Four Lions coming soon?

There's always a buzz of excitement whenever it looks like Chris Morris is about to do something a bit controversial, remember all the outrage about the Brass Eye paedophilia special? That caused a bit of a fuss.

After doing the short film My Wrongs 8245-8249 & 117 and appearing in the IT Crowd (neither of which caused any Daily Mail headlines) he is back with the cinematic treat Four Lions, which as far as anyone can tell is a comedy about some rather shit terrorists. In the last day or so the media world has been falling over themselves with news of "exclusive" footage of the following short clip - which turns out to be exclusively available to everyone on You Tube. I have laughed repeatedly at the slightly incredulous "IRA voice?".

The film is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival tomorrow, no idea when it might be out here yet. More info at the Warp Films web site.

Questions about The Book Of Eli

The Book Of Eli isn't a bad movie at all, but it does leave you with a bundle of questions:

Why wasn't that film twenty minutes shorter?

Was it a god fearin', gun totin' advert for going to church - or was it pointing out that even if the smallest bit of religion is about then a lot of people are going to kill each other as a result?

Where exactly has Mila Kunis found a surviving All Saints store?

What are the odds of an amazingly ironic A Boy and His Dog poster turning up on the wall of a post apocalyptic hovel?

Why was that henchman whistling the pan-pipe bit out of Once Upon A Time In America?

Based on when the war must have happened, did none of these characters ever watch Mad Max 2? Play Fallout? Read The Road? Because the blokes who made the film certainly have.

But this is the one that has really got me thinking: Why would a blind man look at the screen of an ipod to check the battery level when it stops playing? Hmmm.

Canabalt will mess you up good

This nifty flash/iphone game will turn you into a sweary, blind, dribbling mess. Unless you already are one.

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Star Wars Uncut

You may have heard of the Star Wars Uncut web site, a project where loads of people are contributing 15 seconds each to a re-make of the sci-fi classic.

You might have amused yourself by browsing at some of the inventive clips that have already been uploaded.

You might even have reserved one of the sections to have a crack at yourself.

But did you decide to pay homage to the critical scene 247 (arrival at the remains of Alderaan), by invoking the spirit of David Lynch directing a re-make of The Specials "Ghost Town" video, dubbed into French - starring Amy Winehouse, Woody Allen, Adolf Hitler and a trans-gender Gallic pensioner?

Hopefully not, because thats what we did...

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 247 from Jim Morton on Vimeo.

Street Dance Diary

To be honest, “Diary” is pushing it a bit - this is the before and after tale of Kate going to “bust” some “moves” at the local dance class - Can you guess how well it went?

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A Dinosaur With A Saddle

It is stunningly difficult to get your head round the creationist belief that the earth is actually only about ten thousand years old.

Despite the weight of scientific and cultural evidence lurking about, fundamentalist Christians reckon that the best way to work out the age of the planet (and indeed everything else) is to do a bit of a "Who do you think you are?" style genealogy of all the characters in the bible.

Here is a clip of Bill Hicks explaining why this is such bollocks. The main thrust of his thesis being a lack of discussion about dinosaurs in the bible.

But it now seems that some bright spark at the Creation Museum in Kentucky has had a bit of a think about this and has decided that if the evidence doesn't seem to support their position, then they better damn well present a version of events that does.

Visitors to their marvellous facility will now clearly leave convinced that man and dinosaur must have co-existed, otherwise why would there be an exhibit in a museum of a Triceratops with such a nifty leather saddle?

Seems plausible enough to me.

can we get one of these for christmas?

Blur at Hyde Park, The Virtual vs The Physical

An album review and a gig review all in one unholy mess as I cross some sort of Tron-esque virtual divide to cover both the huge reunion event and the swiftly marketed live recording.

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Lint The Movie

If you haven't had the chance to read the marvellous book Lint yet, you really should - a matter I went into in the usual wide-eyed, tangential manner about a year ago.

I heard that there was also a film following the career of legendary sci-fi author Jeff Lint in the offing, but then promptly forgot about it. However it now seems that this project is more or less done. There's a lintthemovie myspace page which says that it is due out in 2009 and has a list of exciting contributors including Alan Moore, Stewart Lee and Mr Solo - who is also represented by a David Devant and His Spirit Wife song lurking on the page.

Check the teaser trailer below, although it probably ain't much fun for epileptics. Also knocking around on-line are bits of The Caterer, Lint's seminal comic featuring a grinning, goat obsessed psychopath.

That Irish Bike Ride - Part One

The first part of the epic re-telling of how we cycled the length of Ireland a couple of months back. There is a fair chance that reading this lot will actually be more tiring than doing the ride itself. Good Luck.

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The Flaming Lips - Prepare Yourselves

Easily the greatest live band I have ever seen are coming around later in the year, I've already spunked a load of money on tickets for the birmingham gig at the Academy (or whatever it is called these days), site of the amazingly triumphant gig that put me in a good mood for that week in 2006. Ahh, 2006.

Also in the works is a scary sounding double album, featuring in the words of Wayne Coyne the vocal stylings of some "Weird mathemetician guy from Germany". Not much you can add to that really but here is a video of the band pissing about in a mildly sinister fashion.

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About us

Hello there. This is where we write (from our silver-foil lined bunker in the middle of the UK) about films and music and drink and going out and all that other stuff that demands attention from our tiny but fertile minds. Find out some more about those tiny minds...

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Stuff happening soon

Newswipe

TV // 19th Jan 10:30pm // BBC4 and iPlayer // Jim

Charlie Brooker’s TV News analysis/piss take starts again. Hopefully it will be as good as his screenwipe review of the year.

A Prophet

Film // Starts 22nd January // The Electric Cinema // Jim

Continuing the cinematic happiness, this is a critically lauded french flick about the brutal nature of the prison system - looks fairly nasty - already infamous for the hiding of a razor blade in a mouth. Quelle damage!

The Road

Film // From 8th January // Dans La Cinema // Jim

In two minds about going to see this, great book and everything but utterly nihilistic and depressing - makes Threads look like Hollyoaks. Can’t imagine that it will be a lot of fun at the flicks. Still it is made by John Hillcoat who did The Proposition, so at least they won’t have tacked on a happy ending.

The link log (via del.icio.us)

The scariest thing I've ever seen
Shudder.
Get a First Life
This will be your standard response when faced with a waste of skin who plays/lives/wanks monotonously over Second Life.
It's Coming Out Of Your Speaker: Bomb Squad Instrumentals/B-sides - DC special!
Mix of Bomb Squad instrumentals/b-sides, we downloading right now...
Snarkmarket: This Is Not A Game
Absolutely unmissable television, even from our vantage point across the pond; an angry, brilliant Jon Stewart tears into Jim Cramer, and the (real) wider target that is CNBC and "financial journalism"
BBC NEWS | Technology | Stephen Fry: The internet and Me
Yes, to all of this.
Thru-you
Once it's back up again, watch this - edits of YouTube videos of people playing musical instruments, orchestrated into tracks. Blummin' ace.
Sony Releases New Piece of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work | The Onion | a Smursh of Pete
The Impossible Project
Sounds insane - restarting the production of Polaroid film, but trying to do it better.
Abandoned London - a set on Flickr
Amazing set of photos of London, deserted.
Twitturly - Real-time Link Tracking on Twitter
I'm amazed by how many applications are springing up around the incredibly sparse online microblogging app Twitter - driven by the rapidly growing network, no doubt.

Feeds

Mmmm...can you smell it? Yep, that's the smell of our hot RSS feeds, wafting in your direction. Keep up-to-date with our aimless goings-on below:

Le blog de roll

Pete Ashton
One-man blogging maelstrom keeps the Birmingham end up with a network of sites. How does he have the time? He's cloning himself.
Things Magazine
Cracking regular set of links on the culture/art front.
Motor-blog
Neil will try and persuade you to do the classic motoring thing. Don't listen to him, he's deranged, but a lovely chap all the same.
20 Jazz Funk Greats
HEROES.
Cybernetic Broadcasting System
Italo/disco/soundtrack/techno/electro radio station, live from Den Haag.