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.