Two days being ill and then as soon as I start to feel a little better one of the radiators decides to flood the place. So I was up bright and early to dig into the writing I’m behind on when the plumbers arrive. We’re now into hour 4 of draining the system, remounting the offending radiator and fixing a second leak.
Noisy.
When we bought the apartment we kept the very old-school radiators to keep some of the old building’s character. Not so sure that was the wisest choice we ever made. Coupled with the complicated iron windows that we’re not allowed to replace despite how warped with age they are I’ve decided that the next place we live will be a new build.
Preferably cybernetic with smart heating run off brain stems.
Fuck this history shit.
The main thing I’m in the middle of writing right now just had a warning shot land across its bows that *may* complicate things a little. So I’m spending the day working that out and catching up on some blogging while the hammering and the clanking drowns out my Big Black.
Fucker finally came and I’m happy to report it’s well worth the wait.
As soon as I saw the DODOcase website back at the beginning of May I was smitten. I’m a big fan of Moleskines so this just seemed a perfect solution to my case problem. When I bought the iPad in the States I neglected to pick up a case and both the official Apple one and subsequent third party designs left me cold so I’ve been carrying the little bastard around naked.
That changed on Friday. Let me get the negative out of the way – this was a long wait. DODOcase are a small company and each case is made with a lot of care and attention to detail. Being way across the Bay from San Francisco meant I also had to wait for the international mail to do their thing. When it seemed that that was taking a tad longer than expected I dropped an email to DODOcase as there was no way for me to track the package. Sadly I’m still waiting for a response, so customer service is certainly taking a pounding while demand is high. I found out that the case hadn’t got lost in the post when I got a note from my local postal depot informing me that I had a package with a customs fee to pay. So that was $49.95 for the case, $25.00 for the shipping (basic international postage with no other option – I would have gladly paid more to have it arrive via courier) and then just over £14.00 to cover the missing VAT.
So getting the thing here was a little annoying. But fuck that, it’s a thing of beauty.
My iPad has been a brilliant travel companion up until now. If I’m not on a train or a plane then it sits on the couch waiting for me to check something on IMDB or keep on top of email while watching Michael Caine stab Brian Blessed with his helmet(!). But now it’s all dodoed up I don’t put the thing down.
In fact this weekend I started (and finished) reading a novel on it for the first time. Up until now I’ve dipped into all sorts of written content on the iPad but have always been aware of how unbooklike the experience is. Simply having the DODOcase open mimics a hardback enough to fool my deteriorating brain. This alone is worth getting one for.
The iPad fits very snugly inside. I can’t see a good reason for ever wanting to take it out to be honest (although I don’t have a dock and am told that may be an issue). Oh and you can’t hold the thing completely upside down while open and not expect gravity to fuck with you. It’s also less of a protective case and stand (although it does double as both) and more of the missing element that the iPad needed all along to become more important than your children.
My iPhone by the way has been completely neglected. I’m told the iPhone 4 is a bit of a tit and if it hadn’t been for the iPad I’d have been one of the first in line to play with it, but to be honest I’m finding it very easy to ignore in favour of its larger sibling.
On the final leg of a first draft of pilot number two. Fun, but had a very different set of problems than Slingers.
I somehow skipped Friday completely, lost as I was trying to get this fucker to respond. This week’s writing is planned to the hilt so should run a little smoother… best laid plans and all that.
Plenty to catch up on. Sorry if I owe you email or a call. Getting on top of that right now.
I love me a good poster as much as I do a good movie. Been a while since the artwork for a movie got me all stirred up, but this poster for THE AMERICAN is just about perfect:
I would have maybe added the word ‘motherfucker’ after the release date, but that’s all.
I was chatting on Twitter the other night how Matt Damon had kinda crept up on me as one of my favourite actors and as such he’s the anti-Clooney – George being an actor that I’ve been following closely since ER. They’re kinda linked because of the work they’ve done together and (especially) Soderbergh, but for some reason I’ve never given Damon the same kind of attention. Dumb of me.
Anyway… One of my fave Clooney turns comes in THE PEACEMAKER. It’s still the best thing Nicole Kidman’s been in and the car chase sequence that ends with Clooney putting a bullet in some bastard’s chest is the real precurser to both BOURNE and Craig’s Bond for badassery.
Badassery. I need to blog more just to get words like that out of my system.
THE PEACEMAKER also has one of my favourite onscreen relationships between the two leads. They get the whole movie out of the way and then only hint at the possibility of getting together in the movie’s coda. No shoehorning of romance for Mimi Leder.
Kinda wished I’d brought a copy with me on the train…
Anyway – this was just to give the bluetooth keyboard, iPad and mifi combo a test run in the wild when I’m actually on the move.
“You gotta hit some people in the head with an axe”. YELLOW SKY
Up at stupid o’clock. Even now it’s not quite 6am and I’m waiting for my first coffee of the day. I just left London on the 05.39 heading north. Never my favourite direction. Got an early morning meeting with a solicitor regarding my late mother’s estate and then lunch with her sister. Joy.
Things move on apace with SLINGERS. Caught up with Toby earlier in the week and Sleepydog are hoping to have a couple of announcements regarding the show in the run up to October.
Currently working on the second (or third, depending how you look at these things) pilot script and my feature stab at ‘monster in the house’ which isn’t set in a house and doesn’t really have a monster. Guys in LA seem to like the idea.
Aiming to be back in Hollywood once everyone is back from Comic-Con. Fun meetings lined up I’m told. We just stopped in Watford Junction and in a few hours I’ll be back in my home town. That should keep me grounded.
Few interesting things on the cards in London next week too so it’s all good.
The quote at the top of this post was already there when I opened this document and because of the way I expect the day to go it seemed apt. Have you seen YELLOW SKY? Brilliant western with Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark from around 1948. Highly recommended.
Stumbled across this while looking for something else:
That’s the first ever concept sketch of Junior (December 2008). I did have it as a Twitter background for a while until I started getting emails asking me about his metal penis.
I meant to post about Valhalla Rising a while back before things got crazy busy, but made a note to get something on here about the movie after I saw the frankly ridiculous packaging they’ve given the thing on DVD/BluRay here in the UK. Anyone buying it cold will think they’re in for a 300 style action fest rather than the minimalist, Aguirre, Wrath of God style film they’re actually purchasing.
I was blown away by Bronson (and in particular Tom Hardy), but Valhalla Rising is Nicolas Winding Refn’s best movie so far. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis it is not:
Pusher aside I haven’t seen enough of Mads Mikkelsen’s Danish oputput (I’m fixing that) and he’s probably best known to mainstream audiences as the Bond villain in Casino Royale, but his silent role in Valhalla Rising is epic.
Funnily enough, all I could think about after first seeing the movie is how delicious Mikkelsen could be as Avon in a big screen Blakes Seven.
Following a second viewing of the movie I found out that Mikkelsen is set to appear in a remake of one of my favourite westerns, Cut Throats Nine. Now this is going to be interesting.
The remake is helmed by Rodrigo Gudiño, founder of Rue Morgue magazine and he’s also got Harvey Keitel on board.
Like I said… interesting.
Following the success of Inglourious Basterds it’s no surprise that more Grindhouse updates are on the horizon, but the great thing about these messy, but fun exploitation flicks is how ripe they are for reinvention. I’d hate to see a direct remake of something like Cut Throats Nine as that would be completely pointless, but if you take the premise and run with it you’re going to have a lot of fun. Here’s the original set up via IMDB:
1892: A wagon load of convicts on its way to prison inches its way through the northern mountains, escorted by a cavalry troop. They are suddenly and viciously attacked by a gang of bandits searching for rumoured gold within the convoy. Only a sergeant, his beautiful young daughter and a chain gang of seven of the most sadistic, murderous men alive survive the assault. Left without horses or a wagon, the sergeant forges ahead to get his prisoners to their destination, all the while protecting his daughter, watching out for the still pursuing bandits and trying to determine which one of the prisoners was the man who murdered his wife. To make matters worse, the criminals discover that the chain binding them together is made of the gold. Their desperate journey plunges our survivors into the furthest extremes of human savagery… choked, stabbed, shot, burned. And eaten.
It’s ticking all sorts of crazy boxes already, but alas the actual film is far from great. The premise though, gold chain and all, is beautiful.
As a cult movie it’s often characterised as a horror-western which it isn’t. It’s certainly Gothic, but sadly quite a few rungs below the almost-perfect The Great Silence and never gets close to the too-easily dismissed Ravenous. It has elements of both Euro-horror of the period and giallo so I guess its a true mongrel.
Weirdly what it reminds me most of is one of the missions in Red Dead Redemption.
I’m not a gamer. But I dabble and RDR was too good an idea to pass up on. If it had simply followed a bunch of generic western movie stereotypes I’d have still enjoyed it. What’s been surprising as I slowly unravel the narrative (I’ve just reached Mexico so have a ways to go) is not just how well the plot is put together, but how perfectly all the small side moments help make the world a real one. Before I started playing the game properly I would ride upon scenes of utter desolation -- a man weeping over the dead body of a woman only to blow his own brains out before I could reach him or a cannibal about to gut his latest meal. This is far more Cormac McCarthy than Gary Cooper. Even taking flowers to a friend’s wife turns into a Psycho inspired episode of creepiness.
You also get to unload pistols into lots of unsavory types and there’s enough GTA-on-a-horse style mayhem to keep my inner-teenager happy. Mostly though I just explore the prairie hoping to run into James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif out camping or maybe a Confederate girls boarding school.
It’s that good.
Last month I started putting together a giallo inspired project of my own after being asked if I had anything up my sleeve for a certain A-list actor. I think the initial draft is probably too out there for my guys in LA, but it’s nice to have a little grind in my back pocket. Plus it seems to be coming full circle so you never know…
Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd talking about The Walking Dead:
I love how seriously they’re taking this. I read the pilot script a while back and it was great. Very close to the original comic book and it’s in very safe hands.
Really looking forward to see this show shambling towards my jugular.
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Sod’s law.
