Thoughts on the Oscar nominations

Ms Salma Hayek and Mr Someguyinasuit announced the nominations for the Academy Awards today. Some of the noms were fairly predictable (oh look - the oh so worthy and actually quite mediocre Babel) but there are some interesting inclusions, and apart from Her Majesty Dame Helen Of Mirren, no definite winners.

Best picture
I'd like The Departed or Little Miss Sunshine to win this, but it'll probably go to the worthier Letters From Iwo Jima or Babel. I really don't think Babel deserves all the praise it's getting - I found it to be little more than an unfocussed and unengaging succession of unfortunate events.

Best director
Go on, give it to Scorsese, I dare you. I imagine Babel will bag it. It's a lot better than Crash, so it wouldn't be a complete travesty, but it's nowhere near as good as Pan's Labyrinth or Casino Royale or The Prestige or most of the other films released last year.

Best actor
It's be nice to see O'Toole get the Oscar that he should have got for Lawrence Of Arabia, but surely this is Forest Whitaker's. The Last King Of Scotland was far from perfect - I've yet to be convinced about the merits of Peter Morgan's particular habit of blurring of fact of fiction - but Whitaker's performance was amazing. It's just a shame that it overshadowed the rest of the film in the eyes of the Oscar voters - where are the nominations for James McAvoy and Kevin Macdonald?

Best actress
"Okay Ms Streep, we've checked the rules and it says that with every tenth Oscar nomination you're allowed to upgrade one supporting role to a leading role."

Best supporting actress
Normally I'd look at a nomination for a ten year old and say, quite loudly and obnoxiously, "Pft!". However, I've seen Little Miss Sunshine and every time Abigail Breslin said or did anything I burst into tears. Shower her with gold at once.

Best supporting actor
I never thought I'd say this but … this is really hard … I'd quite like Mark Wahlberg to win this one. That's right, I'm a born again Wahlbergian. Yeah, and I think Donnie is pretty good too. You want to take this outside?

Best foreign language film
The otherwise unjustly snubbed Pan's Labyrinth has to win this one, surely. And how come Letters From Iwo Jima isn't in this category? Hmm? It's not best foreign film, it's best foreign langauge film.

Best animated feature film
Despite the huge number of animated films released this year (most of which involved domesticated animals), there have been depressingly few good ones. Even Pixar slipped a little with their bizarre decision to remake Doc Hollywood with Cars. Still, probably the best of the bunch.

Best adapted screenplay
How is Borat "adapted"? Or does that cover improvised/cast-devised screnplays? I suppose that would explain how Before Sunset was nominated a couple of years ago. Anyway, this should go to The Departed, if only for Mark Wahlberg's impressive swearing.

Best original screenplay
It'll go to Little Miss Sunshine (it always goes to the indie film that's missed out in other categories), but Pan's Labyrinth deserves it more. It's worth noting that two and a half of the films are foreign and one of them has a character who doesn't say anything for most of the film. The collpase of the English language is nigh.

Best music (score)
I have no strong opinion on this one.

Best music (song featured in the film "Dreamgirls")
Sorry Melissa Etheridge, sorry James Taylor, you're simply not eligible for this category.

Best documentary feature
Could Al Gore win the first Oscar awarded to a glorified PowerPoint presentation?

Best visual effects
I don't get why they only have three nominees in this category. Surely there were more than three special effects movies last year? What about X-Men 3, or films with more subtle use of effects like The Prestige or Perfume?

Best costume design
I hope they stage an actual handbag fight between Marie Antoinette and Queen Elizabeth II at the awards ceremony. It's be much better than Stomp.

Best make-up
Surely it's Pan's Labyrinth. Although it would be kind of funny if an Adam frickin' Sandler film won an Oscar.

Creative Review and Mother

The February 2007 issue of Creative Review will be guest-edited by ad agency Mother, with the theme "Selling Your Soul" (a sly nod to Andrew Shaughnessy's fab creative bible "How To Be A Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul").

There's nothing particularly new about the whole guest-editing malarky (Jarvis Cocker recently put together a very good issue of the Observer Music Magazine), but the interesting detail with this case is that Mother are actually paying for the privilege.

An ad agency advertising itself using a magazine that covers the ad industry. Confusing, eh?

We'll have to wait for the magazine to hit shelves before we can tell how much of their soul Creative Review have sold, but it certainly sounds like Mother are throwing all they can at the project - posters, stickers, packaging, extra editorial pages, fancy paper, the lot.

Read all about it at MagCulture, where magazine guru Jeremy Leslie interviews Creative Review editor Patrick Burgoyne.

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Thoughts on Casino Royale, before and after, plus an excuse for a Venn diagram

For some reason, I wasn't invited to the Royal premiere of Casino Royale the other night.  I can only assume that my invitation was lost in the mail (the Royal mail that is - so I'm holding the Queen personally responsible). I am, however, off to see it tonight. Here are some "before and after" thoughts:

Before

It's impossible to turn on a TV or open a magazine at the moment without seeing Bond all over the place. I feel like I've already seen the film but in fragmented clips and montages. Based on what I've seen and what I've read, Daniel Craig is the right man for the part, and director Martin Campbell has already delivered one amazing Bond reinvetion (Goldeneye), and it looks like he's going to deliver again.

I'm looking forward to there being an actual character arc in this film (and, as has been suggested, the next one). As well as the usual action and thriller aspects, there'll be a good dose of tragedy too. Hopefully.

Some concerns: I think keeping Judi Dench is a mistake - her presence creates a slightly illogical link with the Brosnan pics. There's no Moneypenny or Q. I understand why they've omitted them this time around (especially as both characters were mishandled/miscast in the last couple of films), but I'm hoping that they'll show up in the next one.

In a few hours time I'll try to pinpoint where Casino Royale falls within this nexus.

After (spoilerififc)

This film is more fun, more gripping than the last few Bond films put together. Science fiction and CGI are out the window in favour of Bourne-style physical effects and human drama. The first big set-piece, a free-running chase through a building site, is one of the finest sequences of stuntwork since Indiana Jones. Just fifteen minutes later we're dealt another that most films would be happy to have as a climax - but Casino Royale is still in act one.

That's not to say this is just a series of stunt jobs strung together in lieu of a plot. Bond - and the characters around him - are fleshed out motivated. One of the best moments is a completley unexpected tender scene where Bond comforts a post-traumatic Vesper Lynd in the shower (but not in the usual Bond way).

There are plenty of fan-pleasing references and challenges to the conventions, props and locations of previous Bond films, but not in a tongue-in-cheek or intrusive way. The only irksome moment is a completely pointless cameo from Richard Branson which gives the audience an unwelcome wink when everything else happening on screen is cranking up the tension. He did exactly the same thing in Superman Returns and quite frankly he should stop it. Now.

My only other reservations are that Judi Dench really should have been cut loose, and the opening credits sequence is a bit rubbish. But that's it.

Rather than compare it to other Bond films, which either pale in comparison or belong to a different era and style of film-making, I'd say this has more in common with the source-respectful Batman Begins, the brutal Bourne films and the stylish Ocean's 11.

That's to say that Casino Royale has the potential to be a modern classic.

On correct Star Wars episodic running order protocol

I've been planning to have a weekend of Star Wars films with mates for a while now, and there's some disagreement over the best running order. Do you watch them in episode order (I-VI) or chronological release order (IV-VI, I-III)?

There's an interesting analysis of the various options over at Fanpop. One of the alternative running orders suggested has got me thinking, and I think it may well be the best one.

Basically, you watch Episodes IV and V and then, following the Big Father Revelation, you watch Episodes I to III as an Extended flashback, followed by episode VI.

This way you avoid scuppering all of the important plot-point "surprises" of the original trilogy. So much of the narrative revolves around the the relationships between the characters being revealed, and the new trilogy kind of undermines that. Watching it in this new order, you keep the dramatic structure, plus there's added emotional resonance to the climactic Emperor/Luke/Vader battle.

This'll be the corner I'll be fighting for when our marathon weekend finally happens - I'll let you know if it works in practice as well as it does in theory.

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A random fact involving some big numbers

Dr Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University estimated that in 2003, nine billion human hours were spent playing computer solitaire. To put this in context, the construction of the Panama Canal took 20 million human-hours.

So there.

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Little Miss Sunshine is superb

I saw Little Miss Sunshine last night, and I feel it's my blogular duty to inform everyone that it is superb. The script is superb, the direction is superb, and the cast (the best ensemble-believably-playing-a-family since The Royal Tenenbaums) are all superb.

Steve Carrel is particularly superb. I was pleasently surprised by his performance in The 40 Year-Old Virgin last year (a film which is a lot sweeter than the marketing suggests), but in this he proves that he's more than just a comedian. He's a fully fledged great actor, and I want to see him being superb in more straight roles.

Abigail Breslin, who plays the little girl, is also superb. I couldn't understand a single word she was saying when she played Bo in Signs a couple of years ago, but now she's been taught how to speak, and she does it superbly. Pretty much every time she said anything, I cried.

I think I may have Superb-RSI now. Go see this film. Now.

Five years

Well it's been five years now. That's five whole years of mourning, mud-slinging, profiteering, paranoia, war, and Goverment-induced racism and fear. You can't really avoid this strange anniversary at the moment. I've just watched the first half of "The Path to 9/11", a dramatisation of US intelligence between the original WTC bombing in 1993 and 2001. It's not bad, but it does seem to suggest that everything can be blamed on Bill Clinton's winky. Hmm.

Here's a few other ways to reflect:

Rare scenes from 9/11 – David Friend's new book of little-known photos from the New York attacks, including the above shot by Thomas Hoepker.

The New Towers – Tropolism has pics and comments about the four buildings filling the shoes of the WTC.

Graphic terror – Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón's graphic adaptation of the 9/11 Report. Does not feature any Presidential genitalia.

12 lessons from the Leeds Festival

1. Giant Drags cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" is awesome first thing in the morning when you have no idea where you are.
2. According to the most heard song of the weekend, if you ever see something coming over a hill, it's probably a monster (although "Eddie Munster" is also valid).
3. Dirty Pretty Things really don't have enough material for an entire set. Nice trumpet though.
4. The Silent Disco is a strangely profound experience, especially when you take your headphones off and all you can hear is some guy screaming "YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" whilst everyone dances along, oblivious.
5. Queens Of Noize have the best job in the world.
6. The Kaiser Chiefs are starting to get a bit boring and really need to release another album.
7. Way too many people wear grey hoodies.
8. The Pot Noodle van can't operate without there being a horsebox behind it, which is slightly worrying.
9. Franz Ferdinand are the biggest and best band we have and we should all be thankful for their existence.
10. Stewart Lee is much much funnier than he used to be on Fist Of Fun.
11. Eddie Vedder is the loveliest human being on the planet.
12. The quickest way to make friends is to run into a crowd of people waiting to see The Raconteurs with a tube of Pringles and a generous attitude.

Lost Voices

Have you heard the latest rumours flying around Hollywood? Word is that a certain actress (y’know, her) has got got a role for her boyfriend (that pop star who deflowered whatshername) in her latest movie (a cartoon sequel about a big green ogre – I can’t possibly tell you which one) and it turns out he’s just terrible. He’s stinking up the entire movie, and the producers can’t do a thing about it because she’s so damn important to the picture and they’re scared that if they get rid of him, she’ll walk.

Okay, so it’s just your usual tinsle-town tittle-tattle, but whether or not this particular gem is based in truth or fairy tale, it does highlight a particular casting trend that has been happening for several years now that has angered a lot of people. Not the appearance of ex-boyband members in summer blockbusters, no. It’s the casting of big-name stars in animated movies – stars who may look good on screen, but who just can’t cut it with voice alone.

Once upon a time it used to be that voiceover actors were a completely separate talent-base to their on-screen counterparts. Skilled craftsmen, they were brought in to bring the characters to life, and it didn’t really matter if the audience didn’t know their names or what they looked like. This month sees the release of Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Three – over seven hours of classic cartoons. As the vocal talent behind Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Porkie, and many more, Mel Blanc is probably the closest thing to a voice-over superstar, but would anyone have recognised him on the street? It didn’t matter, because the characters were the stars, not him. They are as iconic as their human contemporaries, the Rat Pack; nobody needed to know who was acting into the microphone. Things have changed though – the stars have invaded this territory, and are pushing the professional voice-over artists out.

This change can be traced back to the early nineties when Disney re-launched their feature animation department. After Robin Williams’ show-stealing turn as the Genie in Aladdin, a typically short-sighted formula for success was carved in stone: that if you put a well-known celebrity’s voice into an animated movie it can’t possibly fail. What they overlooked is that Williams wasn’t simply cast because the audience knew his face. Love him or loathe him, he is particularly talented with his voice – his stand-up career was based on turning himself into different characters. Casting him in a cartoon was a stroke of cartoon genius. Well, it was the first time anyway – his recent performance in Robots is simply more of the same, but stands head and shoulders above co-star Ewan MacGregor’s effort. His forced ‘aw-shucks’ American accent was cringe-worthy – but so what? At least the producers got to put his name on the poster, right?

The voice-over artist community are – not surprisingly – vocal about this infringement on their craft. Take Corey Burton, for example. You’ve probably never heard of him, but chances are you have heard him: he’s voiced various Disney and Warner Brothers characters, not to mention a handful of Transformers. “Studio executives gravitate towards celebrities so that they have actors who have already developed a persona they can draw from to fill out the character, whereas a multi-voiced person is waiting for their idea to produce the particular voice. Plus, they see it as a big marketing plus, since they get little bits on Entertainment Tonight and other `behind the scenes’ TV shows. That’s not bad, but it’s just insulting when they completely ignore the regular voice people.”

As the voice of Stimpson J Cat and various characters on the all-too-brief Futurama, Billy West is a big name in the voice world, but even he feels sidelined by how the studios treat his craft. “Voiceover people were specialists. Voice acting is different than live acting. Yes there are actors who can understand how sonic performance and theatre of the mind works, but most of them cannot transcend beyond their own voices. The people I work with everyday can piss circles around any screen actor doing a voice in an animated feature. It takes five celebrities to perform a job that me or any of my friends could do alone. We had to be that good to stay working. Production companies always say there’s no money and we were versatile enough to save them tons of money. It is no longer a speciality. It’s a pig trough. Big stars go first and everybody else can go chase themselves. It’s already happening in television animation. Imagine what The Simpsons would’ve sounded like if they had stunt-casted it with celebrities as the main characters? Paris Hilton would be Lisa, J-Lo as Bart, Russell Crowe goin’ ‘Doh!’ etc.”

So is this the end of road for Burton, West and their peers? Not necessarily. Ironically, the current Big Threat To Cinema (there’s always something) is offering these artists plenty of opportunity to shine. The video games industry just keeps growing, as do the number of characters who have something say. Burton himself is making a healthy living from various pixelated roles. However, as the technology behind these games increases, so too do the budgets. This simply means that more recognisable screen-actors are heading into this medium as well.

One actor doing well out of the video games industry is Bob Bergen. He’s been the voice of one Luke Skywalker for the past ten years. He points out that the current situation may not be such a new thing after all. “If you look at Disney’s history, they’ve always used the celebrities of the day for their cartoons. Many were from radio, but well known voices to the audience. So this isn’t a new trend. I think it feels like a new trend because of the amount of animation projects out there. No other time in film has there been so much animation being produced.”

So what does the future hold? Maybe things will just swing back the other way, right? Billy West remains to be convinced. “I could almost see it, but there’s something else on a higher level going on. Like I’m thinking they’re only trying to save money – every production guy in my life, every company that was going to do something, there’s never any money... I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why would they pay four stars 20 million apiece to do voices in a movie?’ I mean, they’d save a fortune if they used voice people, and the magic would be back in those characters.”

As the cast for that ogre picture grows and grows, here’s hoping that the moneymen see it that way too and realise how well it worked for them back in Mel Blanc’s day.

Originally written for Sight & Sound/BFI Postgraduate Certificate in Film Journalism.

Holy sequel news Batman!

Don't you just hate it when people still put 'holy' jokes into Batman stories? Anyway, this is an extract from a very exciting press statement from Warner Bros:

As a follow up to last year’s blockbuster Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan is set to direct Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight, written by Jonathan Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan. Additionally, Christian Bale will resume his role as Bruce Wayne and Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger has been cast as The Joker.

Ledger, eh? I had my heart set on Paul Bettany, but I can imagine Ledger doing a pretty good job of it. Just thank God it isn't Robin Williams.

Not sure about Brother Nolan doing the script - he's a bit of an unknown quantity. Apart from writing the original short story that Memento was based on, the only filmly thing he's written is The Prestige, which isn't out for a few months yet.

(One Prestige-related thought: how cool would it be if Nolan found a role for Mr Bowie in The Dark Knight? I've no idea who he could play, but I'm sure it could be done. Maybe Harvey Dent? We always think of Dent being a contemporary of Wayne, but maybe he could be an older mentor figure. And who'd be better at portraing Two-Face than the Bowie? I'm now fantasy-casting, which is extremely geeksome and boring, so I'll close these brackets and get back to the post …)

I love the title - although don't be surprised if it becomes Batman: The Dark Knight so as not to confuse people.

Top of the Pops RIP

After several years of the televisual equivalent of prison rape, the BBC have finally killed off Top Of The Pops.

Last night's 'last show' was probably the worst send-off they could have managed. Various old presenters gibbered at each other and introduced old clips that we've seen a million times before. Basically, last week's show was the last one. This was just a long and poorly scripted edition of TOTP2.

The Beeb have made a huge mistake in axing the show. Yes, fair enough, it couldn't compete with the multitude of music channels that most people can now get on digital or cable - but why should it? The big mistake was in sticking rigidly to the same old format. Top Of The Pops is a huge internationally-recognised brand. All they had to do was keep it fresh and up to date (and I don't mean by having increasingly dumb shouty presenters, Miss Cotton).

Take Top Gear for example. I used to watch this show with my dad years ago. It was a half-hour show with very dry reviews of the latest Volvo estate interspersed with some leather-clad bloke saying 'Ducati' a lot. It reached a point where it got stale, so the Beeb reinvented it into todays entertaining hour-long live-ish format with a substantial web presence. It evolved.

But the Beeb were too scared to give an older and more established show this treatment, and instead chose to gradually dilute it, sideline it, and eventually kill it off.

Not all hope is lost though. Just as Smash Hits' shoes have been ably filled by websites like PopJustice (and, ironically, the continuing TOTP site), I'm sure another terrestrial TV pop show will appear soon.

Fingers crossed.

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Football season is over

No More Games
No More Bombs
No More Walking
No More Fun
No More Swimming
67
That is 17 years past 50
17 more than I needed or wanted
Boring. I am always bitchy
No Fun — for anybody
67
You are getting Greedy
Act your old age
Relax — This won't hurt

Hunter S Thompson

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Bikini Girls of Shark Island

Probably the best title for a film I've ever seen. Unfortunately the film doesn't actually exist - but that won't stop you buying a print of this poster from Fleet Street Scandal, the website of artistes extraordinaire Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham, now will it?

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Alpharant

I was most angered by last night’s CSI. In it, somebody has some valuable LPs stolen from their collection, which was alphabetised with stupid iTunes logic - that is, by first names. Billy Joel does not belong next to the Beatles! I mean seriously, you wouldn’t put Scott Walker under S and the Walker Brothers under W, would you? THEY BELONG TOGETHER.

That said I’m having an alphabetical cataloguing dilemma with the P section of my CD collection. The Patti Smith Group. P or S? And PJ Harvey’s first album – PJ Harvey was actually the name of the band, before she realised she was a solo artist – what do I do?

Rant over.

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Radiohead 3.0

As their latest tour comes to an end, Radiohead seem to be evolving once again into their third incarnation. A quick recap:

Radiohead 1.0: Pablo Honey to OK Computer. They wrote songs. You could tell which instruments were making which sounds. Over the course of three albums they went from almost becoming a one-hit wonder to being regarded the best band in the world.

Radiohead 2.0: Kid A to Hail To The Thief. Powerful enough to break away from the constraints and expectations of the music industry, they made electronic music, they avoided releasing singles or producing videos (for a while at least). They sounded like nothing and everything. This was their millenial prog period. The void created by the continuing demand for more albums like The Bends and OK Computer was filled by the likes of Coldplay, Keane and Muse.

Radiohead 3.0: Present day. They are without a contract (although Elbow's Guy Garvey seems eager to get them onto his label). Thom's making solo stuff. Music is reaching the outside world, but there's no clear direction forward for offical release. They don't want their stuff sold on iTunes because it undermines the structure of their albums … what happens next?

Bad Grammar

I've mostly been drinking for the past 48 hours. Not feeling too good.

Went to Grammar (York nightclub of usual wondrousness) last night, but was a bit disappointed with the tunes. All the good stuff (a bit of Interpol, a bit of The Walkmen) was played while were queuing to get in, and then once we got in we were surrounded by 15-year-olds bobbing up and down to some generic indie stuff. The guest DJ seemed to be more interested in showing off his obscure music collection than actually entertaining the crowd.

Still, top marks to the girl who turned up in what appeared to be a bridesmaid dress. No marks, none whatsoever, to the guy with the Joey Ramone obsession having difficulty rolling a fag because he was wearing sunglasses inside. Fool.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that York needs a night for those of us who've managed to leave school, don't need to be ID'd everywhere we go and just like good tunes we can dance to without feeling too old.

I feel like Rob from High Fidelity.

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George Lucas apparently not wealthy enough yet

This September, the original Star Wars trilogy is being rereleased yet again. Because everyone has already gone out and bought the excellent DVD box set though, George Lucas has come up with a cunning new gimmick to sell you the films once again: remove all of the special edition stuff.

Yup, he's releasing the original cuts of the films - complete with Han shooting first, scary half-monkey Emperor, and no Hayden Christensen. As much as I love Star Wars, I despise Lucas' cynical marketing ploy of basically selling you the same thing every two years. Yeah, plenty of people will go out and buy this and be excited by watching the original cut but you just know that next Christmas he'll release them all over again with deleted scenes put back in.

So George, please stop this. You need to be focussing your attention on three things, and three things only:

1. Sorting out that abysmal Han and Jabba scene in the New Hope SE.
2. Working on making the forthcoming TV series the best thing ever. Watching Firefly may help with this.
3. Producing an Obi Wan replica FX lightsabre so I can fight my friends with it.

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12 computer games that devoured my soul

Atari by Cody Hamilton

I've spent a good part of the last couple of weeks playing Ghost Recon on my roomie's new XBox 360. This basically involves me finding a nice snipering position and waiting there for hours on end until I've picked off all the bad guys. During a stint of this virtual ennui I got to thinking about all the time I've wasted over the years playing computer games. So here, for nobody's amusement but my own, is a brief history of my gaming life:

Tetris (Gameboy, The Dawn of Time - present day)

More of a brain infection than a game really. Try to get to sleep after playing Tetris for too long and you can still see blocks falling down behind your closed eyes. Terrifying.

Citadel (BBC B, circa 1988)

How come the BBC made computers? Why did they stop making them?

Empire Strikes Back (Atari 2600, circa 1988)

This game had no end - those bloody AT-ATs just kept on coming and there was nothing you could do but hold them back for a few more moments. Sometimes the background colour changed. I now realise that this game was basically teaching me everything I needed to know about life.

Rockstar Ate My Hamster (Atari ST, circa 1991)

There aren't enough games these days based on libellous headlines aboout Freddie Starr.

Speedball 2 (Amiga, circa 1994)

At some point soon this fantasticaly violent sport will become a reality, and I want to be there to sell the ice creams.

Zool (Amiga, circa 1993)

A "ninja from the Nth dimension". I mostly remember this because it's what I played when I first got a CD player. I'd listen to my two prized CDs on repeat for hours on end whilst jumping about collecting coins (or whatver Zool had to do). The CDs? "Oh Carolina" by Shaggy and "All That She Wants" by Ace Of Bass. Ahem.

Treasure Island Dizzy (Amiga, circa 1994)

Back in the days when you had to complete an entire game in one sitting. If you die, you have to start again. From the beginning. Where you started six hours ago.

Monkey Island 2 (Amiga 1200, circa 1994)

Whilst watching Corpse Bride the other night I realised that Tim Burton should make this into a stop-motion film. There's just something about the set design and the tone of it.

Worms (Amiga 1200, circa 1996)

During my first weeks at uni I made loads of friends simply by owning this, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing … and a pair of goldfish called Kylie and Jason.

Twisted Metal 2 World Tour (Playstation, 1996 - present day)

I've played this at least once a week for the past ten years. It's more than a game, but I can't really explain why.

Command and Conquer, Red Alert 2 (Playstation, circa 1999)

There's something quite disturbing about watching your best friend (wearing a red hammer and sickle t-shirt) assemble dozens of tanks in a perfect square with one determined objective. Not to destroy your troops. Not to destroy your base. To destroy you. You and your pig-dog capitalist ways.

Timesplitters 2 (Playstation 2, circa 2005)

Shoot aliens! Shoot monkeys! Shoot your flatmate until he throws his controller at the screen!

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Grammar

Well the pagan joy that is Easter is almost upon us, and I’m sure you all have exciting plans for the weekend. That’s very nice, but you should cancel them now. Cancel all your plans and instead go to Grammar. For those of you who are Grammaticaly unaware:

1. It’s the best club night in York.
2. It’s held every two weeks at the Junction (you know, that pub you can’t walk to without worrying you’re about to get mugged).
3. Music-wise, the three little words on the flyer (above) say it all. Indie. Alt. Art. That basically means you get to dance to Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire and YYYs and Suede. They played Stay Together into Maps once and I nearly cried.
4. Everyone’s quite posey.
5. At some point during the night, you’ll get the opportunity to go a bit loopy and scream “HOUSE OF! JEALOUS LOVERS!”
6. It’s a great big happy indie love-in. The only trouble I’ve ever seen there was a rather surreal punch-up on the dance-floor involving a tall man dressed as some kind of seventies estate agent. See, even the agro is a bit alternative.

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