Chimpomatic

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

Promo Promo: Explosions In The Sky

Amazingly, this animated head trip through space and time is the first ever Explosions In The Sky promo. Enjoy.....

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29th Jun 2011 - 1 comments - 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

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29th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

Trailer up for the new Mission: Impossible movie. As usual, some people have been disavowed and might need to bend the rules to set things straight. Jeremy Renner seems to be lining up to be the next Tom Cruise.

29th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Yeaaaaaah Boyyyyy!

Mildly embarrassing mid-80's Beastie Boys promo surfaces on YouTube.

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28th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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.

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28th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Them Crooked Vultures

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

27th Jun 2011

Boardwalk Empire Season 2 Teaser

Looking forward to the return of Richard Harrow very much indeed.

Via AICN

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27th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Uh, one more thing sir......

Promo Promo: Bravo Brave Bats

Nice promo up for UK indie rockers Bravo Brave Bats.

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27th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

RIP: Peter Falk

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25th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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.

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24th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Promo Promo: Yuck - Shook Down

Promo up for mildly freaky video Shook Down from British retro-indie-scenesters Yuck.

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24th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: The Dark Knight Rises

Expertly edited fake trailer up for the new Batman flick. They seem to have done their research with what's likely to happen in the movie - and then taken a pinch of dramatic license.

Still not a patch on 'Shining'.

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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

Vetiver

The Errant Charm

Hazy 70's vibes and a laid back style cement Vetiver's place in the modern-retro camp.

22nd Jun 2011

Twin Shadow

Forget

Relatively ambitious, 80's tinged indie disco. Like Elbow on drugs.

21st Jun 2011

Promo Promo: Radiohead - Staircase

On the one hand it's not really a promo, on the other it only exists to promote something - a forthcoming full length episode of "From The Basement" with Radiohead doing King of Limbs.

And it's a new track.

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21st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

RIP: Jackass Ryan Dunn

Jackass' Ryan Dunn has died in a non-stunt related car crash in Philadelphia. Always one of my favourites on the show, and a totem for beard appreciators everywhere.

Via BBC

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21st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Neil Young

A Treasure

Unremarkable, newly unearthed, country-tinged live album from a mid-80's Neil.

20th Jun 2011

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Skate or die: HD

Skateboarding has always been a fertile culture for creative types. My first films were inspired and based around the sport and the art/photo/film output of skateboarders never ceases to amaze me.

Things have come a long way since the VHS-C cameras of the 80's however. Check out Nike SB's (Nike? Skateboarding? Bah!) Debacle film above and check out a slow-mo skate clip shot on the new Scarlet 3K Red Camera below.

20th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: The Muppets

Muppets with legs? A new voice for Kermit? Still, hopefully the kids will dig it. And Animal is still around.

20th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Moneyball

Trailer up for stats-based baseball movie Moneyball, where number cruncher Jonah Hill helps Brad Pitt objectively pick the most efficient baseball team. Based on a true story. According to the trailer.

18th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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.

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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

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17th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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.

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

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...

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14th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

The War on Drugs

Future Weather

Following Kurt Vile's departure WOD seem to have shaken the Waterboys stigma.

14th Jun 2011

Trailer Park: Take Shelter

Trailer up for the outstanding Take Shelter - one of the best films I saw at this year's Sundance Festival. Starring Michael Shannon form Boardwalk Empire and Jessica Chastain from Tree of Life - both incredible in this.

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13th 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

Farewell To The Space Shuttle

With only one mission remaining, there's still time for a Space Shuttle photo-op - and Italian astronaut Paulo Nespoli got this amazing image as he departed the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz capsule. More fantastic potential wallpapers on the official Flickr page.

Via BBC

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10th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Clear your calendars: Tree of Life arrives at last

After much legal wrangling, Terrance Mallick's latest movie arrives in the UK on Friday 8th July.

Can't wait.

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10th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Film School

Brilliant Career

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

9th Jun 2011

Wolf Parade

Expo 86

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

7th Jun 2011

If movie posters told the truth.

Truthful Posters

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

Via Shiznit.

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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.

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7th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Husker Du

Candy Apple Grey

Mostly Bob vs Grant but it does feature "Don't want to know if your are lonely".

6th Jun 2011

Mars Classroom

The New Theory of Everything

The worst crime Bob Pollard can commit is to be forgettable.

6th Jun 2011

Arctic Monkeys

Suck It And See

Disappointing plod, swapping edgy rock for 60's croon. Track 12 stands out.

3rd Jun 2011

Yuck

Throwback shoe-gazing indie nostalgia trip. Though it's more Family Cat than Galaxie 500.

3rd Jun 2011

BMX Triple Back Flip

New Zealander Jed Mildon has just set a world record by performing the first triple back-flip on a BMX. YouTubers respond with 5M+ views.

Via BBC

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2nd 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

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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.

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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.