Dancing a dance of safety.

So its strange for me to post twice in one day but I came across this looking for something similar. The Donnas, a band I've never really bought anything by, but generally enjoy and have seen them live at the Leeds festival many years ago. Anyway, they've covered The Safety Dance originally by Men Without Hats. So here it is. Excuse the crappy video, I didn't make it, but its the music we care about. Enjoy.



I really should get a Donnas album. Anyway, the reason I found this was because I was looking for a different cover version. I came across the cover a few years ago, and have it on a minidisc back home but now have no idea what it is. It was basically a sort of 50's rock and roll version. But no luck.

So to bring things to a close here's the original Safety Dance video. It is one of the best videos ever mainly due to its scary Wickerman similarities.

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.

Why has everything broken?

Ok, I know I haven't updated in ages. I always meant to, but now I find myself needing a distraction from the slow loading speeds of the itvplayer.

To back track I don't really watch a lot of television, but there are a few programmes I enjoy. Being a fan of the old school I used to tape these if they clashed with other activities, but as a last resort I would turn to the online iplayers. These are pretty good if A) you have a decent enough pc connection and B) well mainly just A. Unfortunately ovewr the weekend we lost use of the the television to some unknown reason so I am forced to watch Primeval yet again in ITVPlayer. However, at this moment in time, we've also been experiencing internet problems. Mainly the wirelessness not working as it should. To make matters worse, I attempted to connect my PC with an ethernet cable but my PC (which I should mention is on its last legs, and beginning to feel a lot like that level on Tron 2.0 where you go into the old pc and everything goes dead slow) refuses to recognise it so I'm back to watching 2 minutes then buffering then 2 minutes then buffering then 1 minute then buffering then adverts.

So I'm keeping myself sane by writing this all out in this blog post. This is also only part one of the iplayer adventure as at some point I'm going to have to watch Heroes and Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. I should really be writing Jimmy Fight which at the moment I'm only about 14 pages in but I'm sure I'll get into it soon enough.

On a lighter note I went to see Crank 2: High Voltage last night which was as silly as ever. In a good way that is. If you look too closely at the Crank films there's nothing really behind them but then that's kind of the point. They are video games. The most accurate video game movie out there, without even being based on a video game. Anyway it was better than Transporter 3 which was a disappointment. I'm now only really looking forward to seeing Coraline in 3D.

I would post youtube links but then the Internet would die forever.

At least Jason Flemyng has now turned up in Primeval. and he's always been good.

Ultimate destruction is just a few minutes away...

I said I'd come up with a better title so there you have it. And it means nothing really, despite the fact that I'm about to destroy my PC.

I've been editing some behind the scenes footage for the Dark Future trailer, and it's been going smooth up until recently as my PC has now decided to initiate Project Complete Lockdown, which is really annoying, especially as the video is so near completion.

Anyway, I'm back into working on films again with the making-of mentioned above and about to start work on a feature script with Chris that either is, or will be known as Jimmy Fight.

So this post is short as I'd better get on.

However I would like to mention that the Congo Review website has been updated after about 10 months or so. I hope to get more done, but for now there's just a few due to time really. There is also another film that has reached the dizzy heights of being Better Than Congo, but I'll let you find that for yourself (which isn't hard if you just check the New Reviews page)

So back to work I go. Here's hoping the PC will hold out just a little longer.

New location, same old troubles...

How depressing does that sound. Next time I'll try for a better title.

Anyway, to bring anyone who doesn't know up to speed, I'm now living with Brother Chris. Yes I was naive to think everything would be different. In short, its not. I am closer to the sea though. I just haven't got used to it yet. But I will.

I recently saw My Name Is Bruce. Is very silly, but still good. I am somewhat biased towards Bruce Campbell though, however this was more enjoyable than The Man With The Screaming Brain which suffered quite a lot from its small budget and Bulgarian filming locations.

I'm also biased due to the fact that My Name Is Bruce slipped a Congo reference in, which as you know always gets a thumbs up in my book. So is it better than Congo. No, but I'd say its as good as.

Despite starting a new job, and therefore acquiring the inability to stay awake throughout a whole film, I've seen quite a few over the last couple of weeks. Special mention goes to Let The Right One In, a Swedish vampire film that plays with the concept of vampires a little more than others do. Not much is explained about the origins, and there's no foppishness involved. There's also a cool sequence concerning the whole "invitation in" rule that I don't think I've ever seen dealt with before.

I've also finally started watching Veronica Mars. A TV show that everyone seems to like and recommend, however at the moment it's nothing special but I am only 3 episodes in so hopefully things will look up.

I'm stopping no I have things to read and write other than blogs and really need to get some work done. However, I may just end up playing games. Who knows.

Who Watches The Watchmen...

I do. Ok that was kind of a lame start. I'm only really posting as this marks my final post as a resident of Stoke-on-Trent. I shall soon be off on adventures to Brother Chris' abode and hopefully a bright future. However at the moment my head is exploding, and I'm trying to decide whether I'm taking too much stuff with me. Yes eventually I'll probably have my own place and all the space in the world (the contained world of said place that is), but as it goes I have a room. A room previously used as a computer room, with stuff still in it. Now I really am thinking I have too much. We all know there's no way I'll be using everything at once. And I bet some things I never even touch. It's difficult knowing this for certain though, so I like to be prepared. There doesn't seem any more than when I left for University so maybe that's it. I just haven't seen this much stuff piled up in a while.

Anyway, I went to see Watchmen tonight. It hasn't really sunk in yet so I can't decide if I liked it. I know for certain that the first half was cool, but I think it gets a bit dragged out. The problem with it is that the beginning has been reordered a bit, but as soon as you get into the origins of the characters you're just waiting for the next bit of the comic you remember.

So...the new ending. It's ok. Not great, but ok. I don't want to give anything away. I come from reading the comic and was really looking forward to seeing that particular end so it was always going to disappoint. However with the new ending, a guy I went with who has no idea of the comic didn't think it made sense, that the result was not much of a threat. In many ways he's right. They really needed to set it up through out the film, which in turn would change the story. But the base elements were there.

Finally I just want to mention the soundtrack. It's amazing. Zack Snyder couldn't really use much on his last film 300, but the soundtrack for the Dawn of the Dead remake was also amazing. Not the usual choices Hollywood films would make. Plus the Philips Glass track form the trailer is used in the film.

All in all, it is a cool film. I don't agree with other reviews where they've offered up alternative directors. IGN offered Ridley Scott or David Fincher and Mark Kermode suggested Terry Gilliam would have been an improvement. However these directors haven't really made a decent film for a while. Whoever was directing this film it still would've been a hard film to make. You can't please everyone, especially when each reader has there own interpretation, just like the adaptation of a book. I wasn't to keen on the comic elements of Mickey Rourke's Marv from Sin City as I'd always read him as a straight, hard bastard right to the end.

In closing I think Zack Snyder has done a great job. And I look forward to the rest of his career. And his soundtracks.

You Can't Dance on Someones Grave!

The remainder of the weekend was occupied with a variety of films of varying quality. We began with black & white version of The Mist. How good is this film? Rhetorical by the way as we all know The Mist is amazing. I'd forgotten how good it, and everyone in it, was. This is only emphasised when viewed in black and white. I captures the atmosphere of the mid-fifties horror/sci-fi films and also makes the creature effects more believable. The end is still one of the best I've seen in a long time, and possibly the only true horrific moment in the whole film.

This was followed by The Gravedancers. This film was chosen based on the delivery of the line, "You can't dance on someones grave!" Unfortunately I can't post it here as it only seems to be part of the trailer on V-Plus. The film stars Dominic Purcell of Prison Break fame, Clare Kramer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame and the always watchable Tcheky Karyo. The film begin as a rum of the mill haunting film. Friends get drunk, dance on graves and get haunted. About half way in though things started to get interesting. The ghost effects were pretty creepy, and by the end things get quite insane. Not to give anything away, but basically a giant head chases a car though the house. It's a pity the film takes so long before it gets interesting. So based on the 'matter of fact' delivery of one line, this film was pretty much a winner.

Unlike Sickle, which only cost a single British pound, but was just poor. It was filmed on digital so it looked bad, and not a lot happened. Shots were repeated, characters reappeared in scenes even though they'd just left, and there was a hell of a lot of walking. I should really be careful here, I don't want to just sound mean as the issue of reviews is hitting close to home since the DVD release of Ten Dead Men. However, Sickle was pretty rubbish. However, on the DVD was a trailer, fortunately not for Sickle, but for Skinned Deep, a 2004 horror film directed by Gabriel Bartalos, the special effect/make-up artist on films such as Leprechaun and Basket Case 2. It also stars Warwick Davis as a guy called Plates, and, you guessed it, he throws plates at people. This film looked mental, and was worth the pound spent on the DVD.

We ended on Earth Alien, starring Eric Roberts and Arnold Vosloo. This was also only a pound, but far better than Sickle. It's about a cop who teams up with an alien to hunt down another alien who is killing humans for their skin. Poacher style. I don't have much more to say on this. It was ok, things exploded, cars were chased, guns were shot. Pretty straight forward really.

In between these viewings we seemed to watch the trailer for Clifford over and over. For some reason this film only seems to be available on Xbox Live and nowhere else. It still looks bizarre and will be tracked down eventually. If only to fit in with a screening of Shakma.

Anyway the weekend came to a close, and onto the trains we went. And what a crappy journey. The train I was on somehow let off the emergency brakes stopping the train only after about an hour of travel. Then we couldn't get the brakes off and just had to wait for a technician. Finally we moved to the next station, all got off and awaited the replacement train, which then had to alter its journey to include all the stops form the original train. I ended up getting in about two late. Which nicely brings my February tour of Britain to a close, and fuels my temporary hate for trains. I know Brother Chris eventually had some problems also on his journey. It just goes to show, no one should travel on a Sunday.

Oh, and you can't dance on someones grave.