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Eventually, we’re all just going to have to admit that some of our best friends have been inanimate. I’ll be the first to come clean; I have no problems with that sort of thing. Then Pixar happily came along in 1995 and gave us a bundle of animated inanimate friends to get us through our days. When Pixar released their trailer for the third installment of pixilated goodness, I just knew it was going to please every fiber of my being. I remember chatting to some friends at the time who were mortified at the prospect of Pixar simply cashing in and trying to squeeze this franchise for all it was worth. I’ve personally never seen Pixar to be that type of company, but who can tell nowadays when every other film released is either some spin-off, sequel, prequel or end of a trilogy.

There were far too many questions I wanted to avoid at the time of the initial trailer release – will it be as good as any of the others? What new characters will we see? What’s the story going to be about? I was happy not to know or speculate anything until I was able to see the film for my very own eyes. Saying you’re in for a treat is simply downplaying; it would be the equivalent of giving a friend who has just graduated a pat on the back, without all the celebration, accolade and acceptance of hard work. I’m not going to lie to you; this film is a masterpiece – and I’m not just saying that because I love the two before it. This is actually the best one.

Read more of the Toy Story 3 Review over at Zath…

Say the name ‘Tony Stark’ and the comic book geeks among us feel the surge in our chests, the ladies can’t stop their pupils dilating and the gents… well, they’re simply envious. It’s extremely difficult for someone with so much wealth, power and sex appeal to not develop a gigantic ego – especially if they had a pretty big one to begin with. But, despite Stark’s superciliousness, he has a certain je ne se quois that makes him admirable. We learnt in the first Iron Man film that he was willing to put aside his love for fame and power to do what was right. But, somehow, he’s managed to screw up again and the sequel takes you on a journey of the contents of his mind.

The only downside of being Tony Stark (Downey Jr), I would imagine, is that you aren’t able to switch your brain off. Constantly deliberating, but never contemplating the outcome of your actions makes for a very complex way of life. He’s so used to doing whatever he wants that he’s forgotten all the people that put him where he is – least of all poor Virginia “Pepper” Potts (Paltrow), working to the bone in her perfect pencil skirts and Christian Louboutins. Refusing to eat his strawberries, Potts brings home the bacon and tries to make him see what he is missing, with the help of Colonel James Rhodes (who they changed over for Don Cheadle).

Read more of the Iron Man 2 Review over at Zath…

There’s something really special about Glee. It’s not the singing and it’s not the teen drama. It’s not the spectacularly gorgeous male teacher and it definitely isn’t the cheerleaders. As the series rolls on, I begin to wonder what it is that makes it so magical to watch. Guys and girls alike are hooked.

Taking pieces from almost all high school dramas to date, Glee has managed to overcome every one of them. Reminding you of the moments you hated about your peers and the moments you wished you could live in forever, the characters all take you on quite a peaceful sojourn. You remember the idiot that always repeated the same inane action to wind you up everyday (slushies) and you genuinely recall the difficult times of being bullied so badly you were ready to dig a massive hole in the ground and stay there forever. The simple scene construction of everyday life in high school is not only tried and done to death, it’s now being done so that when you watch it you’re happy you no longer have to do it. Even if you’re still at school, you can recall moments that you’re happy are over.

Read more of  Glee Season 1, Volume 1 DVD Review over at Zath…

What do you get if you combine a homemade superhero costume, a complete nerd and some poor fighting skills? You get your ass handed to you, that’s what. All that time spent as a kid wondering what superpower you’d want to have or style of Lycra you’d be adorning when you had said superpower resulted in nothing, didn’t it? Countless hours were wasted drawing pictures with a cape – and without a cape – only for them to then be tossed to the side when you finally came to the realisation that this dream would never be made a reality. Well, what if it did?

Effortlessly encapsulating all those moments you wanted to be awesome and didn’t know how, this film combines an Hollywood old-timer Cage (who plays Damon Macready/Big Daddy), Jane Goldman’s writing and the most beautiful Indie actors Moretz (who plays Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl) and Johnson (who plays Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass) on the screen in wondrous harmony. The film derives its central plot from connecting together the dots from all the sub-plots and we’re introduced to the usual mundane lives these characters live, day by day, in New York City. The main character is a typically geeky high school kid who goes by the name of Dave and likes to spend his evenings with his friends in diners and comic book stores.

Read more of the Kick-Ass Review over at Zath…

After moving the short film project from ‘non-existent’ to ‘officially live’, I can say that nothing much has changed since then. Having to juggle up to ten people’s schedules is minuscule compared to that of the near 50 we had for Liink and Zellda and yet for some reason this is proving difficult. It’s nothing I haven’t faced before, but it seems time to pull out the big guns and simply make decisions to get the process moving – whether people like them or not. Unfortunately, that’s when you turn into the bad guy *sigh*.

Casting, budgets, time-frames, locations, costumes and props; all stuff to take into consideration. I’m happy to admit that 4/6 of those things have been taken care of in a very short space of time. And, nothing happens or gets done without them all working in harmony. I’m too close to getting this done to even think about scrapping it – so that’s not even an option right now.

It’s not all gloom and doom, though. A few have committed all their energies to helping out wherever they can – and for this I am glad. I’m still looking for costumes and making last minute changes to the script, but nothing that can’t be dealt with. Shooting is now looking like it’s going to happen in the last week of February and I’ll conserve my excitement for those days.

Gods, that reminds me; need to get better hosting for our Foolhardy website. Bah.

EDIT: Shooting has now been postponed until further notice.

This documentary will make you think. A lot. About how far we’ve come in the last decade and about where we’re headed. You’ll start to wonder what you did before the Internet took over our lives and you’ll pontificate about life before ‘reality shows’. Even sitting on the toilet requires the presence of your precious iPhone. We’re now so consumed by social media that it’s actually quite difficult to spend your waking day alone and connected to nothing.

Or is it?

We Live in Public is a filth-ridden monstrosity of a rollercoaster ride for Josh Harris, collected together from thousands of hours of footage recorded over the last decade. Well, what did you expect? It concerns the Internet. This creation alone has spurned a new wave of everything – absolutely anything you desire can be found there. Plus a whole heap of things you definitely would have been happier without knowing. Harris came up with a few ideas about where he thought the Internet should take us and Ondi Timoner’s documentary does well to serve as not only a biography for Harris’ professional and personal life, but an introduction into the growth of the World Wide Web itself.

Read more of the We Live in Public review over at Zath

The Twitter sourcing is going quite well for my film shoot, if I do say so myself. After the interwebs told me where to look to locate a ship nearby, I sent some emails and made some calls. Pretty standard stuff for a producer. But, then the very next day I received an email response from none other than the lovely people at the Golden Hinde telling me they were thrilled to help me with my project! If I told you I jumped for joy, it’d be an understatement. I was almost shouting and running around the office with my colleagues wondering what on earth I was up to. After informing them of my fortune they were also beaming with delight.

Isn’t she a beauty? Here’s a little bit of history to get you going too:

“The original Golden Hinde became famous as the flagship of Sir Francis Drake during his voyage around the world. The journey took three years, with the Golden Hinde being the only ship to complete the voyage. Drake left Plymouth in 1577, the aim of the voyage was for Drake and his men to be the first Englishmen to circumnavigate the globe.”

Yes, the ship is a replica, but it’s the closest thing to a pirate ship I’m going to be handed to use for a shoot. And, quite frankly, I didn’t even think this was going to happen without forking out an arm and a leg for it. The arm I need; the leg might help make the pirate shoot a little more authentic.

After I secured the ship, I put the project well and truly underway and sent out all the initial production emails to all the cast and crew for finalising shoot days in February. This thing’s moving a lot faster than I thought it would be.

One of the other superb things Twitter helped me with was the sound/music for the production. The very lovely and very gifted Jónas Haraldsson tweeted in my general direction and offered his services as musician/sound man. Here’s some of his stuff to get you going once more And if that wasn’t enough – his girlfriend, Laura Viero, wants a piece of the action too. Given she’s been so amazing and already has film work under her belt, I had no choice but to write her in a few lines.

Am now looking for costumes and piratey themed props, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m a little bit chuffed to (perhaps?) be making the first Twitter crowdsourced film. Do you know of any other short films that have been put together and sourced solely by using social media/networking tools? I’ve done some research and found a few, but let me know of any you’ve come across, it’d be good to see them.

Thanks!

Some of you may have heard me utter a few things here and there about a new short film project I am working on with the wonderfully talented cameraman and editor Gavin Free. I would prefer not to say too much about it in case it gets held up (which is unfortunately the norm for independent projects), but I am definitely very excited about it. I’ve not only managed to somehow persuade Gavin to give me some of his time, but I’ve also managed to rope in another awesome and very talented friend; who shall, for now, remain nameless. You’d think they like working with me or something. Sheesh

I’m also quite excited to give a mention to the awesome Adam Cohen, who I’m very much looking forward to working with for the first time. He’s trained in all things circus and is a jolly nice fellow, so the shoot days should be a great laugh. I also have two other volunteers, both of whom offered their services to help after I simply tweeted that I was working on a new project. They will most likely help with all things behind the camera. I’m toying with making a cameo appearance myself, but haven’t really decided yet. To be honest, even if I decide not to, I have no shortage of actresses who’d love to snap up the part.

Earlier today, I tweeted about needing to find a sailing/pirate ship. And, through the sheer power of Twitter, I was able to locate and find one. A little later on, I managed to find another. And then another. Whether or not I actually manage to get to use any of these ships is irrelevant. I wanted to highlight how powerful Twitter is to find what you’re looking for. It’s been a pretty invaluable tool for me to locate the things I’m after for this project and I’m pretty lucky to have such amazing friends (and useful strangers) who’ll listen and respond to my ramblings.

And, because of this pretty fun social-networking tool, I’ve decided to keep this project to Twitter-related people only. I’m going to see how much I can crowdsource and find the things I will inevitably be looking for by simply tweeting for it.

So, there you have it. The only clue you’re getting on the new project is that picture of the Golden Hinde. Watch this space for more!

[If you'd like to get involved in any future projects send me an email and I'll keep you in mind ]

Who’s to say whether Arthur Conan Doyle’s much loved, now revamped, super-sleuth would have been appreciated by the great man himself. What I can say, though, is that after watching the film you’ll easily feel a funny tingling sensation which you can’t really work out is good or bad. Guy Ritchie was handed several million dollars to toy with – and play with it he did. This production combines a whole heap of tomfoolery, bare-knuckle fighting and CGI that leaves you pondering.

The story is as basic as you can get; there’s a threat against Parliament and Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) have to put a stop to it. That’s it, I promise you. Going into any more detail than that would somehow be assuring you that the story is actually any good. It isn’t. But, once you see past that, you can actually let the little holes in the plot go over your head just enough to have a grin plastered on your face for the entirety of Holmes’ half-naked rollercoaster ride around Victorian London.

Read more over at Zath

Pixar are notorious for creating magnificent pieces of visual work with suitably moving storylines to accompany the animation and soundtrack, thereby undoubtedly producing spellbinding works of art. I am hoping that my previous needlessly complex sentence construction will go somewhat towards explaining how the facets of this film mean to do well when put together, but ultimately don’t manage to cut the mustard. Don’t get me wrong, it feels like it should do well. But, for some reason, I just can’t get the Pixar magic out of this production.

Read more over at Zath