Rufus Wainwright tickets

This is why they're called 'thermal tickets'

Yes, our tickets are made out of fresh Gremlins - put them in direct sunlight and they will burn.

We had it all at the Rufus Wainwright gig tonight. Burnt tickets... lost tickets... people who'd bought stolen tickets outside and had to be chucked out... and one poor lady who'd booked through Get Me Tickets and had been ripped off. Don't ever book tickets through them, they're a bunch of dodgy touts who source their tickets after taking people's orders - and often fail to deliver the goods, as our lady found out tonight. They've recently been investigated by Watchdog, as you can read here.

As for the guest list, well we had Damon Albarn in this evening, Keane's Tom Chaplin (and the family of one of the other Keane chaps), plus the Brighton contigent of the lovely Astrid Williamson and the ever-affable Tim Booth. The only downside tonight was that I didn't get to see any of the show!

Movie Haiku - Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

www.gobletoffire.co.uk


Dir: Mike Newell


Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane


Hormones are raging

enters tri-wizard contest

harder than sports day


soulmining rating: ****

FrightFest does Brighton

Front row (L-R): Rachel, Graham, Rich, Mike and Russ
(photo from www.frightfest.co.uk)

I had such a good laugh on Saturday night with the FrightFest crowd in town as part of Brighton's Cine-City festival at the Duke Of York's cinema. Mike and Russ from Eat My Brains came down for the weekend, and we met up with Rich and Graham - who'd driven down from Romford - in Circus Circus at the start of the evening. FrightFest organisers Ian and Paul soon joined us, Ian regaling us with tales of falling asleep on public transport after too many beers, Paul mainly occupied with his new girlfriend, Honey. Director Jake West introduced himself and proved to be a friendly, jovial chap, which made me feel bad for dissing Evil Aliens so much - but at least I was able to praise his work on the excellent Anchor Bay Phantasm documentary. With a few more FrightFest regulars travelling down, including Rachel from Guildford who we took under our wing after her other friends abandoned her, there was a real feeling of 'extended family' in the pub and this transferred over to the cinema where the audience clapped and cheered their way through the three films on offer. District 13 was the most popular with its mad French stuntmen jumping over buildings without the use of wires or CGI proving to be a big hit. After a specially written message from Dario Argento, his Masters Of Horror episode Jenifer was a little disappointing - delivering more laughs than scares, but it was funny hearing the shocked reactions of the girls sat in the row behind us. In between films Ian and Paul were on hand to give out t-shirts, posters plus the latest Killing Time fanzine, and they also dragged fan Sian onto the stage to display her new FrightFest tattoo. The final film was Boo! which was originally due to play at August's event - it had some good visuals but was let down by wooden acting and dire dialogue, although after a few pints this was all quite amusing. After the last film Mike, Russ and I cracked open some more bottles of beer back at home and wound down watching Hell Comes To Frogtown on video, a dead cert for a future Zombie Club session. All in all, a great evening!

FrightFest Movie Haiku - Boo!

www.kismetent.com/films.html


Dir: Anthony C. Ferrante


Cast: M. Steven Felty, Trish Coren, Rachel Melvin, Dee Wallace Stone


Haunted asylum

laugh at bad acting and script

no applause just boos


soulmining rating: **

FrightFest Movie Haiku - Jenifer

www.mastersofhorror.net


Dir: Dario Argento


Cast: Steven Weber, Carrie Anne Fleming, Brenda Jones, Julia Arkos


Saves her from axeman

great body but freaky face

likes to eat pussy


soulmining rating: ***

You can read my review of Jenifer on Eat My Brains here.

FrightFest Movie Haiku - District 13

www.banlieue13-lefilm.com


Dir: Pierre Morel


Cast: Cyril Raffaelli, David Belle, Tony D'Amario, Dany Verissimo


Leap across buildings

stop neutron bomb, save sister

Escape From Paris


soulmining rating: ****

Killing Time

Just a quick plug for the new Killing Time fanzine. Issue Two has just been published and features articles on directors Rob Zombie, Ti West and Craig Strachan, alongside comment on the recent zombie craze and the demise of Pinhead. Plus, there's a cool Shaun Of The Dead stencil for next year's pumpkin carving and a great spoof advert for Woodloids - "It's going to be a lousy night!"

All this can be yours for a mere £2.50 - get your copy via Paypal here and do your bit to support these guys.

Eubankrupt!

Sometimes the headlines just write themselves.

Yes, Hove's grandest resident, Mr Chris Eubank, declared himself bankrupt yesterday.

You can read the full news story on Yahoo here.

Movie Haiku - The Hidden Blade

www.kakushiken.jp


Dir: Yoji Yamada


Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Takako Matsu, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Yukiyoshi Ozawa


Can't marry the maid

ordered to kill his old friend

samurai life sucks


soulmining rating: ***

Whatever happened to...?

Continuing the occasional series of actors who have mysteriously vanished from our screens...

3. Rick Moranis

I caught a bit of Ghostbusters on Channel 4 the other night and Rick's name sprung to mind. We all remember him from those two films, and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and its endless sequels, but surely he must have other work? IMDB lists his last role as one of the vocal talents in Brother Bear but that was two years ago...

So, whatever happened to Rick Moranis?

Snakes On A Motherf*ckin' Plane!

I've been obsessing over Snakes On A Plane today and have just added the wonderful Snakes On A Blog to my cool links.

You can read more about the forthcoming Snakes On A Plane movie by checking out its listing on IMDB or on Wikipedia.

You gotta admit, you're excited aren't you?

Who needs tickets for the 2006 NME Awards Tour?

NME have just announced dates for their Shockwaves NME Awards Tour 2006 and they'll hit Brighton Dome on Thursday 16th February. Tickets (priced £15.50) are already sold out through NME Tickets but will go on general sale tomorrow... so if you want tickets then get your requests to me by 10am as they're gonna sell out immediately.

This year's tour featured The Killers, Bloc Party, The Futureheads and Kaiser Chiefs and the line up for this forthcoming tour is due to be announced in next week's NME. I'm not party to any insider information but latest rumours suggest that Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park and We Are Scientists will all be taking part... watch this space!

Movie Haiku - Lower City

www.cidadebaixaofilme.com.br


Dir: Sergio Machado


Cast: Wagner Moura, Lazaro Ramos, Alice Braga, Jose Dummont


She screws two best friends

cockfighting and cocks fighting

should have had threesome


soulmining rating: ***

Bowie lands Prestige role

Be afraid... be very afraid... Bowie's acting again. I don't care though, he's still a hero of mine, therefore I'm quite excited to read the news that he's just been cast alongside Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine in The Prestige, the new film from Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) which will begin shooting in January 2006.

"Bowie will play inventor and electrical wizard Nikola Tesla who is approached by one of two competing magicians for help in pulling off the ultimate magic trick in 1878," according to Variety.

How did I get here?

I'm curious to see where my blog traffic is coming from so I've recently signed up with Active Meter to track my visitors. Aside from discovering that most of my hits are just random visits coming from Google Image searches, I have uncovered one or two wonderful search terms which have apparently led here. My favourite ones so far are:

• Jessica Alba tied up
• Horny Brighton students
• Offensive Jimmy Carr t-shirts
• Susan Sarandon bikini

James, was that you again?

Snakes On A Plane On A T-Shirt!

Regular readers will know that my most eagerly awaited movie of 2006 is Snakes On A Plane - purely because it's called Snakes On A Plane.

Now in an amazing piece of coincidental merchandising, James has not only found the best t-shirt design ever, he's actually bought one of these cool tees, thereby making him the hippest guy in the whole of London town. Or Middlesex. Imagine the fun you could have wearing one of these little beauties, holding your arms out wide and running around making plane type noises! This has just flown right to the top of my Christmas list!

If you want to wear snakes on a plane too, then click here.

Badly Dressed Weather Pixie

I love the Weather Pixie on Kelly's blog, she's extremely dim. Always inappropriately dressed whatever the weather. Just take a look at her here - it's 6 degrees and raining and she's wearing a crop top right up to her boobs... is she mad or just plain desperate?

I have now added my very own Weather Geisha to my blog (bottom left) - if she proves to be too sensible with her attire then I'll just have to trade her in for a different model.

Man Stroke Woman Stroke Minor Celebrities - Get Me Out Of Here!

Faced with the horrifying prospect of the return of Chris Evan's smug, grinning, ginger face on OFI Sunday last night, I quickly switched over to BBC Three. In theory, a good move judging from Vik's comments.

Instead I watched Man Stroke Woman, the much-heralded new sketch show starring the likes of Nick Frost (Shaun Of The Dead) and Nicholas Burns (Nathan Barley). Two laughs in thirty minutes is not a good comedy-per-sketches ratio. Frankly, it's a piss poor effort. And just like BBC Three's dismal second series of Nighty Night, I just know it won't get any better no matter how many more chances I give it. Channel 4's similarly themed Spoons did it much better.

Earlier in the evening I found myself watching the new series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in which another ten micro-celebrities humiliate themselves in the Australian jungle for AntandDec's entertainment. Someone I didn't recognise from Eastenders kept fainting a lot and had to go to hospital, someone I didn't recognise from Emmerdale refused to do a parachute jump - and that was before she even got to camp - Mr Orange (aka David Dickinson) bossed Rickyyyyy (Sid Owen - the most likely winner) around in their 'bush tucker challenge', and we got to watch Carol Thatcher having a wee-wee in the night. No-one needs to see that image on television. Ever. Yet with the creeping inevitability of a dog returning to its own vomit, I know I'll be watching again tonight...

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

I've been doing a lot of thinking this weekend.

Blogging is supposed to be fun, never a chore, yet recently my movie reviews have become just that - something done out of a sense of duty, rather than out of pleasure. The real problem is that my cinema addiction means that I see on average two films a week (I've seen 101 films at the cinema this year to date) and that's a lot of reviewing to do. Maybe it's just laziness on my part, but I'm just finding that it's eating into my life too much and I've got to stop. I was going to wait until the New Year, but it's no good... it's just zapping away at my energy and making me feel down, so no more.

The haikus will continue, along with my ratings, and I'll still write reviews for genre films - but these will be exclusively for the Eat My Brains website.

Of course I reserve the right to change my mind at any time, so this post could turn out to be a load of old bollocks!

EMB turn to The Dark Side

Congratulations to Mike, Jim and Russ from Eat My Brains - the lads have landed their first magazine feature, published in this month's edition of The Dark Side!

Their own unique take on August's FrightFest event runs across pages 38-42 of Issue 118 (the one with a cover-mounted DVD of Cold Eyes Of Fear on the front), which is available in all good newsagents now.

You can read my own account of FrightFest on their website here.

Skin at the Concorde

The last time I saw Skin at the Concorde I was absolutely hammered, so it was good to approach this performance in a more sober frame of mind - although that didn't last too long! She was fantastic though, belting out a mixture of old Skunk Anansie songs, stuff from her first solo album Flesh Wounds - including the awesome Trashed and a wicked cover of Electronic's Getting Away With It - and a selection of tracks from her forthcoming album, Fake Chemical State.

Movie Haiku - A Cock And Bull Story

www.redbus.comsgrp.com


Dir: Michael Winterbottom


Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Jeremy Northam, Keeley Hawes


Watch Tristram get born

then watch the film crew watching

Steve's back in the womb


soulmining rating: ***

Life on Babelfish?

Thanks to Kelly for this suggestion... Take some song lyrics, translate them on Babelfish, and then translate them back into English again!

So here's the chorus of The The's Soul Mining:

Something always goes wrong when things are going right,
You've swallowed your pride to quell the pain inside,
Someone captured your heart like a thief in the night,
And squeezed all the juice out until it ran dry.

And here's the English-Japanese-English translation:

When as for something always thing has gone just in order in to calm pain,
Your pride which is swallowed as for someone who goes by mistake like the thief of the night until it captured the center of the hatchet,
It dried moved juice everything was squeezed.

So, then I tried the chorus of David Bowie's Life On Mars?:

Sailors fighting in the dance hall,
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go,
It's the freakiest show,
Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy,
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know,
He's in the best selling show,
Is there life on Mars?

Which gave me this English-Japanese-English translation:

The person of crew Ohio state which fights with the dance hall!
Those hole staying people it goes,
That it is and / or the most whimsical show,
Tries looking at the legal process server which has been struck on the person and the person of Ohio state whom you make a mistake,
See! Whether or not him in the best sale show,
There Mars life him think in the doubt which has been known?

Genius.

Movie Haiku - The Constant Gardener

www.theconstantgardener.com


Dir: Fernando Meirelles


Cast: Raplh Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy


Why is his wife dead?

uncovers dodgy drug trials

not much gardening


soulmining rating: ****

Play It Cool in November

I've really cut back on my CD buying lately. This is no bad thing; I already have far too many for my groaning shelves, and a three piles on my bedroom floor just waiting to find new homes via eBay. Still, there's always new tunes to discover, and these are the ones which have been hogging my stereo this month:

• Serena Maneesh - Serena-Maneesh (Honeymilk)
• Ladytron - Witching Hour (Island)
• Gemma Hayes - The Roads Don't Love You (Source)
• Feeder - Shatter / Tender (Echo) single
• Depeche Mode - Precious (Mute) single

Don't know what's gonna crop up next month, but I've been impressed with the Arcade Fire tracks I've heard and I really like Madonna's Hung Up single, so we'll see...

Movie Haiku - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

www.kisskiss-bangbangmovie.co.uk


Dir: Shane Black


Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen


Fag and New Yorker

banter makes you laugh out loud

dog ate his finger


Shane Black wrote the scripts for seminal action flicks Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, pocketed $4 million for The Long Kiss Goodnight and then disappeared in a cocktail of booze, drugs and hookers (probably). One nervous breakdown later and he's back with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a satire on the buddy movie which also marks his directorial debut. Harry Lockhart (Downey Jr) is a petty thief who ends up tagging along with private eye Gay Perry (Kilmer) after bursting in on a Hollywood audition and being hired on the spot in a classic case of mistaken identity. Perry's latest case involves the daughter of a producer (Bernsen) who turns up dead in a lake, whilst Harry is falling for wannabe actress Harmony (Monaghan) - who just happens to be his pal from back home - whose sister also turns up dead in LA. Of course, like the 'Johnny Gossamer' novels that the movie references, this is pure pulp fiction, so we just know that these two seemingly seperate cases are going to be connected. As thrillers go, it hits all the right notes, throwing in enough red herrings and holding the interest commendably. There's none of the explosive set-pieces you might imagine from Black's action-packed pedigree; sure, there's a few thrills along the way but largely Kiss Kiss Bang Bang keeps its feet on the ground rather than riding the blockbuster cliches - and it's all the better for that. Where the film excels - and this won't come as a shock to fans familiar with Black's oeuvre - is in the writing. Within five minutes I was sold on this film and I found myself laughing out loud more times at the cynical, sarcastic repartee than in any supposed 'straight' comedy this year. But it's more than just Black's dialgoue, it's his whole approach, his constant breaking of genre conventions. This is one smart, savvy Hollywood satire - perfectly encapsulated in Harry's inept narration causing him to halt the film and rewind to add the little details he missed, or in Harry and Perry's messages to the watching audience as the film is winding to a close. It certainly helps that all three of the lead actors are on top form here. Downey Jr is just perfect as the (not quite so) innocent caught up in this surreal city, and he's subjected to the type of physical abuse more akin to Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead films! Kilmer gives his best performance in years and newcomer Monaghan smoulders like a modern day femme fatale, oozing sex appeal, yet with edge to her that keeps you questioning whether she's really Harry's dream girl, or if she's just using him as a pawn in a more sinister game. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang might have proved too sophisticated for middle America, but it should find a more appreciative response over here and I urge you to go and see it - it really is a gloriously entertaining action-comedy-thriller-satire of the highest calibre.

soulmining rating: *****

Greatest Hit

Thanks to everyone who's been stopping by my blog recently, the counter has really been clocking up those hits over the past month. So to celebrate, if you're the magical 10,000th visitor this week then send me a screen grab of the page and in turn I'll send you a special prize!

(Disclaimer: By 'special prize' I mean some random item that I was planning to sell on eBay if only I could be bothered)

New Order at Brixton Academy

From the NME website, as I'm too lazy to write anything myself!

"New Order performed a collection of classic anthems and legendary Joy Division songs last night (November 10) for the first of two special shows in London and Manchester. The legendary four-piece treated fans to a 90-minute set at Brixton Academy packed with hits from their back catalogue including Ceremony, Bizarre Love Triangle, Temptation, True Faith, Regret and Blue Monday, a song which the band were forced to cut from their Glastonbury set this year. They also threw in Joy Division favourites Transmission, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Shadowplay and Warsaw. During the encore, singer Bernard Sumner even pulled their video producer Michael Shamberg up on stage for a special dedication. The New Order frontman said: "We would like to dedicate this next track to Michael Shamberg. Give him a cheer, he hasn't been very well lately," before Sumner launched into the Joy Division track Shadowplay. He also took a swipe at Green Day after performing early hit Warsaw when he said: "That was one of our first singles and that is what shit Green Day try and play". They closed the set with She's Lost Control."

That New Order setlist in full:

• Ceremony
• Love Vigilantes
• Crystal
• Regret
• Krafty
• Turn
• Transmission
• Your Silent Face
• Waiting For The Sirens Call
• True Faith
• Bizarre Love Triangle
• Love Will Tear Us Apart
• Temptation
• Blue Monday
• Shadowplay
• Warsaw
• She's Lost Control

Seeing New Order live after so many years was an undoubted highlight of a wholly entertaining day - for an 'electronic' band their sound was a lot beefier than I'd expected. During the afternoon I hung out in my favourite bar in Chinatown with James, Mike and Stevie B where we took full advantage of their 2 for 1 offer on cocktails and talked a lot of nonsense about films. The journey home with Stevie B was enlivened by a couple of kids who'd got on the wrong train and a drunk lady who was bothering the bloke opposite (while we pretended to be asleep) and then passed out on the seat next to me - and refused to budge once we reached Brighton. After finding the biggest puddle of mud in Victoria Gardens which absolutely caked my shoes and jeans as we walked home, we then got accosted on Edward Street by another wino desperate for a smoke, who then got all stroppy when we walked off instead of staying to listen to her no doubt fascinating story about her dropping her bottle of wine... aaaah, the delights of excessive drinking!

Mau rien mai?

Just look at that huge pitcher of beer! Some things never change, eh? My Thai friend Earn just sent me this pic of her (right) with our friend Nok. I haven't seen the two of them together since early 2002 when they were both working at the Sax Music Pub in Chiang Mai - Earn got married that year and moved to Shropshire, whilst Nok moved to Holland earlier this year to live with boyfriend Johnny. I'm guessing this photo was taken in Amsterdam, but Earn neglected to say where they met up. Ladies, any more news for me? "Chock Dii puen, pom kit khun mii sanuk mak-mak!"

The Sad Silver Cyberman

Fresh off the BBC website here's the brand new design for the Cybermen, who are due to return in the new series of Doctor Who in 2006. Is it just me, or does this new makeover make them seem half as scary as the previous designs? Just look at his sad little face, the poor silver chappy looks like he's about to cry...

In other television news, Variety reports that David Cronenberg is apparently working on an adaptation of his own 1988 film, Dead Ringers, for HBO. Yup, that was the one about the twin gynecologists...

Finally, The Mighty Boosh are taking their show on the road - hitting Brighton on 11th February!

Movie Haiku - Elizabethtown

www.uk.yahoo.com/elizabethtown


Dir: Cameron Crowe


Cast: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin


They meet on a plane

she gives him route and cool tunes

for trip with dead dad


I like Cameron Crowe films. Even Vanilla Sky. And Almost Famous is probably one of my top ten favourite films of all time. So the lukewarm reviews which have met Elizabethtown have had me worried, especially Vic who simply summed it up by saying "don't bother" after seeing it earlier in the week. The film is all about Drew (Bloom), a shoe designer whose latest creation is branded a fiasco (for reasons never quite made clear) costing the company millions of dollars. He's already suicidal when he receives news that his father has died back in his hometown of Elizabethtown, so he flies out to handle the funeral arrangements and deal with family members who he hasn't seen in years. On the flight he's befriended by a stewardess Claire (Dunst) who gives him her number, and over the next few days she helps him to find himself again and deal with his feelings towards his dad. This is director Crowe's most personal film and focuses solely on relationships and family, utilising his talent for great characterisation and emotional weight to the full here. The rapport between Drew and Claire is pivotal here, but they make an engaging couple. Bloom - who I've never considered to be a great actor - is actually fine here, which is just as well as his character is in nearly every scene, although to be fair most of his acting has to do with reacting to situations around him and letting things happen. But he does it well. Dunst, who I've always liked going way back to Small Soldiers, excels in another girl-next-door role, although the more cynical amongst you might question her motives (she plans this whole road trip for him and compiles dozens of CDs too... erm, why?), she really is every male's fantasy here - a girl who is everything that Drew needs while he is at his lowest ebb. I just adored their relationship and their scenes are romantic and sweet without ever being too saccharine - talking on their mobiles all night, watching the day break together, parting at the gas station, all handled brilliantly. And even Drew's grief when he finally acknowledges his father's passing isn't dwelt upon as lesser filmmakers would have done. Sure, there are flaws, with Crowe neglecting to follow up a number of plot strands concerning supporting characters including Drew's boss (Baldwin), soon to be ex-girlfriend (Jessica Biel), his cousin, and unscrupulous uncle, but the drive of the main plot holds the attention so well that you never really question these omissions until after the film has ended. One scene which could have done with some trimming however is the speech by his mother (Sarandon) at the memorial service which is well intentioned but far too long and really slows the film down. Elizabethtown certainly succeeds with another essential soundtrack provided by Crowe's wife, Nancy Wilson, and peppered with songs that capture each moment perfectly. And it's the second time we've heard Freebird in a movie this year (the first was in The Devil's Rejects) and again it's timing is spot on. I can understand some of the criticisms levelled at Elizabethtown but I relished the life-affirming sentiments and relationships within the film and found it a rewarding visit. If you like Cameron Crowe's other work then don't be put off by the poor reviews, give it a chance - I don't think you'll be disappointed.

soulmining rating: ****

Movie Haiku - The Brothers Grimm

www.miramax.com/thebrothersgrimm


Dir: Terry Gilliam


Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Peter Stormare, Lena Headey


Terry's latest fight

hacked, dubbed, laughable effects

a grim fairytale


After reading that quote on the DVD sleeve - "It's just cheap and ineffective, slightly entertaining but not nearly enough to be worth the time!" - my expectations for The Brothers Grimm were suitably lowered. It didn't help that the production was hampered by a massive row between the director and the studio, Miramax, which resulted in an extended hitaus in which Gilliam went off to make Tideland. Still, with a reported budget of $83 million behind it, and Terry Gilliam - the man behind Brazil and Twelve Monkeys - at the helm, surely it couldn't be a complete disaster? Oh yes it could. The two brothers Wilhelm (Damon) and Jacob (Ledger) are basically a pair of travelling conmen, writing their folk tales and pretending to protect villages from non-existant threats. Until they're employed by Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) to rid one village of a very real curse - a Queen (Monica Bellucci) who's trapped in a tower and whose spell leads to the kidnapping of the local children. With accomplice Cavaldi (Stormare) in tow, and enlisting the help of village girl Angelica (Headey) they actually have to face up to the facts that some fairytales really do exist. On paper it's a reasonable concept but on screen it's a sprawling mess, uneven, and badly edited with chunks apparently missing. Okay, so one minute Delatombe has Angelica tied up in the village, the next scene she's in the woods... erm, did I miss something? It wouldn't seem so bad if the characters and dialogue were engaging, but sadly The Brothers Grimm is lacking in those departments too. Whilst Damon (who actually does a good job in the face of adversity) and Ledger both attempt English accents with mixed success, all the other Germans seem to speak in either broad Cockney or Geordie accents! And all the kids seem to be dubbed - badly. Even Stormare, who you can usually rely on to provide a bit of entertainment, is quite awful, with his rambling presence throughout as welcome as fingernails on a blackboard. But this isn't even the worst of it... the film looks shoddy too. Somone must have been siphoning off the coffers because I can't see those millions of dollars on screen. The scenes in the woods are the biggest culprits where it's so obvious that you're watching a film set with illustrated backgrounds. And then there's the not-so-special effects, with some horrendous CGI wolves that even make the hyenas in Exorcist: The Beginning look good, and that takes some doing! Whatever talent Gilliam still has - and I'm sure he does, you don't suddenly become crap overnight - it's just been diluted and washed away by this long battle with Miramax. This is a huge disappointment from a visionary director. The brothers are very grim indeed I'm afraid to say.

soulmining rating: *

DVD Most Wanted

Last night I uncovered an ancient (and slightly mouldy) VHS tape of that lost classic, Hell Comes To Frogtown, in the basement of Gary's video shop. Alas, playing said tape resulted in a snowstorm on screen and now my VCR won't play any more videotapes. Bugger!

If only everything was available on those small, shiny, metal discs... which made me think, what other films or television shows have we been deprived of seeing on DVD here in the UK?

Here's my top ten most wanted:

1. Night Of The Creeps - My best-loved eighties 'B' movie, directed by Fred Dekker. Currently stuck in some kind of contractual hell between Fox and CBS and only available as a bootleg, although it does feature an alternative ending.
2. 15 Storey's High: The Complete Second Series - Hilarious sitcom starring Sean Lock and Benedict Wong. Series one came out on DVD two years ago (distributed by Carlton, even though it's a BBC show...) but there's been no sign of the follow up, and even BBC Three gave it the graveyard slot when it was broadcast.
3. Hardware - Richard Stanley's futuristic British sci-fi shocker with an excellent score from Simon Boswell. I asked Richard about a proper DVD release for this last year and he explained it's another film tied up in endless studio wrangles. There's just an old European 'red' edition release available retitled Mark-13.
4. Exorcist III - William Peter Blatty's sequel to his own novel, Legion, is only available as part of the various box sets of The Exorcist. If both versions of the latest movie can get an individual release then surely it's time for Blatty's original cut to be restored and released as a special edition DVD?
5. Last Night - Don McKellar's 1998 apocalyptic drama starring Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley and David Cronenberg. It got a cinema release over here so why no DVD release?
6. Time Gentlemen Please - Al Murray's ill-fated Sky One sitcom starring Phil Daniels, currently clogging up the schedules on Paramount. This ran for two long series, was extremely purile and built upon repetitive catchphrases, but I loved it all the same. Don't release yet another live Al Murray DVD, shove this out instead!
7. Citizen Dog - Wisit Sasanatieng's colourful follow-up to Tears Of The Black Tiger. Already available on Thai DVD but without English subtitles. Bastards!
8. Highway To Hell - Ate de Jong's DTV classic starring Patrick Bergin (!) and Ben Stiller before he was famous, and written by Brian Helgeland before he did L.A. Confidential. I was probably the only person to ever see this film at the cinema (Wareham, Dorset, 1992).
9. The Kingdom 2 - Lars Von Trier's very odd second series of his weird monochrome hospital drama that Stephen King later bastardised as Kingdom Hospital. The first series has been available here for ages, and the second series was screened on BBC Two, but there's no sign of a DVD release yet. Still, the recent R1 release of series one - with director's commentary - gives me hope!
10. Buppah Rahtree / Rahtree Returns - Yuthlert Sippapak's double-bill of ghostly Thai madness. Both available on Thai DVD but (again!) no English subtitles. Momentum were supposed to have picked up the first film - which was screened at last year's FrightFest event - for release in the UK, but it's yet to surface.
    

Google Image Meme

I've just seen this on Kelly's and Adam's blogs so thought I'd have a go as well. It works like this - log onto Google, then do an image search using the following terms and post your favourite picture from the first page of results. So this is what I found...

The town that you grew up in...
The place where you currently live...

Your name...
Your grandmother's name...

Your favourite food...
Your favourite drink...

















Your favourite smell...
Your favourite song...

The Brothers Grim

Mike bought a copy of The Brothers Grimm on DVD when he was in Hong Kong recently. Just take a closer look at the hilarious press quote they've used on the back sleeve... no, not "Sensational! Terrific entertainment!" from the Los Angeles Times, the one on the top left from The Washington Post. In case you can't read it clearly here's the quote in full:

"It's just cheap and ineffective, slightly entertaining but not nearly enough to be worth the time!"

Is that really the second best review they could find?

CineCity 2005

CineCity, Brighton's annual film festival will take place at various venues around the city from 17th November to 4th December this year.

Highlights include the following screenings:

17/11 - Michael Winterbottom's A Cock And Bull Story starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

20/11 - Nick Broomfield's Biggie And Tupac documentary, with Q&A with producer Michele d'Acosta.

21/11 - Sergio Machado's steamy love-triangle Lower City.

23/11 - Yoji Yamada's samurai drama The Hidden Blade.

26/11 - FrightFest presents Pierre Morel's acrobatic District 13.

26/11 - FrightFest presents Anthony C. Ferrante's shocker Boo!

02/12 - Thomas Clay's controversial The Great Ecstasy Of Robert Carmichael, filmed locally in Newhaven.

03/12 - John Hillcoat's The Propostion, scripted and scored by Hove's very own Nick Cave.

08/12 - George Clooney's Good Night And Good Luck starring David Strathairn and Robert Downey Jr.

Full details on all CineCity events can be found at www.cine-city.co.uk.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Hurley: No, no, no... Stop, stop, you can't do this! Stop! Wait! Stop, you can't do this! Stop it, stop it, we can't! Stop, don't light it! We can't do this... We can't do this! Stop! Wait, you gotta stop it, the numbers are bad! Stop! What are you doing? Why did you do that... Wait, the numbers are bad, the numbers are bad! We can't! The numbers, the numbers...

Yes, I finished watching the first season of Lost last night.

Movie Haiku - Saw II

www.saw2.com


Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman


Cast: Donnie Wahlberg, Shawnee Smith, Tobin Bell, Dina Meyer


My plot for Saw III

make chav viewers wear death masks

if they talk they die


What is it with people talking during movies? Trying to focus amidst the incessant chatter I couldn’t help wondering if there is to be a Saw III then perhaps the screenwriters might consider utilising talkative cinema-goers as the next victims of the Jigsaw Killer. Here in Saw II, our murderous cancer-sufferer (Bell) has assembled another roomful of lowlifes, petty criminals and self-abusers to torture. Amongst these miscreants are young Daniel (Erik Knudsen), son of Detective Eric Matthews (Wahlberg) who is currently on Jigsaw’s trail, and Amanda (Smith) who was the sole survivor of his previous reign of terror. These eight people share something in common, as they’ll soon discover. Meanwhile Jigsaw has been leaving clues for Eric which lead him and his team to his current lair, littered with video monitors trained upon the aforementioned house. Deadly nerve gas is slowly being pumped into the building which will cause the eight hostages to die within two hours unless they can escape. There are syringes containing an antidote hidden around the rooms for each individual, but acquiring them is no easy task – it’s like a deadly edition of The Crystal Maze! Jigsaw is prepared to make a bargain with Eric however; if Eric does exactly what he says for the next two hours then he promises to return Daniel to him unharmed. And so the games begin. Without the element of surprise about Jigsaw's identity, screenwriters Leigh Whannell and Bousman have instead concentrated on the intricacies of his latest game. After the stunning denouement at the end of Saw, we’re expecting a few twists along the way and Saw II certainly delivers these – although I’d argue that one plot twist is obvious very early on if you’re the suspicious type. The other element that has been amped up for the sequel is the nature of the killer’s instruments of torture. The film begins with a slightly different riff on that old favourite of his, the death mask, in an opening scene that had people around me wincing and screeching in disgust. There are a couple of equally unpleasant and distasteful traps awaiting our eight inmates, but I’ll leave you to discover their delights for yourselves – suffice to say if you have any kind of phobia about sharp instruments or needles then this is most definitely not the movie for you. Whilst the ‘eeuwch!’ factor is still present and correct, the uninspiring premise and characters dilute its impact somewhat. The biggest problem with Saw II is its new cast of characters who are barely sketched and merely cyphers for the action. Eric is supposed to be the leading man, someone we can sympathise with, but he’s just an arrogant bully, and it’s also hard to feel for any of the people trapped in the house when they too are all a bunch of scumbags. The fact that one of them, Xavier (Franky G), starts his own personal battle with the others simply exacerbates the situation. With the casting of Donnie Wahlberg, the producers have done themselves no favours in the acting stakes, and the supporting actors are by and large equally poor. The one notable exception is Tobin Bell, who actually gets a chance to embrace his role to the full this time, and rasps away with a gleeful menace as he reveals a bit more about his background. Overall then Saw II is a functional sequel and no more than that. Sure, it’s an hour and a half of fun entertainment but it won’t haunt you in quite the same way that Saw did on first viewing. It has however given me one bright idea – maybe the cinemas could patent Jigsaw’s death masks and insist that all patrons wear these when watching the film. At the first sounds of chatter the traps would close and the auditorium would be silent once more, free from the unwanted comments of those inconsiderate audience members. You’ve got to admit, it would make a great deterrent!

soulmining rating: ***

You can read an expanded version of this review at Eat My Brains here.

Athlete at Brighton Centre

Three hours before showtime I receive an email telling me that I've got tickets for Athlete. Cool. I'm not a big fan, I only really wanted to see Gemma Hayes (below) who is supporting them. But I'm happy to give them a chance... well, their recent songs from the Tourist album must be the reason they're playing a venue as big as the Centre. Wires is head and shoulders above any of their other tunes and Joel actually sings rather than slurs his vocals. I don't mind the new anthemic songs, or the ones where they rock out a little, but the older stuff... well, frankly it's rubbish. Oh well, the bar is still open.

Gemma Hayes at Brighton Centre

Gemma Hayes walks onstage and the lads standing next to me immediately shout out, "Get your top off!" W*nkers. It made me think, do they behave like this every time they see a pretty lady going about her job? Do they holler these same words to the waitresses in Starbucks or the cashiers on the tills in Sainsburys? I doubt it. W*nkers. It's great to see Gemma back on the live circuit again after a two year absence. Mixing songs from her debut album and her latest release The Roads Don't Love You (out this week) she played for about 40 minutes and really won the crowd over. Let's hope she returns to Brighton soon on a headline tour.

November Live

Okay, it's the start of a band new month, so here's some things that are happening around the city in November...

02/11 - Chart-friendly singer-songwriter Lucie Silvas is playing at the Dome. If you would like FREE tickets to this show then please email me - this is a genuine offer.

03/11 - Hard Fi are performing at the Concorde. I quite like their singles but don't know that they inspire me enough to go and check out their live show.

10/11 - I've been a fan of New Order for around twenty years now, yet have never managed to see them live in concert - until now. I've got tickets for their London date at Brixton Academy, so can't wait to see them. Actually, I still have one spare standing ticket, so if anyone needs a ticket then please get in contact with me via email.

15/11 - I'm due to be working on the Martha Wainwright show at the Corn Exchange which should be exciting as I missed her show at the Komedia earlier this year. Meanwhile over at the Brighton Centre there's Franz Ferdinand who've come a long way since they last played in Brighton at the Concorde back in 2004.

17/11 - The last time I saw former Skunk Anansie singer Skin play at the Concorde I was absolutely wasted, but my friends tell me she put on a good show. Now I get another chance to see her - and new single Alone In My Room bodes well.

18/11 - The League Of Gentlemen bring their demented pantomine to the local people of Brighton for two nights at the Brighton Centre. I'm trying to get hold of some tickets for the show as I type this...

20/11 - A potentially good double-bill at the Concorde with Sons + Daughters and Clor performing live. Don't know too much about either band, but their recent singles have been pretty good.

24/11 - I last saw Astrid Williamson play at the Sanctuary on my birthday a few years back. She's got a new album due for release in early 2006, so this gig at the Komedia should showcase some of her new songs.

26/11 - A quick plug for the FrightFest evening at the Duke of York's cinema as part of this year's Cine-City festival - the guys are going to be screening previews of Boo! and District 13. Hope to see you there!

29/11 - The Prodigy are back at the Brighton Centre to promote their recent greatest hits album. I remember seeing them at the Centre when they were touring The Fat Of The Land... in fact that would have been eight years ago when I was still working there, jeez how time flies!

30/11 - What with the McGarrigle sisters playing here last weekend and Martha playing on the 15th, it's a bit of a family affair for the Wainwright clan this month. Now it's the turn of Rufus Wainwright, returning to the Dome after last Autumn's sold out show. This one's a sell out too - November's hottest ticket.

Right that's you lot for this month. Looking ahead to 2006 tickets are already on sale for The Go! Team at the Corn Exchange in February, and I'm also hearing rumours about future shows by Primal Scream, The Mighty Boosh and cult author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)... so watch this space!