A selectively shot London of chrome and glass serves as the backdrop for an efficient, minimalistic thriller which focuses on a surprisingly linear*1 plot rather than character development*2. It works in this instance, but you wouldn't want all your films to be like it. Eran Creevy does a decent job of ramping up the tension, and an even better one of sustaining it; in the final twenty minutes, there really are no guarantees as to who'll walk away.
I could actually envision this film taking place in the same universe as last year's Sweeney (which I still stand by. What?). As with that film, …Punch isn't Guy Ritchie territory, and works all the better for it. James McAvoy and Mark Strong do the majority of the heavy lifting, albeit with very solid supporting roles from all around them. The script is as free from extraneous banter as it is from tertiary characters, and this leads to quite a claustrophobic atmosphere at times (the best example being a four-man shootout in a nightclub which has no punters and no music playing).
I can see why the film isn't for everyone (and even I wasn't convinced by the trailer), but it's great to be pleasantly surprised. Not as raucous as Rocknrolla, but not as downbeat as Harry Brown, Welcome To The Punch has an intensity that's not easily matched these days.
Largely.
Yes.
Yes.
…Cinema ideally, but DVD will still work.
No.
Yes.
YES!*3
*1 Which is to say that there is a structure to the events, but it doesn't waste the viewer's time with twists, turns and red herrings. The unfolding plot is revealed in one neat scene. This would never happen in the Hollywood version.
*2 Seriously, this is not a character-piece. The characters are fine, but you find out very little about them, and it doesn't really matter anyway.
*3 During the shootout at the container-yard. Get in!
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
28th October 2011. HMV Forum, Kentish Town (The Town & Country, call it by its name)
What do I write about Bowling For Soup? Two awesome shows in a week. Saw them in Oxford on the 22nd, but didn't take any photographs. I also started writing an actual gig-report, then realised it was sort of redundant. Here's the short version:
Orange: Not for me, but the kids seemed to be enjoying them. Suburban Legends: Loads of fun, I was very impressed. Bowling For Soup: Excellent (as usual), even though the entire band and crew are (/have been) ill with this cold-thing thats been doing the rounds.
Anyway, I figured I'd post the photos I took at the London show. The principle's simple enough: Bad photographs look slightly less bad when they've been filtered through PolaDroid. Click on any of these to see the bigger version over at FacePage.
And big hugs to the awesome folks from the BFS Army who made it all even better:
I'm not saying that BFS have 'the best fans', but they're definitely the best people.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
PART ONE:
I haven't had any coffee for five days.
I've had some caffeine, admittedly, but not a lot. Basically a can of Diet Pepsi at lunchtime and that's been it. It's been in a vain*1 bid to improve the condition of my skin. It's not like I'm The Singing Detective or anything, but as I've previously noticed, it's caffeine that gives me spots etc, despite being in my late thirties. As I've also previously noticed, caffeine is quite difficult to give up if you use it to be 'on fire' at work*2. I enjoy being on fire at work, as it makes other people in the office look a bit shit by comparison.
So, as coincidence would have it, my jar of Douwe Egberts ran out last Friday, and I thought I'd give a caffeine-free environment a go. I can't drink that shit from the machine in the canteen, largely because it's not coffee*3, so there'd be no temptation to get pumped on a slow morning. So in place of the coffee? Water. That's got to do me some good, right? I mean sure, I'll be at the toilet every twenty minutes *4, but that's the H2O doing its thing. It's all good, yeah?
Yeah?
Apparently not. After five days of drinking a moderate to large amount of water, I'm far more intimately acquainted with the office-toilets, and I have the skin-tone of a fucking fourteen year old. It's actually worse than it was last weekend. The lack of supplementary energy has also resulted in me spending Monday to Wednesday having the reaction-time and general sluggishness of a teenager, too. There's only one thing for it. Abstinence can fuck right off.
In the same situation as before, I found myself at St. Pancras International, with twenty five minutes to kill before my train. It had been a long day so far, and I'd already come to the conclusion that the lack of caffeine was doing me no good. Now would be a good time to break this ridiculous charade. Looking at the Departures board, I could see the faux-quaint, ethically conscious Sourced beneath, with three or four people queued up (a slight number given the busy rush hour people-traffic). Behind me, the multinational behemoth that is Starbucks, with a queue of folks snaking back and outside their premises. Which one should I go for?
Well, remembering how long it took me to get served last time, I went to Starbucks. It was pretty much exactly how I like my retail transactions to be. I give them money, they give me stuff, no-one gives each other shit. Lovely. £2.40 has got me a Fucking Massive*5 Americano with an extra shot, and I can't tell which is going faster: this train, or my brain. Parts of my psyche are waking up like Ash at the end of Army of Darkness, and wondering exactly how long I've been asleep.
You remember that bit in 1978's Superman where he's discovering his powers and ends up running alongside that train? That'll be me when I get this finished, mind.
You can tell I'm back on the coffee, I've made three screen-references in one blogpost. This week's Star Wars A-Z post will be up on Sunday or Monday, by the way. I've got to put together a video for it, and between having a busy week and no fucking energy, I haven't been able to get round to it. Sorry, like. Although I doubt you were on the edge of your seat for it anyway ;)
Going to go and read comics, now. Ciao.
*1 vain, in every sense of the word, apparently. *2 Not literally "on fire". Obviously. *3 It's brown, hot and comes out of a coffee machine. The similarity ends there. *4 And I was. Every twenty bastard minutes. *5 That's right, fact-fans. 'Venti' is Italian for 'Fucking massive'.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
I'm currently drinking coffee out of a plain white cardboard cup, with a plain black plastic lid, and a plain brown cardboard holder. Which is to say, I'm not advertising for the man.
( ^^ Not my picture. Click on it to see the source page ^^)
This is because of a choice I made around twenty minutes ago (although sticking it to the man wasn't on my agenda). Awake way too early for a Saturday and at London St. Pancras, I was trying to decide where to get a coffee. I've got a half-full Caffe Nero loyalty card on me, but I couldn't see one of those. The choices within my line of sight were a) Starbucks, and b) Sourced.
The former is a multi-national corporation that a lot of people seem to take issue with. Although to be fair, there have to be more people that don't take issue with them, otherwise they wouldn't have such a profitable business. I frequently hear people grumbling about the mega-corp, although I never seem to catch what's so bad about them. There aren't babies in their coffee, are there? They don't, like, get orphans to pick the beans or some such thing? I'm not being facetious (well…), I honestly don't know what the deal is. As much as I love coffee, I'm certainly no expert, and as chance would have it, I've never been to Starbucks. There's no agenda behind that, it's just the way things have played out. Anyway, I've still never been there. I went for the other option.
This was a deli/bakery/coffee shop called Sourced. A delightful mishmash of ethically sourced and fair-trade goods, with a (no doubt carefully constructed) rustic layout to the open store to give it that continental-market feel. The young lady that served me was very polite and quite cheery (in fact, cheery to the point that when she spoke to other staff members in her regular voice, you're left in no doubt as to how false the cheeriness was). The coffee wasn't too badly priced for central London, and tastes pretty good. I wouldn't call it large, though. Even though I could see it was the biggest of the cup sizes they hold. And while I don't expect the guy actually making the coffee to do so with a skip and a whistle, it'd be nice if he put a bit of effort into it. It seems to have escaped his attention that the establishment he works for is in a train station. His customers, generally, are on their way somewhere. They haven't casually strolled into St Pancras station for a leisurely coffee, and to see his disinterested face…
Anyway, this business of Evil Corporation vs Ethical Co-Operative wasn't what made me choose David over Goliath. The queue was shorter. I think I fucking know why, now. Had Sourced been the only option, you wouldn't be reading this blog entry. But, as so often in life, it's the things we don't do that we end up regretting.
My need for frightening amounts of caffeine outweighs any liberal sensibilities I may have. At least the people working in Starbucks realise they're there to make coffee. They don't have to like it, they just have to get on and grind the beans to wake me up. The next time I'm faced with the choice (and barring the presence of a Caffe Nero), I'll give Starbucks a go. Then you'll probably be reading me moaning about how they managed to muff up a large white Americano with an extra shot.
Damn, I've finished my coffee. See? I told you this would happen.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Hello. Yes, it has been a while. Another self-indulgent post about my graphic-work, so bear with me.
As you've probably gathered, I kinda like Bowling For Soup. If you hadn't worked that out, then it's now out there. In addition to this, I'm a freelance Graphic Designer, with a good friend who runs a promotional printing firm. This means that shortly after I get an idea in my head for a t-shirt, I can actually make that shirt. Still with me? Good.
About three years ago we ran a series of shirts featuring caricatures of 'media-icons'. We called the range Skittlez. That banner at the top of my blog? That's the one I did of me. We produced around 75 different designs in the end (no, really), with faces from TV, movies, music, comics and games. Here are a few...
As well as the catalogued designs, I made a few which either contained so many colour-blocks they were a pain in the arse to print, or bespoke ones which weren't for general production. One of these was submitted, by me, to BFS for their consideration for a t-shirt design.
In the meanwhile, only two were actually produced. One got printed onto a shirt for my better-half, and the other one got sent to the band's office in Flower Mound, Texas:
Although the design was well received, it never made it onto an official shirt (to the best of my knowledge), but I didn't treat it as a big deal. Anyone who's into BFS will know that they have many, many t-shirt designs available at any one time, and they're a strictly limited-run deal, so I imagine the backlog and 'nearly'-list of designs is fairly large. Anyway, like I said, not a big deal. In 2008, I put the Skittlez project to bed and started on the GTA-style artwork that you've been seeing from me lately.
+ + + + +
Fast-forward to October 12th 2010, and I'm watching BFS at Shepherd's Bush Empire, in London. They've got a projected backdrop that plays the promo-videos of their songs if they exist, and a slideshow of pictures and video if they don't. It was during one of the songs without a video that this happened:
Uh-huh. The image was projected in amongst a load of other official shirt designs. In fact, this was the only one of them that I've never seen on an official shirt. This image was only up for about 10 seconds, and the slideshow was shown three times. So that's only 30 seconds out of a 1h15m set that my work was on display.
But it's still 30 seconds more than I was expecting. And it was still projected 30 feet high behind my favourite band to a sold-out house.
The bizarre thing is, I saw BFS only the previous Friday at Exeter Lemon Grove, and for all they had a slideshow then, I didn't notice the artwork. Not sure what that means, or if I'll see it happen again, but it made me smile.
And smiling's what Bowling For Soup are all about. Thanks, fellas.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
