment.

Tonight it’s Space Dimension Controller, whose psychedelic techy-house productions on his astral album – ‘The Pathway to Tiraquon 6’ – demonstrated a cosmic love for disco, funk and deep house, as does the first hour of his set tonight.

It culminates with Bob Sinclar’s controversial ‘Gym Tonic’ before dropping back down into some stomping techno that chugs along like a celestial locomotive. His own track ‘Usurper’ finds its way into the mix, the palatial soundscape indicative of the interstellar epicness of all his tunes, before Siedah Garrett’s ‘Do You Want It Right Now?’ tops the night off nicely.

Murder He Wrote - Below The Line Mix

This is some gang shit right here. Starting off nice and chilled with hip hop grooves, it soon moves into moody bass tunes and disjointed electronica. Although 'Tea Leaf Dancers' doesn't need to be fucked with, Murder He Wrote's edit fits perfectly with the tone of his mix.

  Murder He Wrote - Below The Line Mix #01 by Murder He Wrote

Been bumping this out for a week and it's made the rain drenched walk to work less of a mission. You can download this for free from Murder He Wrote's soundcloud.