Lars And The Real Girl

I was telling some of the guys at work about this today. Written by the writer of the incredible "Six Feet Under" its about a guy and his new girldfriend. It looks like it could be very funny and very touching at the same time. Check out the trailer....

The Cinema Schedule

Here are the films that I will most probably be going to see this month.

September 7th
Run, Fat Boy, Run

September 14th
Disturbia
Shoot 'Em Up
3:10 To Yuma
Superbad

September 21st
Death Proof

September 28th
The Invasion (Maybe)
Rocket Science (Hopefully)

It is a very busy and expensive month but what can I say? I love movies and I love going to the cinema!

I'm Back!

From where? I hear you ask. Well to be honest, absolutely nowhere. Well why haven't I posted in so long? I hear you cry. There really is no excuse I just a) Had nothing really interesting happening and b) more or less forgot I was keeping this blog. So I thought I'd make interesting things to post about and try and keep on top of it again.

I reacquired my love for cooking. Tonight was home made chili beef burgers which were absolutely fucking fantastic! So I decided that I'm going to start posting up my recipes to share my love for interesting food with the world. Everything is simple and the ingredients are easy to get hold of. I'm going to start this tomorrow as I'm going to be making spicy pork ribs. Then I will post my beef burgers next time I make them so I can include photos.

Been to see a few films this month as well. Shakey sorted out some advance tickets to see "Knocked Up" which was incredibly funny. Went to see "The Bourne Ultimatum" with the famous N & C audio visual club. Last week I also went to see the new John Cusack film "1408". All the films have been impressive but my film of the month has to go to "Knocked Up". September is a busy month for the N & C A/V club as there are more or less two films every weekend.

I also picked up my tickets for the Seasick Steve gig at the Birmingham Academy 2 in October which I can't wait for.

My next "Consider Yourself Schooled" will also be posted very soon so keep tuned!

Consider Yourself Schooled Part Two - Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

Del tha Funkee Homosapien a.k.a Del the Funky Homosapien a.k.a. Deltron Zero a.k.a Russel Hobbs was born Teren Delvon Jones and hails from Oakland, California.

In 1991 Del released his first album "I Wish My Brother George Was Here" with the help of his cousin, Ice Cube and his crew "Da Lench Mob". Del went on to release an album in 1998 with his own crew "Hieroglyphics" titled "3rd Eye Vision" and two albums in 2000 titled "Both Sides of the Brain" and "Deltron 3030". The latter was produced by two big names, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala. In 2003 he featured on two tracks from the huge debut album from the "Gorillaz" including the top ten hit "Clint Eastwood".

Del's tracks are often noted for his use of his strange sense of humour and rapping about his interests including video games, rap battles, comic books and Sci-fi. Slating his first album because he felt it was over produced and fake he has gone on to use more old school sounding methods for the production of his tracks. Del has a huge love for Hip-Hop and has spoken out several times about the gang mentality that has grown within the industry along with subjects such as gun crime, drug dealing and so on. As you'll see from the video below he has a genuine hatred for manufactured music which is more popular than ever at the moment.

Must Have Album - Both Sides Of The Brain

If You Must - A song about personal hygiene a very under discussed subject in the world of Hip-Hop...

Wes Anderson Goodness...

For your viewing pleasure I present to you "The Darjeeling Limited" trailer.

All In All A Good Day...

Got up at 10am and had three mugs of coffee and a bacon sandwich on crusty bread with red sauce. Finished up volume seven of "Preacher" and checked my e-mails. Walked to the post office to collect two parcels, my new watch and my new sunglasses (lot of good they'll do me!). Went into town and collected my phone from o2 as they have finally repaired it. Met my main man Rich at Nosties and took in some culture at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and checked out their celebration of British modern art. There is still more to come as BBC2 start showing "Heroes" tonight so I finally get to check it out. Its a double bill as well!

Another Great Shepard Fairey Piece...

Taken from Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier's recent art show "Crazy Cult". Inspiration came from the classic John Carpenter movie "They Live".

Another Film I'm Excited About...

What a great year it has been for movies and theres still more to come! They haven't put out much in way of marketing for this film but they rarely do for Wes Anderson movies and yet I still cannot wait to see this. Apparently the trailer is out in the states soon so I hope to see it on youtube in the next few days. The plot is apparently about three brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman) taking a train ride through India after the death of their father (I think).

Rain Delays Play...

I was supposed to meet up with some of my old secondary school classmates for a drink tonight. Thanks to this excellent weather though we thought it would be best to cancel and try again at a later date. I'm different to most people because I do enjoy this weather. Don't get me wrong I feel really bad for the people who suffer the floods and stuff and I don't know what I'd do if it happened to me. The rain does mean though that there are less people around and the streets are quieter which means a lot for me living in the middle of what feels like a DMZ sometimes.

Consider Yourself Schooled Part One - Wu-Tang Clan

Well I thought that I would start with something fairly obvious. The Wu-Tang Clan formed in New York in 1992 mainly thanks to the RZA and GZA, two cousins who had previously worked in the record industry with very little success. These two along with Ol' Dirty Bastard then proceeded to build the group with friends from in and around the New York area. The final line up of the group was made up of RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, Method Man, Raekwon and U-God (Silly names I know but hear me out...). They took the name of the group from the 1981 martial arts film, "Shaolin and Wu Tang".

A year later in 1993 was the first time the Clan made themselves known to the general public with their single "Protect Ya Neck". Thanks to the underground reaction to this single they were signed to RCA and released their first album "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" in late 1993.

With a low use of samples (apart from the kung-fu film skits) and what sounds like low cost production methods that RZA uses is what gives the album its gritty and underground feel that most Hip-Hop at the time was avoiding. Calling Jazz pianists, such as Thelonious Monk his biggest influences certainly gives the album a very different sound to the "Gangster" Hip-Hop that was so popular both then and now.

The first to do many things in the world of Hip-Hop, such as start their own clothing label, create slang terms in their songs that become used the world over, cite comic book references in their tracks and change samples to do things that people couldn't imagine at the time. Yet these things do not change the fact that out of four albums the only one you really need to hear is the debut. Perhaps the world of business and making money took too much of their attention away from actually making good music, perhaps innovators in this as well as we see this even more nowadays.

Must Have Album - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Protect Ya Neck (Remember it is 1993 and they made this video on their own with no money and only the equipment they had!)

Consider Yourself Schooled...

I have always had a massive love for music. This has increased though while working at Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham thanks to being introduced to loads of new stuff which is mainly down to Rich and Dave. Stu as well probably if he had spent a bit more time there in the last six or so months.

The one genre that I love the most has to be Hip-Hop and its only in the last seven or so years that I've gotten into it properly. I'm sick of defending the good Hip-Hop that is out there because like most genres its outnumbered in a big way by the shit that is seen as "Mainstream". Its because of this that I have decided to take it upon myself to "School" people, so to speak in the art of real Hip-Hop. Over the next couple of weeks I will post an artist that I feel people should give a chance, why they should give them a chance and the one album they should have if they don't have any others by that specific artist.

I hope you people find this useful.

Word..

Geek Attack...

Look what arrived in the post this morning! Thank you ebay, £36 instead of £70! Bargain. Next up is the Spider-man...

One Down, Two To Go...

Well I've got my results for my first year at Uni and I passed! Just thought I'd let you know. I'll post my overall grade and individual results some point in the future!

This Is How You Market A Movie...

Several of the popular 7-Eleven stores in the U.S have been transformed into "Kwik-E-Marts"! This is absolutely genius!
What fascinates me about this is the fact that they would not have to promote this movie at all and it would make a ridiculous amount of money but they still go to the trouble of doing something different that has never been done before.

Photos Via Hypebeast

This Shit's Chess, It Ain't Checkers...

Yes as you may have noticed I haven't posted in a good couple of days and this is probably due to a few different reasons A) I just haven't thought of much interesting stuff to post about, B) I've been very busy chasing my bitch of a landlady for my deposit from my student accommodation C) I haven't been on the computer much at all because I've hardly been at home.

To be honest it is probably more down to reason B than anything else. If I'm not doing more tidying at the house I'm chasing her down on the phone, on my way to Coventry to meet her or on my way back from Coventry after she has cancelled said meeting. I think I'm nearly there now though as she said she will hand the cheques over on Thursday when I meet her at the house, we'll see though...

Urban Dead Update

Well it has been a rough few days for Alfonso Durant in the world of Malton. The other night I was left standing around all evening in the middle of the street. Obviously one of the un-dead saw me and decided to take a chunk out of me and nearly killed me until my hero a mister "AI Zombie" came along and not only took down the living dead piece of shit but also went to the trouble of healing me back up. Then yesterday I almost did the exact same thing again after taking down a zombie and building my points up I have two action points to make it to a building and just about made it. Today I took a couple of swings at a zombie but alas, no kill and I easily made it into St. Christopher's church in Shearbank.

Hopefully the barricades will hold out until tomorrow...

Doing Something Different...

I love street art (NOT Graffiti) and always have, always will. No matter what other people say, in my opinion it will always be the most accessible form of art for everybody. I especially love it when new artists enter the scene with something brand new that has never been done before.

This piece was created by a very clever lady named "Anna" from Baltimore but placed in Manchester. I have to say that the use of textiles within the street art world is a very rare thing but this is absolutely genius. Like good art it looks great and gives you something to think about.

Lets hope that she keeps up with this and comes up with some more pieces. The bad thing about any art is that someone can create an amazing piece but then disappear as quick as they came about.

People Ask Me Why Adi Granov Is My Favourite Comic Artist of the Moment ...

See for yourself.

Rocket Science

Could this be the next "Rushmore" or "Squid and the Whale" or just another cheap imitation? Watch the trailer and hazard a guess yourself...

Urban Dead Update

So it has been a few days since the last update and not a lot had happened until tonight. I logged on to start exploring more of the map and moved from Rolt Heights into another green area of the map, Pashenton. Here I killed my first zombie which moved me up a level and left me with enough XP points to buy a new skill. I decided to go against the advice of Rich and Stu who told me the "Free Running" skill is the best to buy first and purchased the hand to hand combat upgrade which gives me a 40% chance of hitting someone with my axe. I then moved into the suburb of Earletown which is yellow on the wiki-map. Here I attacked my second zombie of the day but alas no kill this time. With 5 moves left I decided it was time to set up camp but every building I tried to enter was strongly barricaded so I couldn't enter! I'm now waiting for my points to build back up and I hope I get enough soon otherwise I'm stuck standing in the middle of the street all night!

It could be game over for Alfonso Durant!