Monday 31 December 2012

A Good Year #AdamAndJoe

There's no pretending that the goodness of Adam's year has had a higher profile than Joe's but they're both achieving great heights doing the things they love.

This time last year, BBC Radio2 celebrated the last day with a 'Best of 6Music' episode and the resulting podcast remains available for download. Good times.


January

While Joe's film featured in the nominations for the London Critics Circle Film Awards, Adam drilled a big tunnel through the centre of the earth to bring BUG to the Sydney Comedy Festival.

February

Adam took a more conventional route home, enabling him to slip into LA to present a BUG and also his wonderful Radiohead Restrospective BUG.

In the middle of the month he returned to the Leicester Comedy Festival.

Joe and his Attack the Block had nominations in the Evening Standard Awards, the Black Film Awards, The Orange BAFTA Film Awards, Guild of Music Supervisors Awards and the NAACP Image Awards. He also defended a South London tower block against....the press.

On 21st February Joe helped launch LOVE Film's new streaming rental service by doing a live commentary with Nick and Alex and a brief appearance from Edgar Wright.

The month was rounded off with Adam hosting the Music and Sound Awards.

March

March began with BBC Radio2 doing a couple more 'Best Of Adam and Joe' shows to help celebrate the 6Music 10th Birthday!  Adam and Joe popped in to Western House to record an interview for inclusion in Steve Lamacq's special birthday broadcast and they also recorded a health & safety announcement played to the live audience before the Maida Vale sessions.

On 14th March, the BFI invited Joe to present his Screen Epiphany to members. He chose Over the Edge.

Then he flitted off to the exciting film continent, stopping off to do a little interview with Strombo.

Meanwhile, Adam presented the British Arrows to those odd, advertising types and he did a BUG on his home turf of Norwich. He also presented at the BAFTA Games Awards.

At the end of the month, Joe pitched up in Japan with Nick Frost to attend the Okinawa Film Festival and present Attack the Block at it's Tokyo premiere.

April

After several patient months putting it all together, Adam finally began recording his tv version of BUG for Sky Atlantic, the pilot being on Good Friday which I was fortunate enough to attend without disgracing myself.

Adam made a wonderful jingle jongle for the Thinkbox ad and it's been on air again in December.

Adam's film of himself, Joe & Louis Theroux mentile-ing made it onto The One Show.

May

Adam and Joe's 6Music show won a Silver Sony Radio Academy Award again this year!

Attack the Block was among the nominations for the Sky South Bank Arts Awards  and Nebula Awards this month.

Adam continued to present his regular bi-monthly BUG show at the BFI while recording the tv version and also squeezed in a couple of shows in the Brighton Comedy Festival.

Joe rounded off May by giving a masterclass in Rome.

June

Adam did a couple of baby BUG shows mixed into his usual schedule in London and Norwich this month.

Attack the Block enjoyed it's first terrestrial screening on Channel4 but the big Joe Cornish news of the month is that none other than Kennedy Marshall have entrusted him with writing and directing the um....unfilmable Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.

July

BBC Radio4Extra dusted off the young(er) Adam and Joe radio play 'Famous Guy' for another outing this month.

Adam finally saw his BUG TV show air on SKY. I say 'finally' but it was originally scheduled for September and Sky loved it so much they brought it forward. Adam featured in a couple of newspaper mags. It's actually repeating on Sky Atlantic right now!

He also took his Best Of show to Latitude and The Cambridge Comedy Festival.

Attack the Block popped up at the Saturn Awards. You can check all the Attack the Block gongs here.

August

In something none of us could have really predicted, Adam was a guest on Sunday Brunch but they didn't seem too interested in his plat du jour - Brilliantly Boiled Broccoli. He also called into Shaun W Keaveny's and Matt Edmonson's shows.

Adam took BUG to the Green Man Festival. I seem to remember that used to be a favourite haunt of Master Cornballs.

We also had the wonderful news that Joe has become attached to another project. He will direct Royden Lepp's "Rust"!

September

Adam and Joe featured as an answer in the new Comedy World Cup show.

Adam joined Jonathan Ross's team on The Big Fat Quiz of the 80's and gave his latest Bowie workings their first airing at a BUG Special in King's Place. He finished the month with BUGs in Birmingham and Manchester.

There's a recap of BUG tv here.

October

Adam brought his Radiohead Restrospective BUG to Norwich and also took a special Fat Boy Slim show to the London Film Festival in addition to his regular BUG shows.

November

Adam presented the Music Video Awards again this year and also joined Richard Herring on stage at the Leicester Square Theatre for one of his wonderful podcast interviews.

Film4 aired Attack the Block to start their British Connections series and preceded it with interviews and a short introduction from Joe. ATB was also offered as an iTunes download for a mere 30p!

In the middle of the month, Adam began a new radio partnership with Edith Bowman. This got off to a tentative start but finished last Saturday with listeners throwing tantrums at the thought of it all ending so soon. They both visited Lauren to launch the show. Check the BBC 6Music website for wonderful links to clips, pix and downloads.

Adam also took his Radiohead Restrospective BUG to Brighton.

Joe chatted to some young students at the BFI this month too.

December

On 3rd December, the BFI invited Adam to present his Screen Epiphany to members. He chose The Man Who Fell To Earth and broke the Epiphany mold by introducing it in an hilarious BUG style. Eventually, the BFI will put a little clip of the intro here.

On Christmas Eve Film4 aired Attack the Block plus the interviews again.

Adam featured impressively on Celebrity Mastermind with his specialist subject being David Bowie.

2013

There are already BUGs scheduled at the BFI, Leicester and Norwich.

Joe will be buying some new leads for his propelling pencil.

AOB

BUG launched an iPhone app to commemorate it's 5th Birthday.

There's a proper Adam and Joe fansite here and the forum has a thread with links to download many of their radio shows including Adam's new ones with Edith.

I attempt to keep a sort of calendar here but I'll be honest, it's not easy!

I may not do much decent blogging these days but I do put the odd sound byte here.

Have a ruddy good 2013 if you possibly can


Saturday 17 November 2012

We Need to Rush You Into A & E #AdamAndEdith

The Adam and Edith Show is up and running and is ready to listen again.


Very much testing the crest of the watery airwaves in their first show, Adam and Edith entertained us with silliness, sound bytes, Korda reports and jingle jongles woven through a diverse playlist. Edith is so grown up that she actually drove the show from the desk leaving Adam to pour his reassuring warmth all over our idiocy-hungry areas.

For only six more weeks, they will build on their relationship and with any luck, forge the kind of fun that will make 6Music bring them back soon, maternity leave permitting!

They have their own email address if you want to contact the show during the week. While it's on air you can text to 64046 or use the 6Music Twitter account but do remember to be polite and kind. Unnecessary rudeness is waste of your valuable time and will inevitably make you look like a small winkie.

The podcast for these shows will be conveniently plopped into your normal Adam and Joe Pod Portal later on in the evening.


They also joined Lauren yesterday to chat about their preparation for the show. You can listen to it here.

Monday 3 September 2012

Adam Buxton's BUG Series One Revisited

After a wonderfully successful, eight week run on Sky Atlantic HD Adam Buxton's BUG's first series* has finally ended and to sate any withdrawal sickness, I thought I'd do a little recappitation.



Episode One kicked of with the delightful intro song featuring a lovely monkey as Adam implored us to "stop looking and the monkey as it's time to start the show".

We saw the first of the familiarly fun folders from his desktop suitcase. He showed us the visual mnemonics from his travels to Los Angeles and Australia.

Cool Comment Guy popped up for the first time and we were told to "stop observing small kids eyes". Wine Prone Cowboy prompted Adam to do a lovely, cod, royalty-free reworking of Rhinestone Cowboy in front of his audience but the abiding meme memory from this episode will be the touching "my CONDOLENC".

Garth Jennings kicked off a weekly succession of bespoke BUG videos with his explosive film featuring Adam miming to Guitar Wolf's version of Summertime Blues. There was a cameo from Baaad Dad in there too and Sky made a little extra bit with Garth.

Episode Two suggested that Pluto and Manthea were watching the show. The suitcase that week showed us his Shittier Beatles folder with it's MPoo3 suggestions.

ApplePieIsGoodToEat had a special, cheeky pop up animation for his comment "Oh and dear yellow one, I feel the need to tell you your PANTS are spicy".

MISSGOSH got her famous "I hope this comment is being read out by Adam Buxton" dream realised, and on the telly this time.

We witnessed the misuse of Adam's "Skip this ad now > > >" gag but probably the most memorable Youtube interlude was Gil McRipley's Rifle Burs - "SWAG".

David Wilson gorgeously filthy video for Adam's Sushi Song aired that week and there's a behind-the-scenes film to go with this too.

We learned that Mr Gyllenhaal can provoke a comment of "Meh, with a side order of pfft" but more often some pork-based stabbing is the plat-du-jour. This is also the video for which we saw Adam's elaborate, visual stingy response to Etienne Marvelo's wildly absurd and pretentious comment.

At the start of Episode Three, Adam's folder revealed a photo of his local pub, complete with it's funny spelling.

We met the fella who wants to "marry Grimes. Marry her hard" and learned that Thom Yorke has turrets and looks like Jodie Foster. We also had the confusingly posed "Original? no! Devlhish! ? Maybe! A pleasure for ones eara? Surelly".

Instead of a bespoke BUG video, this week Adam dressed up in heels, gloves and tight black leggins to give us his literal rendition of Pull Up to the Bumper which I was disturbed to see live at the recording of the pilot show. I've not seen a man look so utterly comfortable in heels that high since Terence Stamp strutted the outback.

The suitcase for Episode Four revealed a short video featuring his daughter, Hope in an ad to promote holidays.

This was followed by the joyously depressing video for The Counting Song, directed by Cyriak with illustrations from Sarah Brown.

We were introduced to someone who knows native people, learned a new insult - "dickehad" and the emoticon representing Owen Wilson :~) followed by a disgruntled appearance from Jareth.

We learned that although a "chopped-up Amen break at 170bpm laid over square bass is prototypical D&B/Jungle" it can be mistaken -  "it's breakcore, you fucknose", and we enjoy an appearance from the shouting poet, MrMrDSWoods including his sublime "TAKE THAT TO THE BANK YOU MUFFIN FACTORY".

Episode Five was the one which brought us "Thumbwhore", "Wot is BUK?" and "knock on the front door and ask for The Fighter".

We had brief appearance from Cool Comment Guy and a visual jingle for Commentary Digest.

Dougal Wilson's vision for Adam's classic "Poo Poo Party Pom Pom" was aired in this episode too and Sky have an enchanting Behind-the-Scenes film to go with.

Episode Six is the one with the intro song that sounds a bit like Louise's blissful Star Trek song. It had the Filthy Fridges folder, a pop-upset from Jareth, a comment that simply read "Bord?" and also the "Jesus Christ, I think I got a depression".

Dragon Metal Man popped up and we saw the Layzell Brothers animated wonder for Tiny Tim's "Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight" song from the past.

Episode Seven was the one where we were advised to "calm your tits". Adam showed us the contents of his "Shit Jennifer Aniston Films" folder and revealed that the folder for "Garage Band Jingles That I Haven't Used" was empty.

The video was David Freymond's imagining of Coming Back from Holiday Blues.

Adam made a fragrantly urban opening ditty for Episode Eight and unpacked his 'Previously Unseen Bobbles" folder showing what Bob Dylan's was actually typing while Joan Baez was strumming and warbling in the background.

Adam brought Radiohead's No Surprises video up to the comment reading plate and at the risk of peeving lovely Buxty by linking something with a tiny bit of a Joeness, one of the best runner-ups for the Adam and Joe Video Wars competition was this wonderful likeness of that same video.

Adam directed the final video of the series. The song, Amazing Music Video, is new. The video is everso amusing featuring Baaadad and Sif Agustsdottir with her top off, maybe.

Finally, don't forget you can go behind the scenes with Adam and catch various audio interviews with Empire Magazine, Shaun Keaveny and Matt Edmondson. Adam's YouTube channel has hours of delicious nuggets.

Once you've worked your way through that lot, several times, you'll have to take an Ad(am) break but let's hope it's not a long one.

* Any reference to 'series one' is based on love, optimism and belief in the power of positive thinking rather than any knowledge of a recommission. 

Wednesday 15 August 2012

In the meantime....

I was never proud of the gaps between blogposts but it's been two months since my last one and I won't remedy that anytime soon.........It's not as though there isn't any news.

Adam Buxton's BUG has been going for six of it's planned eight weeks and the only complaint he gets is about the shortness of each episode.

Along with Snow Crash, Joe's name has also been attached to Rust. Only time will tell us what stage either of these projects might have reached.

Adam continues to be as optimistic as he can about a return to 6Music, with or without Joe and keeps the events section of his blog up-to-date with gigs but you might sometimes find additional Adam and Joe news here.

I do tweet as much news as comes my way and Adam has made a couple of blogposts recently. He also puts the latest BUG song video on his channel seven days after Sky airs it.

You can always check the forum and blog at AdamAndJoe.com.

For the more nerdy, detailed news, I'm afraid I'll get to it when I can. It won't actually be news by then but more of a memorandum.

I'd apologise but that smacks of self-aggrandisement. 



Friday 15 June 2012

Any Other Business

Attack the Block was finally released in Italy at the end of May. Joe popped over to Rome for some promotion and a masterclass held by the artistic director of the filmschool in Cinecitta. There are tons of interviews with a variety of dubbing and subtitling going on.

Here's most of the masterclass:


Joe mimes with his friend, Little Joe:


Finally, a tiny mention of Ant-Man:


Do you recall the special jury mention that Attack the Block got at the Future Film Festival? How wude! Joe was presented with the certificate while he was in Rome.

Sky Atlantic held a showcase event for their New Comedy Season. Adam in awe of the great company and the episode shown was very well received, if the tweets are any indication. A multi-programme trailer went on air later and Twitter went potty.



Details of the brand new air date are here.

BUG Music Videos have released a phone app for both Android and iPhone, You can have Buckles on-the-run! Enjoy new videos or just look at beards while you're waiting at the supermarket check-out.

If you're feeling creative, this year's video challenge gauntlet has been thrown down.

Adam gave a Best of BUG show in aide of Marie Curie earlier in the week. From his comments at BUG31 last night, it seems he had some technical problems again. I hope he realises how much his audience enjoy these. It's just not the same when everything runs smoothly.

Tickets for BUG 31: The Director's Cut are showing as sold out but there will be a few returned nearer the time. If you can't make it or don't mind spoilers, Mat Dolphin runs through last night's show here.

I'll not forget Adam deploying his offensively reductive French accent in the face of Mnsr Yoann Lemoine in a long time, nor the ridiculous attempt at an English accent hurled back at him. Anyone who has attended a live BUG show will be familiar with Dr Buck's Suitcase and I found this shot from his latest desktop.



BUG have also added The Cambridge Comedy Festival and a gig at King's Place to their list. Due to high demand, Norwich BUG #10 will run for a second night. You can check for this kind of thing here.

There's a nice piece about Friend-of-BUG, David Wilson here.

Attack the Block will be released in Japan very soon. They keep adding bits to their website but they don't have the might of Filmauro behind them for marketing.

Tommy Mackay made this video to go with a much-loved Adam & Joe Radio Show nugget.



Adam and Joe's 6Music producer, James blogged about the Castle's Punk Britannia season.

Attack the Block's Paige Meade will be at the Hackney Weekender.

Do you know what I did for £10 the other week? I saw Mr & Mrs Herring practise their Edinburgh Shows on me. If you're going up there, you should book. They're bound to have got them sorted by then. Seriously, the shows were so good, I felt I had give Scope all the money I had left in my purse.

The other day, Richard did a podcast show with Attack the Block's Nick Frost.

Radcliffe & Maconie's regular feature 'The Chain' had it's 3000th entry this week with 'Bonkers'.

Finally, somebody made a paper version of the Prometheus trailer.

Adam Buxton & Joe Cornish: The News

The last couple of days featured two major announcements involving both the Adam and the Joe.

The big knobs at Sky (no, not those knobs) were so impressed with Adam Buxton's BUG TV shows that they pushed aside some lesser event and brought the air date forward from Autumn to July, thereby including it in their much heralded New Comedy Season.

Episode one (of eight, do pay attention) will air at 9:30pm on Monday, 9th July, 2012.

Watch the clip, why don't you?



I don't like that picture. It looks like Buckles is about to sneeze.

Camp Cornballs is alive today with the news that Joe Cornish is attached to longtime Kennedy/Marshall project Snow Crash. The property has now been acquired by Paramount having languished for twenty years in various houses, latterly Disney's Touchstone.

The intention is for Joe to adapt Neal Stephenson's best selling novel and then direct it but enough from me. Deadline waved it's precocious news-arse last night and they have about as much information as we're likely to get at the moment, unless I manage to tickle Longshanks into submission.

This has raises so many questions, and given the history of this project, I'll watch the nets with interest and reservation (because pointless tittle tattle won't get us anywhere). The tome is a box of miraculous uniqueness and a tough nut for any idiothole to crack. However, if anyone were to try mapping Cornball's daydream brain, it would probably look like this book. We have no idea how far down the line anything is or the terms of Joe's engagement. One thing I do know is that if he was ego-surfing today, he won't have got much writing done.

I'm left with only one real question. If and when this finally goes into production, can I look after Macey/Maisie?

It seems pointless to continue with any other news after these two nuclear missiles have laid waste to the entire area.*




* give me half an hour.



Friday 18 May 2012

The value of an oz these days

Adam and Joe's 6Music show won a Silver Sony Radio Academy Award again this year! The gold went to the two little old ladies; so effectively our idiotholes were the real winners (in the award ceremony in my head, that is). Joe's already researched the relative prices of an ounce of gold versus and ounce of silver but they've appreciated considerably since then. Catch up with the evening's wiffle waffle here.

The beautiful being that is Tom Robinson also won gold for his 6Music show.

However, it must be said, the most tear jerking moment of the evening was when 6Music won UK Station of the YEAR!
I saved this station, you know. I'm in a club of a few thousand people who would not accept the closure theory. I'm guessing, since you're reading this, that you are too! Aren't we wonderful?

Hello Giggles were clearly on the judging panel.

6Music also won a Music Week Award last month (as did Steve Lamacq).

BUG TV is gaining more momentum as the main audience-based filming seems to be in the can and all that remains is for the bespoke, buckles videos, interviews and waffle to be assembled into eight delicious capsules and blasted into space before they can beam down from the naughty man's satellite in the Autumn.

It's good to know that Uncle Dave was on hand at the recordings, should any corrective maintenance be necessary.

Of course, The Guardian were on this back in March but it's only recently that I noticed this lovely comment on their piece. What an adorable man Count Bucklules is.

Various people have been tweeting about their involvement. For instance, we know that the awesome friends of BUG, Shynola are doing the title sequence and the super-talented David Wilson will be featured in one episode. You can just about read the text of that article from The Sunday Times.

Ian Burrell, Time Lord and Media Editor at The Independent filled a page on Monday, prior to the Sony Radio Academy Awards presentations. "Because the pair are such old friends they have an instinctive humour which delights critics." not to mention the thousands of 6Music listeners baying for their return.

A lot of this piece is about the success of BUG but please note that Joe's contribution came via an email from America. Imagine! This would no doubt have been easy to spot due to the +1 (or would it be +44?) in front of his email address and the fragmented font in which it arrived, not to mention the ungodly hour he chose to send it, plus that annoying delay. I'm sorry but WTAF?

It was the fifth birthday of BUG in it's present form and they made a special playlist Facebooky thing to mark the occasion.


Adam tweeted this at the end of April, about Adam and Joe's return to radio.

They're both so busy but somehow, Adam managed to make a jingle-jongle for this tv ad.

Adam's gigs last night in Brighton went down really well, as ever.

BUG 31 at the BFI (June 14th and 29th) is almost sold out again but, and I can never stress this more strongly, please try nearer the time and on the day.

Remember all the lovely nibbles of artwork used on 6Music's Adam and Joe home page? The talented lady who made them has updated the cover for her Idiothole's Guide. It's a thing of beauty.

The BFI website now has the video of Joe's introduction to Over The Edge for your enjoyment and by some quirk of miracles, @VivaVHS tweeted this picture of the original VHS cover Joe refers to. Furthermore, @VivaVHS also made this cover for Attack the Block!

Joe moved among the muggles for a very special double-bill Picturehouses Podbirthday screening but he was so hot, he set of some alarm or another.

Once again, Joe's name popped up in a daytime telly quiz show. It pretty much reprised the previous incidence.

It gets worse. YouTube have used a picture of Joe Wright instead of Cornish in their auto-list thing. This is what happens when you're out of the public eye. I'm just saying.

There's a lot of chit-chat about Ant-man. Edgar's been talking. He's got the last Cornetto film to make and he wants to make Ant-man. Mr Marvel has said things will get moving during the summer. By moving, he may just mean it'll change status from "I know nothing" to "Something might come of this". Enough people are wetting their boxers over this. I feel I shall not need to deploy the Tena-Lady quite yet.

Any Other Business:

Nick Frost will be at Kapow tomorrow. It may be too late for tickets. It may not be. I went along last year. It was very spoilery full of lovely previews and trailers. It's in a nice part of town. If that's not enough Frost for anyone, you can catch him chatting to Richard Herring next month. Please book some seats for heckins' sake.

Beautiful Paige Meade from Attack the Block has landed a role in the next series of Waterloo Road! This young lady seems to have boundless talent and energy.

Last time I was driving through Brixton, I saw this pizza & chicken place. Not only is it named after a character in Attack the Block, it is surrounded by the kind of bins in which said character hid for most of the film.

This blogger has put together a load of Attack the Block references.

Italy and Japan are still gearing up for their releases of Joe's film.

If you're quick, you might still be able to get a ticket to one of these screenings at the Film4 Summer Screen held annually in the courtyard of Somerset House. Not one dud among them.

Empire have complied an amusing Avengers flowchart thing and the Incredible Suit has made a Spoterizing Playlist for exactly the same film.

I'd also like to give a link to Adam Batty's eBook thingumy which film lovers might enjoy.

I'm going to end this with a couple of links that you don't really need.

I've been known to use a blog on Posterous for posting sound nuggets. It was 'acquired' by Twitter in March and without so much as a by-your-leave, the sound media I've lovingly kept there since 2009 has not been showing up on some versions of some browsers. I have had to go over ALL 570 odd posts to re-place the media (and I don't mean replace/re-up it, I mean take it out and put it in again). I believe I have finally finished this unwelcome chore but if you find any broken bits, let me have a link and tell me your browser and version. Ta muchly. In case you're wondering, if it weren't for the several hundred hits each nugget has had, I wouldn't have bothered.

Finally, incredible though this may seem, I have a life beyond bothering Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish. Granted that it's not much beyond in so far as it consist of an engorgement of films, a earhole of music, a pop-up of theatre and a tickle of comedy. I've joined that there Letterboxd thing. I don't know if I'll survive the pressure. I'm keeping them short and you might find the tags more revealing than the actual notes in the event that you even care what I thought.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Adam and Joe nom-o-nated and
BUG on the tell-o-vision

Adam and Joe's 6Music show has been nominated in a couple of Sony Radio Academy Award categories again this year and if they win, this might be what they look like....except a tiny bit older.


By way of a reminderal, BBC Radio Two have featured no less than three 'Best Of Adam And Joe' shows in their '6 on 2' strand lately.

At last, the plans for BUG TV are falling into place with Adam recording shows at the Riverside Studios and making other insane content. It will air on Sky Atlantic in the Autumn, hopefully. They've given him his own page already!

Adam has been making brand new videos for this show. These include some covering Buxty's songs and a few made for bands that missed out on having their own vids when they were originally released. He has also put his Hollaback Girl on YouTube.


There's a little quote from Adam in this piece.

Adam has added Green Man Festival to his list of Summer BUGgery.

Adam hosted the satan's little helpers fest at last month's British Arrows and in the true spirit of shameless exploitation, featured one of his tottlings in a spoof ad, currently also showing at a BUG near you.

A proud plinth-maker posted this picture of Adam from last month's Music And Sound Awards.

At last, we have someone sensible, explaining how the flip to make a decent cherry bourbon.

Attack the Block had it's first Japanese public screening in Okinawa last month and then a premiere in Tokyo on the following Monday. Joe and Nick were invited over to promote it although the general release is not until June. Rintaro Watanabe was kind enough to share photos and also linked this one. I can't find any video of the event but here's another shot of Joe and Nick. They're on stage here. I have no idea what's happening in the picture that goes with this article.

Edited to add:  I'm a numpty. There's a tiny bit of video from Tokyo here. Nothing from Okinawa but they have a subtitled trailer here.

 

Meanwhile, back in London, the awesome young cast represented Attack the Block at the Jameson Empire Awards. The film was not so lucky that night but it continues to show at festivals and win awards. It has also been nominated for The South Bank Sky Arts Award and was featured in this random Iowan event.

The Fanter Film Festival gave it top billing in this poster and be warned of a blood curdling start to this trailer for the fest featuring an Italian dubbing of Attack the Block clips.

You can still watch John Boyega talk about his role in My Murder. John recently shared this picture of his parents with Joe.

There's a Free Film Festival in New Cross Deptford starting in a few days. They're showing Attack the Block! In fact, it's a night of New Cross Alien mayhem as they Attack the Cross. (see the poster, there)

A week after New Zealand finally got it's theatrical release, the ATB DVD and Blu-ray were released in Australia.



Italy sees the theatrical release of Attack the Block next month but no matter which translation engine I used, this piece is bemusing.

Joe's name has been mumbled in the hungry fighting and before I go, here's some Japanese Attack the Block stickers with a soft toy.

I've decided to fill in the gaps on this page by giving a short revival to my Monday morning, Podcast Intro Song thingumy.

Lauren Laverne played Dr Sexy on the 29th March in her Secretly Saucy People's Playlist.

Louis Theroux was talking about his latest documentary on The One Show last Friday and Mr Evans played Adam's mentile Groove is in the Heart video.

In other Saturday morning slot related news, Peter Serafinowicz has put his 6Music pods here and Richard Herring disappointed millions of women by marrying himself up to another. A second series of Andrew Collins' Mr Blue Sky has begun on BBC Radio Four.

Lovely Kimi found another alternative career for Adam.

Finally, this Drawception popped up on the twinternets from Lizz Lunney.


.....I'm sure I've missed something important but I've run out of steam. Enjoy, if you possibly can.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

The Adam and Joe Periodical

It's annoying but inevitable, this blog is just like any other periodical. It shows up about once a month with the occasional panic when nothing happens for six weeks.

Well, whoop-di-la-di-loo - both Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish have moved among their people since my last post and a reassured calm has soothed my angsty little life.

Adam presented three editions of BUG29, the first one of which gave me particular joy because David Wilson was the guest director and he's pictured-up some of my favourite tracks. There was a BUG Special at the Leicester Comedy Festival too.

Adam's ability to make the banality of introducing award presenters seem like the best party you ever went to means he is in great demand at the moment. Recently, he hosted the inaugural Music And Sound Awards and last Friday, presented the Family Award at the Games BAFTAs (below). I believe he will also host the British Arrows Awards 2012 on Wednesday.



This week Adam returns to Norwich with his special East Anglian BUG9 and then back down to London for a small gig in Camden on 1st April followed by the BFI for BUG30 in April.

He'll present his BUG Special at the Brighton Comedy Festival, the Wilderness Festival and Latitude. There's no more news on bringing BUG to the tellybox as far as I can tell.

Joe attended an awards do recently too. He proudly ambled up the red carpet (via George Clooney's ear) at the BAFTA Film Awards and hopefully received an exciting Nominees Goodie Bag.

Attack the Block continues to win gongs such as the Black Reel Award and Joe went to Toronto on Monday, en route to Japan, so I hope he hooked up with the Serial Diners to collect his Silver Lena Awards. Joe's interview with the wonderful George Stroumboulopoulos is below but look look at these shots and chortle at the captions.

Back in February, he cosied up on a sofa with Nick Frost & Alex Esmail somewhere in Fitzrovia to waffle his way through Attack the Block via this magic portal provided by LOVEFiLM which is still available to view/relive.

Last week, he brought his front room to the South Bank to show us his Screen Epiphany, preceded by an on-stage interview. This was a magnificent ruse to present a deliciously popped & scratched print of Over the Edge on the huge screen in NFT1.

Eventually, you should be able to watch highlights from the discussion at the BFI site but in the meantime, here's the interview from Toronto.




Adam and Joe also contributed to the wonderful 6Music Tenth Birthday Celebrations including an optimistic comment from Cornballs.
BBC Radio 2 aired two Best of shows on consecutive Saturdays too. The BBC's studios in Maida Vale played host to live sessions from Sunday to Friday and the lucky studio audience were treated to a safety message from them. You can find that and more birthday links here.

Also during this period, 6Music and their guests were trending on Twitter at several points. The great and the good of the music and entertainment industry sent their best wishes via Facebook and Twitter. This is the secret station that Adam saved for us!

The Guardian's Birthday piece prompted 200 odd readers' comments, many of which were about Adam and Joe. There have been several instances of live Stephenage around town this week.

This film was on the 6Music website, on the television and projected at Maida Vale and the South Bank throughout the glorious celebrations.



During the last show in his short Saturday morning run, Richard Bacon tried to kill Adam and Joe off. It was to no avail, of course but you can listen here.

In other news, the young cast from Attack the Block are popping up all over. Sammy Williams was in an episode of Hustle and is in Dexter Fletcher's Wild Bill. Franz Drameh featured in a two part Casualty story. John Boyega stars in tv drama My Murder with Franz Drameh to air on 26th March on BBC Three and Alex Esmail is in Payback Season and Strippers vs Werewolves. Franz is also in Now is Good which recently showed at Berlinale.

Attack the Block continues to get distribution around the world. New Zealand, Portugal and Japan are up next.

ジョー・コーニッシュ、監督

Germany also released the film on Blu-ray in a steel case last month. This version includes a small feature withdrawn from the UK & US release entitled "Joe's Massage". It's probably a little inappropriate but not for the reasons you might think/hope. Watch an adorable review of the casing here.

This was made by longtime Big Mixtape and Adam & Joe fan, @SongWarmonger.


One of the stars of Traveling Tales was featured on BBC's The Tube the other week.

Do try to catch up with the Peter Serafinowicz podcasts, if you can.

Finally, this was seen on Nigerian television last month.




Adam and Joe Calendar.
*not a real word

Friday 3 February 2012

BUG: The Evolution of Music Video - International Division and BAFTA news

Whilst I appreciate I have not been forthcoming with updates this year, we all know how amorphous the month of January can be by both effecting some kind of fast-track truncation into February and yet simultaneously pushing the December holidays further away than memory can recall.

Adam packed his bags a couple of weeks ago and long-hauled his BUG down to the land of ultra-thin tinnies and far-too-sweet chocolate.

During the Sydney Comedy Festival, Adam rammed the venue four nights in a row and was gratified by Stephenage and thoroughly dutiful representation from the core of OzSquadron.

There's a rundown of the playlist here.

TimeOut carried an interview and ABC made a downloadable radiopod.

Some really lovely stills accompany this audio interview. Part Two is here.


Rather than shooting straight back to his country estate, he transited via Los Angeles to give his Radiohead Special on Wednesday and his BUG Special on Thursday. Both nights were packed with sexy Hollywood people, including Edgar Wright.

Radiohead fan, Anna took snaps. Some idiothole made a dreadful video of some sequences Adam specifically asked people not to record (when he did the show in London). As you might imagine, the footage is rubbish and I'll not be linking it here.

On Christmas Eve, Tom Ravenscroft's show featured various people reading from a Christmas book. Adam was the first of those guests. You can read more and listen here.

Adam featured in a piece at The Guardian about first time experiences. He also put his outro video for The Hours on his Vimeo channel and while we're in the Vimeo area, Adam did a voice-over for the LoCo Film Festival ident. It also includes a shot from Attack the Block.

Adam's name is showing up for a gig in Camden on 1st April. More details will follow, I'm sure.

Don't forget Adam is doing his BUG29 at the BFI and his latest BUG Special at the Leicester Comedy Festival this month.

Brian Cox and his team brought another three days of Stargazing to our tellyboxes which prompted a lot of discussion about this.

I wouldn't want anyone to think Joe has been unhealthily obsessed with his spurtle all month. He managed to blag a trip to Toronto to collect an award for his film from their Film Critics' Association and deputise for Stephen Spielberg, who is a director of some note for whom Joe wrote a few words and ligged around on set during the Tintin production. Tweeters were most delighted to see him at the ceremony. Gloria Martin interviewed him on camera while he was there and the Globe & Mail had a lovely, serious photo from the party. We are blessed with footage of his entire acceptance speech including a Stephen!



Attack the Block has been nominated for a BAFTA in the category for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. It was also long-listed for Best British Film but didn't get quite enough votes to make it into the nomination round. It's all wonderful recognition, though.


The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn was also recognised for a BAFTA nomination in the categories of Best Animated Film and Special Visual Effects. You might think that was a foregone conclusion but incredulously, it did not receive the same inclusion from AMPAS. Fortunately, John Williams' score saved the day by getting the Oscar nomination. Tintin also won a Producers'Guild award.

Still in the awards department, John Boyega attended the London Critics' Circle Awards.

You can check a list of awards the film has won here.

Attack the Block has been showing down in Australia since the beginning of December but it's still getting some niche screenings like this one, out in the open at a convent. I'm told there were bats flying around!

Which reminds me of the open air screening in London last summer. Here's the interview Joe gave there.


Earlier this week, Joe and James Wilson went along to the NFTS to entertain the students and impart details of their film-making experience.

The Attack the Block fan art increases daily. Here's the origin of a really beautiful piece.

There have been two bits of Attack the Block location news this week. As far as I recall, this isn't entirely accurate because I think it was neighbouring James Riley Point that featured in the film.

My heart sank when I heard the beginning of a piece on Front Row last night about unhappy residents in South London towers because I thought they were going to misrepresent the mood of Attack the Block but fortunately the BBC gave Joe an opportunity to make a very balanced and elegant contribution to the show which the BBC News website featured as well. You can listen to the full programme in their 2nd February podcast. The piece about the estates starts at around 5 minutes, 30 seconds.

Attack the Block will be shown at the end of the month in Portugal during their Fantasporto Festival.

I shall close with a couple of silly videos for you to enjoy.