Monthly Archives: September 2013

Lethal Bizzle teams up with Ruby Goe for his massive new single ‘Party Right’

After his recent top 20 success the UK’s hottest grime artist & MOBO award-winner Lethal Bizzle is on a mission to make us ‘Party Right’ with his latest summer smash.
 
‘Party Right’ is an energising summer anthem featuring the alt-pop vocals of rising East London star Ruby Goe who broke out in 2012 with her single ‘Get On It’ via her own Goe Music label including a hot video funded by PUMA. On ‘Party Right’ we hear Ruby deliver a killer chorus in her own very distinct style.
 
With top 20 hit, Stylo G – Soundbwoy producer, man of the moment Diztortion on studio duty, ‘Party Right’ is guaranteed a fresh sound. An uplifting house melody with a strong bass line and slamming edm drums forms the basis of the track as Ruby advises you to “come rain or shine, never let the sun go down, without the party right”. Lethal then slaps on the Dench lyrics and picks up the pace with bars that reassure us that  “Everything is gravy” and  “Life is a Party”.
 
Lethal Bizzle’s last single ‘They Got It Wrong’ with Wiley was an underground club & radio hit and previous crossover track ‘Not A Saint’ with Donae’o and Vato Gonzalez made the UK top 20 plus was a finalist to find the Budweiser FA Cup Anthem 2013.

Newcastle Jazz Broadcast Weekend

A great weekend of jazz at the Newcastle Jockey Club! It has been fantastic in an amazing venue, Podcasts are now available under the “JAZZ FESTIVALS” folder. The trick to listening is to first install VLC media player on your PC then save the file you want to listen to onto your computer. If you have a MAC with iTunes your fine. Then any time you want to listen just click the file wherever you saved it and you’ll be listening in no time!

Swiss Grand Hotel Re-Development

The Swiss Grand Hotel will be converted into a resort under the management of QT Hotels and Resorts. Sixty Nine apartments known as “QT Residences” will be built on the existing site. The Swiss Grand will close in September before work commences and is expected to be completed by 2016.

Bondi: Did You Know…?

– In the 2011 Census the population of Bondi Beach was 10,748 and was comprised of 51.5% males and 48.5% females.

– The median/average age of the Bondi Beach population is 33 years of age, 4 years below the Australian average.

– 47.3% of people living in Bondi Beach were born in Australia. The other top responses for country of birth were England 9%, New Zealand 4.3%, Ireland 2.5%,South Africa 2.2%, United States of America 1.5%.

– 68.7% of people speak English as their first language 2.2% Russian, 2% Spanish, 1.8% French, 1.5% German, 1.4% Italian.

– The religious make up of Bondi Beach is 31.1% No Religion, 22% Catholic, 11% Anglican, 8% Judaism, 2.4% Eastern Orthodox.

– 25.2% of people are married, 62.7% have never married and 7.5% are separated or divorced. There are 247 widowed people living in Bondi Beach.

– 70.3% of the people living in Bondi Beach are employed full time, 20.8% are working on a part time basis. Bondi Beach has an unemployment rate of 4.4%.

– The main occupations of people from Bondi Beach are Professionals 39.2%, Managers 17.8%, Clerical and Administrative Workers 10.6%, Community and Personal Service Workers 8.8%, Technicians and Trades Workers 8.1%, Sales Workers 8.1%, Labourers 3.6%, Machinery Operators And Drivers 1.7%.

– The median individual income is $1050.00 per week and the median household income is $1856.00 per week.

– 17.2% of homes are fully owned, and 19% are in the process of being purchased by home loan mortgage. 60.1% of homes are rented.

– The median rent in Bondi Beach is $490 per week and the median mortgage repayment is $2687 per month.

Review: Disconnect (2012)

Disconnect is a very good film, despite being American and despite having some big namedisconnect stars in it (yes I think Hollywood should stay away from Canne!). In a lot of ways Disconnect talks about the disconnection between human beings that has occurred because of Internet communication.

Told through three stories whose characters interact at the edges at times; We experience an interview that becomes a romance of sorts between a reporter and an Internet sex room performer, the bullying of a socially inept teenager by his peers and the theft of identity and money from a young struggling couple.

A common theme running through the film also seems to be loss: each of the main characters seem to have suffered the death of a significant person in their lives. The main characters cope with this in different ways, variously disconnected either from reality or each other by technology. This film is full of people spending their lives on phones (texting at the dinner table!) and other Internet technology rather than relating to each other. This of courses changes through experience (be no point in the film otherwise), but I won’t spoil the ending for you.

 

Review: The Curse of Chucky (2013)

curse-of-chucky

Chucky is the one on the right..

Yes Chucky is back for his usual revenge against anyone and everyone, transported from the 1980’s into 2013. He’s certainly very durable after being burned and chopped many times before, but just like Freddy Krueger we can’t let a good sequel get spoiled by a little thing like continuity!

All in all just the standard Chucky fare, nothing quite as insane as say The Bride of Chucky where we were treated to Chucky trying to reproduce or anything, just lots of blood splattering murders. Chucky turns up one day in the post and sets about his business.

I will be very curious to see if Chucky can connect with a new generation of fans, the films, dolls and hype were certainly a big thing 20 years ago.

Review: Forbidden Ground (2013)

Forbidden Ground is a very interesting film about three British Soldiers trapped in no-mansMG_0258Forbbin-Grounds-1-1 land during World War I. Starring and directed by Johan Earl (indeed watching the credits its apparent he did everything except make the tea) with a cast of little known actors giving very good performances.

The film tended to veer more towards the action of the piece, rather than the futility we are used to seeing in films about the futile World War I conflict. There was certainly enough mud and dismemberment to hint at these things but little development was gone into on this theme.

Running alongside the main story we find out that one of the soldiers wives has been a bit naughty while he is away and is busily shopping around trying to get an illegal abortion. I guess I can sort of see that this was an attempt to show that the war affected everyone in bad ways, but I frankly found it a bit annoying alongside the heroic battlefield story they were trying to tell. The final twist is interesting of course, I won’t spoil it for you.

 

Review: Ambushed (2013)

A fairly standard cops and robbers piece with Dolph Lundgren actually giving a pretty goodambushed performance. Also unlike too many of his films we are not “treated” to 20 minute fight scenes where suddenly everyone in the melee becomes an Olympic standard martial arts expert.

Instead Lundgren’s trademark fighting is kept to a minimum and the film concentrates on an actual story with characters. Without trying to say it is anywhere near as good, I can see a lot of Casino in the film stylistically and that’s hardly a bad thing.

Perhaps a tad violent at times and a few deaths that resulted in a remarkable lack of any discernible bleeding, but all in all if you enjoy the genre you will enjoy Ambushed.

Review: The Host (2013)

The-Host

The Host: Its brilliantly original because Stephenie Meyer “Wrote” it

Recipe: Take the original invasion of the body snatchers from the fifties, add the remake from the eighties, maybe even the Hidden from the late eighties a couple of bad remakes like the Invasion with Nicole Kidman, a couple of seasons of Stargate SG1 and a famous American author of twilight who no-one has the courage to say “by the way you’ve stolen every idea in your novel” too; and there you have The Host.

Don’t get me wrong The Host is not such a bad movie, actually I enjoyed it, but the fact that Stephenie Meyer got accolades for writing it instead of multiple law-suits is simply just appalling.  Yes I know she wrote the Twilight series (not very original either, ever heard of a film called the Lost Boys Stephenie?) but this doesn’t excuse completely misplaced pats on the back.

It kind of asks the question: is there any originality left in the United states? If you liked all of the films I have mentioned you will probably enjoy this one, even if it does steer a bit towards soppy teen romance at times. A very good performance from Irish/American actress Saoirse Ronan who many would remember from her rather chilling role in Hanna missing everyone’s heart..

You might wonder why my response to a film I admit enjoying is somewhat critical when its just a question of who wrote the thing, but the precise problem is that no one seems to be mentioning where the story was ripped from. What got my heckles up here was Meyer produced the film herself and not once mentioned the other classic films she borrowed from. Instead in her interviews we are treated to a George Lucas style lets-talk-about-me-and-how-talented-I-am as if she had just published Gone With the Wind.

Review: This is the End (2013)

This was a very offbeat film from Seth Rogan, featuring an all-star cast of Hollywood greats playing themselves. With lots of cameo’s from people like Rihanna (obviously trying to build on her film career after running from explosions like a runway model in Battleship) and James Franco, Jonah Hill, Emma Watson.Paul Rudd, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogen, Emma Watson, Evan Goldberg

Every actor made hopeless fun of their Hollywood persona’s I think using it as an opportunity to have a snap back at the paparazzi and their constant rumor-mongering.

Without giving too much away the film is about the end of the world and a house full of dysfunctional guys trying to cope with it. There are some really funny moments in this flick, although I don’t think it was quite as hilarious as it could have been.

Apparently based on a short film Seth and his mates all made in a drunken blaze, I think a lot of the jokes are in-jokes and were probably a lot funnier at the time. Unfortunately unlike THX-1138 this was not a film that turned out better from a short film to a major motion picture! Still well worth watching for a few belly laughs.