Fred’s Shed in Stuff magazine!
Fred’s Shed gets a mention in this month’s Stuff magazine. Which, by the way, has been redesigned and looks lovely. Check it out here!
Build Fred’s Shed
I’m making a film! And I need your help. It’s called Fred’s Shed, and it’s about an old man, his wife, a shed and the mysterious contraption therein.
I’ve scrimped and saved and raised some of the budget myself, but film-making is an expensive business, so I’m asking you to check out our Indiegogo page and – if you like what you see there – dip into your pockets. There are perks!
And if you want to help out – of course you do – go and follow Fred’s Shed on Twitter, Like our Facebook page and add our Google+ page to your circles.
I’ll be talking about this a lot more over the coming months – brace yourselves!
Image by Anthony Lamb
Interview with Joe Letteri for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
So, I got to interview Joe Letteri, senior VFX supervisor for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey recently. Since he’s also worked on (deep breath) Man of Steel, Tintin, Avatar, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park, it’s fair to say that I was geeking out a bit. Read the interview here!
Ride 'em, cowboy!
I had a great time compiling, co-writing and editing this Stuff.tv movie list of the 25 best Western movies ever – an opportunity to make use of all that work I did on the UCD MA in Film Studies course.
Naturally, it’s going up to mark the UK release of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, due out this week – which its director insists is actually a “Southern” rather than a Western, given its unconventional setting of the antebellum South. But we figured, what the hell, it’s got cowboy hats and horses and six-guns in it.
With Django Unchained, Tarantino’s drawn inspiration from further afield than the classic Westerns I’ve highlighted in the Stuff.tv list – for those wanting to dig a little deeper into the Italian spaghetti Westerns that influenced QT, this New York Times article is an excellent place to start.
Hopefully, Django Unchained will spur Hollywood into reviving the genre – at the moment the only other Western on the horizon is Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp’s popcorn actioner The Lone Ranger (which I’m actually rather looking forward to, despite the naysayers). Maybe the long-delayed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian will finally get off the ground.
One thing’s for sure, though – the Western has been written off time and time again, only to return with a vengeance. This uniquely American genre is definitely not riding off into the sunset any time soon.
Alternative Christmas movies
Now that it’s December and we’re officially allowed to talk about Christmas, here’s one from the vaults – the 25 best alternative Christmas movies, according to Stuff.tv (and compiled by me).
That means, of course, that it features my personal favourite Christmas movie, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang – which, as per my own Yuletide tradition, I shall be popping into the Blu-ray player this festive season.
Naturally, it also includes Batman Returns, which I’ve previously written extensively about here. Go see if your favourites made the list.
Just Frank Sinatra exiting a helicopter, with a whiskey.
One of a number of candid photos taken by Yul Brynner when he wasn’t busy being the King of Siam or Westworld’s Gunslinger.
Source: reddit.com
Plumbing Stanley Kubrick
In which sci-fi author Ian Watson discusses his time working with Stanley Kubrick on the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Kubrick died before he got the chance to direct the film; Steven Spielberg brought his own version to the screen some years later.
Among the many gems to be found in Watson’s memoir is this:
I had written a novel entitled Inquisitor set in the wacky far-future world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000; he wanted a pre-publication printout right away. “Who knows, Ian?” he mused. “Maybe this is my next movie?”
Yes, we nearly got Stanley Kubrick’s Warhammer 40,000.
Source: ianwatson.info
