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The Outsiders Inside Guide to NYC
March 8 2010 (2 years ago)
I’ve been asked by a couple of people recently what’s great in NYC after living there to go to school and spending enough time back at home to distil my experiences. I might just have a few off-beat ideas for great things to do in Gotham which don’t involve following the crowds…
It’s a top ten, but with more than a fair dash of treats for film lovers – all personally experienced through adventures making shorts in this, my favourite city;
- [ 10 ] Century 21 – the big downtown designer discount store, perhaps a little too well known now but still good for earning brownie points.
- [ 09 ] Staten Island Ferry – some of the best things truly are free, wrap up warm, head down after dusk and ride the ferry there and back again for some of the best views of the NYC skyline.
- [ 08 ] Nathan’s Hot Dogs– the store in Coney island where this chain started is worth a visit no matter what the time of year (there’s something about out of season seaside towns). Make it there in July and catch the infamous international hot dog eating contest on the 4th.
- [ 07 ] Accomplice New York – surprising, entertaining and at times ground breaking street theatre woven into a tour of lower Manhattan you won’t forget. Don’t ask questions, just book.
- [ 06 ] Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory – walk over the bridge and down to Fulton Ferry Landing (1 Old Fulton St.) to pick up some fantastic ice cream. Visit on a warm summer Saturday afternoon and survey the queue of bridal parties waiting patiently for wedding pictures set against a backdrop of the sparkling east river and skyline.
Perhaps only a little left field so far but keep reading past the jump for my top five, awesomeness guaranteed!
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permalink2010 Award Season: Best Film Cheat Sheet
February 14 2010 (2 years ago)
If you find yourself without the time to watch all of this years nominations I’ve put together a quick summary that should be enough to get you through any passing conversation requiring an intelligent summation unscathed.
This year the 82nd annual academy awards has doubled the number of runners for best film (something it used to do a long time ago) and as a result we’ve got an interesting mix. I’ve of course cross referenced those on BAFTA’s list as the serious contenders…
Review: Precious, based on the Novel ‘Push’
February 14 2010 (2 years ago)
…by Sapphire. This mouthful is apparently to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push (Paul McGuigan), I don’t know what was wrong with just ‘Precious’ either. Nominated for 6 Oscars this is the first serious outing for Lee Daniels and it’s star Gabourey Sidibe.
plot
Claireece Precious Jones (Sidibe); abused by her mother, raped by her father, fat, illiterate, unloved and unnoticed. After getting pregnant for a second time she is expelled from school and sent to ‘Each One Teach One’ where she meets a new teacher Blue Rain (Paula Patton).
Review: The Wolfman
February 12 2010 (2 years ago)
An $85 million dollar remake of the 1941 classic horror The Wolf Man (yup that’s right, it’s the year 2010 and we’ve got no time for extra spaces). Helmed by Joe Johnston, renowned for such classics as Jurassic Park 3, The Rocketeer and Jumanji what could possibly go wrong?
Plot
In the late 1880’s Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), an actor working in London, is lured back to his childhood home in the deep English countryside to help find his brother Ben, who has mysteriously vanished. No sooner than he has been welcomed home by his father Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) Ben is found dead, mauled by a large beast. Promising Gwen (Emily Blunt) that he will find her husbands killer he visits a gypsy camp where he encounters … a wolf man.
Final Draft, Grrr!
February 8 2010 (2 years ago)
I love Final Draft, but sometimes I’m tempted to ram its head in the virtual shredder for getting something so simple so very wrong!
I spent quite a lot of time converting some short scripts I’d written using a simple screenplay template into Final Draft 8 over the weekend, and I noticed a few bugs which after the third ten-pager really started to drive me nuts;
- The Format Assistant returns ‘Characters should have dialogue’ if an empty element exists directly after a character name, and the subsequent element is a parenthetical (it works correctly if the following element is dialogue)
- Using the Reformat Tool and re-formatting an element to a parenthetical, parentheses replace the existing element entirely (which deletes content) or if the content is not highlighted they are inserted at the cursor position, which results in things like (gasp()ing)
- Using the Reformat tool, and dealing with spaces after each element, the text does not scroll effectively (when you get to the bottom of a page the next element that needs to be re-formatted isn’t readable as its off screen)
I dread ever having to do this for a feature. After using Final Draft for a number of years I’ve found this kind of issue to be pretty commonplace with features that aren’t used every day, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that there’s just one dev/test working on the product. I’ve sent the comments in via their feedback form, but I won’t hold my breath!
Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
October 31 2009 (2 years ago)
You know it’s from Gilliam from the title alone. The one that promised to announce the arrival of another star in Heath Ledger, but almost didn’t get made due to his premature, sad and unnecessary death. I apologise ahead of time, where a few directors are concerned I’m known to get a bit soppy – Gilliam is on that list.
Plot
A small travelling carnival side show invites members of the audience to choose between the light or dark within the fantasmical world created by the ancient, eternal mind of Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), entered through a physcadelic mirror. After placing a bet 100’s of years ago with the devil (Tom Waits), promising him his first born at the age of 16 in exchange for youth, the story unfolds as Valentina (Lily Cole) approaches her birthday and the travelling company chance upon Tony (Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law) who vows to help save her life.
My PC is better than your pc
October 19 2009 (2 years ago)
As we all know stock offerings are for losers. I’ve been watching the SSD market for some time, waiting until the gb/cost equation reached expensive (down from ludicrously expensive) which happily coincided with the RTM of Windows 7 – so a couple of months ago I decided to crack open my 17” MBPro to replace its comparatively puny spinny disk.
The choice
I decided to go for the OCZ Summit 250 after reading a few good reviews and placed an order with EBuyer for the princely sum of £379 (can’t seem to find the product listed now). For this money you get a pretty flimsy looking 2.5” HD sized block of plastic/metal provided in an equally un-impressive glossy box (trying too hard).