Chimpomatic

The Secret In Their Eyes

Classy Argentinian murder-mystery, that deservedly took home the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

6th Aug 2011

Search

Trailer Park: The Killer Elite

Another trailer up for the Statham/DeNiro/Owen SAS flick Killer Elite. I love the way that rather than him adapting to the mainstream, the mainsteam is adapting to Statham.

5th Aug 2011 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Twitter

Massive (make that 'Uber Deluxe') version of U2's Joshua Tree on the way, for it's 20th Anniversary: http://t.co/JRVZAjH Via @U2com

4th Aug 2011

Trailer Park: Twixt

Dubious looking trailer up for Francis Ford Coppola's interactive movie 'experience' Twixt. Read all about the film over at AICN.

Doesn't look like it's going to be the return to form that Val Kilmer so badly needs...

4th Aug 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Twitter

Damn that Pitchfork office looks like a scream. http://bit.ly/ogNlWA

3rd Aug 2011

Twitter

I'd call that more of an armoured car RT @thecoldvein: Please don't park in the bike lane http://t.co/KgDFaC9 via @youtube

2nd Aug 2011

Twitter

@ArcadeFire's The Suburbs Deluxe is $4.50 on their site. In FLAC. With short film. Hats off that someone is getting digital distro right.

2nd Aug 2011

Twitter

PS: the 4.4/10 that Skateland gets on IMDB is WAY off the mark. Especially in context of the usual over-indulgent marks. http://t.co/Bf2N45I

29th Jul 2011

Twitter

It could definitely suck, but there is no doubt that \#TowerHeist will be Eddie's best movie since at least Bofinger: http://t.co/g5nWyWv

28th Jul 2011

Nothing makes you feel old like the 20th Anniversary of an album from the 90's ...and September 24th sees the 20th anniversary of Grunge catalyst Nevermind, which took off shortly afterwards and went on to sell over 30 million copies. Pitchfork has details of the re-release.

That's cover star Spencer Elden in the picture, shot a couple of years back in the 17th anniversary era. He's probably even bigger now.

Down below is the band's first TV performance, on legendary show The Word (read more here). I remember the buzz spreading like wildfire from then on.

Where's it all gone eh?

#JustWatched
#Film
#CSF
#Halliwell

#CSF
#Music

26th Jul 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Platoon

Brilliant rites of passage movie that still stands as the definitive depiction of the war in Vietnam.

Halliwell says: Not badly done in the style of Bataan (plus brutality and gore). One would have thought it too late to do it at all, but the American public made it a box-office hit.**

24th Jul 2011

Twitter

#Spotted: A young Mrs Larson from \#TheKilling / that witch from \#TrueBlood in 'Kalifornia'. Don't get me started on baby-faced Hank Moody.

21st Jul 2011

Trailer Park: The Amazing Spider-man

Trailer up for the Spider-man re-boot. Worth watching for an ambitious POV shot at the end. Other than that it looks a lot like the 2002 movie Spider-man.

20th Jul 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Knight and Day

Big, expensive, contrived, noisy action comedy - that's light on comedy. Sub par from James Mangold.

17th Jul 2011

Twitter

#Spotted: Forgot that Ari Gold himself is in 'Old School' too. Must have been where he met Mrs. Ari. http://t.co/y8MgTa6

16th Jul 2011

Twitter

Vintage Genesis on the hifi tho' RT @TheFieldOffice Im not sure that Heston's magic wand has touched down at this branch of @LittleChefCoUK

11th Jul 2011

Twitter

Why are the resistance in \#FallingSkies all packing AK47s? Or is that all that resistance worldwide are allowed?

9th Jul 2011

Maid In Manhattan

Old fashioned romance that's solidly made with few surprises.

3rd Jul 2011

Twitter

Confusingly, the actor that plays the Felix Leiter-type character in the Brosnan Bond movies also plays the baddie in The Living Daylights.

2nd Jul 2011

Twitter

Wouldn't that be nice RT @DylanJonesGQ: Song Of The Day: "Anyone For Tennis" by Cream. An atypical piece of nonsense ...more like Traffic.

1st Jul 2011

Trailer Park: Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy

Looking forward to this. Inside word is that it's a good one.

Via AICN

30th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Newsflash: Harrison Ford not in a coma

Despite his many zombie-esque performances in recent years, this series of interviews show that Harrison Ford is in fact still a functioning human being - even with a sense of humour. If he can just translate that to screen.

Jon Favreau is asking the questions, and the whole thing was done as promotion for the upcoming flick Cowboys and Aliens, which may or may not be OK.

Via AICN

#CSF
#Film
#Heroes

29th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Scenes From The Suburbs

Ambitious, stylish short from Spike Jonze that's sadly missing the bits between the 'Scenes'.

28th Jun 2011

Singing Adams

Everybody Friends Now

Records Records Records

With the Broken Family Band finally broken for good, lead singer Steven Adams has moved forward, assembling a new band going by the name of Singing Adams - though confusingly Adams put out a solo record under that name in 2005.

The casual country tinge of BFB has given way to a more focused sound, coupled with great production. There's a more soulful edge to the delivery here too, though have no fear - the same charmingly-delivered-but-downbeat lyrics are still here, giving David Gedge a run for his money both in the lyrics-about-break-ups stakes and even with the furious guitar workouts that highlight many of the best tracks.

Good to have you back. Welcome home losers.

#Music
#CSF

28th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Them Crooked Vultures

Disappointing super group effort that rarely comes close to matching the best of its parts.

#OnRotation
#Music
#CSF

27th Jun 2011

Twitter

New song = snooze. RT @robynpierce71: @chimpomatic @lucypope Roger that. With Commander Pope on the sofa. \#beyonce's gone a bit shit.

26th Jun 2011

#CSF
#CurrentAffairs
#Tech
#Websites

Another Google Earth

Visit amazing site Another Earth for a double sided browser that lets you compare any area of the earth, even setting left and right to different areas of time - for example to compare the effects of the recent Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami disaster.

24th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: The Killer Elite

A movie about SAS men with Statham, DeNiro and Owen? Yes please..... is what I thought, as I expected that to mean Statham moving up to DeNiro's class, not dragging DeNiro and Owen down with him.

Based on the controversial Ranulph Fiennes book The Feather Men.

23rd Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Twitter

Who'd have thought @whitedenimmusic would evolve into the kind of band with flute solos? That's not a complaint BTW.

22nd Jun 2011

Philadelphia

Dated and bizarrely directed Jonathan Demme landmark courtroom drama that still packs a punch.

19th Jun 2011

Twitter

#Spotted: @ThatKevinSmith as an over weight air passenger in Brit Chick Flick '4.3.2.1'. No preparation needed for the role.

17th Jun 2011

Twitter

RT @SageFrancis: I'm fairly settled in my belief that there is no higher power watching over us then this happens. http://t.co/gk165lo

17th Jun 2011

Google Chrome OS

With the impending release of Google's online-only Chrome OS netbooks, they seem to be attempting to get us into the concept with a free Angry Birds plug-in for anyone using the Chrome Browser. Bizarrely, it also works fine in Safari. The only advantage to using Chrome seems to be that you can play .....offline.

#CSF
#Tech
#Websites

17th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Fincher and Nolan vs Malick

Here's a nice featurette on the Tree of Life, with Christopher Nolan and David Fincher discussing Terence Malick's work.

Via AICN

If you like Malick, you'll like this: He's allegedly already preparing a six hour cut of Tree of Life, as well as a complimentary IMAX movie documenting the evolution of life.

Don't worry if that sounds too much. His next movie is a romantic drama. Which is promised to be "More experimental that Tree of Life".

Via The Filmstage

Malick has also asked his crew to keep summer and autumn free for another possible feature shoot.

Via LA Times

#CSF
#Film
#Heroes

17th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Twitter

Allow that. RT @MissAndreaByrne: @simeonfarrar believe it!

17th Jun 2011

Beastie Boys Mystery Quiz

Here's a mystery: I was watching a Smiths concert on TV last night, recorded for German TV institution Rockpalast in 1984. As Morrissey and Marr were followed back to their dressing room, I spotted the above Beastie Boys sticker on the dressing room door.

As we all know, the Beasties didn't get anywhere near the mainstream until the build up and release of Licenced To Ill in 1986 - and research shows that they didn't appear on Rockpalast until 1998. A quick Google brought up the video below of them from 1984 (not from Rockpalast, from the Scott and Gary Show), so they were on the radar to some extent and Ad Rock even seems to have a similar sticker stuck on the front of his guitar.

Add your suggested explanation in the comments.

#CSF
#Heroes
#Music
#TV

16th Jun 2011 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Twitter

RT @redleaderlondon: Ooh that Luther is good! \#bbcluther - loved spotting the hackney locations too

14th Jun 2011

#CSF
#Chimpsetc
#Websites

Internet Radio

Internet radio seems to be coming of age recently, mostly thanks to the ground swell of internet connected devices that everyone including your mum now uses. Almost every radio station now has an online broadcast and there are many apps and sites to aggregate those streams into an easy to use package.

I've been using the outstanding iPad/iPhone app Tune In Radio to tune in to everything from Radio 4 to KROQ, to Triple J (they also make apps for other devices and run a website) and the BBC have even got involved with the site Radio Player which offers a similar service.

Turn on, tune in, etc...

#CSF
#IPhone
#Music

14th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

ALL NEW CHIMPOMATIC!

It's that time of the decade again when we overhaul the mothership and drag Chimpomatic into the future. We're all about the content stream this time around, as much of our data is now coming from Twitter and Flickr. Scroll down for an endless torrent of hard to read rectangles, colour coded by content type. If it's all a bit much for you, narrow your browser and it will all drop into a single column.

The flailing reviews section has seen the most notable improvement, with Twitter reviews now getting the on-site treatment, meaning there's hundreds of new film reviews and many more recent music ones. You can also click on the different star ratings to filter the reviews, making it easy to find those zero star reviews that are well worth avoiding, or those unmissable five star ones.

Tagging also gets an upgrade, with tags now site-wide across content and photos.

Feel free to add comments....

10th Jun 2011 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Film School

Brilliant Career

Thurston Moore-worshipping debut that doesn't signal the band's later clout.

#OnRotation
#Music
#CSF

9th Jun 2011

Wolf Parade

Expo 86

Solid enough, but lacking the highs that elevated Apologies and Mt. Zoomer up a bracket.

#OnRotation
#Music
#CSF

7th Jun 2011

Truthful Posters

If movie posters told the truth.

If chimpomatic told the truth: "worth posting just to get that 5 word review of The Fighter out there".

Via Shiznit.

#CSF
#Film
#Stupido

7th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Justified

Season 2

Based on Elmore Leonard's character US Marshall Raylan Givens, Justified is proving to be one of the more reliable shows on TV these days. Following the proven formula of the first, season two follows a few stand-alone stories, while slowly building a season arc that comes to a head with a finale spread over the last 3 or 4 episodes. Justified eschews the high-concepts of 24 or Lost and instead concentrates on good story, great character and solid production - as Timothy Olyphant's modern day cowboy marshall clears up wrong doing in redneck America.

While heroes don't come much cooler than Raylan Givens, he's frequently given a run for his money by Good/Bad guy Boyd Crowther. It's a typecast-breaking performance from ex-crony-on-The-Shield Walton Goggins, who plays the flip-side of Givens perfectly - trying his best to stay out of trouble, but just not being able to resist it. The most likeable TV criminal since Stringer Bell.

#TV
#CSF

7th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

iCloud

Apple will be launching iCloud at their WWDC event on Monday. Music seems to be the primary focus of the rumours, providing a service where all your music will be accessible from any device, rather than stored locally. That will go some way to eliminating the capacity limitations of many phones/pads etc, as I currently have 113.94 GB of music just on my 'essentials only' laptop. 4000+ albums on the Death Star.

Talk has also expanded to including Movies/TV Shows in the service, as well as the obvious opportunity for a Dropbox-style service (hopefully better than the existing iDisk), and even a Spotify-style music subscription.

As usual, the consent of the labels/studios seem to be the hold up.

BBC

Picture nabbed from Apple Insider

#CSF
#Film
#IPhone
#Music
#Websites

1st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

How To Make It In America

Season 1

HBO

With Entourage winding down after an epic 7 (soon to be 8th and final) seasons, HBO have started to line up it's successor. While the no-money, Lower East Side vibe of aspiring fashion entrepreneurs Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon might seem like a million miles from the valet parking of Vincent Chase's Hollywood, there are many parallels with this East Coast cousin - following the same dreams of success and the high life, just jumping on board at an earlier stage.

Despite the opposing fortunes, lifestyle envy also plays a big part here and while the reality of always being a dollar short might not quite hold the everlasting appeal of having a dollar too much, always knowing the hippest parties and being on first-name terms with every door man in town is something many of us would have loved 15 years ago. Slow motion mixes with flash frame photography and well chosen music to beautifully capture the gritty, exciting world of opportunity of both the Lower East Side and the just-graduated student mentality.

How To Make It In America has that quick-fix vibe that gets you high in 25 minutes and leaves you wanting more. Well-rounded episodes that fly by, but the season arc stays strong and is filled out well with multiple story strands (including a career-best performance from Luis Guzman and Rasta Monsta) all staying as strong as each other, while still building the bigger picture of the show's overall themes and agenda.

Great stuff. Should be back for season 2 later on in 2011.

#TV
#CSF

1st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Becoming Dazed & Confused

Chimpovich recently highlighted this "Making of Dazed & Confused" documentary over at YouTube. Well worth a watch, notably for a pre-mcromcomedy Matthew McConaughey. I love those redheads.

That's part 1 above, part 2 below. Continue to parts 3 and 4.