A screenshot from what CGM is currently working on... The first CGS Wedding Video. The Wedding industry doesn't know what hit em.

THIS IS ENGLAND '86



Back before I went to University and moved to London I saw This Is England in the cinema, with my girlfriend at the time. I had seen a few Shane Meadows movies and shorts before this point, having studied Room For Romeo Brass (which I thought was pretty lame) and for the most part I felt I had unpacked his standard writing format, which still seems to stand as the same:

1. Youngster missing a strong father figure, or missing a father figure entirely, becomes sick of or frustrated by his life and friends.
2. Youngster finds new exciting new friends. Which in turn leads to Youngster finding surrogate father figure.
3. Shit goes mental and surrogate father figure fucks a load of stuff up.
4. Youngster matures.

All of the above is subject to thick layers of "grit" (which, by the way, is the most over used way of describing even slightly realistic films set in the UK), pop culture and weirdo creeps.



I still feel this assessment of Meadows' films is fairly true, and certainly did when watching This Is England (or TIE) in the cinema. But TIE felt far less contrived and seemed far more mature than the previous work I had seen by him, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very unexpectedly moved by TIE. The performances were utterly believable, the cinematography engaging, while still allowing the story and characters to breathe without fear of being stylistically crushed, and the final scene with Combo assaulting Milky broke my heart.

So when a spin-off TV series was announced, with the lazily unimaginative title of This Is England '86, I wasn't especially excited. I am a tad pessimistic with pretty much all current Film and music but most especially pessimistic with Television, a medium which I find mostly vapid (with a few exceptions, like a selection of 80s and 90s cartoons, Oz and everything Chris Morris has touched). My expectations of the TV spin-off was an assimilation of the complex themes and relationships within the film, with the interesting parts of the film repackaged into a TV friendly (read: advert friendly). I was proved wrong. Almost.

The themes of the film were massively simplified down, with none of the social commentary and social exposure provided what so ever, apart from the occational mention of Woody's work at the factory. Instead we are just presented with a continuation of our time with the characters. We get to see the parties, the fights, the infidelities and the lives of the characters we loved in the film. There is also a shift in who occupies the central character with the (still) hilarious and unarming Shawn being replaced by Lol. I applaud this minor shake up as a way of not just remaking the film for TV.




There a few points that niggled on me a little in the film. Why is everyone friends with the old gits who were hardcore racists in the film? This goes completely unexplained, not even hinted at, which really bugs me. It is a massive plot hole. Also, the format of the series bugged me a little too.

As I mentioned earlier, I find TV as a format very vapid, and have found few exceptions which have elevated themselves to the same level of art that can be found in cinema. I think a large factor in this is that the format and pacing of an episode in any given show has to comply with time slots and with advert breaks. This frequently means that in any given hour long episode there will be 4 advert breaks, therefore 3 moments where tension is built and we are left on a cliff hanger. This format becomes incredibly tedious. TIE '86 was not outside of the this type of formatting either, but it did seem to exacerbate this by including a 2 - 3 minute slow-mo piano music section before the second advert break in EVERY EPISODE! By episode two I had clocked this, and found it rather annoying in the next bunch of episodes.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this spin-off mini series. Although it was fairly shallow for the majority it was still fucking RAW and superbly engaging. It made me laugh, it made me feel sick, it engrossed me and it made me want to cry. I would recommend it as a great companion piece to the film. If you enjoyed the film and didn't catch this series then just download it or something. Piracy is fucking sweet.

CGM

Return

(editor's note - This was written by CGJ before we had finished "Stoned" [which will be hitting YouTube soon, I promise]. Excuse the lateness.)

Sometimes it’s difficult to write a web based article like the ones we provide you here for free at CGS. To write for here on top of essays and scripts as well as keeping up with general life (which I’ve not been too great at recently) has proven to be difficult. Hence the long delay in writing something. There’s also a question of how worth our time it is to even write articles. We have no real way of knowing who is merely listening, or in Sydney Deane’s terms, who is actually “hearing” our opinions. Stat trackers say that a lot of you are coming here for the music, which CGM graciously offers up every now and then to try and introduce you to some awesome music. So should we just give up on the film and television side? The answer to this question is no, and I’ll tell you why.

As we are both to be leaving university soon for the big bad world, the next few months are going to be quite big ones. Real life is coming up fast and its times like this that you begin to realise what a ridiculous career path we’ve built for ourselves over the last few years.

Before I wanted to make films I wanted to be a Chef. I loved cooking and (still) love my food. Then the bright lights of Hollywood and all its cool movies and big explosions drew me in. I decided that I was going to go for boom or bust as a lifestyle choice after I finished 6th form. Coming from a background where we went through periods of being both flat out broke and well off enough I see it as money doesn’t have to rule your life. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t understand how fundamental money is to the way our society runs these days, or that I don’t want lots of it. I just know that no matter what happens, if I end up working in a shop or doing some menial in house production work, I’ll be happy. And besides, who thinks about the bad side of it when you have everything else the industry can offer you should the coin flip your way. And so I came to university and began studying and making films instead of just seeing as many as I could. The idea of fame attracted me, who wouldn’t want beautiful women and loads of money with everyone wanting to know where you are and what you’re doing?

My views changed quite rapidly when I became 20. Movies built on big explosions and brilliant CGI ceased to interest me as much. I liked the smaller more thoughtful movies. The films I wanted to make became heavily influenced by those who made movies I like. I became infatuated with directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi and David Lynch. I saw them as directors who took anything they worked on and placed a big fat stamp on it reading “mine”. I modelled myself after them, reading as many books as I could. I no longer wanted the fame. God knows what came over me really. It’s a lifestyle that only a few would recommend. And like I’ve said the fortune means little to me either way. I fell in love with film for what it is and for what it gives me. I just want to be involved in it and let my calling fall into my lap, whatever it may turn out to be.

Obviously I would love to write and direct, but how many filmmakers can say that that happened for them right off the bat. It’s all a process and we’re entering a ladder climbing industry, one where even when you make it to the top you’re still only one slip from the bottom. I’ve done running work on a few productions and as you’ve (hopefully) seen I’ve also delved into making my own films so I’ve started to gather my XP points, but I’m still a long way off achieving my dreams (if that is what the future holds).

It sounds depressing and uncertain, and it is, but that’s half the fun really. Yes we have to think about all the negative points about said uncertainty, but it’s really no different from everything else in life. If anything it keeps us on our toes. Now, you may be thinking that I’ve moved away from my original point, so I’ll reel it back in a bit.

We (though recently it’s more an “I”) need to continue writing about film because it’s just another way to not only vent my frustrations but also to further exploring and expanding my knowledge of film. I love writing, no matter what form it takes, and so I shall continue to write about what I love regardless of who takes time to read it. Who knows if anyone’s even made it this far into this piece.

So yes music has been our strong point recently, but I’m hoping to balance it out with some more film and television. There’s a lot going on at the moment, in both the industry and our lives, so we’ll have some tales to tell and some advice on what’s good and what’s not. And yes it’s been a long while since we’ve had anything real to show you but that’s changed now.

Within the next month we should have a premier ready for you of our new film “Stoned” featuring Confucius MC (who should be everyone’s favourite London rappers). I’ve also found a new project that I’m working on right now where the script is coming along nicely. I intend to make it as a final piece to the portfolio to show our teams range just after we finish University as well as hopefully using their equipment. If not then fuck it, I’ll film it on a phone if I have to.

The team around me has grown stronger and larger by the day. CGM is still in the process of making “Stoned” as awesome as it can be in the editing suite. He’s a lazy bastard but he’s never let me down yet, so I’ll continue to trust him to bring me the best result. Iain our cameraman gives you gold on a regular basis, even if his love of randomly placed zooms and shaky-cam means he’ll probably end up as Paul Greengrass’s best friend. Our go to actor William gets better every time I see him, and I think it would be a damn shame if he isn’t a known face on at least TV in the next 5 years. And of course there is the newbies to the bunch. The “other” Will has done a stellar job as producer on “Stoned” and has proved himself as someone who will be useful to have around no matter what the job is that needs doing. And of course there’s also Fletch. I tend to write the majority of things that we produce or consider producing, sort of because I’m good at writing and sort of because everyone else is too damn lazy. Half the time even I’m too lazy to write anything. For these reasons we bought Fletch on board. He’s a talented writer who we’ve kept in the cupboard for a while now with barely a mention. But please believe me, once university is out the way I’m going to insist that he get balls deep straight away.

None of them are perfect, which is excellent because neither am I. All of us have weaknesses but I feel that spark when we get together. Both my last two films have been an excellent experience, mainly because of these guys. I know we can’t hold each other’s hands the whole way through our careers but we have one last chance to give ourselves something that we can hold onto, use, and be proud of until we retire. Our next production looks like it might be bigger than anything we’ve done before, so I might also be trying to expand the team a little in the next few weeks. Either way, both Max and I will have something to talk about. I might even get Fletch to write an article for us, as three at once is better than two on 3 month shifts.

Anyway, enough of my life story, for those of you that have made it this far. My point is simply that we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing and we’d love you to read about it. No reviews or anything for you this time around, though those of you who understood the Sydney Deane reference earlier will know I’ve recently watched “White Men Can’t Jump” with Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Probably one of the best buddy comedies ever made, and something that everyone should see once. So yeah check that out, and I’ll hit you up with some new stuff when I find something really worth telling you about. Lost is almost over so I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say on that, and I think I’d like to write about the process we went through in making “Stoned” after the edit is finalised and I can really see what it’s resulted in. Until then...

*Bows*

CGJ

CGM's Records Of 2009

In my opinion 2009 was a pretty good year for music. Not only was heavy/alternative/interesting music pretty good but also pop music wasn't that bad. In 2008 pop music was bad, very very bad. Apart from swathes of terrible identikit indie bands twanging away we also had Coldplay releasing new material. I hate Coldplay so very very much. But, 2009 had some really good singles released by successful pop artists and groups which were unoffensive enough for me to almost enjoy, on some occasions. Also some really shit bands had problems this year, with members leaving both Oasis and RHCP I was very happy indeed. Fuck both Oasis and RHCP.

As it gets to the end of the year lots of people (who runs blogs) seem to start compiling their end of the year lists, and with this particular change in year closing a decade many started to compiled end of decade lists which I am far to lazy and predictable to do. So, to fit in with the crowd and for funsies I did an end of year list of my favourite records (I included Albums and EPs). I seem totally inable to say which I like more than others, so I am going to do it in alphabetical order.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse

I love ANB for the sheer brutality in every aspect of their sound. Not only are their riffs heavy as fuck, the production is the aural equivilent of clinical cold metallic torture games, their vocals are demonic possession harnessed into some sort of digestability and their songs are 30000000 miles an hour fast. They continued on this music path with this full length but also beefed out the songs and made them even more metal, by sticking in loadsa guitar solos and general big riffery. Plus the new chick on vocals is MAD brutal, she screams like a FUCKING demon.

Brutality Will Prevail - Forgotten Soul

I had seen BWP and had their records before the release of Forgotten Soul and they were really quite different; they were basically tough guy twostep beatdown hardcore. They were very good live and very energetic, but nonetheless fairly stock hardcore. But they savagely changed their sounds into what I can only describe as Doom and Sludge forced into hardcore/twostep rhythms. It's fucking sweet! The songs are really catchy on this mini-album, I often find myself humming the songs and tapping the beatdowns because it's all soo damn catchy, like AIDS I tell you! They have faced criticism for having heavy anti-religious imagery, as is quite popular in hardcore at the moment, and I know some people who feel they changed their sound just to be popular (which I doubt highly). For whatever reason, they did change their sound, and now their songs are better and they wear loads of black so must be cool. My favourite tracks on Forgotten Soul are "Fuck", "Pure Regret" and "Forgotten Soul".

Converge - Axe to Fall

I did a review of Axe to Fall when it came out (here) and my opinions on it have not changed at all. It is still an invigorating listen, where the rythm section really drives one into some kind of feral frantic beast trapped in a tornado of bricks and broken glass, but I still don't think it is their best album. The flaw in this album is that it doesn't sound as unified as their others. Where in Jane Doe, You Fail Me and No Heroes there is a defineable unity and consistancy across the body work as a whole. But with Axe to Fall it feels more like a collection of songs, albeit fantastic and moving songs. My favourite songs on this are "Dark Horse" and "Axe to Fall"

DOOM - Born Like This

Born Like This delivered another winning (MF) DOOM album. Quirky samples, catchy sans chorus production and DOOM's smooth delivery of flow-of-consciousness lyrics all combine into a satisfying and rewarding listening experience, that still holds up well after multiple listens. It lacks some of the standout tracks that MM..Food has, but overall it has some great tracks. My personal favourite on the album is "Yessir" because muthafuckin Raekwon is on it, and I bum Wu-Tang. Also, as a side note, Born Like This is pretty much the only release in 2009 that CGJ even considered listening to and he liked it, so it must be pretty good.

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

Blissfully elated yet melancholy tinged dance music for people that don't want to dance. I can imagine that this is what crossing over into the next plane of existence feels like, but put into audio terms of expression. My favourite song on here is "Olympians" in which the melody line at 4:34 makes me want to sob.

Hang The Bastard - Raw Sorcery

I never really got metalcore, almost all that I heard had little to do with the cool bits of metal and the cool bits of hardcore, it just was kind of shit and predictable. I always wanted the name "metalcore" to sound like Hang The Bastard. They have the riffs and lyrical content of metal combined with the energy, sensibilities and the buildup/big drop of hardcore making them really compelling and energising to listen to. They are sick live too, they always have bare mosh. And most of the band are stoners. My favourite track of the mini-album is "Failed Harvest". Once on a post bong session walk from my old house to my university the clouds parted and ignited the soaking long road, down which I was walking, with a glorious golden fire like shine, just as the big riff kicked in on "Failed Harvest". It was one of my favourite stoner moments.

Maths - Descent

I have also done a review for this album as well, and similarly with Axe to Fall my feelings really haven't changed at all. If anything, my love for this album has only intensified. It is truly a glorious exercise in emotion, soaring atmospheric sound scapes and technical prowess that is VERY rarely seen in music at all. Descent manages to be both diverse, engaging, challenging and catchy all at once. For fuck's sake, go and BUY this fucking album right now! Or at least give them a listen on MYSPACE.

Ólafur Arnalds - Found Songs

Although I probably don't post often about this kind of stripped down cinematic type music I do listen to quite a lot of it. Ólafur Arnalds has been kicking around for a while and even worked with some metal bands on their string arrangements, but I only managed to stumble across him a few months ago. Found Songs was released track by track on a day by day basis for a week, where each song was writte, recorded and released all on the same day. This type of work ethic gives the album a really stripped down and sparse sound, while being no less epic than his previous work. This fast turn over also means that it is stripped down to minimal instrumentation and is as always purely instrumental. It is very melancholic and depressing, but it is fucking beautiful. I had my heart smashed by a horrible cunt this year and Found Songs was my soundtrack for about a month. Wonderfully cinematic, beautiful and complatative. My favourite song is "Ljósið" which has a stunning video based vaguely on synesthesia:


Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx PT II

My opinions have not changed since I cracked out a review for this. It is still the best rap album of the year by far, it is still mutha fuckin Wu TANG and it is still the perfect follow up to OB4CL, both musically, lyrically and themeatically. The combination of these Cuban Linx 1 and 2 makes Raekwon my favourite MC out of Wu Tang, no one tells a story better. My favourite songs on this are "New Wu" "Surgical Gloves" and "10 Bricks".

Trainwreck - Of Concrete Canyons And Inner Wastelands

I had never heard them until two little mentals I know played me some of their stuff and it is fucking wicked. Trainwreck are kind of like post-hardcore with massive riffs are raw fucking screaming. They are very riff heavy, with break neck speed and an overall sense of dispair, whilst being quite bleak, all at the same time. Right up my street. If you are into hardcore that is fast without beatdowns and dig bleak music then go for it. My favourite song on it is "The Dead Next Door" cos it has a well big riff!

Honorable Mentions
Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect
Data.Select.Party - Hanging Out With Humans
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Hudson Mohawke - Butter
IWrestledABearOnce - It's All Happening
Weekend Nachos - Unforgivable
Your Demise - Ignorance Never Dies

Comment with your opinions on this list, I'd like to here them. I might attack a film best of 2009, or I might just leave it CGJ. He watches more recent films than I do, while I listen to more recently music than he does. We are like an old couple.

CGM

Rage Against The X Factor

In the recent turn of current events potentially resulting in what might be the coolest Christmas number 1 ever, I decided to FINALLY post Rage Against The Machine's 1991 demo that I've had sitting in my mediafire for bloody ages.

It is an interesting demo, in that it is pretty much the same as their first album, but with the addition of a few extra songs. I personally find the track "Autologic" most interesting for its even heavier hiphop influence. I would also liked to have heard a rerecording of "Narrows" just because it has some sick riffs. For the most part the demo versions of the rerecorded tracks are very similar, but none the less are interesting to listen to.

I can imagine that when this demo hit the streets of LA it was very popular and quite mind-blowing just because RATM still stand as the only GREAT blending of rock and rap without ever loosing any of the rock or the funk. With this combined with RATM's fierce political message and seemingly intense live show (sadly I have never seen them live) I can only imagine how rebelliously spirit raising this was.

1. Bombtrack
   
2. Take the Power Back
3. Bullet In The Head
   
4. Darkness of Greed
5. Clear the Lane
6. Township Rebellion
7. Know Your Enemy
   
8. Mindset's a Threat
9. Killing In The Name Of
   
10. Autologic
11. Narrows
12. Freedom
    

DOWNLOAD HERE

RATM's political message is still as strong as ever, if not even more relevant now than it was, which really goes to show how fantastic and ahead of their time this band was. So go and buy "Killing In The Name Of" if you haven't already or just go and listen to all their albums again.

CGM

All of 2009's free shit from CGS

Over 2009 we have posted quite a few different treats to download for free. Just in case any of you lovely loyal readers missed these posts I thought I would put them all up. Think of it is an "it's almost Christmas" present. All the stuff is great, so I'd recommend just downloading all of it and discovering some new stuff. Keep a look out for some more free music soon.

CGM's Halloween MEGA MIX LOLOLOLOLOL:

01. Skinny Puppy - Rain
02. Skinny Puppy - Convulsion
03. Trash Talk - Scatter
04. Trash Talk - Babylon CA
05. Shitty Limits - Here Are The Limits
06. The Bronx - They Will Kill Us All (Without Mercy)
07. Dirty Money - Intro / Dirty Money
08. The Ocean - Une Saison En Enfer
09. Trash Talk - Kill The Snakes
10. Hang The Bastard - Failed Harvest
11. Pantera - I'm Broken
12. Rolo Tomassi - Headclouds / Reign of Low
13. Rammstein - Du Hast
14. Refused - New Noise
15. Iwrestledabearonce - Taste Like Kevin Bacon
16. Converge - Locust Reign
17. Danzig - Mother
18. Misfits - We Are 138
19. Motley Crue - Dr. Feelgood
20. Slayer - Raining Blood
21. Lil Jon - Stop Fuckin' Wit Me
Download HERE

CGS Mixtape: Vol I

1. Dirty Money - Out of Luck
2. Ice-T - Police Story (Black Flag cover)
3. Karen O. featuring Peaches - Backass
4. Some Girls - The DNA Will Have It's Say
5. Locust Toybox - Melodies from Mars 10 (Aphex Twin Cover)
6. UM - The Man's Got Me Beat
7. Lead Into Gold - Faster Than Light
8. Patton / Kaada - Aubade
9. Bon Iver - Skinny Love
10. Pogo - Alice
11. CON - Track 03 (demo)
12. Lovage - Book of the Month
13. 12 Round - Pleasant Smell (Rethought By Trent Reznor, Keith Hillebrandt And Clint Mansell For The Nothing Collective)
14. Nine Inch Nails - Atmosphere (Joy Division cover)
15. Nine Inch Nails - A Warm Place (Stella Soleil vocal version)
16. Tom Waits - I'll Never Let Go of Your Hand
DOWNLOAD HERE

CGS MIXTAPE: VOL II

01. Asher Roth - A Milli (Remix)
02. Lil Wayne - Paper Planes (Remix)
03. Ol' Dirty Bastard - Operator feat. The Clipse and Pharrell
04. Confucious Mc - Track 4 demo
05. Fergie vs. Sonic - Glamorous
06. PoleJR - Chocolate Rain: An Original Remix by PoleJR
07. Alkaline Trio - Burn (65daysofstatic Remix)
08. Soulwax - Beatles vs. Kraftwerk
09. CGM - My Violent Heart (Remix)
10. The Locust - Wizards of War
11. Cutting Pink With Knives - Aylburton
12. The Dillinger Escape Plan - I Don't Want You Playing With My Phone
13. The Shitty Limits - We Had a Gang
14. Alexisonfire - Boiled Frogs (Radio 1 Sessions)
15. Death From Above 1979 - Dead Wombs
16. Run, Walk! - God I Hate Old Friends
17. Eyvind King - I Am The Dead feat. Mike Patton
18. Bon Iver - Skinny Love (Live on Later With Jools Hollands)

DOWNLOAD HERE

Karen O Demos

Part 1
Part 2

Wu-Tang Clan's 1991 Demo

01 - Bring Da Ruckus
02 - Wu-Tang Master
03 - After The Laughter
04 - Enter The Wu-Tang
05 - It's All About Me
06 - The Wu is Comin Thru
07 - Problems
08 - Cuttin Headz
Download Here

Holy Roar Records Sampler 09

1. Brontide - Crunk Anansie
2. Youves - Big Arexic
3. Holy State - Repeat and Fade
4. The Ergon Carousel - Ironclad
5. the_Network - 500 pounds of idiot
6. Throats - Reign of Low (tape version)
7. Maths - Untitled Album Demo
8. Cutting Pink With Knives - Aylburton
9. Rolo Tomassi - Cirque Du Funk (4Music Session version)
10. November Coming Fire - Return of the Black Dog
11. Jealous - Ruins
DOWNLOAD

Deathwish MMIX Sampler

1. The Hope Conspiracy - In The Shadow Of God
2. Narrows - Chambered
3. Lewd Acts - Nightcrawlers
4. Coliseum - Last Wave
5. Victims - Breaking Out
6. Reign Supreme - Slipping Away
7. Trap Them - Flesh and Below
8. Nails - Lies
9. Rot in Hell - Coyotenia
10. Mother of Mercy - Divide
11. Carpathian - Spirals
12. 108 - Forever Is Destroyed
13. Ressurection - Culture
14. End of a Year - Walter Miller Jr.
15. Doomriders - Do You Like To Slam Dance?
16. Pulling Teeth - Bloodwolves
17. Integrity - Learn To Love The Lie
18. Supermachiner - Bitter Cold
19. J. Bannon - Heavy Blood (Empty Version)
DOWNLOAD

CON - Don't Concentrate On The Finger

1.Intro (MF DOOM)
2.Don't Concentrate On The Finger (J.DILLA)
3.Ohara (MADLIB)
4.Mr.Williams (9TH WONDER)
5.Conlib (MADLIB)
6.Mr.Roper (YOURS TRULY)
7.F Dat Bullsh*t (9TH WONDER)
8.Emotional Content (9TH WONDER)
9.Reality (9TH WONDER)
Download HERE

Last Witness - An Unfinished Life

01. Hell Has Frozen Over
02. XX-
03. Sellout Party
04. Snakes & Ladders
05. Vice City (Redux)
06. Something Horrible is Happening Inside of Me and I Don’t Know Why
07. Heartbroken
08. Heartbreaker
Download HERE

CGM

Some Pictures

There are some photographs from recent times that I would like to share with you, as a little CGS behind the scenes view.







The top photo is from the end of the BOILING POINT shoot. The others are examples of why we don't get more done.

News

As CGS Productions we are currently in the pre-production stages of our next film. In an attempt to not reveal tooo much it is psychological horror. We are looking at shooting in early Feb, in some of the woods found in Cambridgeshire, and are reprising the same team from Boiling Point, but with some much needed additions, like this guy:



Again, we'll keep you updated on what is happening with that, but right now it is all very exciting!

As we are just about to hit the Christmas holidays there should be a lot more posts coming up on here, as both myself and CGJ get bored in the holidays. Until then, adios.

CGM

POST HALLOWEEN RECOUPERATION


Hi everyone, sorry for the heinous lack of updates for the last month, but hey ho, on with the show.

A bunch of really good music has been released recently, so I'll give a little run down of the releases and which ones tickled my fancy, in no particular order of course.

Maths - Descent



Ive been a fan of Maths since hearing their side of the fantastic split with Throats and was impressed with their ability to create extreme music which was raw with emotion and melody while still maintaining to feel very visceral and challenging.

Descent took what I liked about their earlier work and expanded it out to mammoth proportions. The melodic sections soar higher than you can anticipate, and the frentic sections have become even more chaotic. As a fan of real screamo, think Orchid, Pg.99 and Ampere, this is an incredibly satisfying album, it ticks all the boxes. Many times I have come to the end of the album only to start it again from the beginning. I have literally had it on repeat for days without it growing old.

I really cannot recommend this album anymore for fans of emotive and intelligent music.

You can stream the whole thing from the Holy Roar Records site HERE


Between The Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect



I never liked any of BTBAM's stuff before Colors, I found it all to be fairly standard and tiresome metalcore, with occasional flashes of interest, like the track Selkies from their album Alaska. I also found their covers album The Anatomy Of to be completely pointless. However, Colors is one of my favourite metal albums of all time. No exaggeration, I think it is one of the greatest metal records ever created. Colors has everything that I wanted out of modern metal; brutality, melody, progression and, most importantly, creativity. I was hooked on first listen, and haven't been able to put it down since buying it in 07.

With all of that in mind, my expectations were actually not that high for The Great Misdirect. My thoughts were along the lines of "might've been a luck", "Colors will be impossible to top" "It will be dissapointing, so don't get your hopes up", but on second listen of the album I knew it was gold, pure gold.

The Great Misdirect is like Colors drawn out further a field. The eclectic influences in Colors have been expanded upon, and fairly frequently worked into the tracks seamlessly, without the eclectisism being confined to a specific section. This enables the album to take a very long route, taking the listener through many different soundscapes and musical "feels", all while still being distinctively Between The Buried and Me. One thing that especially stood out to me, on this record, is that the direction they have taken with their sound is one of original style Prog. Rock and Prog. Which is exactly what I hoped would happen. So in that respect, their influences might be even more apparent on this album, even though they are worked in more seamlessly.

And now, for the million dollar question.... Is it better than Colors? Yes and no. Some of the sections of The Great Misdirect are the most glorious parts the band have ever written, while other parts seem to drag a little. Overall, The Great Misdirect doesn't have the same build up that Colors has. It doesn't really have a huge cresciendo. It also doesn't feel as unified themeatically as Colors is. But nonetheless The Great Misdirect is an incredible album, which has all the aspects contained that made me fall in love with Between The Buried And Me to begin with. It is another inspiring and brilliant release from a band which will only go on to do great things.


King Cannibal - Let The Night Roar



This is probably the most brutal non metal record I've ever heard. It is dancehall / dubstep for metal heads, with no guitars.

The only way I can really describe what's going on, on this album, is the sound of cracked out Africans shooting shit with AK-47s, at night, covered in blood and crack.

That's all that can really be said about it. Oh, and it's good.


Every Time I Die - New Junk Aesthetic



ETID are a really good band who have done some really fantastic records, specifically and Hot Damn! and the ultimate hardcore/pop crossover album ever Gutter Phenomenon. For a long time each new ETID album bought more surprises and gave a slight variation upon the band's sound, all without revolutionising too much, but with the release of Big Dirty it was apparent that the band had found a formular, that they and most their fans are more than happy with. This is also the case with New Junk Aesthetic. The album sounds like Big Dirty and is just as good, if not better. New Junk Aesthetic is a great album, but breaks no new ground. If you like ETID then you'll like their latest release.


Converge - Axe to Fall



I fucking love Converge. Their is no way around it, they are the greatest modern hardcore band. With each new release they have out done themselves, releases record after record of innovative and creative hardcore, that constantly keeps you guessing and on your toes. Just how music should fucking be.

So we all knew Axe to Fall would be special, just simply because every Converge album is special. And the leaked tracks were mind blowing. Both Dark Horse and Axe to Fall had me proverbially shitting my pants and mashing my keyboard for more songs. The two leaked tracks hinted at an album with more of a metal influence, and an album that would be more experimental than previous releases. And thats exactly what the album is.

Axe to Fall seems to be Converge's experimental collaborative album. They have played with different genres and different sounds which leaves us with a very diverse album, that in some places seems alittle ununified. Although each track remains to be a gem. Although I feel that it is Ben Koller's drumming creativity which really projects the songs into the next level. I feel that many of these songs would not be as jaw dropping if someone else had drummed on them. So thank fuck he did!

Although it is not my favourite Converge album, it is an incredibly good album, which is both challenging and satisfying, as both a Converge fan and creative music fan.


Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. 2



Being the big Wu-Tang fan that I am, I couldn't bloody wait for this album to come out. It had been in the works for years and had a lot of hype built up around it by Raekwon himself, which can frequently lead to dissapointment. Luckily for good old Rae The Chef, OB4CL2 is awesome!

It has an updated Wu-Tang sound. It's got soul, it's got Kung Fu and it has loads of the Wu Fam involved. It is the Wu-Tang album we've been waiting for since The W. Almost all the tracks are great, with New Wu, Surgical Gloves and 10 Bricks being my personal favourites from the record.

If you are a fan of Wu-Tang and of Rae's original Only Built 4 Cuban Linx then you will dig this album.


CON - Don't Concentrate On The Finger



As well as being a phenomenal actor (he played the bloody lead in BOILING POINT) and CGS regular, Confucius MC is a sick MC and lyricist. He's put out a few different mixtape and demos, two tracks of which I put on the last two CGS Mixtapes, and has over the summer put out his latest mixtape, which you can download for FREE! YAY! (link at the bottom).

This mixtape sees the growth of CON's chilled but enlightening lyrical style with production to match. The guy's lyrics really do shead light on some very interesting subjects, from philosophy to living is South East. This mixtape has one of my personal favourite tracks on it, which is F Dat Bullshit which has a wonderfully dreamy quality (which really comes to life after a little of natures green medicine).

Check it out and give him a shout on his myspace, which I linked at the top.

Download HERE


Last Witness - An Unfinished Life



I never saw Last Witness live, or really heard of them before they put out their latest album for free on da net. I was pleasently surprised on the quality of the album, thinking that it might not be that great if they just put it out for free.

For the most part, it is fairly familiar hardcore / beatdown ground, but does some fluoreshes of brilliance, specifically on the last two tracks Heartbroken and Heartbreaker. Althought my favourite track on the release is XX- which has a great riff and is nice and ferocious.

Overall, although the sound of the album is familiar, it is executed with such ferocity and bile that it is hard not to enjoy. The only thing that really bugs me on the album is the lack of commitment, from the vocalist, to stick to one style. It feels like he couldn't decide on what vocal style he want, so kept trying out different ones. But, nonetheless an enjoyable album.

Download HERE


Lastly, I recently found myself sort after as a DJ (in the loosest sense of the word), DJing at Uni events and recently at my buddies' Halloween party, where apart from rocking poorly mixed aggressive hiphop and electro, I prepared my own mix of different hardcore and metal tracks. I played it very early, so not many peeps heard it, so I thought "why not put it up on the INTERWEBS!" So here it is!

CGM's Halloween MEGA MIX LOLOLOLOLOL:

01. Skinny Puppy - Rain
02. Skinny Puppy - Convulsion
03. Trash Talk - Scatter
04. Trash Talk - Babylon CA
05. Shitty Limits - Here Are The Limits
06. The Bronx - They Will Kill Us All (Without Mercy)
07. Dirty Money - Intro / Dirty Money
08. The Ocean - Une Saison En Enfer
09. Trash Talk - Kill The Snakes
10. Hang The Bastard - Failed Harvest
11. Pantera - I'm Broken
12. Rolo Tomassi - Headclouds / Reign of Low
13. Rammstein - Du Hast
14. Refused - New Noise
15. Iwrestledabearonce - Taste Like Kevin Bacon
16. Converge - Locust Reign
17. Danzig - Mother
18. Misfits - We Are 138
19. Motley Crue - Dr. Feelgood
20. Slayer - Raining Blood
21. Lil Jon - Stop Fuckin' Wit Me

Download HERE


More updates soon.

CGM

“Little hand says it’s time to rock and roll!”

It’s been a little over a month since my last article, which featured no reviews at all and was in fact really only a response piece to the article written by Max just before. We’ve been extremely busy here at Castle Grey Skullz as the final year of university is soon upon us. We’ve also been doing the odd job for Who’s Jack and you can finally check out some of our stuff at their snazzy new site www.thisisjack.tv. Last I count our page had been viewed 4600 times. I very much appreciate the support, and for those of you who come for the free music but choose to stay we both love you here for it. As you may have heard/seen (hope you liked the poster) we’re incredibly close to finishing Boiling Point to unleash on the world. And I’ll be honest I could not be happier right now, but more on that later. I come back to you again mainly with experience in the form of what we’ve been up to lately.

Before we begin can we just have a moments silence for Patrick Swayze who passed away at age 57 after a pretty goddamn awesome career. Say what you want about Dirty Dancing (1987) and Ghost (1990) but both his turns in Point Break (1991) and Donnie Darko (2001) are fantastic, as are the movies themselves. We’ve lost a lot of good actors and childhood heroes lately and it’s a shame, if inevitable.

“If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories. “

So Boiling Point nears its general release (on the internet) and though it’s been a while in real time (about 6 weeks) it’s only been about a week total in production time. It took one night to write (as I had storyboarded it first, sometimes I like to work backwards). It took two long night shoots from around 8pm till 2am (even pushing it to 5am on the final night). And it took less than 3 days to get our movie out of final cut pro. That’s less than a week of production time total, and the film itself cost us less than £100. It’s quite an achievement, hurrah for us!

“Is there a murder in your movie?”

The simple answer to that is no. The idea for the script came from my mother telling me one day when I was sitting staring at the kettle waiting for my fix that “a watched kettle never boils”. Pretty simple really, so when writing I tried to take it a step further, making it about wanting something so badly that’s being denied to you by someone or something. The first draft was pretty boring, so I took in a load of Sam Raimi and David Lynch movies and went back to work. The final result was something with a lot of tension and a very surreal vibe to it. It was only 4 pages long. Suddenly I realised I had something in my lap that could very easily be made to a high standard and very quickly. So I got on the phone to CGM and told him what I thought, and he agreed that we should do it and that we could use his equipment.

“Susie, do you know anything about... witches?”

No, and this movie isn’t about witches either. I suppose if you look deeply it’s about the human psyche and how the mind can play tricks on you. The actual shoot was a brilliant experience.

I had many conversations with Max about how we should approach it. He suggested we use our friend Iain as cameraman. Iain’s one cool customer who’s very relaxed and hilarious, and Max had worked with him before so I figured why not. Now that I’ve had a chance to sit down and watch the footage I’m very impressed with how well he did and he’s a lot of the reason this film looks as good as it does.

I knew who I wanted to act in it pretty much as soon as I wrote it. I might even have offered him the role before I even knew if we were going to make it or not. You’ve heard his music here on CGS under his pseudonyms Confucius MC or CON but his real name is Will. I’d seen a bit of his work before and really wanted to work with him. He was in the pretty awesome student film Max made last year called Compensation (and it’s difficult to make an awesome student film). And wow, this guy knows how to give a good performance. It was so intense. There were maybe 6 people in that kitchen we shot at for most of the time, but you would have only noticed Will. You can even seen from the trailer with the shots of him laughing, and as someone who was sitting right in front of him at the time I really thought his mind had snapped, it was that intense.

The whole shoot was really easy. Our friends Darren and Paddy (also just a few of the residents at the house we were graciously given free rein in) became our production assistants/special effects guru’s/script finder (God bless you Paddy). Believe me, you need production assistants, they make the whole process faster and give you more time to deal with talent or your crew. We had no problems with the lighting or getting the shots we needed. Like I said, two nights and probably the easiest shoot I will ever be allowed to experience.

“Where’s my beaver rape scene?”

No, none of that in there either. And as for Max, well the whole thing wouldn’t have happened without him. He was my Director of Photography on the project as well as my editor. His impeccable sense with lighting helped make my dark and jarring vision a reality and his love of sound editing (which is where the casual editor gives up) bought the tension up 10 fold. Funnily enough, this is the first film we’ve worked on together, and I hope that it’s only the beginning of many.

The editing process was pretty seamless except for a moment when Final Cut Pro decided it would be funny to not start up and make us thing that all hope was lost. I say us, Max was pretty calm and figured out how to fix it, but I went through the whole “Oh my god I’ve lost my movie!” breakdown routine. Everything else was simple.

I had a pretty clear vision when filming that meant we were left with a clear story done from many different angles. That is totally awesome, because you can never have too many angles of the same shot. Of the three tapes we used we managed to tweak out around half an hour’s worth of really good footage, which ended up at about 6 minutes by the time it was all done.

There was very little arguing. We both bounced ideas off each other and knew exactly what we wanted so it all went along quickly. The credits in particular I’m very proud of. You’ll see.

“So anyways...”

You may have noticed that the trailer is very random, and you might find the film to be the same. We’ll have to wait and see. But do know that it was intentional. We wanted something that would get you interested, and I can almost guarantee that the film will leave you with a very similar feeling.

But enough hype, you’ll see the film soon enough, and some even sooner than others. You may remember that I wrote an article about my experience of trying to write a zombie script for the Roehampton Film Societies first full production and how my script was pretty much given up on by everyone at the very early stages. Well I decided to put all that aside and called up the producer of Morning After (Breakfast of the Dead) to see if we could tag along to their premier of the film at our University on the 25^th of September. And against all odds they said yes.

It took me a while to get over the shock of that, I don’t even care if no-one shows up, a piece of my work is going to be shown on a big screen somewhere. That’s enough for me. So the premier is now set for the 25^th, where unless they all of sudden change their mind, you will be able to come to see both Boiling Point and Morning After in succession on a gloriously large screen. The rest of you will have to wait for the 28^th when it will be up on the internet to release to the world (I would say the 26^th but I think Max and I might have to after party till dawn if people like it and will need time to recover). So if you’re on campus on the 25^th at 5pm then please come find us, if not then check us out in full HD glory when we throw it up online.

“Which brings me back to that actually...”

We filmed it all in HD, which means that the majority of it looks fucking beautiful quality. If you’re filming projects then I suggest HD, even if it does use up more space, as it really does make everything go to 11. I also haven’t spoken about my own role as director, mainly as I can’t really give myself constructive criticism yet and I’d much rather hear it from you guys once the movie is up and out there. If any of our friends who run blogs wishes to do a review then I know both Max and I would welcome it, as we’re only interested in getting better.

And this film is better, much better, than anything I have ever done. And I enjoyed every second of it, which you hopefully will also. I’ve already begun working on the script that might be our next project called Spin Cycle which is based on a cool story Max came up with. There’s also talk of dragging Dead Knowledge out its grave (pun intended) and giving that a go as well. It would be so nice to make a sick zombie film. I’m excited about Spin Cycle already, I feel like this piece could be incredibly tense and emotional. I just hope that production (on either of them) goes as smoothly as possible.

And so once again we come to the end. I really hope you like the movie, we worked very hard on it and it’s really worth your time. The more at the premier the better, I say. Please also check us out at JackTV, and anywhere else we pop up from time to time. The more support we have the better we can get so let’s keep on rolling.

So with no further wait

BOILING POINT

Until next time, make mine Marvel!

Hah.

Oh yeah, there’s this mad philosophical dude I’ve been reading a lot of lately. He blogs over at http://drtchockii.blogspot.com/ and it’s all very interesting stuff. Check it out.

Soon

Banned In The UK


Yesterday I sat down in bed and watched the latest two films to kick up a storm, concerning on screen violence, in the UK: Antichrist (2009) and Grotesque (2009). Both of these films kicked up a fuss due to graphic on screen violence, but they are extremely different films.


Grotesque (2009)



After a string of horrors movies, dubbed "torture porn", came out around 2005, such as Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005) (and a continuing slew of even lower budget sequels), became popular, smash-and-grab sub-Hollywood producers realised that fast turn over, super gory horror films could turn a huge profit, just as long as a few kinda baddies got tortured and every teen told their friends that they were pussies if they couldn't stomach it. Personally, I took some enjoyment out of Hostel, but felt Saw was just Se7en (1995) if imagine by 15 year old videogame addicts, but overall as a horror fan I looked forward to what could have been the opening of a door for lots of cool new gory horror films, not just stupid teen slashers. What subsequently ensued was not the replacement of the tiresome teen slasher but the mutation of it; into tiresome teen torture movies. YAWN.

Now, fast forward a few years and untalented film makers and producers have been trying to push each other to make gorier torture movies, which seem to have gotten less and less creative and innovative the more that these people try to be transgressive. Grotesque is the pinnacle of this idiocy.

When discovering that Grotesque had been banned by the BBFC, without a reason given, I figured I have to watch it (either that being telling of my masochistic tendencies or that I just seem to hear "that movie was fucked up and disgusting" as a challenge and not a warning). So I downloaded it, got the English fansubs and whacked it on. Here is the place I would usually try to pull out something insightful about the relevant film, but I cannot think of one saving grace for this film.

It is extremely gory, including large dashings of sexual violence and humiliation, however none of it was remotely creative, innovative or transgressive. The film holds no artistic merit. Due to a massive lack of character development, plot or even solid film making, it is extremely hard to empathise at all with anything that is happening on screen. It is true that some of the scenes did make me cringe, but that is cheap. Fear is not cheap, and fear (or for that matter any real emotional substance) is totally lacking from this film. It is also purely futile to attempt to make a film which will "top" the gore or nastiness of any previous film, because ultimately you will not be able to. Films like Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985) and Murder Set Pieces (2004) are more disgusting, while Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and Man Bites Dog (1992) are more emotionally engaging and disturbing pieces of ART.

Now, I don't mean to sound as if I have any problems with extreme gore in films. I have seen some of the "nastiest" and "sickest" films ever made, some of which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but it is the ones that hold artistic merit and creativity which are worth watching, otherwise you may as well just be wanking over rape porn on the Internet, somewhere. Also, you shouldn't make films which make it look like men and women enjoy getting raped.


Antichrist (2009)



As mentioned earlier, I seem to have some odd attraction to films which have caused great outrage, shock or horror in audiences. In fact, I attribute this to my childhood, in which my Father represented "cool" and let me watch almost any movie I wanted and my Mother represented "stuffy" when it came to movies and music. So if my Mother told me not to watch something horrid, while my father said I should, I always went the way that would piss off my Mum. As is the way of so many of our traits as adults. Anyway, I digress; with the knowledge you now have of my movie picking criteria you can imagine how I reacted upon my Mother informing me that people had fainted during the screening of Antichrist at Canne and that I shouldn't see that "horrible" film. I watched it.

Antichrist is an artistic force which is both beautiful and terrifying to behold. Everything in this film is perfect. It is the best film of the year, and certainly in the running for greatest film of the decade.

Antichrist is the polar opposite of everything I hate about films like Grotesque. It is artistic, it is not pandering to commerce, it is superbly shot, edited, constructed, written and directed, it has incredible performances, it is emotionally satisfying and engrossing. And yes, it is violent, however it is not gratuitous or distasteful.

Antichrist has also been accused of being highly misogynistic, which can definitely be seen in the film, however I see the traits less as being representative of Women as a whole and more to do with the female characters slip into madness.

Antichrist IS art house Horror done to perfection.

If you are a fan of Horror, Cinema or just good films then please watch this movie, you will not be disappointed.



CGM


Oh, and by the by, Boiling Point has been completed. News to follow soon on release dates and screenings. Also, our first lot of stuff is up on JACK TV now, have a look at the Channel Jeff section to see our work.

Also, some perculiar young gentleman has gone off the rails HERE. It's good though.

BOILING POINT

A week ago we shot our first film for CGS Productions: "BOILING POINT". I won't elaborate upon the content further than it is a suspense horror, set in one room with only one character. We filmed it over two days, in HD, and are planning upon having it finished for the first week of September. Here is the trailer, to get you all excited and worked up.

Boiling Point Trailer from Max Hopkins Fagan on Vimeo.

Make sure to watch it in HD!

CGM

“It's just, you know. You're just funny, it's... funny, the way you tell the story and everything.”

Welcome, it’s been a while. We’ve been pretty busy here at CGS working and shooting and writing. I’ve been quite deeply (and unusually) involved in a number of writing projects that I’m hoping to bring to fruition at some point in the near future. I’ve just finished a script for a short film called “Boiling Point” that, if all goes to plan, will be the first ever CGS production. There will be more news on that soon.


note from CGM: This man is still a dick

Max has been holding up the fort with some cracking reviews on some of the summer blockbusters I didn’t get a chance to see. I particularly liked his review of Transformers 2 (2009). HUGE FUCKING ROBOTS indeed. I agree with him about Michael Bay. The man is a god when it comes to action but his understanding of characters and their portrayal leaves much to be desired. His films featuring experienced actors are, in general, quite good.

Bad Boys (1995) and Bad Boys 2 (2003) are the perfect example of this.

Will Smith is, as we should all know by now, a good actor. I won’t hear anything bad said about him unless you’re talking about his music. His acting career has been pretty outstanding. I used to find Fresh Prince hilarious. Sure he does the family movies where some stars would mail it in and collect that dough. But are you really going to try and tell me that Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997) and I, Robot (2004) featured an uninterested and bored Smith? No way. And as to whether he can really hold it up on the big screen? I ask you to watch I am Legend (2007) and The Pursuit of Happiness (2006). Neither of them are brilliant movies but both feature big Willy on top form. He’s really the only reason to watch either of them. The man is a star and always seems ready and willing to give it his all.

Martin Lawrence is a star in his own right, just not on the global scale of Will Smith. He doesn’t have the stripes that Will has when it comes to big screen either. Blue Streak (1999) and Life (1999) are the only ones I can think of off the bat that I’d recommend. He is very good at what he does though, and in general that’s to be funny, which makes sense with his background in comedy and stand up. Which is why he was perfect for Bad Boys, you need an angry, neurotic black man you write Lawrence a cheque.

I love both these movies. Smith and Lawrence bring their A game with some brilliant chemistry and some hardcore attitude. Michael Bay really brings it with some of the set pieces. The final fight in the sequel is pretty goddamn explosive. They’re an almost perfect mix of comedy and action that really throws back (though not very far) to the 80’s and Lethal Weapon (1987) with the buddy cop vibe. I’d highly recommend them.



Look at Bays resume and it’s clear that not only has he been incredibly lucky to land a franchise that would make money even if Uwe Boll was in charge, but that he’s also been fortunate to have worked with some experienced actors. With The Rock (1996) he had Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. Armageddon (1998) placed him with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Buscemi. Both of those movies are really quite good. But as with Bad Boys I just imagine that all of the actors on set just waved Bay off when he came over to do a read through in a kind of “Don’t worry Michael, you go set up the dynamite, we got the script covered!” way.

Now look at some of the other films where he’s had a mostly young cast that might need a little more guidance than some of the more experienced veterans mentioned above. Pearl Harbour (2001) had Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale as the lead roles and that film was pretty lame. The Island (2005) did have a veteran Ewan McGregor as the lead but featured an unusually bland (and still young) Scarlett Johansson. The story wasn’t brilliant but I felt that film in particular would have been a lot better with just a bit more time spent tweaking the performances, especially in a film that leans so heavily on them.

And of course there’s Transformers (2007) and Transformers 2 (2009), the second of which I have yet to see. Trusted sources inform me it’s more of the same (only louder), and to me that’s okay. I understand that this film is about the robots and the explosions with little emotional content. I’m cool with that and it’s probably the reason I hated Terminator IV (2009) because I was promised so much more. My main problem with the Transformers franchise has been the mishandling of the talent. I get that in a film about robots you want to see robots, but adding in that human side and really building on the threat of the Decepticons, not only to the Autobots but to the entire world, would have really taken this film from popcorn movie to something with a little substance.

These are made for a keen fan base that laps it up and are by no means Michael Bay’s best attempts at directing. And once again, with a young cast of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, the acting is left behind in place of a lot of explosions and shouting.

Megan Fox, as an exact polar opposite of Will Smith; can’t act. I hope that’s something we all agree on. She is pretty hot, and oozes sex appeal but has very little acting ability. She’s little more than a studio construct right now. She’s a guaranteed go to player when it comes to attracting a young horny male audience to the cinema.



Shia on the other hand, is someone who I think will only get better as he gets older and moves on to more interesting projects and characters. He’s already pretty experienced and these Transformer movies could have been a chance for him to really lead a franchise (like Will Smith in Men in Black). But no, again it would seem that Bay had his crew divided into two camps, the actor’s one side and the explosive experts on the other.

Shia’s been excellent in a lot of supporting roles so he’ll bounce back and Megan Fox is guaranteed a career for as long as she’s willing to show some skin. Even though after this franchise, neither of them probably needs to work again but we all love attention so the show will go on.



Bay, will of course, continue making action movies that don’t claim to be anything more than a giant lightshow. Every once in a while a studio will realise he needs a strong cast of actors who know their role and can work individually and hand him a bunch, resulting in a good movie. It is how the industry works and it’s a shame. The man is paid to direct, and it’s like he ignores the system to get to a final product quicker.


“It'll be a cold day in hell when Harry Flugelman lets an actor tell *him* what to do!”



This brings me back to the original reason I sat down and started writing this entry. The other summer movie I had the pleasure of checking in the cinema recently was The Hangover (2009) and it has me internally conflicted. I enjoyed it and thought it was pretty funny. I don’t agree with the unnecessary hype that the film has had handed to it.

It’s not the best comedy of recent times, it’s merely another in a long line of good comedy films to come out this decade. I laughed harder and more frequently while watching both Superbad (2007) and Anchorman (2004) to name a few.

The Hangover is interesting in that most of the stuff that most comedies would kill to show happens before we pick up the story, and what we’re left with is the resulting incidents and confrontations that happen in the day following. That in itself makes it worth watching. It doesn’t follow the usual teen comedy rules of grossing out your audience because it’s not really a teen comedy at all.

This is very clear when you examine the characters. Max is correct; Zach Galifianakis excels in his role of Alan and easily controls the films two or three biggest laughs. Yet I felt the character was out of place in this movie. It’s almost like Alan would have fared better had he been written into Anchorman or a more surreal comedy. He’s a large, bearded, single eccentric man in a film where the other three main characters are family men realising that they aren’t as capable of a heavy night out as they used to be.

I’m a huge fan of Ed Helms and his work as (a different) Andy in The Office television series (US version) and he continues to show his comedic talents here. His character Stu is in a relationship with a completely overbearing and bitchy girlfriend and while he’s away in Vegas he marries a stripper. By the end of the movie he has dumped his girlfriend and organised a date with the stripper so as to ensure a real future with her.

Bradley Cooper is pretty good as Phil, who on first viewing would appear to be the playboy womaniser of the group (he just has that look) is actually the most timid, being involved in hardly any of the really crazy things that happen during the night we only see in pictures and video. The ending also reveals another part of the characters life that had remained unseen that completely changes the way you view his character.

And then there is Dough, played by Justin Bartha, the man getting married and the reason they end up in Vegas.

At the end they all toast to a new future and Alan would appear to be the odd man out. Even the comedy he produces is different. Everyone in this movie relies on realistic reactions to incredible things. Alan as a character speaks at inopportune and awkward times, mostly with one liners or a funny sentence. It’s not really a big deal but I mention it merely as another reason this isn’t perfect.

It’s a funny film. Watch it, as there probably won’t be another film as funny for another year or so but it’s not the best comedy ever.

Anyway, again I digress, as I’m not writing this to trounce all over the fun you could be having with this movie. I’m just bored with this hype train that seems to get everybody on board. It’s insulting my inner artist.


So anyway



I said that I didn’t think it was the funniest movie ever to a friend, to which he replied “what is?” Good question, and one that’s a lot more complicated than it may at first seem. I mean there are comedy movies that carry hardly a giggle, and then there are movies like those that the Coen brothers make that are hilarious in their own right, without every pretending to be a comedy (Check at the bottom for a link). I couldn’t even think of a movie I could rank rightly as the funniest movie I have ever seen because, simply, there’s been a few over the years.

It really depends on what mood I’m in and my taste at the time. Genres have become so muddled and convoluted that no movie is just one genre. Most films have some/all of the clear signs of a comedy smoothly woven into the stories narrative. Like I said earlier, the Bad Boys franchise is an action one, but it’s funny as hell.

As is Miller’s Crossing (1990), the Coen brothers brilliant crime thriller that shines through with some hilarious moments. None of them are the funniest movie ever.

I’m a big Will Ferrell fan and Anchorman was a stroke of genius in my opinion. I know a lot of people don’t like him but I really rate his character acting, and he does his job well. His comedies are always quite highly rated in my books and I absolutely loved Stranger than Fiction (2006), another film that was very funny in its own right. The problem with Ferrell is that I understand his comedy doesn’t appeal to everyone, and because of that I can’t say any of his movies are the funniest of all time.

In the same vein are the Mel Brooks type comedies (of which I’m secretly quite a big fan). I still remember pissing myself the first time I saw Blazing Saddles (1974). That film is really quite brilliant and Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder are hilarious. I like it for its mix of comedy. It has the gross out moments like when everyone is farting around a campfire but then balances that with clever humour, such as when Little as Bart pretends to take himself hostage to get away from a town of white racists at the beginning. Hilarious.

Three Amigos! (1986) is very similar. There are brilliant performances from Steve Martin and Chevy Chase in this tale of mistaken identity. But once again, I just can’t place my reputation on saying these are the funniest films ever.



I guess this just proves we (I say we, I mean I) should think more carefully before I speak. The funniest film ever is a relative thing, and so even if I knew myself I’d still have others to justify it to.

I do know who my favourite comedian is. I’m a big fan of the usual suspects like Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Bill Bailey, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Frankie Boyle and so on. And I mean really, that list could go on forever. There’s few stand up routines I can’t sit through.

My favourite of them all would have to be Dave Chappelle. I don’t know what it is but his comedy just gets me. It’s brilliant on so many levels. His sesame street sketch from Killing ‘em softly (2000) is truly great. The whole of that show is actually. It’s the same with The Chappelle Show which is a bit risky but still features some great material.

And then there’s Half Baked (1998), which is in my opinion as near perfect as you’re going to get from a stoner movie. I’ve seen a lot of them, including the Cheech and Chong films all the way down to the basement stoner films like Evil Bong (2006), and Half Baked is way up there.



So anyways, I’ve rambled without giving you any real reviews. Unfortunate. I’ll ask instead for people to get back to me about their opinion on what is the funniest film ever. I’ll try and keep searching while viewing and see if I can find an answer.

As to reviews, I have nothing really new for you this time, so I’ll point you over to an excellent review of one of my favourite films by a good friend of ours over at sirensoflondon. It’s a really eloquently and well thought out review that makes me a little bit ashamed of when I write entries like this. Check it out and I’ll catch you soon.

Cheerio.

CGJ