Quack Spout #2

As of yet nothing has occured to discourage my delusions, so I can proudly (or near enough) present to you:

QUACK SPOUT NUMBER TWO - MP3

This edition features a few more Brighton based event previews, alongside random jabberings and some great music.

Playlist:

Eddie Halliday - Wandering
Fredrick Stanley Star - 500 Years
Pocket Promise - I Burnt The Roller Disco
Elspeth Anne Macrae - Clumsy Hands
Health - Heaven
Das Wanderlust - Humbug
Misty's Big Adventure - Between Me and You
Ed Harcourt - Mysteriously
Muarena Helena - Fragment
The Keys - My Pulsing Compass

Quack Spout #1

I'm dabbling with the world of Podcasting, I'm not sure about this, so all feedback is welcome, but this is the debut Quack Spout Podcast, enjoy! (Playlist below)

QUACK SPOUT - NUMBER ONE MP3

Playlist:

Attack + Defend - River Arrow
The Weather In Sweden - Twentysomethings
Hedluv - H30LUV
Kate Goes - Heartbeat
Duke Raoul - How Frightful
Charlot Webster - Dreamboat
Joy Of Sex - A Briefing
Colourmusic - Gospel Song
Threatmantics - Little Bird
Agnes Kain - All Time High

Other Writings...

Morning all,

Here are some recent writings for a number of other websites I contribute to, t'would be greatly appreciated if you'd have a gander when you have some spare time:

The Celluloid President written for Battle Royale With Cheese
A look at the representation of the American president on the silver screen in recent times.

My Festival Year 2009 written for God Is In The TV
A preview of the music festivals across the country that I'll be attending.

A Look Back To The Future written for Battle Royale With Cheese
A material viewpoint on the first installment of the classic 80's time-travel comedy.

Ta ta!

Owain.x

The 'What I Had For Dinner' Project Blog - 200th Day

Not a particularly momentous meal to mark the 200th day of the infamous 'What I Had For Dinner' project, but a tasty one nonetheless and a bottle of wine too... not intentionally however, I only realised this was the 200th day of the project (not the 200th meal due to non-dinner days) as I uploaded the photo to my computer.

So, this means there are only 165 dinners remaining, only 165 photos and only 3 more Facebook albums to create with 'hilarious' titles referencing movie sequels.

My Traditional 'Most Anticipated Films' List - Part Two (Preview)

Well, having just moved to Brighton and being a tad full of activity and procrastination and part-time employment, there's been a slight delay getting this list out there and - as a result - I've seen some of the films I was eagerly awaiting come the end of 2008 (I shall include them and my thoughts, and I've added a couple of other flicks that have entered my interest). Anyway, without further ado and in no particular order...

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

This has been on my 'most anticipated' list for a few years now, it's one of those ones that has - understandably now - been pushed back and back, it shall always be tagged as Heath Ledger's last film, but I'm hoping it's another on form Terry Gilliam movie, the concept sounds wonderful, the look of the few stills and set-snaps released so far is great and it has Tom Waits in it as the devil!

Where The Wild Things Are

Another delayed release, Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book looks to have captured the kind of magic that the Jim Henson company bottled for Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, with a bit of the fluffiness of The Neverending Story thrown in for good measure. Jonze also seems to be keenly aware that a good children's film is dark and grown-up whilst still being fantastical, and hopefully he will get to fully realise his vision and all those talks of studio worries are just hearsay.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Here's one film I have now seen, I've been keeping an eye on this project for a while and seen a few director's names attached to it, the story appealed to me generally and I thought Fincher was a fine choice of helmsman. In the end the film is a technical marvel, visually stunning but a little cold emotionally. Many have compared it to Forrest Gump, but I felt that Gump managed to push the emotional buttons a little better than Button, though I think Fincher never intended to make something as sentimental as Zemeckis' Oscar winner.

Synedoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, returns with his directorial debut, and another film that seems - like Benjamin Button - to examine an entire life, albeit here in a more linear yet no less bizarre fashion. I'm still not entirely sure what the film is about, all I know is I can't wait.

JCVD

It's out on DVD now and hopefully I'll get around to watching it soon, but this film has been received raves recently for the film's look and - shockingly - the performance of Jean Claude Van Damme as he honestly and self-deprecatingly dismantles his own life and career in a darkly comic heist movie!?

The Box

There's something about Richard Kelly's follow-up to Donnie Darko - Southland Tales - that keeps me going back to it, it's awfully paced, ropily acted, the plot's a mess and it's way too long, but I find myself watching it more than most movies. I'm hoping he's put together a genuinely good film here, spring-boarding from a Richard Matheson short into a 70s-set thriller starring the dependable James Marsden and Cameron Diaz.

Sherlock Holmes

I'm not a Guy Ritchie fan, but I do love Robert Downey Jr. and Sherlock Holmes and foggy Victorian England romps, so hopefully this'll gel together nicely with this spin on Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective. I'm hoping this'll be a nice counterpoint to the brilliant and under-rated Young Sherlock Holmes.

The Brothers Bloom

I haven't seen Brick, I know I should. This looks like great fun and stars the always watchable Adrien Brody and the equally always watchable Mark Ruffalo as two con men, it seems to have an easy, quirky charm.

Milk

Sean Penn's performance eclipsed this film, which is - as I have seen it - a very well made biography of the first openly gay politician Harvey Milk, it has a fabulous supporting cast including Josh Brolin and James Franco, and a genuinely moving story and hopefully will pick up a few awards come Oscar season.

Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn directed the over-looked and magical Stardust, one of the best subversions of the fairy-tale genre since The Princess Bride and now he's turning his hand to superheroes with this graphic novel adaptation from the creator of Wanted. It looks barking mad from the few photos released and hopefully will mark the turnaround of Nic Cage's career (he has a supporting role).

The Spirit

Another one I've already seen, read my defense of it by CLICKING HERE!

Religulous

I enjoy a good documentary and this one looks like a funny investigation of how different people approach religion. It seems to be getting a bit of stick from some critics for being a bit too light, but I see this as a nice primer before having a look at some other interesting and thematically similar docs; check out Jesus Camp, it will scare you stupid!

Crank 2: High Voltage

The first Crank is (just over Taken) the finest guilty-pleasure of the 21st Century thus far, and hopefully this sequel will deliver more lunatic charm as Jason Stathan's presumed-dead hitman Chev Chelios finds his heart replaced by some kind of battery powered contraption that needs constant jolts of electricity to keep him ticking. I wasn't too sure about the recently released trailer, but I won't feel as ashamed as I probably should when I go to see this on opening day!

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Stop-motion is in good stead this year with this and the critically adored Coraline on the way, not very much is known about how this is good to look yet, I'm feeling quite certain this may end up on next year's most-anticipated list, but I really hope it comes out this year. It's being directed by Wes Anderson and, of course, is an adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book.

Knowing

Always dangerous looking forward to a Nic Cage movie, but with this and Kick-Ass on the way I'm hoping this is a better year for Cage than having Ghost Rider, Next and The Wicker Man in quick succession! Knowing, I hope, also marks a return to form for Alex Proyas who directed the excellent The Crow and Dark City but has floundered of late with I, Robot and Garage Days.

Watchmen

Another project I've had my peepers on for a while, it was one that Terry Gilliam developed for a time and ultimately decided it should be a mini-series. Then Paul Greengrass took the helm and got very close to a version I really, really wanted to see. Now Zack Snyder has actually managed to film the thing and I'm curious but uncertain; the cast is great, the visuals look good, the marketing has been smart but I was not a fan of 300 though Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake was surprisingly effective.

The Wrestler

I was dissapointed by this, Mickey Rourke's performance is great, though his face is distracting at times, but overall the film was rather bland and Marisa Tomei is awful in her supporting role, alongside some very heavy-handed and terribly written scenes that layer on religous allegory with a trowel and Baseketball-like use of songs as Rourke drives around. I guess this is what happens when nobody goes to see a film as beautiful and heart-breaking as Aronofsky's previous effort The Fountain.

Star Trek

This looks like good fun, I don't really care about what they 'do' to Star Trek, I just hope J.J. Abrams puts together a ride as entertaining as his entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise and I'll be happily munching popcorn.

The Year One

Jack Black and Michael Cera are cave-men in this high/low-concept comedy from Harold Ramis who seems to have assembled a good cast to pull him out of the doldrums of fare like Bedazzled and Analyze That. I'm not expecting a classic here really, just a good solid laugh.

Che

I saw part one and it was pretty good; an interesting historical document but we learn next to nothing about the man the film is named after. I'm looking forward to part two, but I understand why - after it's Cannes success - this film has kind of drifted off of awards radars.

Hamlet 2

A Sundance hit last year, Steve Coogan plays a teacher who tries to revive his flagging career by putting together a brazen, brash and bonkers musical sequel to Shakespeare's most famous play.

The Princess and the Frog

Hand drawn 2D animated Walt Disney returns with this New Orleans set fairy-tale update, which looks like a throwback to the early 90s-era of Disney animation (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, etc.).

Terminator: Salvation

Charlie's Angels director McG seems to have put together a welcome continuation of the man vs. machines saga, finally taking us to see what all this Future War stuff is about. The recently released trailer looks like the action is being handled well, and the cast will hopefully lend it some gravitas and, regarding his recent outburst, though he over-reacted I'm on Mr. Bale's side.

Bruno

Sacha Baron Cohen puts his neck on the line again this time as gay TV host Bruno, he'll be exposing people's dormant prejudices once more in faux-documentary style and hopefully it'll be as successful as the surprisingly enjoyable Borat movie.

Up

Pixar's next, it looks interesting, though very little has been revealed thus far beyond a brief look at the character dynamics of the grumpy old man and the eager, wide-eyed boy scout; but it should be fun.

Coraline

Henry Selick returns to feature length stop-motion animation after mixing live-action into the pretty good James and the Giant Peach and the misguided but interesting Monkeybone. Here he adapts Neil Gaiman's spooky children's story, filming it in 3D for a film that some critics are already hailing as a classic.

Nailed

I am always interested in David O'Russell's work, I've enjoyed every film he's done so far, with each new release out-doing the one before; I don't think he can top I Heart Huckabees in my opinion, but I look forward to see what he's come up with.

Extract

The new Mike Judge film after the unfairly treated cult-classic Idiocracy, the man really knows how to put together a sharp, wry and strange comedy so this should be worth a gander.

Moon

David Bowie's son directs two Sam Rockwells in this wonderfully mad sounding sci-fi that seems to be picking up the mantle where the 70s left off and delivering something truly different.

My Traditional 'Most Anticipated Films' List - Part One (Review)

On my old blog I used to (I may have done it about two or three years running) always write up a list of films I was looking forward to over the coming year, and then review the previous year's list of most anticipated films and see if they lived up to my own, personal hype. I'm going to continue that centuries old tradition here for the sake of clinging onto the past. But I shall divvy it up into two posts, the first will review my 'Most Anticipated Films of 2008' and the second shall be my all new list of films. So, without furtherado let's jump in the way back machine and see what I was looking forward to at the end of 2007...

1. Blindness (dir. Fernando Meirelles)

My most anticipated film ended up being the last film I saw at the cinema in 2008, and though it was a well made, brilliantly acted film that stuck very closely to Jose Saramago's masterwork of a novel, it just lacked enough of an impact to really make it feel essential; and where many people spoke of it being too bleak I didn't feel it was quite bleak enough! It sits in the same category as 'Children of Men' but has nowhere near the wallop of that masterpiece.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielberg)

A huge dissapointment. I do want to give it one last spin on DVD before putting the final nail on my opinion; this was the first Indy film I saw at the cinema and was a garish, poorly plotted, muddled and CG-saturated affair that had a tiny handful of good bits, but was generally quite embarassing.

3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (dir. Julian Schnabel)

An incredible, visceral, beautiful, emotive film that keeps growing in my conciousness as a truly special movie that I want to point other people towards and Mathieu Almaric deserved much more recognition than he got for an amazing performance; amazing in how much he conveys doing so little.

4. There Will Be Blood (dir. P.T. Anderson)

Anderson evolved as a director with this, I am curious as to his next move; but this is a film that shall last.

5. Persepolis (dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi)

This got nudged aside at the last minute by Waltz With Bashir for the 'coveted' title of best animated film of the year, but it's still a fascinating, individual and personal tale brilliantly told and drawn.

6. The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Highly enjoyable with some great performance, but really I felt like this was a strange mash-up of 'Batman Returns' and 'Heat' and whilst that seemed to be what many people wanted, it wasn't quite the mind-blowing experience many others thought it to be.

7. Teeth (dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein)

I've been harping on about this being 'the modern Heathers', it's a exploitational tale told in a smart, restrained and often surreal way. It's blackly comic, bold and confrontational, with scenes shifting style at will. It sparked a small whimper of debate, but I think it will have legs on DVD.

8. Be Kind Rewind (dir. Michel Gondry)

A very uneven film, yet highly watchable thanks to Mos Def's charismatic leading turn and Gondry's lo-fi visual kinetics. A bit of fluff inbetween, I expect, better work from Gondry.

9. Son of Rambow (dir. Garth Jennings)

Absolutely charming love-letter to the 80s, cinema, childhood and the power of the imagination with some of the best child performances in a while and some delightfully barmy sequences; Will Proudfoot's first bonkers imagining post-Rambo always makes me grin like a loon. Garth Jennings really captured the flighty, crazy logic of a young boy's imagination.

10. No Country For Old Men / Burn After Reading (dir. The Coen Brothers)

No Country... was a great, stark thriller very similar to the Coen's earliest film, Blood Simple. Burn After Reading was a messy, misjudged, awkward, starry 'comedy' more akin to recent dissapointments like Intolerable Cruelty.

11. Tropic Thunder (dir. Ben Stiller)

A bit of a mess, only Downey Jr. really seemed to get a hook on his character and the film ran with that in the marketting department. Otherwise it has moments, but isn't as inspired overall as Zoolander.

12. Jumper (dir. Doug Liman)

Much like the first X-Men film this feels very incomplete, I wouldn't object to a sequel as there was a story just starting to take shape here. Hayden Christensen wasn't unbearable, but the film was stolen by Jamie Bell's far superior co-jumper.

13. Wall-E (dir. Andrew Stanton)

A great film, but not quite the incendiary re-shaping of the way we perceive animation that I was expecting... the satire, similar in ways to Mike Judge's Idiocracy was a nice, dark touch in a surprisingly sweet film.

14. Synedoche, New York (dir. Charlie Kaufman)

Released in 2009.

15. The Happening (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

My word, this was a terrible film. I look forward to renting this with some friends, drinking a lot, eating pizzas and hopefully laughing our heads off. Because watching this in the cinema was a painful, baffling experience.

16. Inkheart (dir. Iain Softley)

A very book bound movie, adapted, as it was, from a novel; this doesn't managed to reshape its source material into a compelling film, but does have a good share of ideas and a really great performance by Paul Bettany.

17. Where the Wild Things Are (dir. Spike Jonze)

Released in 2009 (hopefully)!

18. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (dir. Guillermo Del Toro)

Upped the monster quota and had some grander, better set-pieces that the first film, this kind of fudged it in the emotional and story stakes with some real gaping plot-holes and some awkward character arcs.

19. Dante 01 (dir. Marc Caro)

This went straight to video and I still haven't got around to watching it...

20. Coraline (dir. Henry Selick)

Released in 2009.

Seat 13 - Issue One

Back in October I started thinking, very seriously, about putting together a film magazine. I e-mailed some people I thought might write for it, I also spoke to a gallery about getting cover art from one of their artists, and the response I got from everyone was so positive that the magazine move forward at quite a rapid pace.

Things got a little delayed, which, in the end, turned out to be beneficial. I found a couple of additional contributions that I really like, and started e-mailing a couple of printers. The cost of doing a professional print-run though seemed a little steep, so I thought about tackling all the printing myself. After printing out two and a bit issues I realised that I'd be spending a small fortune on ink so went to my local photocopiers and got twenty issues (bar the cover which I am still printing myself) done there. It was around this time that I started to think; I hope I can sell some advertising space in issue two!

I'm really proud of the magazine, I love how its all turned out, I'm really pleased with the quality of the articles and contributions, I am so thankful to everyone who has contributed to this first issue and I look forward to collaborating with them again on future issues. But, there's that whole tricky business of trying to sell something that is home-made and the cynicism that you can face as a result. My instinct was to charge £2 an issue, but, after a friend had a look at a draft copy we agreed that £1 was probably more realistic in a way... though, from a recouping costs point if view, not so!

What I hope with this first issue is that I can get a small audience that will want to read the next issue, this first issue is special in that I don't think issue two will be advert free, I don't think issue two will have the same paper for the cover and maybe I will go to a printers for the whole affair. This has been a real learning experience, I wish I had the resources to keep producing the magazine to a similar level, but I know now I've got to find that middle-ground between ambition and finances.

If anyone reading this would like to buy a copy you can order it by clicking HERE.

You can also join the Facebook group HERE.