Thursday 24 January 2013

Look out for The Repriselizer

Matthew Holness (writer/star of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace) is making a spoof film/documentary about the (fake) fiction writer Terry Finch. Finch is apparently a largely forgotten 70'S pulp fiction author whose books  feature a character who calls himself  'The Reprizalizer' (aka Bob Shuter). The books allegedly share the same no nonsense ultra-violence as 70's stalwarts The Sweeney, Dirty Harry and Taxi Driver.





He's set up a beautiful crafted 'tribute' web site to Terry Finch giving a brief outline of the writer and his anti hero creation. Find it  here...

 http://thereprisalizer.com/The_Reprisalizer/About.html

The website's attention to detail for those crappy pulp books is wonderful. Faintly yellowing pages and that inimitable 1970's typeface which turned up in loads of Scholastic style books, I can almost smell those musty pages! If your of a certain age, I'm sure your more than familiar with the cheap look, of used by 'The Pan Book Of Horror'. If you've seen 'Darkplace' you'll immediately recognise the Holness writing style in the 'Buck Up' introduction to Repriselizer. Faintly pompous and self aggrandizing, the character is not unlike the main character in Darkplace, Dr Rick Dagless M.D. but , erm, with a moustache.



 A short film financed by Warp films back in 2011 called 'A Gun For George', hopefully a taster for the up and coming film 'proper'. You can watch it here...

http://www.film4.com/reviews/2011/a-gun-for-george

 Nice piece on the up and coming movie on Film Four blog here...

 http://blog.film4.com/matthew-holness/

And if you've not had the daft pleasure of watching Darkplace,  Here's my favourite episode, 'Scotch Mist'.



Saturday 19 January 2013

A Walk In The Snow

Thought I'd brave the current arctic conditions for a mooch from Lickey to Waseley Hills.
I can't resist the lure of snow, even if the driving to get here was frankly treacherous.
I love the stark architectural quality that snow gives trees, drawing the eye to lines that are not always apparent when it's not lying amongst the branches.
Also, it was an excuse to try out my new toy, a Canon EOS 350D I picked up cheap.
Never had a 'proper' camera before, and  didn't want to spend a fortune in case I didn't get on with it.
It has to be said,  really enjoyed fiddling about with it, even if fingers were numb most of the time, and I kept forgetting to turn the camera off. 
Here's a few 'first efforts', hopefully, as I get to know the camera better my pictures will improve a little.

















Monday 14 January 2013

Reflections

Found a bunch of images from a canal walk from year or so ago on my hard drive. These haven't been tampered with, just shot portrait and not rotated. It was a very still day and I was blown away at how abstract some of the photo's look, lost fractal like on the bottom two.
Think  the walk was on the Stratford on Avon canal just North of Baddesley Clinton






Friday 11 January 2013

Great Cover of Bowie's New Single

After 10 years in the wilderness, Bowie releases new single/ album on his birthday. Amongst all the media bluff n bluster I came across this great version of Where Are We Now? by musician for hire Momus. Gotta say, even a s a massive Bowie fan, this is streets ahead better than Bowie's version.
 


Here's the original for comparison



There's even a Harry Hill remix



Plus, how obscure are YOUR musical tastes...ever wondered if there was some yardstick you could measure your cool music taste too? Well now you can check your cred factor with the handy Obscurometer. Can you can out cool your pals with your weird tastes.

Click on link

http://obscurometer.com

Sunday 6 January 2013

The Future Has Arrived...

A Hearty Hail to all and a Happy New Year.

It's official, were all obsolete, The future has arrived ....Terminator style (well, with  musical instruments).