They asked for 1000 Lawman, they got only 1. He was enough...

So I need to post simply because I haven't in a while.

Things have been busy since the last time. I say busy, I had a week of so I've really just been lazy. Time off should really mean I get a chance to catch up on all the things I need to write/create that I normally don't have time to do. However in this instance I used the time to play games. I did take in a spot of theatre to see the Dickensian 'The Black Veil'. It's based on a Charles Dickens short thriller. It's not a bad story, slow to get started. It could have done with a few ghosts but enjoyable non the less. It was just a little odd to go on the Wednesday Matinee with the retired community of Worthing.

Now I say I had a week off, but I blatantly lied. I had to work again on Thursday and Friday.

This is what else happened:-

I saw I Am Number Four - A bit muddled, with too much Twilight influence. Not sure the studio knew what they wanted to do with this.

I saw Paul - A slow starter with a few jokes. Not a clever/sharp as Hot Fuzz or Shaun, but better than Superbad but not as good as Adventureland.

I couldn't see Drive Angry 3D - stupid Odeon only had it on for one week. ONE WEEK!! This is crazy. I blame the world...and Yogi Bear 3D...and most of all the stupid Odeon.

Finally, on Saturday, after many double bookings my girlfriend Charlotte and I went to see KT Tunstall at the Brighton Dome. This was a strange experience, mainly due to small coincidental happenings (Mark Wahlberg wasn't there though, I think). I was talking about previous gigs I'd been to and how Rob Zombie had used Devo (who Brother Chris ans I saw a couple of years ago - See here) in his playlist before the gig. At this point Whip It came on. Awesomely weird I thought.

I then mentioned how the first ever gig I went to was to see Ash play in Wolverhampton, over ten years ago. then who should come out on stage as pat of KT's band, but Charlotte Hatherley. Once again. Awesomely weird.

Overall it was a great show. She's a lot better live than on the CD's and the band were really good. There were a few annoying people throughout the evening. We arrived early to get a good spot and started queuing at 6:30pm. Doors were at 7:00pm. This didn't stop everyone behind us sneaking forward to see why the doors hasn't opened yet - because doors were at 7 maybe. Or complaining that THEY were making us wait outside - BECAUSE DOOR WERE AT 7:00.

Once inside we got to the second row back and found ourselves next to Veruca Salt and her first gig experience. This would have been fine if she wasn't hurling abuse at the support - The Pictish Trail. A one man singer/songwriter, who was brave enough to come on alone, only to be heckled by 10 year olds.

People just didn't seem to understand what exactly happened at gigs.

Anyhoo here's a video. I'm at work so not sure how good this is.



As with other gig reviews I need to point out that we were standing on what was essesntially the second row just to the left of centre stage. At about 20 seconds, KT Tunstall was directly infront of us. I think we may be on this video in the darkness of the crowd.

I also managed to nab myself the plectrum shrew threw out to the audience. This time using my Eyes of the Hawk. Having already used Speed of the Puma to get the Alice Cooper money I only need to utilise Ears of the Wolf and Strength of the Bear to confirm my Bravestarr status.

Now I'd better do some work.

Strange things are afoot at Circle K...

It's all a bit odd at the moment. I can't gauge how this year is going. On the one hand we had our first MovieBar which went down surprisingly well. A couple of sound related hiccups but nothing too disastrous.

We also showed Elasto!. Yes Elasto. For those in the know, Elasto is a film I made just out of College with my Dad. I still had the fresh creative urges and needed something to keep them busy. So he provided a music tack he had from 1982 called Elasto. now this is where I like to remain tight lipped. There is an explanation to Elasto. Quite a simple, yet mundane explanation. However, I feel it actually speaks for itself. You can take what you want form it. At the root of it all, it's just plain weird. And Awesome.

Elasto had a good response. There was a short Q&A where I tried to remember how long it took and why I'd made such decisions. Once again, I think I left everyone just as confused as the film did.

Anyway, MovieBar is working and continues next month. The complete rundown of the first night can be seen on the MovieBar blog here

So far so good.

Then came the email conversation. I'm not too good at covering these things. Brother Chris has already post his frustration with the state of play at the moment.

In short, as we previously joked, I loaded in Chris' Save Game and have joined him co-cooperatively on Level 2 of script writing. It would seem I obviously don't have all the necessary experience points as he does and couldn't afford the bionic arm power up, but I continue plugging away the best I can. I just have to learn to block more.

This whole game analogy has gotten a bit messy. What I mean to say anyway, is we had a script, production company was and is interested, but only it seems once we've defeated hoards of enemies. We're talking Level 2 here, not final boss. Things shouldn't be this difficult. I mean if this was the same with every game, how do things like Sharktopus ever get made.

Anyway, you can read the in depth frustration here.

Imaginary games...

So I was sitting at my PC, editing the new MovieBar logo, in it's seven part logo. I split this up with checking the Internet for randoms as one does when I happened upon on an XBox 360 game trailer about psychics or whatever. Initially this looked a bit run of the mill, however from memory, the end of the trailer had a really cool twist. I continued to work, then checked the time, suddenly it was half seven and I thought it best to get some dinner.

So away I went, ate some food and returned to the PC to continue the logo. At this time I remembered how cool that game was but couldn't remember the title. Mind Warp or something along those lines. I decided to look for it online. However I didn't seem to be able to find anything about this game.

I then thought back, I couldn't actually remember watching a video online. This trailer just happened to start playing, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it. I don't think it was on TV and I hadn't watched any videos online, that would be preceded by a game trailer.

At this point I started to freak out a little as the only explanation I could come to was pretty far fetched. Whilst editing the logo, I must have blacked out and dreamed about the trailer. this would explain why it didn't exist, and the sudden realisation of the time.

I'm sure I'm probably jumping to conclusions, but until someone can show me that game, and the cover art for confirmation I am convinced of my theory.

Blacking out whilst editing logos. That's not so good is it!

**UPDATE**
And it totally didn't happen. It's good to know my brain isn't about to explode from a hidden tumor, or a scanner.

I found the game. It's called Mind Jack. Check it out. Luckily it still looks alright.



Blacking out at the PC. Seriously, like that would hap ...

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

John Otway...Awesome!

So last night was the second night of eccentric entertainment that I attended. Yes following form the success of Kinky Friedman I went to see Otway and Barrett. To those to in the know, that's John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett, together once again after, well only about a year, but I didn't have chance to catch their last tour. Before then though they haven't played together since the early eighties, as far as I know.

It was great to see what was, in essence, the original line up and to hear some Otway classics as they were originally performed back in the day before I even existed.




There was no real weirdness about this gig as I had company so nothing to report on that front. However, not wanting to let the night go by smoothly Brother Chris convinced me to go over and say hello. This was mainly due, for those who don't know or can't remember, to the fact that John Otway recorded the voice-over track to my graduate film Jonny The Pessimist. So an awkward conversation was had, made stranger by the fact that my PC blew up in the morning so I started moaning about that. At this point we wished him well and returned to our seats. Anyway, he did remember making the film and from what I could tell did seem to enjoy it which is nice. He mentioned how he'd been forwarding people to it via the John Otway forum and would link to it when his new site is up and running. Which is all great stuff.



So the gig continued, there were a few songs I'd never heard live before which was great. A highlight being The Highwayman, which was a definite influence on Jonny The Pessimist and if I remember correctly, the first Otway song I heard.



So once again another awesome night. Wild Willy Barret was excellent,a great straight man to Otway's eccentricities and a master musician. There were also some excellent and surprising destruction of guitars and a pair of Chekhov's bagpipes that it seemed would go unused until the finale.

So that's it for a few weeks, back to the day to day monotony of life, and the trials and tribulations a sucky, blowed up PC.

Kinky Friedman

I saw Kinky Friedman last night and a strange experience it was. If you don't know who he is I wouldn't blame you. I only know of him through my Dad who was a fan of his stories collected in The Kinky Friedman Crime Club which all feature Kinky as a "wise-cracking, cigar-smoking, cat-loving reluctant hero-detective and are based in New York" - says Amazon. Anyway, hes been trying to get me to read these for ages and I think it's about time I did. The reason I was so reluctant before was mainly due to the fact that I only read a work during my lunch break and the book was a big 'un, to big to carry in my bag. The other reason I know of him is through the song, "They ain't making Jews like Jesus anymore" which featured on one of Dad's tapes he used to play in the car.



So when I found out he was playing in Brighton, I must say I was interested but reluctant due to my current situation of money, however after Dad pointed out that I paid a hell of a lot more to see Kevin Smith (coming up on 10/10/09) I thought what the hell. And I'm glad I did.

At first it was a little strange as I had gone by myself I had a lot of hanging around to do. There's only so many times you can read the flyers on the table. That an the fact that the place is like a cabaret club it was a little off putting. But I stuck with it. The problem is whenever you find you have time to wait anywhere, and if conversation is running dry (or none at all in last nights case) you start to people watch. you try and figure out who's there because they're fans and who's there for a simple night out. You also start to judge people a lot depending on the way they're acting. Not in an evil way I might add. To give an example there was a group who throughout the night were collecting more people and hugging and laughing and by the end begin quite annoying with their talking, but I gathered they were on some kind of work-based retreat and were there for the sake of it. On another table were an older couple who from what I could tell were obsessives as they lit up when Kinky came out before the show to sign some books and they rushed over in excitement. And then there was me, strange guy on his own staring at flyers and practising origami.

This wasn't as bad as a rock gig where there's always a point when you see someone who's really annoying and then they forever turn up and seem to hang around you. But I digress.

Once the show started all was fine. Kinky sang, with piano accompaniment of Little Jewford (of the original line up Kinky Friendman and hte Texas Jewboys) Then there was a brief Q&A about his political career (he's running for Governor of Texas), an excerpt from his book and a final set of songs with a double encore. And just to state this wasn't a run out the back and wait for a couple of minutes encore, this was a go off the front of the stage and then decide to play a couple more songs encore. I'm not saying it wasn't planned but, I think, depending on audience reaction, he could have refused.

In a strange, coincidental note, for the final song of the night he played the folk song Pretty Boy Floyd originally by Woody Guthrie. This was strange due to the fact that only a week before I bought I CD of American Murder Ballads for that song. Bizarre.

Anyway, it was a great night after the initial weirdness. I then went over, shook the man's hand and left.

A second weekend of AWESOME-NESS. Day One

These days it's getting pretty hard to beat the awesome-ness of past events. This past weekend is so high up on the scale I doubt it will ever be knocked off the list.

Last weekend Brother Chris and I attended the Phantasmagoria Film Festival held in Swindon. A great showcase of independent genre films from horror to martial arts. For us this was just the beginning.

Day One -

We took a train. So far so good, then found our lodgings in the form of the Travelodge. Then the weirdness began. I'm convinced that the girl checking us in was called Jens. Which just conjures up images of Blade Runner-esqe androids. So we took our key, gave warning to keep away from any Harrison Ford looking types, and made out way up to the room. Brother Chris settled in easy enough. I on the other hand was disturbed by the freaky Dark Water-esqe drip stains on the wall, just above my bed. I did not want to be dragged away in the middle of the night by a long haired Japanese ghost girl.

For the time being I managed to suppress my fear and we left for the festival. Well, sort of. We left on the hunt for dinner, where we passed a pub. At which point we stopped as Uwe Boll was inside with two people. We decided to go in, find something to eat and stare at him. Instead, we went in, Chris recognised one of the people so we went over and joined them. Having a drink with Uwe Boll. Awesome.

We later left for the Arts Centre for the first film of the first day, Gnaw. A good horror film. It was a little predictable at times but the effects and acting were good enough. After a brief Q&A with director Gregory Mandry. We had a time for a quick drink before the last film of the evening. In this time I was introduced to Julian Richards, director of The Last Horror Movie and Darklands as he'd met Brother Chris before. We then went in to see Uwe Boll's film Rampage. It's a brilliant film. Well shot and edited. Uwe Boll comes under a lot of bad press because of his video game movies, which aren't that great but as he pointed out, still sell a hell of a lot more than his regular films, which are always better. Rampage should definitely be checked out though, and Brendan Fletcher is quite convincing as the young guy whose is tipped over the edge to go on the titular rampage.

So a great first day. Now we really needed to get some food, and head back to the Dark Water room. After an encounter with take away food we got excited by the Ice Cream machine in the travelodge, with the the futuristic method in which fridge opened and suckers gripped the ice cream to dispense out of the front of the machine. We were still in Blade Runner territory. Thanks to that machine, and watching the end of The Howling, I could ignore the evil water stains and went to sleep, ready for the next full day of films.

London Film and Comic Con

Today I attended, as if you couldn't guess, the London Film and Comic Con. That's Con as in convention to those not in the know. It's one of many UK based conventions trying to create something on the scale of the San Diego or New York Comi Cons in the USA. They don't quite succeed, but I still enjoy them. Ask if I was having fun whilst I was there and I'd be thinking long and hard, but now I'm safely home I think all the queuing was worth it.

Before I go any further I want to set a few things straight. I'm not a full on geek, in the sense that I know every episode to Stargate. Nor do I dress up to look like a Jedi or other such Sci Fi characters. I dabble. That's all I can say. I enjoy Star Wars as readers of this blog will know, I watched a few episodes of Star Trek, not religiously though. And I've seen episodes of Stargate, but I'm not really a fan (this may disappoint one of my readers. Sorry) Anyway, I do have an inner geek, I know more about comics and films than the average joe, and that's where my interest lies. I still get annoyed when I see charity figures dressed as Batman hanging out with Spiderman. (Side note it was funny today seeing a Star Trek Captain discussing the finer points of phaser handling with a Stormtrooper) So my inner geek needs feeding once in a while, which is why I like this kind of convention. Completely from a fans perspective. There are people there that frankly scare me. Each to his own I've always said, but it is a little strange. But if they leave me alone, I'm not going to bother them.

Anyway, let's continue with point 2. Point 2 is the notion of celebrity. I've discussed many time with Brother Chris, who attended a couple of these events with me in the past. Who decides what will be charged for autographs? It is made clear that if you want something signed you have to pay a fee, which is clearly stated is for the signature not the photograph, which are considered free. (By this reasoning I could get a one of each photo available and just the one signed, but I'm sure if this was tried someone would stop me. Maybe next year) For example, today Mr Scott Bakula was charging £25 for his autograph. Fair enough, I can't afford that but I'll go to his talk, not a free talk though so I queue to get a ticket. Another £20 for this talk. Obviously I make my excuses and left sharpish, keeping hold of my monies. So who set this up. To whom is this cash going to. Not everyone was on my wavelength and forked out the cash, so he must be raking it in. But who decides? Where does it go? All good questions to which I have no answers. So I did pay a couple of £15 for signatures. Which brings me onto point 2B. You pay your money, you get a brief chat (very brief in my case 'cause I'm kind of rubbish at it) and you get a signature. When you think about it, it really means nothing. I could scribble an indecipherable name onto a photo and joe public wouldn't know the difference, or even care. So why is it a good thing? I guess it's an idol/hero thing. I guess if I said more you could say you shared a moment with someone you admired. Or you could just say it's so you can have a brief gloating moment the next time said person appears in something. I don't know for sure but, as I said. I do enjoy it. It brings the famous a little closer, even if it's in a forced transaction based environment. Anyway, I still think I'm a little different to the masses of attendees, a little more grounded, but hey, wouldn't it be cool if I started hanging out with Chris Sarandon.

So here we go. This is just the beginning.

To set the scene, as Brother Chris has a lot of work on at the moment he couldn't spare the time to join me this year. The last time we both went was about two years ago, failing to get Nathan Fillion's autograph and tiring of the day we went for a mercy greet and meet with Alan Tudyk, who had no queue. Then we left. Due to these circumstances, we both agreed that it was a little rubbish and weird and vowed (maybe) never to return. That was until I moved down to Brighton. With the convention now more or less on my doorstep I decided to go. And go I did. Alone.


So I braved London on a Saturday, not the easiest of things, especially with Tube delays, but I successfully arrived at Earls Court and entered Queue 1 to get in. This is where first photos were taken solely for this blog. Here there were Stormtroopers hanging around. I contemplated asking about their state of New Zealand-ness but instead just took the photo. There were also Clone Troopers wandering around. The same musings were thought about but I left them alone, chuckling at the fat Cylons I'd just seen. Not to mention the smallish Jack Sparrow. So I'm inside and I queue for some talks. Having missed the Red Dwarf talk I opted for the Doctor Who (Yeah, I know I don't like Dr Who) as I'd heard that Tom Baker was in attendance (see that's why) I also wished to attend the Danny Trejo talk and the Stargate talk (Again, I know I'm not a fan) which will be explained later on. This is when I literally discovered the price I had to pay to see Scott Bakula talk. No go. I then moved onto the signing alley or whatever they call it, to see who was there, and whether to get any autographs later on. Many faces were seen as illustrated with my assorted photographs.

A lonely Sean Maguire


A bad photo of Chloe Annett. Bonus points - her father directed the film The Beast Must Die as mentioned in Brother Chris' blog here

Interesting fact: the most costumes today were of Paul Foote - a character from The Beast Must Die. Which one was the werewolf though?

It's David Prowse. He was Darth Vader.

It's Bruce Boxleitner. He looks bored.

This is kind of mean. This is a funny picture of Jake Lloyd - he played young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. He looks the same.

The stars of Heroes - Jimmy Jean Louis (The Hatian) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Suresh)

So I took the ticket of Scott Bakula. Number 969. The place had only been open to the general public for 40 minutes and already his tickets were up to 969. No way was I going to see him today. I got a quick glimpse of him through the queues, and that was all. Knowing it was never meant to be I took the tickets of Michael Ironside, to discover once and for all how many arms he actually had, and a ticket for Jewel Staite, star of the excellent Firefly and Serenity, and more recently Stargate: Atlantis (hence attending the Stargate talk), which I'd probably have seen if Channel 5 hadn't stopped showing it. I'd always been a fan of her character, Kayleigh, in Firefly so was happy to fork out the cash. But I'd gotton pretty high numbered tickets so I had time to kill. A lot of time.

So I wandered the hall, looking at stalls, wondering if the DVDs were legal, but generally just waiting for the first talk. Despite me spending money on autographs, I still didn't have much to spend. I can no longer buy any random thing, so I was just looking to see if any cool stuff existed. Plus the novelty has kind of worn off since the invention of the internet shop.

With still hours to kill I decided to get a present for my friend who had just passed a life changing exam in accounting, and he won't mind me saying that it isn't any more interesting than how I made it sound. As I haven't given it to him yet I'm blanking it out as a spoiler. You can still highlight it to read it, but if you're reading this Mr. Martin, just stop and wait patiently. (Click the tiny picture for a massive reveal. So as he'd passed this exam I decided to get an autograph for him from a Red Dwarfer. So after a curious text of who he like best, The Cat, Kochanski or Female Holly, and receiving confirmation that it was indeed The Cat, I entered Danny John Jules' queue. I was determined to get it super personalised, with some kind of well done, but it was hard enough getting the name across that I settled for that alone. Basically his name is Anthony and because we're all lazy we now just call him Antnee. Explaining this for an autograph is one of the most difficult things I've had to do, ending up with me just saying something along the lines of "Just spell it A. N. T. N. E. E. He'll get it, it's a nick name" Still unsure, Danny wrote it. I then got a photo to prove it's real and so I'd get something out of the transaction.)

Finally it was time for the Dr Who talk. I made my way to the talk area and joined Queue 2. For a while I wasn't quite sure what the queue was for, but it lead me into the strangest talk I've attended. Present were Alexandra Moen (from new Dr Who I guess), Philip Madoc, Bernard Horsfall (I guess) and the legend that is Tom Baker. Tom was awesome, not quite sure if he is a comic genius, or actually senile.

There were jokes and slightly detailed description of which actor he'd like to "bed" when asked in an interview for the radio (Johnny Depp by the way, and he went into some detail to do with pirates.) Very strange, very weird but excellent. An annoying follow up to this talk, a group of fans took the opportunity to ask Tom for a photograph. I was with them, however I ended up taking their photo for them, then in the time it took to return their camera, Tom was off with someone else and we were being moved on. So close.
Straight after this was the Danny Trejo talk. Not as weird as the previous talk but very entertaining. Two highlights. First off, when asked about when the film Machete was going to be made he took out his mobile and rang someone, then asked us to shout "Hurry up and Make Machete" I'm guessing, like so many others, that he called Robert Rodriguez. So in theory I'd just spoken to Robert Rodriguez. Cool. The secodn highlight was an answer to the question "Which of your films do you consider the worst?" He simply answered, "None of them. I'm in them" Awesome. He also wouldn't stop when he was supposed to and continued taking questions. Well, it's Danny Trejo, would you go and stop him. So we over ran into expensive Scott Bakula's talk. So there.

Now I had time to kill, time to collect on some autographing. So I headed for Michael Ironside. Closed it said. No reason stated, just closed. Had he left in an angry storp when someone questioned the number of arms he owned? Who knows? I had to move on.

My next port of call was Jewel Staite, who now had an open queue. Now a quick side note - when I get things signed I always like them to sign things to Pete, this is so it's a little more personal than my full name. However, it always seems to confuse everybody, and they repeat it back as though I've given them the strangest name in history. Anyway, back to Jewel. I was thinking after the bizarre interaction with Danny John Jules I'd be better at the whole experience. Not so. Foiled by the lack of interaction with the single (or dual) armed Ironside I reverted back to my good, polite, quiet self and handed over the photograph. It was still cool, and she was very nice, but I failed to get a photograph. This was mainly due to the fact that I was abiding by the "No posed photograph" sign, rather than the fact that there was no queue behind me. Bugger.

So now I felt that I should see someone else. Then I remembered Chris Sarandon. Still not too sure, I approached his stand behind what I thought was a small queue. I took this opportunity to peruse his photographs while deciding if it was the right decision. Then the queue vanished, and I was left on my own in front of Chris Sarandon. Now I had no chance to create any rapport and awkwardly began the transaction for his signature. During this I noticed a photo from Child's Play, the problem on discovering this was all I could think of saying was, "I forgot you were in Child's Play" which would further the awkwardness. Silent I stayed. But I did get a photo, so a small victory on my part. Now I'm just a little fed up that I didn't get the Jewel photo seeing as I did with every other autograph. Anyway, what's done is done.

All this didn't take as long as expected so I wandered the hall once again before joining the Stargate talk queue. Weirdness ensued when I played a couple of tracks of Guitar Hero World Tour. First off, Rebel Yell by Billy Idol. I was reduced to bass on this track, which isn't that interesting, and I began to slip up when I got a little bored. I decided to move on, but when no one took the guitar of me when offered, I stayed for one more. This was well weird due to the fact that the girl next to me wanted to sing. This is fair enough, and good on her to sing in the middle of the exhibition hall. It's not like anyone more than a couple of metres away would hear, but I don't even sing on the game at home, so I was impressed. Luckily she was good singer on What I've Done by Linkin Park. This time I was on guitar so more fun was had.

I then left but had forfit a good place in the Stargate queue. Also after the small victory of extending the Danny Trejo talk, Scott Bakula overran. Eventually we began to move and in I went. No I began to feel like an outsider. As mentioned before, I wasn't really a fan of Stargate, only there for the star of Firefly. The audience was clearly made up of fanactics who knew every episode title and synopsis, as proved when asking and answering questions. The talk was fun, even for a stranger like myself. Firefly was mentioned so I was happy.

And that was it. With no more talks to keep me there I took one last tour of the hall in case I was going to miss some free stuff or something. This is when I found out that Michael Ironside had now returned. Still, it clearly wasn't meant to be, forever wondering how many arms he has. It was time to leave. And leave I did.

So now I reflect on the day's events. As mentioned at the begining somewhere, the London Film and Comic Con still has a long way to go to rivial San Diego. There's just not enough quality really. It's heart is in the right place, but there's a lot of open space, and various stalls just look thrown together. This year the Cos-Players were out in force and there was a CosPlay contest. There was also a lot of support for the two anime voice over actors which was suprising. With a little work it could be as big as San Diego. Overall I still find these events special. Despite all the weird and strange people there is an overall sense of community. I don't think attending is a bad thing, and shouldn't be seen as so. As I said, I'm not the biggest fan in the world, but the chance to see people I admire is a chance I don't what to pass up on. I just wish you didn't have to pay for the chance. I think the stars attending realise what they are a part of. Although at times people can seem a little crazy and a little strange, they're basically keeping their fanbase alive by appearing at such events showing that they care for their fans. They're giving something back. So what if it's at a price, as they say, nothing in life is free.

As a final note, if you're interest in anything I've just said you should check out two films. The first is a short documentary directed by Bruce Campbell entitled Fanalysis, in which he examines the world of fan conventions and what makes a fan into a fanatic. The other is sort of mockumentary called Comic Book: The Movie directed by Mark Hamill. I say mockumentray but this is only half true. It stars Mark Hamill as Donald Swan, a comic collector making a documentary about the new movie based on his favourtie comic Commander Courage. All fictional, but in it he interviews a variety of personalities who, when taking about the Commander, are clearly taking about some real life experiences they've had within the industry. Alongside this he documents his journey to the San Diego Comic Con. I've tried to explain it too much but it basically explores the whole convention culture.

So in a Jerry Springer's Final Thought moment, I say fandom shouldn't be looked down upon, whatever the level of your involvement. I mean, there are thousands of people who dress up in costumes each week in support of their idols. It's just that their conventions are called football grounds.

Some good stuff...

So today I saw a woman carrying a severed head. Ok so it wasn't a real severed head, well, not real as in from a human. This was all resolved after I reapplied my glasses to my face and saw the head for what it was, however it did scare me for those few brief seconds. What has this to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, which is what this post is all about really.

Although not mentioned in full last time, I'm still working on my E4 entry for this years Estings, and I'm about half way through. If all is well it should be good. However I'm going to have to make it longer than the 10 second limit and cut it down afterwards which hopefully won't detract from the final piece.

This is stopping me from looking for a new job, which is an almost inconceivable task in the current climate, however I shall persevere and hopefully come out the victor. (that is if working actually makes you the victor, or some kind of sheep like being. But hey, I need to eat)

This paragraph is used to sing the prises once again of Scott Pilgrim. My obsession is fueled by the daily photo updates on Edgar Wrights blog here. Nothing much has been given away yet. There are a few cool videos featuring the cast, but nothing as to how the film will finally look. There's a long way to go just yet, set for release in 2010 (that's Twenty-Ten by the way) but I must say I'm looking forward to it. The unfortunate thing is I'm currently on volume 3 of the comic ans therefore only have another 2 before I'm out. I think there's to be a sixth and final volume set for release with the film. I'm just gonna have to keep my eyes peeled.

Now I'm going to talk about a great film form my childhood, Young Sherlock Holmes. This has still stood the test of time as far as I'm concerned. We were going to watch it as part of a double bill with the Dolph Lundgren starring Masters of the Universe but time was against us. I'd forgotten most of what Young Sherock was about. I could remember the classic moments like the stained glass knight (which by the way looks as good , if not better , than any modern CGI) and Watson seeing cakes come alive and force themselves into his mouth. Which come to think of it is pretty weird. But what I could not remember was how terrifying the character Elizabeth Hardy's hallucination was. I remembered that there were zombies, ok I was somewhat prepared, but not for her falling into her open grave. not only this, but a laughing, screaming skeletal zombie carves her gravestone whilst her dead uncle begins to bury her. This honestly scared me. I'm sure they must have cut this from any previous version, or I happened to block it from my memory. Young Sherlock Holmes is good stuff, as good as Congo even. Check out this trailer for the film taken from some random American TV station.




Finally I'm going to post a video that Brother Chris is most likely posting at the moment here.
It's a video my Dad's friend made for one of their old songs.

Screaming till the Sun Goes Down from Extra Familiar on Vimeo.

The song featured on the locally produced LP Cry Havoc by the Stoke Musicians collective. A lot of the tracks still sound cool today as I did give it a listen the other day. Altogether "Do the East Berlin. Do it again!"

Anyway I like the video and I'm glad the song has not been forgotten.

In a final link the same people were behind the song Elasto which I have posted here before, and do so again as I think it gets ignored too much. Now I've got to buy even more extortionate train tickets. Until next time...

You kill the devil and you go free.

I had something to blog about the other day, but no time to blog. Now I have a little time and can't remember what it was. There was a catchy title as well.

Anyway, what can I say today. This is all going to be a bit random due to the unpredictableness of my internet connection so I'm just going to write things as they come to me. Just watched Mongol tonight. I was a little disappointed. I can see they were trying to round the character of Genghis Kahn out and show a side not explored, however this was told over a 2 hour running time that did drag a little, especially as he didn't become Genghis until a caption title at the end of the film. I know nothing of Genghis Kahn's life, other than he helped Bill and Ted pass history, but it seems that this film tries to neatly tell some kind of origin story, as if conquering he know world is then acceptable.

Brother Tim visited this weekend which was cool as he's off to Camp America again next weekend. We had what turned into a strange day on Sunday. Visited Brighton Pier, which was nice, then with little else planned took the mini train to the Marina. Having never been there before, and told that it was like Waterworld, I was expecting big things. It then turns out it is like Waterworld, if that film was set next to an Asda on a car park. The day was then salvaged when we came across a bank holiday market with bizarre attractions. One in particular featured a man, with demonic facial hair, presents three dancing girls, dressed in Ice Cream inspired clothing dancing in front of an Ice Cream van, in which they took solace. As I said, bizarre. We then went on to watch a Punch and Judy show. This was cool for reasons I cannot go into yet. I haven't seen a Punch and Judy show since I was a kid, but have recently become interested in the original play, in which Punch kills a lot of people and escapes any kid of punishment. I was quite happy to see he still killed the policeman and the doctor, turned his child into sausages (only to reverse the process) and end up killing the devil, after which he was rewarded and all previous crimes forgotten. I was a bit strange to here a crowd of kids screaming "It's the Devil" but Punch and Judy does bring out the weirdness.

On Monday, Ten Dead Men was release on Region 2 DVD. I'm just going ot pass you over to Brother Chris' blog who has more info on this >>>>>>>

Finally, because I can't remember what my original point was, I've recently become obsessed with Scott Pilgrim. I had no idea what this was and heard that Edgar Wright of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz fame was directing the live action film., but what exactly was this comic. So I bought the first volume of the manga sized, black and white comic book. And it's cool. I'm just going to link to the main website here rather than go into to much detail but it's well worth checking out. The problem is Vol 2 seems to be really scarce but It will be mine, oh yes. It will be mine.

Oh shit, yeah, I finished Jimmy Fight. It needs a second run through before I pass it over to Brother Chris but its all there. In the end I kind of got more into it but now I've freed up some time for my next project, my CV. A process I never look forward to but is required if I hope to continue living.

That's all for now.

Q: Are We Not Men?

To those who don't know the answer, shame on you, but to put you out of your misery, A:WE Are DEVO.

Yes, brother Chris and I saw DEVO last night and it was amazing. I've been a fan of Devo from first hearing them on the Amiga game, Neuromancer based on the William Gibson novel. Now this was a digitized verson of the song Some Things Never Change, but then Dad played us the album Q: Are we not men. A: We are DEVO, and new fans were born.

So here we are say 15 or so years later and finally we get to see them live. Despite the obvious older age the band are in now they still had quite a lot of energy, and could tell they still enjoyed playing the songs. It was a special one off gig where they played the whole of their first album mentioned above. Which no the one hand was a rare and enjoyable experience, however this was at the cost of some other favourites. There was no Whip It, or Beautiful World, or Somethings Never Change, (but I really wasn't expecting that one) but still a really great night.



To give a rough location as to where we were standing we were basically in the second row of people in front of where Mark Mothersbaugh is on the second pompom dance. He was so close I could see the electro-punk excitement in his eyes.



So, in a good de-evolution move, we go to the support band, Robots in Disguise. Now I can't quite work out if I liked them. At first they were a littel annoying, acting as though a) Everyone knew who they were, and B) everyone had paid to see them. Now from what I can gather they have a following. That's all I'm going to say as I do't really follow music these days. Anyway, in listeneing to recordings they seem to be more electronic thatn they were on stage, which is a little disappointing as the music was alright. However, the electronic versions all sound a little flat. Anyway, here's a music video for you to enjoy.



At the moment I've broken my PC so updates of any kind are limited at the moment. Hopefully I'll get it sorted, or a brand new machine to continue on.

My New Favourite Band.

You've probably already seen this on Brother Chris' blog but as they say, a good cast is worth repeating. So here's the video again. The Trouble by Birdeatsbaby.


Birdeatsbaby - The Trouble from Philippa Bloomfield on Vimeo.

I can't really say exactly why this band has suddenly appeared in my musical radar like a massive flashing whale of some kind. Apart from being a really good band, both live and recorded, I think the whole night as a whole played a part. What Chris didn't mention was how weird the night became. We got the the bar at the correct time stated only to be turned away as they weren't open. First impressions were not too good. The place looked like some sort of social club, just an empty room with a small stage, a few sofas and a small bar. Still, we returned later to find the room now contained 2 couples ballroom dancing. Not sure if the place was open yet, we cautiously ventured inside. We were then informed that the gig was downstairs. Yes hidden beneath the dance class like a 30's speakeasy was in fact The Latest Bar. Still not a large place but it has a lot of character to make up for that fact. Things then began to settle down a bit and enjoyment was had. It was a bit weird how we seemed to be the only people there who weren't friends with any of the bands, and the fact that if you needed the toilet you had to go back upstairs and past the dancers.

The other reason that made the night was the creation of an idea for the Virgin Media Shorts competition. I don't want to get into too much detail but we started the night thinking, "Yeah, we should do that" to having a full idea ready to begin development.

So yes, Birdeatsbaby, my new favourite band, will forever be joined with one of many weird nights out, and the creation of what will hopefully be a great little short.