I started listening to this track a few days ago after doing some random browsing on youtube when I stumbled onto this song by Damien Rice, I instantly fell in love with it and went to go watch Goldfish Memory, a cute irish film which has the song in it. Go listen to it and then watch the film if you like it, it’s a bit corny and lovey dovey but they have irish accents so that’s made of win. Hopefully the photo of Lisa Hannigan’s boots will tempt you to give it a listen (oh and I’m sneaky by embedding a youtube video in it but reducing the height of the film because all it shows are photos which is boring :p

Park Il-sun and Cha Young-goon

No not me! Don’t be silly! A few weeks ago I was recommended (by Uka) to watch a film called “I’m a cyborg, but that’s ok” (aka Saibogujiman kwenchana). The name struck me as wacky but intriguing. Most importantly, it was directed by Chan-wook Park who’s famous for his gritty and violent vengeance trilogy movies (mmm violence, watch Old Boy if you haven’t already).

It struck me as weird when I heard he had made a fantasy feel good movie. I had doubts on whether he’d be able to pull a movie that sounded like a Korean version of Amelie but with more crazy people and cyborgs into some awesome and inspiring, turns out he did.

Again I’m sucky with synopsis so here’s one that was carefully written by imdb or something:

“A girl who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man who thinks he can steal people’s souls”

Almost like the reverse of Insane in the Mainframe (Je suis Napoleon) if you ask me :). Anyway, the film was really good, each character had their own special little story (like a guy who kept apologising to everybody and has to walk backwards) and it was fun watching them all mingle up in a mental hospital, the two main characters are super cute and at some point you get some crazy flying yodelling song (I probably revealed too much but whatever! haha) sung by the main hero of the movie.

Tonight I decided to not only write a review about the film, but to try and do a photo based on it, it didn’t come out too well but my legs were growing tired from doing random poses haha. The film leaves you feeling happy and inspired inside and is definitely a nice film to watch, so yeah, go buy it!

Here’s a trailer if you’re unconvinced:

The lovely Dominique Pinon, tasty

Bonjour. Two days ago amazon were lovely to send me a copy of delicatessen which i was delighted in watching. Now we all remember my wishy washy review of la cité des enfants perdus. Here’s a little history about Jeunet and Caro, the directors of the film. They originally wanted to make la cité des enfants perdus, but their idea was too big and extravagent and due to lack of funding they had to raise capital in order to actually start this film, so it was put on hold, and this is where delicatessen comes in, they made this movie in order to fund la cité des enfants perdus. This was far more mainstream and it was a hit, they got their mulla and was able their film they originally wanted.

Love the recurring characters in Jeunet’s films? This is the same, the awesome Dominique Pinon stars as the hero of the movie, its about a post apocalyptic city where lentils and corn are their currency, nothing grew and they were running out of food, people were starving. So what does that lead to? I’ll let you watch it to find out. This contains more usual quirks you see in Amelie and Very Long Engagement, the music is awesome (cello and saw mmm) and everyone has their side story, if you loved Amelie (the film) then this is for you.

I keep getting side tracked on the film I was supposed to watch, nevermind, tonight I watched Temple of Doom which needs no reviews, got loads of DVDs coming my way to watch. Though at the same time I need to listen to lots of music, downloaded Shout out Louds latest album and have it on right now, sounds really good. Might review albums but I prefer movies.

The film (this time I can actually talk about it) is about a married couple going through a divorce, it reminds me of Royal Tenenbaums but more retro and less quirky, and the family is obviously a lot smaller, and there’s less famous actors in this (there’s Miles from LOST!), its quirky when you see Bernard do the most silly things throughout the show.

Anyway, less talk, very good film to watch, give it a go if you haven’t already

I’m glad I actually saw a squid and a whale in the movie, I was always fascinated by it after playing katamari haha.

Oh and I like the poster of the film, it compliments my site (thank you poster)

Dominique Pinon is awesome in it (the guy who records stuff in Café des Deux Moulins about his ex), in this film you literally can’t get enough of him! I love directors who reuse characters in their films (Wes Anderson and Wong Kar Wai being some examples). Not to mention when there’s subtle references to previous films.

The main hero and heroine of the movie are cute together, the music is eerie and setting is gritty and dreamlike. The protagonist is pretty scary though, will probably give you nightmares teehee. Don’t watch the dubbed stuff, start practising your french and watch it in it’s original language (because dubbed stuff ruins everything)

So yeah, watch! Next film will probably be Lust Caution. I hear good stuff about it.

It’s rare to see a really good romance movie, especially one that doesn’t involve sex and the ubiquitous silhouette intimate shot. Romance is supposed to be subtle, something that creeps up to you and this portrays it with gusto. You become attached to the characters and really suck into how they feel for each other. I’m going to watch this film tonight again, I advise people to buy a copy because it’s one of these films that you should watch before you die, easily one of my favorites.

The music is beautiful (and sad), the characters are awesome (you seem them together a lot in other films) and the plot is epic. Watch this if you feel in the mood.

Might watch 2046 afterwards but that one does get a bit depressing. I easily prefer In the Mood for love.

Now let’s get into the meat, I was quite pumped for the “gig”, the fact that 75,000 people were clapping their hands to Starlight made you want to conform to the others and clap along. The mood was certainly there, the problem is, “is everyone going to let themselves go and pretend it’s the gig all over again?” Sadly the answer is no, so although you’re getting the full on experience and sound, unfortunately the atmosphere of a cinema simply means you won’t be jumping along and doing all the air guitar bits when Matt does New Born or Invincible. Granted this was the cinema I went to and not really speaking for everyone else, however I’m certain about a few things that we all shared, and perhaps I should just list them:

The fans depicted in the movie were hilarious, if they were Muse fans than boy have they turned emo. I guess they cut the scenes where fans were overexcited about the gig and do more headbanging than the usual head banging Tom, Dick or Harry. Notice the kid who had his eyes covered and him mouthing the words? Or the numerous amount of girls with thick eyeliners mouthing the words with such passion that it can almost be deemed as love making? Or that random chav crowd surfing? The list goes on…

The movie was broadcasted from Belgium. Someone suggested that you might see the buffering going on or the progress bar sliding away, better yet a youtube sign or something to really give it that streaming quality. It was pretty decent, especially when it was all in HD quality (again, Matt’s face shouldn’t be in HD). There were about 3-4 times where the streaming cut off, one noticeable one was when the riff to New Born kicked in. We started cheering each time that happened. Had to be done I suppose.

Chris did a lot of smiling and giggling during the gig, bless him

Quite a lot of saturation and contrast going on, works pretty well but adds that emo tone towards it, especially when contrast is a girls ultimate weapon when taking photos of themselves (in myspace poses no doubt (do people still use myspace?)). The colour was nonetheless rich and pretty.

As predicted, the camera work did involve a lot of crazy zooming, I believe plug in baby had the “shaking camera” effect to get that rock and roll feeling going on, most of this has been done during Absolution and Hullabaloo so nothing new there, I suppose the effects, HD quality as well as super lighting makes up for it all.

All in all, it was a good visit, getting tickets was funny because you hardly get guestlisted to cinemas haha. We had a few annoying women in front of us constantly yappering and going on about how good muse are, not to mention two oddballs who got taken out of the cinema for recording the show. Pretty eventful night I must say. Let’s hope more bands do this because it can come out really well, especially for landmark gigs such as the Wembley one. Now all you need is a decent home cinema system to relive that gig once again.

So yeah, share your experiences, on the scale of 1-5, how would you rate it?

So what shall we expect? Horrific details of Matt’s face magnified in HD (apparently only a few stars look good in HD, the rest look like they were from a sewer or live under a bridge…apparently)? Lots of nice close ups of emo fans (remember the crying guy in the Supermassive free gig?)? Close ups of matt playing guitar and piano? Some crazy shots of the aerial dancers? The legendary dom bass drum cam? Crazy digital zoom effects? Multi cam views? Well chances are they’ll all be there plus a few more, it is Wembley right? Hopefully they will since most of the above have been done on Hullabaloo (and the Glastonbury dvd wasn’t THAT interesting).

I advise everyone to grab a ticket (or win one?)a go see the show since you rarely get to see this in the cinemas, don’t forget to bring your surfboard! Popcorn’s for losers :p Here’s the list of venues you can see them which I’m sure you’ve already seen:

• Acton
• Birmingham
• Bristol Longwell Green
• Bury
• Carlisle
• Cheshire Oaks
• Edinburgh Ocean Terminal
• Fulham Broadway
• Islington
• Leeds Kirkstall Road
• Leicester
• Manchester Lowry
• Newcastle-under-Lyme
• Oxford
• Plymouth
• Portsmouth
• Southport
• Staines
• Worcester

And once you’ve bought your tickets, you can wet your lips some more by checking out stu’s trailer if you havent already

Yo Sushi and a very late stu

Upon arriving fashionable late I met up with Kazzie and got a seat at Yo Sushi! We were still waiting for Stu to arrive so we just sat around and drank some green tea, I ordered some cold dishes so that they were immediately ready when Stu was about and Kazzie ordered a chicken yakisoba to eat. The wait was pretty long as I believe Stu was almost an hour late. We eventually got nice and cosy and ate our food, Kazzie promised Stu that if he came today she would eat a Salmon Nigiri so we ordered just that (I persuaded her to do it so I could have her nigiri if she couldn’t finish the other one off hehe). The dish arrived and kazzie actually kept her promise and ate the thing. Though it’s nothing for us (me, alice, inn, kev and loads others), it was quite remarkable that Kazzie did eat raw salmon when she didn’t like fish in general!

I ordered a salmon skin hand roll, a tamago nigiri and a beef ramen which kept the bill nice and small (should of got a rainbow combo to be honest). I mentioned the gig I was going and Kazzie and Stu were pretty much up for it, we were then contemplating what to do between the gig and after Yo Sushi! After paying the bill and leaving victoria we headed off to the Apple store in Regent Street to have a look at the new ipods as well as perv at the iMacs. Stu did some research and found out that imax were showing Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix in a hour and a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Harry Potter! The difference was that it was at the imax (one of the biggest screens in the UK) and the last battle scene was in 3D! I think the idea of watching it all in 3D was too much to miss so we went to waterloo to pay imax a visit.

mmm Dumbledore in 3d

We were given large specs at imax and were able to buy decent tickets to the show and all. We were also able to catch a few 3d trailers to really enjoy the 3d experience, it was amazing! Things were popping out right in front of you and stuff, it just made us desperate to see what 3d harry potter had to offer!

The film was amazing, if you exclude hermione’s moving eyebrows, kazzie’s constant giggling about them, the large number of discrepancies from the film and the book and the fact that our seats were slightly to the left. The 3d bit however was flawless, it was amazing watching it all in 3d. The best bit was when Dumbledore was fighting Voldermort. Stu laughed at Dumbledore’s whipping wand technique and I was just gormless when the the glass at the ministry of magic shattered. It was all pretty jaw dropping when it was in 3d.

We are Physics! Did they goto the imax too?

After the film we decided to head off to the buffalo bar at Highbury Islington station. Stu decided that he was tired after watching Dumbledore in 3d so we left us at Euston. Kazzie brought her dslr camera so we were ready to take some lovely photos of the band at it. We met up with Michelle (who was with Caff) and headed to the venue to go check out the band. They were pretty amazing, really reminded me of Polysics as they were really jumpy and fun to watch. Photo taking was slightly tedious since the lighting was inconsistent and all. However with the help of flash I was able to take a few decent shots. The guitarist was wearing 3d specs which led me to believe that they might have went to see Harry Potter too haha.

After the gig there was also another band playing but due to time we had to leave at 11pm, was a shame since I wouldn’t mind watching them myself (they’re headling and all). But yeah, the venue was pretty far away from where I lived so it was best to call it a night instead of risking taking a painful night bus back home!

We got our tickets and bought some pop corn / drinks, jason bought the stuff, I told him I’ll buy him Nandos and everything. Me and Rachel shared a large sweet popcorn. I’ve noticed that the different in sizes were SO small. I poured a medium sized popcorn into a large pop corn box, turns out there was only room for a little bit more.

Anyway, on with the show, Was slightly glad that we were a bit late for the film. It was FILLED with ads and trailers, they really know how to sell stuff. Anyway back to the film, here’s a quick synopsis stolen from imdb about Casino Royale

Casino Royale introduces James Bond before he holds his license to kill. But Bond is no less dangerous, and with two professional assassinations in quick succession, he is elevated to ’00’ status. Bond’s first 007 mission takes him to Madagascar where he is to spy on a terrorist, Mollaka. Not everything goes to plan and Bond decides to investigate, independently of MI6, in order to track down the rest of the terrorist cell. Following a lead to the Bahamas, he encounters Dimitrios and his girlfriend, Solange. He learns that Dimitrios is involved with Le Chiffre, banker to the world’s terrorist organizations. Secret Service intelligence reveals that Le Chiffre is planning to raise money in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro at Le Casino Royale. MI6 assigns 007 to play against him, knowing that if Le Chiffre loses, it will destroy his organization. ‘M’ places Bond under the watchful eye of the beguiling Vesper Lynd. At first skeptical of what value Vesper can provide, Bond’s interest in her deepens as they brave danger together and even torture at the hands of Le Chiffre. In Montenegro, Bond allies himself with Mathis MI6’s local field agent, and Felix Leiter who is representing the interests of the CIA. The marathon game proceeds with dirty tricks and violence, raising the stakes beyond blood money and reaching a terrifying climax.

This film was made by the guy who did Goldeneye, which was a proper classic so this bond film was definitely worth watching.

One of the first things I noticed in Casino Royale was when the guy opened his drawers at the first scenes, and BAM! A SONY WALKMAN!! It looked so out of place. Instantly I saw a trend going on, Sony REALLY went crazy on the product placements! Throughout the film I saw the following products that they tried selling: 3 types of Sony Erricson phones, Omega watch, Ford car, Sony Vaio Laptops, Sony Cybershot Camera, Prada Sunglasses (rachel mentioned them to me), Virgin planes (complete with Richard Branson), Aston martins, DBS, Rolex (just the name), Channel and Evening Standard.

The film itself was very good, it was done very nicely but was perhaps let down by the product placement, its really hard to treat the film seriously when you are so aware that the film is trying to sell countless products to you. The phones in particular, probably because its one of the things you COULD buy, rather then an Omega watch.

I’d give the film an 7 out of 10, would have been an 8 if it didnt have so many product placements. Everything was done nicely, the main villain looked like someone from Franz Ferdinand haha.
After a nice movie, we went straight to Nandos for some greasy hot chicken action, I ordered my usual :). Jason bought a medium quarter chicken and Rachel got some random pita bread chicken. Both medium I think haha, they should try hot, its awesome.

I took a nice photo of them (and my food haha). The camera went nuts on the ISO so its grainy as ever, hopefully it wont be the case when I invest myself in a Canon 400d haha.

and my food haha, the chicken is nice and dry

After a nice meal, I ordered some additional ExTRA hot wings, they were hotter then the ones at Wembley. We had a nice long chat, was awesome

Afterwards I went back home and enjoyed the rest of the evening lounging about