Filed under: on the projector
it’s a sunday, nothing is happening except some golf, finished dissertation (1st draft)….let’s do another of those 30 day things in one day because i’m lazy!!
FILMS THIS TIME!
1. your favourite film: Brick
2. your least favourite film: Star Warsss…no thanks little fury midgets and space sticks…
3. a film you watch to feel good: Amelie…grand stuff from the sweet Audrey Tautou
4. a film you watch to feel down: do people do that? i’ll just say Control…my third favourite film of all time, but pretty damn depressing :/
5. a film that reminds you of someone: Superbad – Samuel Routledge!
6. a film that reminds you of somewhere: Paul Blart – Mall Cop…utter bollocks, but it seems they love it in Nepal! and when i was stuck in bed alone for 5 days, i must have watched it at least four times :/
7. a film that reminds you of your past: The Little Rascals! everytime i was off school being ill (usually that damn twisty bowel!) i’d pop on this kids classic…even up to the age of 16…because im as cool as Buckwheat!
i wish!
8. a film that you can quote: Anchorman…thanks to the legendary Anchorman challenge! ….i’m very aroused…
9. a film with your favourite actor: The Departed - Leonardo Dicaprio
10. a film with your favourite actress: I’m Not There – Cate Blanchett
11. a film by your favourite director: Jurassic Park – Steven Spielberg…i know it’s boring, but just look at his past record! these guys are also pretty damn close at the top – Scorcese, Coen Bros, Christopher Nolan
12. a film by your least favourite director: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer…they’ve written and/or directed these: Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck, Meet The Spartans, Date Movie, Spy Hard, Epic Movie and Scary Movie 1,2,3,4…TWATS!
13. a guilty pleasure: Love Actually…shush you…you know it’s good really…
14. a film that no one would expect you to like: Howl’s Moving Castle…never, ever been a fan of manga or whatever it’s called, but this one is quite the lovely exception
15. the film that depicts your life: haha! are there any films about a pretty average lifestyle!? i’m gonna say 500 Days Of Summer…not because of my well-known long term relationship past with Zooey Deschanel (ahem..i wish!)…but because Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character reminds me a lot of myself…including favourite bands…
19. your favourite action film: Saving Private Ryan – pretty much unbeatable
20. your favourite romantic film: i’m sad to say…there’s quite a lot :/ but will go with Once…
21. your favourite sci-fi/fantasy film: well sci-fi can go touch itself, but im gonna hope ‘fantasy’ includes magic…therefore, The Prestige….bloomin awesome
22. your favourite horror: my dear self and horror are not a good combination…i tend to read the ingredients on the back of a pringles pot for most horror films…glancing up only once, maybe twice! howeverrrr…Psycho is brilliant…so that
23. your favourite thriller: Inception…pure genius
24. your favourite children’s film: Space jam, Robin Hood (with the fox and other fun creatures) or Toy Story..obvs :P
25. your favourite documentary film: When You’re Strange – A Film About The Doors
26. your favourite foreign language film: toughy for a guy obsessed with european cinema! i’ll have to say one of either Amelie, Romanzo Criminale, Jeux De’Enfants, Un Prophete, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, or A Very Long Engagement
27. your favourite independent film: Brick, Withnail & I or Into The Wild…the latter might not be independent but balls to it…it’s too amazing to leave off the list!
28. the most obscure film you’ve seen: Dancer In The Dark…starring Bjork…fucking mental
29. your favourite film as a kid: aside from Toy Story, Space Jam and The Little Rascals!? it has to be The Lion King
30. your favourite film this time last year: if you mean this time exactly 365 days ago, it was probably Paul fucking Blart: Mall Cop! but if not…it was either Shutter Island or The Blind Side…both of which i watched on the plane coming back from Nepal and loved
done! how great do you feel having wasted your time reading that!?!?
love x
Filed under: on the film reel, on the horizon, on the mind, on the parchment, on the projector, on the streets, on the travels, on the turntable, on the waves | Tags: aberdeen uni, climate change, hard rain, mark edwards, project
if you’ve been on campus at any point this week, im sure you’ll have noticed the Hard Rain campaign near Elphinstone Hall and King’s College. i really hope that most people will have had the time to stop and take in the pain, shame, beauty and hope that is presented by Mark Edwards’ display….however if not, here’s a little bit of info (taken from the uni website) that may draw you into paying the exhibition a visit…
Artist Mark Edwards, one of the few environmental communicators to have personally witnessed the global issues that are defining the 21st century, will speak at 6pm on Tuesday March 22 in the Regent Building Lecture Theatre on the King’s College Campus.
Mark’s presentation — introduced with photos synced to Bob Dylan’s prophetic 60s masterpiece ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ shows habitat destruction, overconsumption, poverty, pollution, climate change, war, loneliness and despair gathered from Mark’s expeditions to over 150 countries over 40 years. The presentation explores the state of the world and its people, and brings alive the policies, technologies and lifestyle changes we need to adopt to reinvent the modern world to be compatible with nature.
The accompanying 60-metre outdoor photo exhibition will open beside the Elphinstone lawn on the King’s College campus on March 14 until April 12.
The exhibition has been seen by over 15 million people across all continents and has attracted huge public and critical acclaim. It has been shown at venues as diverse as the United Nations Headquarters in New York and national governments including Scotland, Australia, Belgium and Cuba, to the European supply chain for McDonalds, and the community of Wormwood Scrubs prison.
Hard Rain is being brought to the City by the Aberdeen University Students Association Climate Change Project and funded by the Scottish Government.
Jamie Peters, who represents the Climate Change Project, expressed his hope of the benefits the exhibitions and inspirational talk would have on the University and wider community of the north-east, saying: “The Climate Change Project has been engaging students in environmental discussion and equipping them with the tools to reduce their own environmental impacts since last summer. We are hoping that by hosting Hard Rain we can continue to get the community involved in making positive contributions to the environment and allow them to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.
“We have started a number of initiatives that are designed to reduce the community’s carbon footprint, save students money, help them meet new people, learn new skills, and reduce their carbon footprints in as fun a manner as possible. We feel that every single student can find something in our project that they can get involved in and hope that this exhibition will allow us to engage with even more people.”
The Hard Rain Project was established as a charity in 2009 to support educational programmes for schools, universities and colleges, and public exhibitions that campaign for realistic solutions to the interlinked problems of climate change, poverty, the wasteful use of resources, population expansion, habitat destruction and species loss.
here’s a wee interview with Mark Edwards, taken from when the project was on show down in Manchester…
Filed under: on the bookshelf, on the mind, on the parchment, on the plate, on the projector, on the travels, on the turntable
had quite a goodun methinks!…
a fair bit of reading for the diss & a much larger bit of cinema going for giggles!
had a crack at making some of these as part of my procrastination exercise…
made a few cheeky purchases…a soviet typewriter from oxfam for a fiver, a ticket to the scotland-italy game next saturday as a pitstop point on my way home, and my first battered mars bar, from the original ‘batterers’ in stonehaven!
had a spot of man flu, so plenty of custard creams and cups of tea were on the cards…
went on a road trip down the east coast
and wrapped my ears around these three treasures…all absolutely brilliant
x
Filed under: on the projector, on the screen, on the stage | Tags: 127 Hours, BAFTA, Blue Valentine, Howl, Never Let Me Go, Please Give, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Way Back, True Grit
so tonight’s the night of the British Academy Film Awards…but who really needs that, when you have another set of The Checkered Mind’s quick one (ish) line reviews of recently watched films!?
kicking things off…
Blue Valentine – magnificent acting from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams giving light to the toughest part of a relationship and one that is rarely portrayed on the screen….the breakdown of marriage and the slow pain of falling out of love…brilliant, but really not something to watch at the beginning of a day like i did, otherwise you’ll feel slightly depressed!
Never Let Me Go – equally as depressing! but in a different way…Carey Mulligan is the stand out act in this heartbreaking film of inevitable loss, but admiration also has to go to the child actors and actresses who were suprisingly fantastic in their roles. slightly slow at times, but covering many angles of love, jealousy, hope, courage, pain and acceptance, extremely well
True Grit – marvellous film from some of the finest directors of our time. Jeff Bridges is as expected, sensational, however Hailee Steinfield steals the show completely. It is unlikely, (as she faces the likes of Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore), but i would love to see her take tonight’s Leading Actress award. A fine, fine western, also portraying the best bear balancing on a horse act i’ve seen for a long time ;)
Howl – a cheeky little number starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg, telling the story of his bloody brilliant poem Howl and how it caused a stir in court due to it’s obscene language, etc, for the time. Howl also helps to portray Ginsberg’s rise to stardom and his early attempts to become the great artist that he inevitably did. Good, but at times slightly questionable, particularly the animated sections
The Way Back – highly average ‘epic’ survival film. certainly a fantastic story (based on real events and taken from the memoirs of a Siberian POW Camp escapee), however very slow at times and an ending that leaves you asking, so what happened to that guy? and, so when is this bit happening? i personally expected better from director Peter Weir
Black Swan – wonderfully odd, powerful, poetic and haunting. Natalie Portman is beautifully awesome, Vincent Cassel is enthralling and Mila Kunis does a pretty decent job too! huge respect for Darren Aronofsky, as this is, as many have said, a glorious piece of film…expect it to snatch up several awards later
Please Give – slow, dull and doesn’t really go anywhere. But, if it has Catherine Keener in it i have to watch! not recommended though
The Fighter – i usually question how exhilarating and essentially different a boxing film can be as there’s been too many dull and average ones in the past. however, this really is pretty good. this is chiefly thanks to the (surprisingly) decent acting of Mark Whalberg and at least in this case, the remarkable Christian Bale. kudos to the usually irritating Amy Adams as well! The Fighter also stands out due to concentrating on life outside of the ring, adding a great deal of realism to the challenges presented to a professional sportsman. it’s a shame the Supporting Actor award won’t fling towards Bale tonight, as Geoffrey Rush has (in my opinion) to take it!
127 Hours – James Franco again, but probably in a much more challenging role. he plays his character superbly well, from the innocently arrogant to the authentically gritty and desperate. Danny Boyle’s survival movie has excellent cinematography and excellent dialogue, packing an exhaustingly large amount into just 90-ish minutes. probably not a film you’d go out of your way to watch a second time, (essentially for the fear of becoming bored and starting to dislike it), however this adventure is certainly worth a view…plus Clemence Poesy is in it :P
The King’s Speech – there’s little to say really. extremely good stuff, particularly from Geoffrey Rush, although i’m sure Colin Firth will steal the show again! (not that he doesn’t deserve the acclaim…he plays George VI fantastically). a big award winner im guessing!
enjoy the show tonight…it’s clearly been a sensational year for film :)
x
Filed under: on the bookshelf, on the film reel, on the mind, on the muddy fields, on the parchment, on the plate, on the projector, on the screen, on the stage, on the streets, on the travels, on the turntable, on the waves
it’s almost the end of another year…so let’s review it!
these are all my personal opinions, so please feel free to agree or agressively criticise, sup to you :)
Best Moments Of The Year
- That first look at Mt. Everest
- Faithless followed by Stevie Wonder at Glastonbury 2010
- Going to the Taj Mahal
- Having an elephant back bath
- White water rafting in Nepal
Biggest Mares Of The Year
- Being told I had to turn back with Everest Basecamp just ahead (but at least im still alive!)
- The Tory Government coming to power
- The World Cup…both the event itself and our bid going to pot
- That bungee jump lol
- Come Around Sundown…get it together KOL!
Best Book I’ve Read This Year
- Lustrum – Robert Harris
Best 25 Albums Of The Year
- Warpaint – The Fool
- Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
- Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
- Stornoway – Beachcomber’s Windowsill
- Foals – Total Life Forever
- Bombay Bicycle Club – Flaws
- Tallest Man On Earth – The Wild Hunt
- Beach House – Teen Dreams
- The National – High Violet
- Lonelady – Nerve Up
- Villagers – Becoming A Jackal
- Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
- GAYNGS – Relayted
- Deerhunter – Halycon Digest
- Broken Bells – Broken Bells
- Delta Spirit – History From Below
- Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History
- Anais Mitchell – Hadestown
- Perfume Genius – Learning
- Phosphorescent – Here’s To Taking It Easy
- Midlake – Courage Of Others
- Band Of Horses – Infinite Arms
- Interpol – Interpol
- Best Coast – Crazy For You
- Robert Plant – Band Of Joy
Best Embarrassing Album Of The Year!
- Ellie Goulding – Lights
Best 25 Singles Of The Year (From What I Know Were Released As Singles…)
- Foals – Spanish Sahara
- Laura Marling – Rambling Man
- Two Door Cinema Club – What You Know
- Warpaint – Undertow
- Aracade Fire – Ready To Start
- Stornoway – Zorbing
- Foals – This Orient
- Mumford & Sons – The Cave
- Ray Lamontagne And The Pariah Dogs – Old Before Your Time
- Aloe Blacc – I Need A Dollar
- Villagers – Becoming A Jackal
- Bombay Bicycle Club – Ivy And Gold
- Gorillaz Ft. Little Dragon – Empire Ants (not a single, but such a fucking ace song!)
- Arcade Fire – We Used To Wait
- Kelis – Acapella
- Black Keys – Tighten Up
- Interpol – Barricade
- Delta Spirit – Bushwick Blues
- Dum Dum Girls – Stiff Little Fingers
- LCD Soundsystem – Drunk Girls
- Lonelady – Intuition
- Beach House – Zebra
- The Morning Benders – Excuses
- Caribou – Odessa
- The Coral – 1000 Years
Best Embarrassing Single Of The Year!
- Katy Perry – Fireworks
Best Band/Artist Of The Year
- Justin Vernon – the dude is just everywhere, again, making sensational music! he features chiefly on Relayted by GAYNGS (a supergroup including the likes of Justin Vernon and Mike Noyce from Bon Iver, Ivan Howard from The Rosebuds, Joe Westurland and the Cook brothers from Megafaun and Jake Luck and Nick Ryan from the Leisure Birds). Vernon also features on many of the songs from Anais Mitchell’s brilliant folk opera Hadestown, based on a modern story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Finally, he even makes a couple of appearances on Kanye West’s knew record!
Best Gig Of The Year
- Interpol (Edinburgh Corn Exchange)
Best Festival Of The Year
- Glastonbury 2010
Best 30 Movies Of The Year (Released In The UK Since Jan 1st)
- Inception
- Un Prophete
- Shutter Island
- Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
- The Social Network
- Toy Story 3
- Exit Through The Gift Shop
- Crazy Heart
- The Secret In Their Eyes
- Gainsbourg
- Le Concert
- Winter’s Bone
- Another Year
- The Kids Are Alright
- Please Give (not released in uk, but seen and liked!)
- The Ghost Writer
- Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt. 1
- A Single Man
- Kick-Ass
- Megamind
- Greenburg
- The Town
- L’arnacoeur
- The Lovely Bones
- Certified Copy
- The Road
- The American
- The Arbor
- Robin Hood
- L’Illusioniste
Plus…The Way Back, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Tempest, Never Let Me Go and True Grit (not released yet…but i’m expecting them to be pretty darn good!)
Best Documentary Film
- When You’re Strange – A Film About The Doors
Best Embarrassing Movie!
- Easy A
Best Actor Of The Year
- Leonardo DiCaprio – as it has always been said…he doesn’t make a bad movie. And seeing how both the remarkable Shutter Island and the even greater Inception were released this year with DiCaprio playing the lead roles exceptionally, it couldn’t really go to anyone else!
Best Actress Of The Year
- Julianne Moore – i wasn’t sure who to pick to be completely honest, but Moore’s roles in both The Kids Are Alright and A Single Man were really very very good and im certain she’ll be up there with a fighting chance for an Oscar
Best 10 TV Programme’s Of The Year
- Accused
- This Is England 86
- Any Human Heart
- An Idiot Abroad
- IT Crowd
- Five Daughters
- I’m In A Rock N Roll Band
- I Am Slave
- Secret Britain
- Pillars Of The Earth
Best 5 Exhibitions Of The Year
- A World Observed – Dorothy Bohm – Manchester Art Gallery
- The Doors: When You’re Strange – Idea Generation Gallery
- Wolfgang Tillmans – The Serpentine Gallery
- Skin – The Wellcome Collection
- Exposed: Voyeurism, Suerveillance and the Camera – The Tate Modern
Best 5 Sporting Moments Of The Year
- The Ashes (not over yet, but we’re playing pretty damn well!)
- Rooney And Scholes’ last minute winning goals against Manchester City in January and April
- Amy Williams’ Winter Olympics gold medal
- England’s T20 World Cup Final victory over the Aussies
- Mark Cavendish kicking ass in the Tour De France
And Finally…Best Fish Of The Year!
- Barry…because the other one died…
:) x
Filed under: on the projector, on the turntable, on the waves | Tags: Fourteen Actors Acting, Maccabees, New York Times
how about some ace indie christmas melodies this week?
also go check this out from the NY Times…Fourteen Actors Acting
x
Filed under: on the projector
all these are out in 2011…next year is going to be pretty ace for films…
(lol sorry for the length)
plus…Tintin The Movie, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt 2 and The Hobbit!
x
Filed under: on the projector
it’s time for another…recently watched moomoomoovies thingy!
seeing how the last time i did one was the beginning of august, i’ll only review those i saw for the first time and, in order to keep things brief, only write one or two lines…so don’t fret :)
Full Metal Jacket
ha! yeh it took me 21 years to get round to watching this….preeeetty damn awesome though…a classic in the war dept.
American Gangster
long, but a decent biopic of frank lucas. can’t beat a bit of denzel, a couple of shoot-outs and a mighty good cast under the watchful eye of ridley scott.
Moon
already mentioned recently, but still, i must re-assert that it is superb and definitely worth watching…NOW!
In The Loop
i’ve been meaning to get stuck into ‘the thick of it’ for tiiiime, but i still haven’t. however, having watched in the loop ima getting on it asap…very funny, great cast, puts me off politics for life!
Blood Diamond
what would a ‘checkered mind’ review be without banging on about how great dicaprio is!? lol yeh, another ace film from the man, although not the best of accents! well directed and awesome acting, particularly from djimon hounsou.
The Kids Are Alright
a nice, quirky, indie flick about two lesbians who have kids through a sperm donor and now the kids are old, they want to meet poppa not-a-lez…who happens to be a bit crazy himself…who’d a thunk it!? very good though for some lazy afternoon viewing :)
The Runaways
man i love my music biopics! this really wasn’t that amazing, probably because i didnt know a vast amount about jonie jett and co prior to watching, but you can’t do much wrong with kristen stewart punking around, smashing shit up and looking really quite lovely…
Mr Nice
pretty damn ace account of the life and work of the delightful drug lord that is howard marks! rhys ifans makes the film what it is, while david thewlis plays a hilarious jim mcann, MEMBER OF THE FOCKIN PROVISIONAL IRA!
Sex And Drugs And Rock N Roll
another biopic of a legendary music artist? of course! this time it’s ian drury in the spotlight, played by andy serkis. it’s pretty good…but that’s about it…nothing special, but then again, nothing shit either…
Withnail & I
now this i liked! been meaning to watch this british classic for zonks, but have only just got round to it…was very impressed, with some brilliant humour and top notch acting from richard e. grant, paul mcgann and richard griffiths.
Derailed
pretty average film with clive owen and jenny aniston. it had a couple of pretty good twists, but nothing spectacular and all in all lacked a bit of umpf…
The Social Network
very funny, insightful and generally well made film about the makers of facebook…what more can i say? oh, apart from that i do not like timberlake…particularly as an ‘actor’ :P
Match Point
apparently, this is an amazing film from the god that is woody allen. i wasn’t so sure…it was alright, but a bit slow and by the end, pretty muddled and lost. maybe my mind just wasn’t open enough to appreciate it, who knows!? although apparently this is allen’s favourite of all his own films…which i just can’t grasp!
Red
a fun, shoot it up movie with some top class actors and actresses. really not that amazing, but i was always going to watch something that has malkovich, freeman, mirren and willis in it!
Easy A
another of those classic ‘growing up’ american high school films with some up and coming quirky people in…which i love! haha yup i am sadly a big fan of these things and just makes me want to turn the clock back 5 years and be plonked in a yank school for a bit so i can see if the movies are true! fun, daft and well casted…because it has emma stone in…whoop!
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
a mad comic book style movie, blending loads of bonkers stuff to make a pretty awesome storyline with the type of indie action romcom never been done before.
i am 1000% sure that i’ve missed tons, but nevermind! at the end of the day, i’m just gearing up for harry potter with utter embarrassing excitement! time to watch the previous six? sure thing!
x
Filed under: on the projector
just watched it…fucking amazing film…end of
:)
once again freshers week at uni is coming to a close and the work begins again…booo!
and to start my fourth year off with a bang, i have a two hour lecture at 9 on monday morning…yay!
but all is not lost…im feeling confident about this term, and things are looking up. i’m in a quality flat, i’m keeping busy as part of the Childreach society committee, i’ve got friends and family (hopefully) coming up on a few occassions in october, we have a gig week sorted (interpol, laura marling and frank turner all in 6 days!) and of course….this gem is hitting the big screen, baby!…
