Long Story Short, Im Back

Just dropping a post on the blog to say that I’m not dead, just really REALLY been busy with work alot lately.

I’ll be finding time to get back to posting random film reviews, eventually work out the Top 500 Films list (when I do the world may possibly end due to me taking that long to do it) and random events I’ve attended/will be attending.

Alot of time has been taking up with working at a placement I’ve been at since the end of September that I’ve now been taking up on a full-time post for a six month enrolling contract, which is awesome at a place called Besom Productions. Proud to be there and have my foot in the door and really appreciate being given the chance to show what I can do and hope to gain more as the months go by and still earn my keep by working hard. Alot been dealing with some personal shit lately, in particular my weight and overall diet which I’ve been working on for several and lost well over a stone and still trying find the right balance for the diet with my work and working a routine around it aswell for exercise.

So a quick recap of shit that’s happened:

WWE RAW in Belfast last month was awesome again for my friends birthday

Very much looking forward to London in October for the NFL game

Radio 1′s Big Weekend in Derry was brilliant too

 

 

Jason Clarke Signs Up For Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

Inspired casting news as Jason Clarke has been signed up to appear in The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes sequel, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.

The only other actor that has been confirmed to be appearing in the film (technically) is Andy Serkis, who is returning for the role of Ceasar. Not much details have been released of the film other than this short synopsis:

The story is set 15 years after the events of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, following two different aspects; a group of scientists (with Clarke likely to be one of them) trying to survive in post-ape-ocalyptic San Francisco and the continued struggle of Ceasar as the most intelligent of the apes.

Clarke has had a decent run on the big screen last year appearing in Lawless and Zero Dark Thirty, with this year appearing in The Great Gatsby, The Green Blade Rises and White House Down before this will be released (2014). I have yet to see him in these films so I’m only going by his roles the small screen in Brotherhood (very good Showtime show) and The Chicago Code (Still personally believe this was cut before it had a true chance to shine) and really enjoy the intensity he brings to these roles, so it’ll be interesting to see where this leads for him in Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.

CultureTECH 2013 Launch

 

This afternoon at the Tower Hotel was the brief launch of CultureTECH 2013 of what to expect in September for the CultureTECH Festival and the answer is simple – think the same, but on a larger scale. Instead of all the events taking place in a few days, this years will now take place over the course of a week (9th – 15th September).

Expected at this years festival will be over 100 events and an expected audience of 30,000 across the week. To show how much bigger the festival is expected to be in September, there was a release of how the festival will be structured aswell as a few events announced that will take place this year.

CONFERENCE: Three days of high-profile industry speakers spread across two conferences – the CultureTECH Conference and the Belfast Media Festival @ CultureTECH. The theme for this year’s CultureTECH conference is ‘Telling Digital Stories’.

SOCIAL: Each evening you can relax and connect at informal meetups, live comedy events, dinner seminars, formal receptions and a very special edition of the DANI Awards.

JUNIOR: A major new addition to the festival  the CultureTECH Jnr. Programme – supported by Seagate – will work with over a dozen schools across a week of events including the first ever visit to N Ireland by Teen Tech and attempt the largest Dojo Coder event with 500 kids doing coding (so get your laptops in or have them on standby to give a lent to someone).

SHOWS: CultureTECH 2013 features everything from gallery exhibitions and live theatre events to film screenings and gaming tournaments. Make sure to drop by the Open Gallery and the region’s biggest ever gaming event (A 3-Day Minecraft Tournament), hosted by MultiPlay. Also on hand will be City Arcade this time spanning across the city (rather than Millenium Forum/Foyleside) showcasing the major/indie games aswell as local ones through 60 screens in the city centre.

SEMINARS/WORKSHOPS: Dozens of informal workshops and seminars will take place across the historic city centre in cafes, bars, retail spaces and secret venues. Delivered by a host of experts, sessions will cover everything from business skills to the latest industry tools.

LIVE MUSIC: Intimate daytime sessions blend into nightly showcases from local labels, before carrying on into the small hours with audio-visual treats featuring brilliant local talent. And make sure you hang around for our Saturday afternoon picnic, this year hosted by the ‘Small but Massive’ Glasgowbury Festival.

CultureTECH will release more information on the seminars/speakers and live acts to perform at the festival in April.

Really interested to see who the speakers will be at this years. Unfortunately I missed everything at last years festival due to entering the 48hr film competition at it but I did get to work/film the Japanese Popstars night at the Nerve Centre for CultureTECH and that was an absolute blast!

Also CultureTECH are interested to hear your ideas that you want to put forward for the festival, works/events/activities you’d like to see and that you’d like to run. If you happen to be interested, just follow this link for more details: - http://culturetech.co/submissions

 

Radio 1s Big Weekend Returns To Derry For 2013

 

Literally the worst kept secret in town, it was confirmed on finally by Radio 1 on their Breakfast Show yesterday morning that Radio 1 will be returning to Derry with One Big Weekend from the 24th-26th May 2013.

This particularly famous Radio 1 event will be held at Ebrington Square and means to get tickets will be announced soon on the Radio 1 website but it is expected like the last few years, in particular Hackney last year, that tickets will be got through an online lottery by applying on the BBC website and those with Derry Postcodes or around that region will get major preference than say someone in Wales, England or Scotland.

 

For the three day event it is still unknown as to who the main acts will be but City of Culture organiser, Martin Bradley, said to BBC News:

“With this kind of event in the city, the media coverage and profile of the city is going to be phenomenal now for the next few months,” said Mr Bradley.

“The line-up is absolutely amazing, we are going to have international stars here in the city and you just couldn’t put a price on that.”

Jason Carter, the BBC’s head of live music and events, popular music said that while he could not reveal names:

“I can tell you we will be having huge UK artists and huge US artists in the line-up”.

Already confirmed for Radio 1′s Big Weekend from the Breakfast Show yesterday to perform at the event were Olly Murs and Two Door Cinema Club.

 

Already Derry people are going gaga for tickets and how to get them and falling for quite a few jokes already of places to get tickets and where to purchase them (even though they are always FREE (well, bar that time of the small booking fee charge brought in at Hackney last year)).

I believe this is the first time that Radio 1 is actually bringing back One Big Weekend to a city that has already had it before, the last one being way back in 2004 back when there was just ONE stage! And I was 17 (jesus christ).

Just look at what the lineup was 9 years ago:

 

Now I bloody enjoyed it way back then (unlike a few I know that couldn’t remember it due to being drunk as hell) but with the One Big Weekend getting bigger and getting more names as time has gone by, it will be interesting to see who they bring to the city.

Brace Yourself…The Entourage Film Is Coming

 

They’ve been talking about it for a while (Mark Wahlberg and Doug Ellin and virtually every reporter that asks anyone that was on the show respectfully) and finally Warner Bros have given them the license to go for it by green lighting the film.

The film will see the return of the gang, Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Chase (Adrian Grenier), Eric ‘E’ Murphy (Kevin Connolly), Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), Turtle (Jerry Ferrera) and of course, Vinnie’s super-agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven).

There has been no confirmed set date for film release or when production will go underway. What we do know, from Doug Ellin, is that the film will be set six months after the series finale and will focus on Ari Gold’s new career move.

The HBO series of Entourage ran from 2004-2011, lasting 8 seasons and earned a couple of awards, well, Jeremy Piven got the awards for his role as Ari Gold landing him with 3 Emmy’s and a Golden Globe during the shows run. The rest of the cast is under wraps, hopefully some familiar supporting characters/actors will return (looking particularly in the direction of Rex Lee’s ‘Lloyd’, Emmanuelle Chriqui’s ‘Sloan’ and Constance Zimmer’s ‘Dana Gordon’) and of course the trademark special guests playing themselves.

It will be interesting to see how this will do in the box office, as there is plenty of people out there would absolutely DETESTED this show when it was on air and the lifestyle it portrayed whereas I enjoyed the take of the Hollywood deal-makings, the parties, the overall brotherly bond between the characters (which seemed to have been lost in the last few seasons compared to earlier seasons) and of course, how the hell can you not enjoy any Ari Gold scene where he constantly gets stressed and flips out?

Also key to this is that it is focusing on Ari Gold, who is in fact the most layered/enjoyable/relatable character in the show. More posts on this in future when more details come out.

In the meantime, have some more Ari Gold um…Gold!

 

Sin City A Dame To Kill For Finally Has Its Ava Lord

A role that was long touted to be Angelina Jolie’s for the last few years, Sin City: A Dame To Kill as finally got an actress for the femme fatale, Ava Lord. And it ain’t Jolie.

Eva Green has been signed up for the role for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s film just as production has got underway. The character is described by co-director Frank Miller as “every man’s most glorious dreams come true, she’s also every man’s darkest nightmares”.

“We’ve been wanting to tell this story for a very long time. Ava Lord is one of the most deadly and fascinating residents of Sin City. From the start, we knew that the actor would need to be able to embody the multifaceted characteristics of this femme fatale and we found that in Eva Green. We are ecstatic that Eva is joining us.” – Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller

Eva Green will be mostly opposite Josh Brolin’s ‘Dwight’ character (replacing Clive Owen) in the story as “Dwight is hunted down by the only woman he ever loved, Ava Lord, and then watches his life go straight to hell. Chronologically, this story takes place prior to “The Big Fat Kill” (One of the stories in the first Sin City film) and explains how Dwight came to have a dramatically different face.”

Surprising that it took so long for the role to be filled, considering it’s the main leading woman role in the main story of the film, which is set for release in October of this year.

Josh Brolin replacing Clive Owen isn’t the only role being recast in this film. Dennis Haysbert is replacing the dearly departed Michael Clarke Duncan in the role of ‘Manute’ while Jaime Chung will be replacing Devon Aoki in the role of ‘Miho’, with the report being she was replaced due to her pregnancy at the time of production.

Returning to Sin City: A Dame To Kill For are Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Jaime King with rumors that Michael Madsen may return and joining alongside them now will be Eva Green, Josh Brolin, Joesph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Chung, Juno Temple, Alexa Vega, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Meloni, Dennis Haysbert and Julia Garner.

That’s quite an assembled cast again right there and the big names from the first film are back again for the second. Also by the time the film is released in October, will be strange to remember that the first Sin City will have been released 8 years ago by then.

There are four stories involved in this film, two comic stories ‘A Dame To Kill For’ (Ava Lord/Dwight) and ‘Just Another Saturday Night’ (Marv) aswell as two new original stories, ‘The Long Bad Night’ (Johnny/Marcy) and the final story yet to be named (centres around the events after the first films ‘That Yellow Bastard’ story with Nancy trying to survive the remainder of the night with Yellow Bastard’s men on her trail.

One is definitely looking forward to this sequel as it has been a long time coming.

 

26th Birthday And 2013 Bucket List

Well I turned 26 there on Friday the 11th January. Was a decent enough celebration, which would’ve been better if I wasn’t bloody sick at all. Got plenty of various Birthday messages from friends and from plenty online so again, thanks to you all. Pretty low key birthday (as everyone is still suffering the Christmas/New Year celebrations burning their wallets/pockets)

So a good few things have been lined up work wise for 2013, but here’s a few things I’m hoping to do aswell this year.

5. Make A Few Short Films/Keep Writing

I have a good few ideas written out but always run into the same old problems – 1. I have too many ideas 2. Only do a few paragraphs before moving to the next one and forgetting about it leading to 3. Never finishing them all. There’s a few ideas, not from myself, put out there that I can direct for them which will be fun to do and add more to my portfolio. From learning alot here at my current placement aswell it would be nice to get some of these shorts, written by myself or otherwise and try to put them on a few film festivals as some of the stories are that good that if done properly, will have a good chance of getting recognition from it and a wide spread audience aswell.

4. Make A Full Length Feature

I am currently working on one lengthy piece of script at the minute and currently thinking that it is better to do it as a full length feature film than a short film. As always the problem with such things, it all comes down to costs aswell as the timing of everything to work, from getting the right cast down to everyone being free at the same time and, for the love of god for the weather to be good/bad when expected for the right time of certain scenes. Can’t go into much detail on this just yet but will hopefully around May have something more concrete to give you details on.

3. Take A Holiday

It’ll be coming up close to 5 years since I’ve last had a holiday abroad. Definitely looking to change it up this year by either doing some inter-railing around Europe (if I can afford it) and if not that then definitely hit up Prague again. Even though I spent 5 days in the city back in 2006 I absolutely fell in love with the place and have pined, yes pined to get back to it ever since.

2. NFL At Wembley

Well I can tick this off this list for as I was writing this I just got tickets for me and the family to hit up London in October to go to the San Francisco 49ers vs Jacksonville Jaguars game at Wembley Stadium. NICE ONE! So this will be the first ever NFL game I’ve attended (and hopefully not the last). With the old man having his heart craved with 49ers on it and his first NFL game supporting the team he loves, it would be an interesting weekend in London as I’ve never been. Though I think there’ll be some stick my way walking about the stadium with my Philadelphia Eagles jersey.

1. Meet More Of The Social Media Circle

Odd choice to add to the list I know, but I’ve done plenty of networking via people I know through the social media circle and would be nice to meet a few of these people that I’ve come to know over the years via the interweb, especially those that are working within the same industry as I am. Whether it’s meeting a few of the US peeps over there (which I will get to, but doubt it will be this year), or those within Europe, maybe even Amsterdam (you know who you are) or even Armenia (you DEFINITELY know who you are), it would be nice to meet up with even one or two of them and it helps with the City of Culture year in Derry a few other from across Europe will be around here anyways.