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.
