www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o3X4GqfZZ0

and I SAW THE DEVIL:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY5Fq68To0E

I’m pretty sure there’s enough style on offer with those two flicks alone that it won’t matter if I don’t see another movie for the rest of the year.

Download a copy from here if you’re even slightly Tuttle curious.

Oh and I accidentally wrote the foreword. You may wanna skip that page. Or draw cocks on it.

File 26: Just Not Cricket from Mike Atherton on Vimeo.

Quite a turn out plus we had cake and champers. I got the impression that the excitement about a move to the ICA outweighed any sadness at leaving our old quirky venue.

Do come along this Friday of you can. The sign up wiki is here.

And If you missed it last week then here are some bits and bobs from the morning including some excellent ukulele playing from Lloyd:

That should also give you an idea of the Flip Mino’s quality.

This is interesting:

This website follows Bryony as she attempts to make the world’s first UGC zombie movie.

What’s a UGC movie?

UGC stands for User Generated Content. That means it’s a film that’s made entirely by contributions from the online community…

So what’s the BBC’s involvement?

The Zombie movie is entirely up to Bryony – we’re just following her as she makes it…

The Beeb are actually doing a bit more than that. By choosing to follow the project and committing to having a documentary by the end of it the BBC are in many ways legitimatising what Paperlillies is up to. At least in the eyes of BBC viewers who think YouTube is nothing but a place to watch old episodes of Doctor Who or ‘that video with the monkey’ (take your pick).

It’s an interesting step for a channel like BBC 3 and I think the correct one. Just recently I watched Adam Buxton’s MeeBOX and while I’ve always enjoyed his work and he’s obviously very in tune with the Internet  this came across as a tad dated and way too obvious. Disturbingly he also suddenly looks a lot like Documentally.

The other show that promised to play in the world I live and work in was Delta Forever:

This was a pilot for a proposed show about an online community whose lives revolve around a very Harry Potterish series of novels. Some things the pilot got absolutely right (the Scottish character defending the original title of the first novel over the bastardised American version rang some serious bells for this Dark Materials fanboy), but the most obvious failure was the idea that these kids needed a visual cue to help them stand out as Internet nerds. The cast had to suffer a tedious amount of OTT makeup. Horrible to watch, which was a shame for the few good performances that got buried. But there was something there that to me at least warranted further viewing and I’d be interested to watch the concept develop if it gets picked up for a series.

That may of course have more to do with the pilot revolving around an advance geek screening of a film that the fans will either love or loathe. Something I have a certain familiarity with…

The zombie project though is an entirely fresher idea. First and foremost this is a project developed by an already popular online community member and something that was set in motion before the Beeb swung a beam on it. I think an organisation as big and respected as the BBC getting involved at this stage of an online madcap idea is very important and the payoff for everyone involved is accumulative.

There is of course the danger that if handled improperly the YouTubers will come off as a little irregular, but to survive on YouTube you need to be pretty thick-skinned so I’m not too worried with that angle. It should be win-win for the Beeb as this kind of thing makes them look web savvy at a time when they need a leg-up in that area. The worry is that they’ll cut corners on this in the way they have with the iPlayer (great concept, horrible realisation – note the two show links above now have nowhere to go which will now instead send you straight for a torrent).

What they could have on their hands is something as vital as say the upcoming We Are Wizards or at the very least an interesting companion piece to it. It also comes at a time when Joss Whedon is putting a fork in this space too.

Oddly enough this seems to be the summer for home-made zombie projects. I’ve been made aware of a small pile of them currently in production with budgets ranging from the very modest to the very respectable. This however is by far the most interesting. The plot for once is the least of my concerns as I’m far more interested in how a community comes together to pull this kind of project off.

It’s the kind of thing that was talked about a lot in the early days of Seesmic but it came to nothing. While some of my more succesful recent projects have been built in a similar way by finding the right people with the right skills in my own social media backyard (which handily stretches across the globe), but nothing quite on this scale.

Getting the right people together to land an interview with Stephen Spielberg is one thing. Beating him at his own game is quite another…

Still pulling the footage off the camera, but here’s something I did on the LG Viewty:

More to come…

All a bit too Mighty Boosh for my liking, but a good night out.

We’ve had Jessa from Bookslut staying with us for the week as she was covering the London Book Fair, so a bit of a book geek bash seemed in order.

Pub / Thai / pub / tube/ home/ whisky and kittens.

With Jess, James, Liv, Ben, Mecca and… oh yeah… after a drop of single malt we finally saw Rob‘s alter ego: The Hinch

We also saw the Hoxton locals share an expensive looking wheel chair which seemed to be the latest fashion accessory, a guy looking very relaxed waiting for the tube as he filled his shoes with vomit and then we somehow managed to catch the Death Carriage with the puke guy and yet the smell of fresh human excrement seemed to be coming from another part of the train entirely.

I love living in the city.

A couple of things bug me about this now that it’s out in the wild. I’ve since found out more stuff about the tank that I’d liked to have included, but if I get enough I’ll do a follow up later in the year. The editing is awful, but that’s ok because I’m learning as I go along and I put it together at 4am. The ‘titles’ are too long and already piss me off. I have a lot of musical friends so ripping off L7 should stop at some point…

There’s a lot I like about the video too. It frees me from the pressure of coming up for a ‘show’ for Blip and Viddler and all the other services out there. By piecing this thing together for Semanal (more about that in the next post) it gives me the perfect excuse to focus on a show type format while I use smaller vids to pepper the site with no real agenda. The title ‘Visible Monsters’ of course was just an extension of this blog’s title, but now people expect a series of similar London based stories. That’s no problem as I have a bunch and it’s also kind of fun.

One man’s monster is another man’s hero so there’s plenty of scope there.

Right, now I should talk about WHY I’n vlogging which is more interesting… stay tuned.

Since the first London Tweetup I get asked a lot if there’s going to be a second one. The plan was to do one in November, but I was too busy to sort it out. Now with December filling up fast I wanted to get something nailed down. Not just another little drink and nibble session, but something that we could build into a regular series of events in 2008.

Then I took my favourite video blogger on a Tuk Tuk ride through London. Then I got word that the blogger event was back on, but for a different movie. Then said Tuk Tuk partner, suggested we try and merge the two…

So we did just that.

I’m happy to invite any London Twitter users to a preview screening of Jason Reitman’s Juno on the 4th of December. The movie will be followed by an (also free) pre-Christmas party at the Union Bar.

Because this is a combined event the places I have are limited. Right now I have 25 seats for the movie, but if we go through those quickly there’s a chance I’ll get more. This is a FREE event just as long as you’re already on Twitter and are able to get to London on the 4th of December. This is strictly a first come first served basis so please leave a comment below along with your Twitter name so I can shove you on the list.

I saw Juno at the London Film Festival this year and it’s hilarious.

This year’s critically acclaimed film, Juno stars Ellen Page as MacGuff, a confident teenage girl who faces an unplanned pregnancy. She calls the shots with a nonchalant cool and an effortless attitude as she journeys through an emotional nine-month adventure into adulthood. Juno and best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) hatch a plan to find Juno’s unborn baby the perfect set of parents, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), who are longing to adopt their first child. Luckily, Juno has the support of her dad and stepmother (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney). Juno conquers her problems head-on, displaying a youthful exuberance both smart and unexpected

I’m really excited to invite friends to see it. This works well for Twitter users as we get a free movie and a little get-together and it works great for the film company as people on Twitter just can’t shut up

Some of you may have already been invited to the screening as ‘prominent bloggers’ in your own right. If that’s the case there’s no need to ask for another place as you’re already in.

Thanks to Rupert for suggesting the merge and Sheena and Fox Searchlight for being open to the idea of a social media gatecrash.

If this proves to be a fun night out (and I’m guessing we’ll have a great night) what I’d like to do is set up a maybe-monthly Twitter event based on the model. A bunch of us go to see a movie early, or perhaps an art show preview or anything else I can throw a group of us together for. Then we use Twitter to talk about it. But I also want to pepper the calendar with simple – let’s all go to the pub – events. And if I can wrangle someone to pay for a bar I will.

Let’s get December out of the way first though. Let me know who’s coming in the comments below…

UPDATE: The screening itself will take place in Soho Square at 6pm for a 6.30 start. The bash afterwards will kick off at 8pm at The Union, Soho in nearby Greek Street which is booked until midnight.

“We’re stuck in the fold of a map in the middle of Romania.”

A wet Monday morning, a 10.30am start and a large turnout for the first press screening of the festival, which is a pleasant change. Sometimes these things are as empty as a church or a training bra.

This morning’s movie is billed as a “Balkan farce” so I was naturally expecting just the usual die hard film nuts, but the place is half full. A lot of industry pass holders I see and not that many press. I assume there’s a certain curiosity to see what this young guy came up with before the taxi he was travelling in was crushed, killing him and his career stone cold dead.

About ten minutes before the lights dim, Tom from Solace in Cinema walks in and takes a seat next to me. We’re both seeing as much of the festival as we possibly can and this will be the first time I’ll have someone whose opinion I trust to bounce ideas off after the screenings. Tom’s site as I keep telling anyone who will listen is the only UK film website worth paying attention to. The guy knows his stuff.

As if to underline this as the film starts we seem to be the only people in the room who are laughing out loud at the scene of a Romanian family being chased down the spiral staircase to a bomb shelter by a clanging, rolling unexploded bomb. As it finally rolls to a halt without killing anyone we see the stamp: MADE IN CALIFORNIA.

It’s a great way to open a movie and I find myself warming to the dead guy immediately. Nemuscu, an obviously talented bastard ,gets taken out in something as stupid as a car accident and Michael Bay who spends a lot of time surrounded by heavy ordnance is still alive. There’s no fucking justice in the world.

Based on a real incident and set in 1999, California Dreamin’ tells the story of a NATO train carrying communications equipment and American marines destined for the Serbian border. When a local station manager stops the transport at a small village because of a 50-year old grudge against America, a battle of wills begins between the corrupt official and the Marine captain in charge.As the hours turn into days the needs of the village and the Americans becomes intertwined. This first and sadly last feature by Christian Nemescu is a remarkable movie. It’s a tad overlong at 155 minutes, but the version screened at the LFF is the film as was left by Nemescu and while it would have perhaps benefited from one final edit it still tells a complete tale filled with humour, sadness and a sense of futility. It’s also filled with strong performances from the mostly Romanian cast and Armand Assante in the best role I’ve seen him in in years.

Always an interesting actor, but often lost in questionable movies (Judge Dredd anyone?) he finally got a role that reminded me exactly what he can do given the right material. Assante’s Captain Jones is an American soldier outmaneuvered by local corruption, broken bureaucracy and left adrift on the wrong side of the language barrier. Watching him try and deal with a situation he is completely unprepared for is a joy. The scenes between him and this unexpected nemesis in the form of Razvan Vasilescu’s Doiaru are wonderful to watch as bribery, threats and an offer of friendship all come to nothing.

The plight of the Americans and their complete failure to understand what exactly is going on around them is filmed with a light touch rather than the broad farce that was billed, leading to a funny, but ultimately melancholy movie. The village embraces the American arrival, its hopes represented on screen in the form of the mayor, a fine comic turn by Ion Sapdaru. He sees the unexpected military presence as a chance to turn around the fortunes of the village and he immediately invites the company of soldiers to the village’s centenary celebrations despite the fact that they had already been celebrated the previous month. There’s a lot of charm in the scene where everything vaguely American is dragged out to the central square for the party, from bad oil paintings of Schwarzenegger, Stars & Stripe neckties and a gypsy themed Elvis impersonator.

The plot deftly moves around several characters over five days. The local factory workers see the visit as an opportunity to get their complaints heard on a larger stage and immediately go on strike. Meanwhile the local girls see the Americans as a replacement for the young men of the village and perhaps a way out of the place altogether.

Doiaru’s daughter already at odds with her father is determined to win herself an American and Nemescu shows real skill here in not only bringing her character to the fore, but also creating space for the unpopular school nerd, Andrei. He finds himself suddenly in her circle as the only kid who speaks English and able to play Cerano between the girl he secretly loves and the Sergeant she has her own heart set on.

The last section of the film seems a tad obvious as the American’s finally move on completely unaware of the chaos they have left behind, but California Dreamin’ is a great introduction to the festival as far as I’m concerned and something I look forward to seeing again.

Next up: Danish necromancy