Spent a great day yesterday with that damn’d elusive docoBanksy, shooting a few cutaways just to fill in the odd gap in what is now an essentially locked project. More on that in the next post. For now, here’s a shot of the most recent graf from the man hisself, on a shuttered building in a quiet side street in Mayfair.
I’d like to see the scrapers get this one off the wall…
For many people, the fact that a black and white silent movie can play the multiplexes of the world and lead the Oscar nomination list in 2011is a reason to celebrate. The movie in question is marvellou, part pastiche, part loving tribute to a long-gone era. But the thing is, everyone shouting about The Artist is only half right. Sure, it looks gorgeous thanks to Guillaume Schiffman’s luminous monochrome cinematography.
But The Artist is no silent movie.
(some spoilers after the cut.)
Continue reading Hearing Things: The Artist and the illusion of silence
God, it’s cold. Cycling to the station this morning, a ten minute run, leaves me unable to feel my fingers even in thick leather gloves, and my face aches and stings on the train as it slowly warms up after the sub-zero shock. It feels like I’ve been slapped in the kisser. Hot coffee becomes a necessity, not just to wake me up, but to bump my core temperature back up to operating levels.
But thank the gods, at least it’s not dark when I travel in now. We’re past the pit of winter, out of the doldrums, and the vicious cold has a sweet spot–beautiful clear skies and stunning sunrises. I love the deep Wedgewood blues graduating down to a warm citrussy orange at the horizon line. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can catch a real stunner.
Getting up early on a Saturday does have its benefits.
The concept of privacy is getting a very public airing in 2012. The Leveson Enquiry on phone hacking throws out more revelations about Sun reporters listening in on our voicemails and hacking our emails every day. Facebook changes its privacy settings once a fortnight, setting off furious barrages of text across the blogoverse about how this is the final straw and Zuckerberg = Hitler (I may have been guilty of a little of this myself). Now good old Spotify has become the latest villain of the privacy war – and this time, I’m with the bad guy.
Continue reading Private Dancer: On Spotify, Privacy and Celebrity “Outrage”
See, I get these ideas. They always seem so simple. Having lunch with docoDom at a riverside restaurant by the Design Museum on the South Bank of the Thames, I suddenly thought how nice it would be to keep going. At least as far as the Thames Barrier, which I had never seen up close. Dom, bless his heart, was up for it. It would be easy, I told him. Look, it’s only five miles. It says so here on Google Maps.
Famous bloody last words.
If, like me, you enjoy a nice ale from time to time, then the question of the perfect session beer has come up more than once in conversation. If, like me, you’re a wine and spirits drinker, then you probably have no idea what I’m on about. Allow me, dear Readership, to enlighten you.
The Dutch word for “father” is… VADER.
Which means that to everyone in Holland, the big reveal at the end of The Empire Strikes Back must have been no surprise at all.
Guess what the Dutch for “sister” is?
2012 marks the hundred-year anniversary of the first appearance of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom stories. It’s fitting that 2012 should also see the first big-screen adaptation of the tales, brought to life by Wall-E director Andrew Stanton. At a preview event in London last night, X&HT were among the few to catch a proper first look at clips from the film, and a chance to chat to John Carter hisself, Taylor Kitsch.
Late last year I enthusiastically covered a Kickstarter-funded comics project by writer Alex DiCampi and artist Jimmy Broxton–a gritty SF tale called Ashes. The art and story looked great, and I happily put $30 down to support the book and snag a signed hardback when the work was done.
I wasn’t alone. Ashes hit its funding target with a week and a bit to spare, and earned another $6K in the process. It was a win for all concerned, a triumph of the self-funded, self-published model.
Yeah. About that.
Continue reading Comics Will Break Your Heart: the rise and fall of Ashes
I love a trip to Tate Modern. It’s always good to visit old friends like the brooding Room of Rothkos and my favourite Jackson Pollack. The curators are also good at refreshing the displays, so that if you visit a few times a year, you’re always certain to come across something new.
Staircase-III stopped us in our tracks. Do Ho Suh’s huge sculpture is a representation of the stairwell to his Manhattan apartment, hanging about ten feet off the floor. There are clear nods to Rachel Whiteread in the casting of an architectural feature, but the use of sheer cherry-red nylon gives the piece all kinds of different connotations. I pass a few staircases in Soho every working day that glow with that kind of colour.
But somehow there’s no feeling of threat or sleaze. Unlike most dark-lit stairwells, you can see exactly where this one leads. Dom called it a Stairway To Heaven, and you can see what he means. Don’t forget, in China the colour red signifies good fortune.
Staircase-III has a room all to itself and it was full of people, gazing up with smiles on their faces. I love this piece. It’s warm, optimistic and dare I say it–sexy?
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 
