Friday 11 February 2011

Attack The Block World Premiere news

Attack the Block will hold it's World Premiere at SXSW in March, 2011


I'm almost a day tardy with this if you don't follow my Twitter feed but hey, I'm good deal closer to the area than usual.

South By Southwest is a very cool festival that started so small in the music capital of Texas and grew into one of the most coveted markets at which to be presented and to attend. Duncan Jones' Source Code is opening the festival with it's own world premiere. It'd be nice to think the Big Talk team will be in town to rock along to that too.

I'm not entirely sure of the process involved with achieving this but I'm going to go with the notion that what the organisers have seen of Attack The Block must have impressed them considerably to schedule it like this as one of their Midnighters. Whilst I momentarily comfort my broken soul that I can't afford be there, I'm heartened by the thought that it will get some amazing exposure and buzz that could lead to a speedier worldwide success than might have originally been planned. At the moment, that thrill is outweighing any gloomy idea that it will make Joe even less accessible and available for secret radio station noodling.

It's also doing the Markets at Berlinale this week.

Spare a little thought for me and my endeavours to view this film with as little pre-cog as possible. I anticipate an overload of information from this and you'll have to forgive me if I don't pass all of it on and comment about it. I'd also appreciate it if people didn't direct spoilers at me. I know I can't hope to sustain this for the entire two months between SXSW and the UK release date but I'm going to try my best. That said, there's a sweet SXSW blog here.

Obviously, I know this much:
Attack The Block (UK) HDCAM1080i 87 minutes
Director: Joe Cornish
Producer: Nira Park, James Wilson
Cast: Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, Adam Leese and Nick Frost
Screenwriter: Joe Cornish
Cinematographer: Thomas Townend
Editor: Jonathan Amos
Music: Basement Jaxx and Steve Price
A funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of alien monsters. It turns a tower block into a sci-fi playground. It’s inner city versus outer space.
(World Premiere)


Of course, I don't mind reading stuff like this piece from The Guardian about street casting.
Cornish is a big fan of street casting. "You're casting unknowns because you want an authenticity that a professional actor may in fact find it harder to give; you want their realness," he says. "They told us as much about the script as we could tell them. They advised us on costume, on language; we used them as a kind of resource to make sure the film was credible to people of their age."

Whilst on the subject of cast, I hope you're catching the beautiful Jodie Whittaker in Marchlands on ITV at the moment.

John Boyega is in a Red Button offshoot of Being Human playing a bully called Danny Curtis.

Franz Drameh was caught on video at the London premiere of Paul, namechecking Attack The Block and Leeon Jones was there too.



This lady got a "Just Coming" from Joe! I guess he was more prepared for it in a red carpet situation. Attack the Block is getting name checks from Nick as he tours with Paul.

One last bit of trivia: The editor of Little White Lies posed as a hoodie for the next issue.

This post was mainly intended as a joyous celebration of Joe's success but while I'm here, there are a couple of other things to mention.

Adam always seems to maximise his time when he's in the big city and on Wednesday he recorded an episode from the second series of Matt Lucas' "And The Winner Is". There's a picture of him with Matt and Rory Bremmer here but they could be anyone!

Adam did an amazing set at the Tabernacle last night for Feature Spot. His Photoshop went a bit wonkaloid and that led to the most hilarious, interactive madness which he handled beautifully, adding so much to the evening. John of BBC 6Music Blog designing fame and Basil rushed to his rescue but with his usual, adorable humility, he seemed to feel this had somehow lessened the value of the evening. He couldn't be more wrong. It made it very special. At one point he offered to refund £5 to everyone (which one unhelpful audience member suggested should be more like £7 - unfair because Jonny Sweet and The Persuassionists' own Nick Mohammed were very good value) but settled with the offer of a gratis show for anyone who left their email address on his table. Without exception, I am sure everyone thought it was an exceptionally brilliant night but the offer of a freebie and another chance to see Buckles was too much to pass up so lots of people left scraps of paper on his table.

The hilight of the evening was Adam's perfectly rendered, live musical précis of Black Swan for anyone who can't spare the time to go and see it. I do hope more people get the chance to see him do this. I'm sure he'll try to squeeze into the Leicester BUG. He also did the "wot is buk" reading that I missed from BUG23 so my life was complete.

Several minutes past curfew the crowd also persuaded him to do a live version of his RATATOUILLE (THE RAT CONTROL THE COOK.

Do you remember Adam and Joe's interview with GETS! man, Dandy Sakano in Go Tokyo? Of course you do. For some reason that only the Consultants of Comedy can reveal, he is relaunching his career in Dundee because it erm, sounds like his name.

This post wouldn't be complete without a bit of off-piste nonsense so here's a bit about Edgar Wright buying the "S" from the Somerfield in Wells. He also accepted a banana for directing a film.

A full version of External World by David OReilly (of Meebox credits fame) is on the nets now.

'Our' very own Ben Mercer is performing in Hoxton next month.

Friend of the show, AmberGambler made a new mix last week too.


This bit of Wiki silliness made me laugh at a particularly low moment last week.

Friday 4 February 2011

A Bird in the Hand is Worth a Delay in The Block

One of these days, I will be committed enough to update this blog on either a regular basis or at least on a day when I have some headline news to kick it off with. Sadly, today is not one of those days and this post is simply an effort to tidy up my Saved Links drawer, as it were.

In a desert of Adam and Joe freshness, the two bits of information that could realistically be classed as news since my last post are that as far as I can tell, Adam has agreed to be in the line-up for the Sod Cancer charity gig in the Bloomsbury Theatre at the end of April and the release date for Attack the Block seems to have moved on to Friday, 13th May 2011. I dunno if anyone at Frostitution wants to note that. Optimum and Big Talk are still not updating.

Don't forget that Issue 34 of Little While Lies will contain Attack the Block features and with any luck, Jon Hamblin's interview with Joe should turn up in the April issue of SFX Magazine. Both these publications should hit the shelves within a few days of each other. If I wasn't such a self-deprecating dullard, I'd try to do an email interview with the blighter myself.

While I'm in the area, ATB's Jodie Whittaker has been talking about Marchlands, which started on ITV last night. ATB's beautiful producer won an ENVY award last month.

This lovely man is writing a song a week to put on YouTube. Follow and encourage him here. Naturally, he needed a visual element and he approached Adam with a request to submit a picture of a bird. With all due respect and I may be ridiculously biased but I think Adam's was the most enjoyable response he got.

I presume everyone caught up with Adam's romantic trip to the Maldives. This picture was in the hard copy but not on-line.One Guardian reader thinks he should have his own column.

As I write, there are still tickets for next week's Tabernacle gig and a couple of seats available for Adam's Röyksopp BUG Special but I think you'll have to phone. More details about the event here and here.

Shots also published an interview with him which for the moment, I have put here. The most exciting news contained therein must surely be about the proposed BUG Specials in Edinburgh and Manchester.

BUG 23 has been and gone but there's a nice little summary here. A few miles down the road, David Byrne was on stage after a glorious screening of his film. It saddened me a little to think that Adam couldn't be there. I suspect there was the biggest gathering of Twitsquadroners thus far for the BUG Director's Cut the following week.

Since my last post, a couple of 6Music items have been bubbling around. First of all, and I would imagine as no surprise, it seems the website will will no longer exist as quite the treasure trove it more recently proved to be. Perhaps Adam has more influence over Thommo than he might imagine as it may transpire that his wish to abolish webcams has been noted and acted upon.

Furthermore, the spring schedule has been discussed but the biggest news there is the acquisition of Mr Radcliffe who will join his chum, Mr Maconie as they transfer their Radio 2 show over to our own, exclusive and secret station. Nemone's maternal condition makes way for the pairing as she transfers to the weekend breakfast show and I guess Lauren will liberate the wonderful Huey Morgan from his current six day week schedule during the next couple of months if her telly commitments don't exhaust her.

A little bit of international squadronage here. The lovely Jennifer drove through some beautiful scenery with Adam and Joe for company.

Caught in the nets

The salty talents of Oblong Pictures have been at work again. If you prefer to watch this in VimeoVision, you may.

Earlier in the month, a Picturehouses typo inspired him to make this idiotic loveliness.

Whilst in CageCore you might need this and a squint at this.

Feed your nerd nerves with this display of the Scott Pilgrim T-shirts.

While I'm about it, this Lynchgasm is priceless. At around 5:50 Edgar dessicated into something that can only put me in mind of Joe's interview with Sir Rodge. It is the sweetest thing.


Another enjoyable Big Talk production won a Comedy Award last month too.

Adam's friend and MeeBox contributor, David OReilly has won an award with his External World film!

6 Music are responsible for endless joy in my life. Take a listen to Beardyman's visit with Huey this week. I don't think I would have fully appreciated Metronomy without 6Music and they have offered the first single from their upcoming album for total frees here. You can view their video here and then it may tickle you to watch a couple of reversed versions here and here.

If you don't feel I've given enough hilarious entertaining visual links there are three more I'm going to share. I'll start with a technically torturing phone short from The Incredible Suit.

This is surely the best Alan Partridge episode yet.

There's been the odd grumble around the net that this film rips off what Adam does. I guess it's possible that the author is aware of Adam's work and style but this is entertaining stuff and it was put together with a degree of care that few of us would be prepared to apply. Give the guy a break.

Sometimes I notice tweets along the lines of 'Adam and Joe did this ages ago but better'. They may well have done but audiences are constantly refreshing and renewing. Love them as I do, in real terms Adam and Joe have been tucked away in a relatively bijou niche for most of their professional lives thus far. I feel it's completely legitimate for others to be inspired enough by them to unconsciously or otherwise emulate them. If they happen to be of the kind of profile that enjoys a wider audience, that can only be good for everyone.


Finally and apropos of nothing at all......practical sillies.