Filed under: advertising, business, humour, life, tv, videos, work, Youtube | Tags: brands, male bodywash, male perfume, male scent, Old spice, sex, sex sells, us advertising
US style. Brilliant new ad. Incredible strategy. For Old Spice.
and this is how they made it. Worth watching.
Filed under: Arts, humour, jokes, movies | Tags: Brad Pitt, comic books, Comics, Hit girll, kick ass, Mark Millar, nicolas cage, superhero movies, superheroes
DO. NOT. MESS. OK?
Kick Ass starts from a promising point of view.
What if anyone could take to the streets and exact protection or retribution in the role commonly associated with superheroes?
Hmmm. Nice.
What if most of these were kids?
Hmmm nicer.
What if some of them were ultra-tooled-up-mafia-hunting-vigilantes?
Hmmm. Excellent.
That’s what you get with Kick Ass. It’s a Smorgasbrod of superheroes from Dark Knight-esque Batman (in 11 year old girl’s clothes humming along to a Tarantino soundtrack) to a young Steve Martin in The Jerk-like loser role.
And that’s what makes this film ROCK. It really does. Its bad language is at times shriek out loud funny. “Is that all you C**** have got?” yells 11 year old Hit Girl as she pumps lead into more brains than an episode of University Challenge.
“Take that you Mother F******.” When she gets angry.
Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) is the movie-stealing find of the decade. She is gobsmackingly in your face as she DESTROYS hundreds of armed thugs (think O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill, or even better her teenage sidekick Gogo Yubari).
DO. NOT. MESS. OK?
It’s completely out of order, off the scale, outrageous and freakin’ hilarious.
Nicolas Cage is great as a scheming and revenging madman. The scene where he practices firing pump action bullets into Hit Girl’s chest is unique and remarkable.
This is a great movie. It sags a touch in the second act but opens and closes like a wounded rhino.
See.
At all costs.
Filed under: Arts, humour, movies | Tags: alice in wonderland, helena bonham carter, johnny depp, lewis carrol, tim Burton
First off. Go see the 2D version. The 3D adds nothing.
Tim Burton is my favourite unpredictable director. Sweeney Todd and The Nightmare Before Christmas are both works of genius, but most of the rest have deep flaws. Alice in Wonderland is nearer the former than the latter (although my fellow viewers erred towards the latter).
Tim has thrown the kitchen sink at this one. The effects (putting aside the 3D) are at times jaw dropping and some of his little vignettes are a delight (the Red Queen’s guilty frogs in particular). And Mrs Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, can surely never have been better in a completely show-stealing role. She is hilarious.
But it’s too long and it’s overloaded with ideas to the point that it begins to wash over you.
I like Johnny Depp in this, but my wife didn’t. He’s mad. But then, he plays a mad hatter.
7/10.
Filed under: Arts, family, humour, life, Scotland, theatre | Tags: death, dying, Every One, Jo Clifford, Jonathon Hackett, Kathryn Howden, Liam Brennan, lyceum, Mark Thomson
So much that excites in theatre and cinema is ultimately down to the writing and Mark Thomson has mounted (and brilliantly directed) a show that is, in parts, written with such skill and sophistication, and humour, that it takes the breath away. However, at others it seems to go AWOL.
The first act of this new play, written by Jo Clifford, is very convincing, moving and utterly absorbing. It is staged imaginatively and it’s all going in the right direction. In act 2, however, the show seems to hit choppy creative waters as it steps up its ambition. But it left me, and my wife, confused.
It’s about death. Full frontal, no holds barred death. The great universal. If we all die let’s not pussyfoot about the issue, let’s just play it straight and that’s exactly how Clifford tackles the subject.
A 50 year old wife and mother suffers a massive stroke and dies soon thereafter. How it affects her nearest and dearest is one aspect of the show but the greater one (and a less often visited side of the equation) is how it affects the cadaver. And that makes for great theatre in act one as we build the back story (often hilariously) and reach the momento mori.
The cast is led by the peerless and stunning Kath Howden and ably supported by her “late” husband Jonathon Hackett and death himself in the guise of Liam Brennan. But they get most of the great lines and all of the power plays. Less satisfactory for me were the parts for the son and daughter and trickiest of all is the role in the play of the family matriarch, Howden’s mother, who is suffering from senility. Her part takes us down the most confusing plot alleyways and do not, in my view, always help the narrative. What I expected was to see Act 2 focus more on grief, instead it becomes more and more obtuse, before coming together in a satisfying climax.
The staging is magnificent. Philip Pinsky, yet again, pops in with musical magic. ( The point of death being captured in a single electrifying piano chord; once in each act.) And the whole is, overall, very satisfying. I just wish act 2 had a bit more narrative conviction and storytelling.
Should you go? You bet.
Filed under: family, Rants, stories | Tags: catholic church, catholic paedophiles, catholicism], corruption, peodo catholics, peodophhile priests, pope benedict, priests, religion
The unfolding (but by no means finished I suspect) story that Pope Benedict has been aware of child abuse by Catholic priests but has done naff all about it is bad.
I’d go so far as to say it could be a tipping point for the entire religion.
Modern times do not champion religious faith. But for the leader of the world’s biggest (?) religion to be implicated in not outing its worst practitioners is unthinkable.
This AP story is typical
Benedict took a much harder stance on sex abuse than John Paul II when he assumed the papacy five years ago, disciplining a senior cleric championed by the Polish pontiff and defrocking others under a new policy of zero tolerance.
But the impression remains of a woefully slow-footed church and of a pope who bears responsibility for allowing paedophile priests to keep their parishes.
I’m on the cusp here. I want to know what the big fella knows. If he knows the worst and tried to bury it I’m out of here.
Just so as you know.
I guess I’ll have to take my chances on a long time in purgatory or an after lifetime in hell. But… a principal isn’t a principal until it costs you. (more…)
Filed under: business, humour, life, Scotland, stories | Tags: farming, fodder supply, fodder supply issues, pig cycle, scottish farming, The Scotsman
There’s a lot of shit going on in farming right now.
Filed under: Arts, life, photography | Tags: Eton, Eton v Harrow, harrow, Jimmy Sime, the guardian
Then as now.
What is so great about this photograph is the way it so effectively captures the very essence of Britishness. Class.
And it in no small way reflects the current political zeirtgeist. On the left Osborne and Cameron preen themselves whilst feigning indifference to their privelege. On the right Brown, Prescott and Milliband (The taller one in the middle, looking vaguely toffee-nosed himself).
I love this photograph. It’s a national treasure.
Filed under: Uncategorized
IMG_2447
Originally uploaded by Gareth Howells.
cracking
Mrs contradiction!
The new Sophie Dahl TV cook programme is an extreme B list celeb indulgence by the Beeb in which an ex-fat, but beautiful, model (and famous granddaughter. Ed) gets the chance to be a fucking crap - no really FUCKING CRAP, presenter. And she succeeds.
In comparison, Delia is like Florence Griffiths Joyner.
But it’s more than just crap TV. It’s crap use of our licence fee; paying rich people good money that don’t need it.
It’s not
- insightful
- mouldbreaking
- interesting
- cheap
- good
- sexy
- worth spending the time blogging about it
Goodnight.
Filed under: football, life, Rants, Scotland, sports | Tags: Hibees, Hibernian, lionel Messi, Man utd, Ross County, Scottish Cup, wayne rooney, World cup
I’m told Ross County FC are a bunch of huddies, but they showed the cultured Hibees the way home tonight. It begs the question: what value does culture have in football in a country where being really rubbish (Rangers) still means you are 20 points ahead of the chasing pack (apart from an even rubbisher Old Firm rival) with ten games to go?
In reality Ross County are rubbish. But they beat Hibs. Our season is over.
In England, Chelsea are trying to play a cultured game. But it’s not realy working. Man U’s utter class and dogged brutalism is seeing them through. They will win the league.
Lionel Messi is currently the world’s greatest player, but I fancy Rooney’s strength, and finesse in equal measure, will garner him the greater plaudits come July 11th on the world’s greatest football stage.
In between times I now do genuinely wonder if Hibs’ Scottish Cup aspirations are beyond them.
Well done to the huddies fae Dingwall. I imagine we lost fair and square.
Filed under: humour, life, photography, Scotland, theatre, Uncategorized | Tags: fct, forth childrens theatre, gangs
Kieran Wilson rules the roost at FCT. You wouldn’t want to mess.
Filed under: football, Hibees, Scotland, sports, stories | Tags: Hibees, Hibernian, Hibs, hibs beat Killie 19 -0, hibs women
As the Hibees wobble the girls wibble.
…she might make records like this. It’s a little pop gem by a Manchester band called Run Toto Run. (They actually have a bit of the old Goldfrapps about them too but actually it’s a pretty fresh and original sound.)
I was fortunate enough to be given a 5 track EP of their songs which is great. Keep your ears open.
In the meantime try this. (Did you hear that?).
Or go here.
Filed under: advertising, Arts, business, Scotland, stories | Tags: alvaro sotomayor, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, BBH, bmb, Gerry Farrell, hegsie, John Hegarty, mark waites, mother, Sir John Hegarty, stv, the leith agency, trevor beattie, weiden and Kennedy
Over the last year I have been in the priveleged position of being able to attract great creative speakers to Scotland thanks to STV’s engagement with the advertising creative community and my role in facilitating it. My next speaker in April is Alvaro Sotomayor, Creative Director of Weiden and Kennedy, Amsterdam. But before that I have attracted a great (no legendary) bunch of speakers including Mark Waites (Mother), Trevor Beattie (BMB) and Sir John Hegarty (BBH). In addition Gerry Farrell was kind enough to speak for us in both Glasgow and Aberdeen about creating ideas.
Most of these talks are now on STV’s website and here are the links. I urge you to watch them.
I bought the Grinderman album belatedly for £3 in Fopp last month.
It is, in parts, magnificent and on the whole very good. At the Bunny Malone end of Cave’s remarkable canon of work.
He is a machine.
Filed under: Arts, movies, Rants | Tags: dicapprio, martin scorsese, shutter island
I don’t want to be cast asunder for words of herecy but is Martin Scorsese losing it? I only ask because Shutter Island is a load of old claptrap. The reviews I’ve read seem to be unable to make their minds up about it and IMDB seems to have lost its marbles a little by awarding it 8.1 and a place in the coveted all time Top 250. Surely not for long when common sense kicks in and people review it for what it is. A mess.
The movie really is a tram smash of ideas, styles and plotting. There’s a neat twist in it but the utterly gratuitous Dachau strand to the movie is verging on the disgraceful. Parts of the film, certainly in the first half flashback to Di Caprio’s experiences as an American GI liberating the Dachau concentration camp would be, you’d have thought, central to the plot. Not a bit of it. This strand hangs about meaningfully but without meaning. But that’s the issue with this whole movie. It seems to want to inject meaning into a genre that really is just about entertainment. In doing so it lifts ideas from The Shining (some brilliantly), Silence of the Lambs (unconvincingly) and Hitchcock (at his worst) but they go nowhere. The cinematography flits about from the stunning, the scene in which DiCaprio and his young bride embrace during a fire is mesmerising, to the laughable – again DiCaprio is featured driving through a forest as a passenger with the Asylum’s head warder in front of a blue-screened background that could have been shot in 1954 (the year the movie is set) - I suspect the latter was deliberate. If so it was another misguided idea.
The grading leaps about from 21st century hi-def to 1950′s colour-noir and can’t seem to decide what it is that it wants to be.
Di Caprio is unconvincing, so too Rufallo and Sir Ben Kingsley? Well, he is actually lampooning himself. Awful, truly awful.
Do not waste your money on this rubbish.
4 out of 10
Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: fourtet, gils Scott heron, i'm new here, there is love in you
Two very different but very wonderful albums in their own ways are the new ones by Fourtet and Gil Scott Heron. I advise the purchase of both.
Heron’s is largely a spoken word format but don’t let that put you off. The music he uses is young, funky and really adds up to a quite a moving reflection on his life. Fourtet’s is an electronic, almost dancey, certainly trancey masterpiece. His best yet.
On Metacritic’s review page the Marmiteness of this album is clear to see with reviews ranging from 3/10 to 10/10. I am firmly in the latter camp. This album is utterly stunning and beautiful. A real grower and although it lacks the jaw dropping stand out songs of Van Occupanther (esp Roscoe) it , as a whole, holds together perfectly. Be warned, it is a different sound to Van Occupanther.; it feels like a folky trip to the 70′s. That is no bad thing. Trust me.
Filed under: Arts, music, Youtube | Tags: Beyonce, lady gaga, pop, pop music, pop video, telephone
fab new video by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. Hilariously OTT. My favourite bit? When Gaga gets thrown into jail, strippe and one of the warders says “See, I told you she never had a dick.”
Filed under: business, family, jokes, life, Rants, Scotland, stories | Tags: customer service, mobile phones, o2, service
Not Oxygen. That’s good stuff. Excellent for breathing and stuff.
No, I mean the fuckwit, cock-like mobile phone company that I utterly despise.
They are to service what CO (carbon monoxide) is to breathing.
They are life-denying oxygen thieving lowlifes.
I have lost count of the times they have utterly fucked me off with their inability to even begin to provide me with service when I needed it.
Three times in the last year I’ve been assured that I’m due an upgrade, only for me to, having bounced gleefully into their stores in hot pursuit of my new iphone, slope out again after the sales person has realised the computer says no.
It was a fatal error.
Type 404.
Upgrade not found.
Customer not respected.
Today, I went with Amy on her voyage of disappointment to the O2 store in the Gyle Shopping Centre in Edinburgh. (The most common harbinger of doom that I know in the world of retail.)
Having been reliably informed that she was DEFINITELY due an upgrade on her phone and she too bounding in for an iphone that she, yes she, fully intended to pay for, we agreed terms before I dropped the bombshell that I wanted to transfer the NEW contract into her name.
“Oh we can’t do that.”
“Why, pray tell us?”
“Computer says no.”
Actually the dimwitted fucker wasn’t even at a fucking computer.
It was his energy levels that said no! Not the fucking computer. (Although that no doubt would have given a fighting chance.)
“Could you phone and find out why?” I asked.
“OK.” he sullenly replied. And then didn’t. Instead he asked another oxygen thief behind the desk if indeed the computer would say no.
“Yeah that’s right. New policy.”
“What policy?” I demanded.
“The you lot (customers) can FUCK OFF AND STOP BOTHERING US POLICY.” (He should have said this but he didn’t.)
Instead he said “We’ve had a lot of problems with that.”
“OK then, We’ll just take out a new contract then.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?” I wondered, aloud.
“Too complicated.”
“But she’ll be a new customer.”
“Yeah but the number’s in your name and we’d have to transfer it.”
“WELL FUCKING TRANSFER IT YOU CLOT HEADED FUCKING NUMBSKULLS” I shrieked.
I didn’t actually. Instead I said.
“Well, I tell you what… I’ll just go to Orange and start a new contract there then shall I?”
“Up to you.”
“And while I’m at it, as my contract also comes up next month, I’ll transfer that too shall I? Saving me paying O2 (oxygen thieves) £720 a year in total.”
“Up to you.”
So I then did lose it a bit.
And left.
We did indeed go elsewhere. To Phones 4 U.
They were better. Much better.
They explained that we could transfer to Vodaphone. Same price.
“Great. Let’s do it.”
“Only trouble is you need a PAC code at point of purchase to keep your number with Vodaphone.”
“No problemo. We’ll phone O2 and they’ll give us one.”
“No chance sir. Any other airtime provider will do that but O2 typically take 2 – 3 days to send you it . Depending on the operator.”
So, we went back to Plan A and after much explanation about how we could indeed transfer the contract to Amy’s name (by requesting a direct debit mandate from O2 after taking out the upgrade in my name) we agreed reluctantly to stay with O2 thieves.
(“Incidentally.” I asked. “Why couldn’t O2 tell us that?”. “We get this a lot sir.” the Phones 4 Uer replied, looking as discombubulated as I felt.)
In due course, 8.07pm to be precise, the paper work complete, the chap called the Oxygen thieves’ registration line to conclude the deal.
“You won’t believe this sir,” said the pallid youth. “They shut at 8.”
We huffed. We puffed. We fucked off. Phoneless. Impotent. Fucking, bleeding livid.
