One of my client’s has put out an infographic about one of my favourite things: Red Nose Day! Comedy & charity – what a fantastic mix.

Now I’ve only lived in the UK for about 7 years, so I wasn’t around for some of this, but it is interesting to look back at the first one I was here for, having no clue what was going on and now seeing it from a learned perspective.

Can I just add that two years ago, for RND 2009, the recession was beginning and I was humbled by the increase in donations received as people were having to tighten their purse strings. There is still faith to be had in humanity.

Tonight is the tv comedy a-thon for Red Nose Day, so get your bum down, pizza’s ordered & phones ready to make some donations.

If you check out the bottom of the infographic, you’ll see what you can do for Confused.com to donate too!

Infographic by Confused.com – Compare cheap car insurance in minutes.

This made me laugh and is easy to relate to from both sides. I think Vodaphone and their agency did well with this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7aLWbSv0Dg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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It’s that time of year again, where Edinburgh becomes a hub of even more activity and tourists than normal. It’s festival season and it begins with the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which for the first time, I have managed to secure tickets to all the shows I want to see….and I’m kind of excited.

The shows I will be attending are:
The Illusionist
Sylvain Chomet / UK, France / 2010 / 83 mins
Jean-Claude Donda, Eilidh Rankin, Jean-Claude Donda
“Delightful … thrilling … a love letter to Scotland and Edinburgh in particular.” – Leslie Felperin, Variety.

Gravity
Maximilian Erlenwein / Germany / 2009 / 96 mins
Fabian Hinrichs, Jürgen Vogel, Nora von Waldstätten
Startlingly bold psychological drama – with an ultraviolent twist.

Jackboots On Whitehall
Edward McHenry, Rory McHenry / UK / 2010 / 97 mins
Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson, Alan Cumming
Winston Churchill hides out in lawless Scotland, as an all-star cast voices an alternative animated history of WWII.

Mr Nice
Bernard Rose / UK / 2010 / 120 mins
Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny, David Thewlis, Luis Tosár, Elsa Pataky, Omid Djalili
Rhys Ifans gives the performance of a lifetime in this wild biopic of the infamous Howard Marks.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?
Werner Herzog / USA, Germany / 2009 / 90 mins
Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Udo Kier, Michael Peña, Grace Zabriskie, Brad Dourif, Irma P. Hall, Loretta Devine

Werner Herzog directs, David Lynch produces. Who better to co-pilot a journey into the unknown?

Outcast
Colm McCarthy / UK, Ireland / 2009 / 92 mins
Ian Whyte, Nial Bruton, Hanna Stanbridge, Kate Dickie, James Nesbitt
“Honest and true … peculiar and disturbing. An excellent film. See it at all costs.” – Harry Knowles, aintitcool.com

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Photo: Terry Richardson

The Fail
My personal life.
I mean, I’m divorced. I was married to someone [actress Kim Basinger]. I got very Zen about it. It doesn’t really matter who’s to blame. But in many ways my marriage mirrors my experience in the film business. I think to myself, How many years do I have left? What’s out there that I want to enjoy?

The Save
A very productive midlife crisis.
I had the realization: God, I’m 51 years old and I spent 30 years of my life doing things I didn’t want to do. The things you do to please other people! I said to myself, Well now I’m just going to have a good time. That was the most freeing thing. For the first time, I wanted to do whatever I felt like that day. I wrote a book, A Promise to Ourselves, this critique of the family law system. I want to write more books. I want to go back to school. I might even run for public office.

Read interview on Wired.

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I’ve probably posted this before, but I can’t find it and after watching the film again last night, it’s still one of my favourites.

Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
-Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), Bull Durham

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Tonight I went to see This Is It, the tour titled documentary of Michael Jackson’s last months. He had announced his 50 stop ‘This Is It’ curtain call to his career, but sadly to many, including myself, and after much preparation, he passed on and the show was canceled.

There is no consolation to seeing him live, in person, however fans were lucky that filming took place during the rehearsals and preparation for the big finale, which would have begun July 2009 in London. What was captured to be parts of concert promos, videos and extras ended up being a 112 minute intimate concert made up of rehearsals, intertwined intermittently with comments from dancers, musicians and the crew of the tour (Extremely talented each and every one. Pay special attention to the female guitar player, Orianthi – AMAZING and so young!)

The quality and variety of his music and moves still gives me goosebumps and the film was put across in a way to help people (those who need reminding) what an amazing artist and pop icon he truely was. Even at 50 and working towards his goodbye, he was meticulous in detail and wanted the best for his fans.

Walking home I was thinking about how MJ has been a part of my life since birth. From seeing his 3D Thriller show at Disney World, his iconic American Pepsi commercials, adolescent romances and infamous videos in-between.

This also got me thinking about music in my life, how I always felt so passionate about it and over the past several years, it’s slowly died away, which is something I plan to rectify. Lastly, discussing first records, my dad raised me on music: Oldies, blues, The Stones, The Doors… so I grew up listening to his records and my first ‘own’ lp was an 7″ 2 sided with Kokomo by the Beach Boys on one side and Tutti Frutti by Little Richard on the other. I also learned tonight I still know the words to both.

In honour of MJ and music in general. Go pull out your old records, throw them on and let them take you back.

One good thing about music, when it hits- you feel no pain (Bob Marley).

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I have said before and I’ll say it again (even though I meant to say it about 6 weeks ago) that Digital Kitchen has done a phenomenal job on the True Blood intro. Before I wrote about the work on the Dexter titles and their work in general, however I have to say, as good as the Dexter intro is, once I watched it once, that’s all I needed. However, with the True Blood intro – it’s mesmerising. Dark, thought provoking and brilliant – with great music to boot.

Very Tarantino/Natural Born Killers.

If you haven’t seen it, check it out below.

Watch here - b/c for some reason Vimeo's won't imbed

True Blood Main Titles from DIGITALKITCHEN on Vimeo.

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Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica, debuted his second feature film, Objectified, last week at the SXSW Film festival.

Objectified is a documentary in interview form with 30+ product designers. Each telling how they came up with their idea and little appreciations of those products that we commoners may have never noticed. From the rubber gripped potato peeler to the first laptop and onto the iPhone.

Just having had a conversation with someone about materialism before I read about this film, timing couldn’t have been better. As technology and even household items are becoming more advanced, surely people are going to have a closer attachment to their belongings, causing some to worry they’re becoming too materialistic.

Does Objectaphilia (a person who is sexually attracted to objects) really exist? An episode of Boston Legal shows a woman who leaves the man she is dating for an iPhone. Jokes were of course made that I would do the same. With mobile phones & laptops now becoming a common extension of ourselves, would we really want to let them go?

The film isn’t about people in this day and age being too materialistic, but rather it’s about the appreciation for the products we love and why we love them.

The question I’m putting forward to you is the same asked at one point in the film: The hurricane is coming. You have 20 minutes to grab the objects in your house that are most important to you. What do you reach for first?

For screenings check here

Cross posted

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Have I used that headline before?

First it was doctors, then lawyers, then detectives, then crime scene investigators. Now, it’s AdMen. A modern day take on the world of being an advertising creative is coming to our screens. Well, America’s screens, so we just have to hope we get it and they like it. If we like it and they don’t, it still gets canceled.

Trust Me the new show about the lives of two advertising creatives (a team) & their worlds being sold as having been written by real Ad Creatives and coming from the producers of Nip/Tuck. With the cute tag line They’ll sell everything but their friendship. Hmmm…

If successful, I wonder if eventually they’ll pull the CSI or Law & Order route and branch out to different offices in different cities. I wonder if it’s going to be difficult watching Eric McCormack play a straight man… I’m sure I’ll get over it after a few episodes.

Will it be good? We shall see. Will it make me wish I had my dream job, most probably. Will the number of students signing up to go into advertising increase, most definitly.

via adrants

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