My Youtube Playlist for ‘Fifty Percent Vampire’

Posted: February 27, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Fifty Percent Vampire, Music, Vampires | Tags: | Leave a comment

Here’s a link to the selection of the music I was listening to whilst writing ‘Fifty Percent Vampire’. Have fun spotting the themes.

FPV_cover_small    Play it again, ladies and gents!

 

 

 

 

Satoshi Kon

Posted: February 14, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Cinema, Film, Hollywood, thriller | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

paprika_internet_dreams

I’m addicted to cinema. I’m reluctant to tell you how many movies I own, but the number is in excess of two hundred and increasing. Three of my latest treasures are anime movies directed by Japanese master storyteller Satoshi Kon: in order of release date ‘Perfect Blue’, ‘Tokyo Godfathers’ and ‘Paprika’. I recently discovered several interesting reviews of Mr Kon’s work, whilst browsing on YouTube, as is my habit most weekends. The reviews piqued my interest as it appears that Satoshi Kon and I share some ideas, traits and themes in our respective works. I wouldn’t say I’d been directly influenced by Mr. Kon, as I’d  written and published ‘Fifty Percent Vampire’ long before the maestro blipped up on my radar, but it seems he influenced Christopher Nolan, one of the movie directors whose work I most definitely acknowledge.

Sadly, Satoshi Kon is no longer with us, having died of cancer in 2010, but his inventive movies live on, cinematic masterpieces in which he blurs reality with dreams, warps space and time, and creates marvelous fantasy and sometimes nightmare worlds for his multiple-persona characters to jump between.

I think I’ll go order ‘Millenium Actress’.

 

Battleship Pretension – THE movie podcast for me

Posted: February 10, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Cinema, Film, Hollywood, Movies, podcast, Writings | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Battleship Pretension is my go-to audio podcast for anything movie related. Over the many years I’ve been listening to their show I feel I’ve gotten to know hosts David Bax and Tyler Smith very well, and when I’m on a long train or bus journey home and I’ve completed my writing target for the day, it’s very often that I turn to these two very entertaining and knowledgeable gentlemen (and their frequent guests), to find out what’s happening in movieland, brush up on my dramatic techniques, and undoubtedly get a recommendation or two for something new to watch. David and Tyler cover current releases and classics, Hollywood, indies and foreign, spotlighting directors and genres, all in their own laidback, free-flowing style. I strongly recommend you check these awesome guys out!

Benoit Violier’s death big news in Switzerland

Posted: February 2, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Politics, Swiss news, Syria | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

This morning the Swiss media’s focus is on the death, Sunday, of ‘World’s Best Chef’ Benoit Violier, who was found shot at his home. In the newspaper I read whilst enjoying my morning coffee, eight pages are devoted to the Frenchman, who ran the Restaurant de l’Hotel de Ville in Crissier near Lausanne, where the quick lunch menu will set you back almost 200 U.S. dollars. The restaurant has decided to carry on without their deceased leader. “It’s what he would have wanted,” said one of the management.

In other Swiss news, peace talks are again underway in Geneva to try to end the civil war in Syria, and end the suffering of millions of civilians in besieged and starving towns such as Madaya.