Movie time once again...

I've got billions of things to blog about, well four actually, so let's go back one week, a single day after my birthday and a second adventure geeking out in London at Collectormania.

So here's the obligatory opening picture of R2D2. I decided to attend yet another Sci-Fi convention to celebrate my birthday, this time Collectormania. I say this time as though it's a completely different event, however it clearly isn't. So with girlfriend in tow we took the train to old London town. It's the same old story, there are booths selling stuff, celebrities signing and talks, both free and expensive. The mine drive this time around was to see Anthony Michael Hall, he of Breakfast club fame and more recently seen in The Dark Knight. Unfortunately he cancelled. I also got excited about the possibility of meeting Jess Harnell,the voice-over artist of Wakko of the Animaniacs, who also featured in the film Comic Book: The Movie. Unfortunately he also cancelled. So I was left with two main choices, Steve Blum, the voice of Spike Speigal form Cowboy Bebop and most recently Wolverine in game and cartoon forms. I was also interested in meeting Katherine Isabelle, though not widely known she has popped up as a guest star in a variety of US shows, have a brief scene in Uwe Bolls Rampage and was the leading lady in the awesome Ginger Snaps.


So to cut to the chase, the reason I have a strange expression in this photo is due to the fact that I just had a strange experience discussing the film Rampage. I remarked that that was the last film I saw her in at which point she confessed that she hadn't seen it. I then wasn't sure where to go, I explained that I saw it at Phantasmagoria in case she smelled a pirate. It then got weird as I wasn't sure if she was happy with he film, hadn't been shown due to distribution problems, or if it was just considered a job. So i got my autograph, photo and left.

As this was the second convention this year I wasn't feeling as much excitement as before, there were things to take photos of, and people to see. George Takei was one, Billy Dee Williams, Shannen Doherty (looking miserable) and John Rhys Davis were others. Doug Bradley was in attendance but I didn't want to approach him for two reasons, firstly I'd have to mention Chris and Ten Dead Men and hope that he knew what I was on about, and secondly, I didn't want a repeat of last time and have Halloween quotes spat at me. So I left him alone.

We later attended a talk by Steve Blum. This was cool, not many people turned up so the atmosphere was very casual. Unfortunately this meant he went straight to questions. I managed to think of one, asking which medium he preferred to work in, anime, western animation or video games (he said he enjoys them all so which he's working on that day is his favourite). I did have another question regarding a point made in Comic Book the Movie about how, with all this voice over talent, major studios still feel they have to cast "stars" as the voices in their animated films. There was no way I'd be able to say all that, and the face that the question had become more specialised and fan related, I kept quiet.



And that as more or less it for the convention. Trains were all messed up so I was pretty stressed at we then had to make it to the south bank to experience the Movieum., the most hated word in the English made up language.

This was a strange place. It's straight-forward, being a museum of film props, but I tries to educate in the process on the making of a film, but doesn't succeed. Also a lot of the items in the corridors were just not labelled so I had no idea what some things were. I realise this was Batman, but what is if for, Is it just a decoration piece or did it serve some design purpose. Answer on a postcard please. So there were a lot of cool things in the museum. Costumes from Harry Potter and a lots of James Bond stuff. I got quite excited when I saw the Glaive from Krull.


The coolest part of the museum though was a temporary exhibition/shop of animation cells. They were hidden in a small room, where a lady offered us some sweets and told use to ask if we needed help. Which all seemed fair enough until we realised that all the cells were for sale. I wasn't sure if she expected us to buy anything. There was a lot of Batman stuff in there which was really cool to see. One day I hope to buy something like that as I really like animation cells. At the moment I cannot justify spending that much (£200+). I got a bit worried when flicking through a folder when I came across a sketch of Charlie Brown selling for £3000. There were so many expensive pieces that the public could just look through. So we left to continue the journey.

So we had a great time visiting the nations capital. We would've stayed longer but the heavens opened, pouring down on use. It was a cool, self indulgent, film geek day.

Some more photo's from the Movieum