Writing Dump / Life Update

Because I like everything in its right place, here is all the stuff I’ve written over the last couple of years for Left Lion, Now Then and Reel Steel.

Features

Director Marc Meyers on My Friend Dahmer

Learn About The Lives and Deaths at Newstead Abbey

10 Nottingham Pubs Where You Can Get Your Game On

What Sort of Nottingham Do We Want to Create?

The White Lady of Newstead on How She Bit the Dust

Nottingham Writers' Studio and Society of Authors

Film Reviews

Hail Satan?

Funny Cow

Lucky

Apostasy

Dogman

The Square

Hereditary

JOKER

My Friend Dahmer

The Third Murder

Generation Wealth

The Best Films of 2018

The Worst Films of 2018

Art / Exhibitions

SEE HERE at the former Neale’s Auction House

Jos Bitelli’s The Procedure at Nottingham Contemporary

Nottingham Trent Fine Art Degree Show 2018

Strike Site at Backlit

Poetry Events

Hollie McNish Warms Up The Old Cold Store

Women Say Stuff at Cafe Sobar

#HighscoreHaikus at National Videogame Museum

Music / Festivals

Sunday Afternoon at Folk Forest 2019

Cantaloupe (Error States)

Dave Mooney & Nancy

Book Reviews 

Forest Folk by James Prior 

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

The Life Update Bit

Funnily enough, I've got some time to work on my blog again. I now live in Sheffield, work in tech, and have a boyfriend who knows a lot about German.

I'm also pretty active on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr (say hello!).

Hope you're all doing ok out there in Hell World.

Five (Left) Lions

Nottingham treasure LeftLion Magazine reaches its 100th issue this month! It's a must-read if you're in the city, and free to pick up from many a fine Notts establishment. I'm dead chuffed to have been doing a few articles for their website recently, here they all are if you fancy a gander...


1. Nottingham Writers' Studio to Host Joint Networking Event with Society of Authors

A little plug for our beloved Notts Writers' Studio, which is well worth a visit.


2. 10 Nottingham Watering Holes with Pub Sports and Games

I had so much fun researching for this (2-3 pubs per week for a month).


3. Art Review: Strike Site at Backlit

Review of an exhibition about the refugee crisis at indie gallery Backlit.


4. Fluent Females: Third Annual Women Say Stuff Event at Cafe Sobar

Write up of a female-led poetry event for International Women's Day.


5. Film Review: The Square

Getting bitter and preachy about the mad world of contemporary art.

Playing Ringing the Bull at Ye Olde Trip (plus mystery observer)

From Russia with love.

Classic Russian literature, Tolstoyevsky, or wallowing in the misery of a poorly made decision for a thousand pages. Like that scene in The Young Ones of the couple huddling around the lamp to reminisce about better times, or trudging through freezing cold snow whilst draped in a bearskin rug.

Joe Wright's film of Anna Karenina was lovely to look at, in a twirly Baz Luhrmann sort of way. Granted I'm not a massive fan of Knightley's acting pouting/frock modelling, but the theatre setting shenanigans were interesting. With about ten other adaptations, we didn't really need the same locations revisited -- it made it a memorable version. The film has a staged, stifling atmosphere (made all the more apparent when you actually go 'outside' the theatre, it's like a breath of fresh air), but it's a good experiment. Would rather like to give the book a try; obviously there's more depth to it than elaborate dance scenes and Princess Betsy's amazing wardrobe.

Ruth Wilson frock envy.

Also need to finish Crime and Punishment, which I started five years ago and still have a hundred pages left to read. It's not that I dislike the book, I think it's brilliant, I just can't stand reading about Raskolnikov's pompous, self-righteous antics; thinking because he's so clever he can bully, mistreat and erm, murder anyone around him. He just irritates me so much! And his poor shivering child of a girlfriend, oh god. Apparently he sees the error of his ways though; I'm probably going to eat my words in the last hundred pages.

Raskolnikov plus appendage, as interpreted by DeviantART.

I know bugger all about modern Russia (I haven't read The Communist Manifesto, but I've seen Fiddler on the Roof a couple of times), but I'm guessing that every other person isn't a Prince or Countess Somebody now. Anna would probably have gotten the same treatment for adultery though, if the whole Kristen Stewart lynch mob is anything to go by -- I know, I'm bang on topic for like JULY.

Parents have just ordered War and Peace on DVD too (which my mister found just as hard-going a read as C & P), so it's looking to be a very Russian winter. Fitting, because it's absolutely freezing.

P.S. What has Ang Lee done to Life of Pi, without the other 'animals' how will it end? Please not "heartwarmingly".

Ecstatic about Cabin.

I think The Cabin in the Woods is my new favourite film. It left me gaping in awe and joy, mouthing “YES” a lot — which is always a good sign! Not having watched the trailer, or sneaked online and ruined it for myself like I normally do, I was expecting an average shitty teen horror flick. How wrong I was! I can’t do justice to the amount of chaos and awesome that was unleashed. I’d have to ruin the twisty turny plot (think Evil Dead meets The Truman Show) for a decent review, so just go see it won’t ya?

“ANGRY MOLESTING TREE”

The film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Ecstacy is doing pretty abysmally in the film review department, which is a shame; I really liked the book. To be fair though, they chose the most boring novella in it; the one that’s a bit like Trainspotting but not quite as good (which is how the film’s being hailed incidentally), instead of the funny and shocking one with necrophilia and bits of period drama, or the brutal and shocking one with disability and all the gruesome violence. More screen-friendly I guess, and subtle? Or just crap? Would still like to see it and make up my own mind..

Danny Boyle must be so happy about this.

I’m so tempted to buy Cabin’s visual companion for more concept art, monsters and Joss Whedon times. Beneath my quiet exterior there seems to lie a raging appetite for destruction, oh well.

Ken Russell being crazy amazing.

Here are some reasons to watch his films.

Women in <3. Not set in the 1960s. Honest.

'Women in Love' has Alan Bates trying to literally shag nature, then naked wrestle with Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson doing hip bohemian dancing with bulls, dramatic and slightly frightening music at every sex scene, a hilarious ballet sequence, the 1960s trying to do the 1920s (according to my dad, this is because everyone in the 60s thought it was the ONLY time worth living in) and is a D. H. Lawrence novel. 

Tchaikovsky.

Not the 1970s either. This is 19th century Russia.

I also watched 'The Music Lovers' for the first time t'other night, which is basically "let's make a film about how terrifying it would be to consumate marriage with your wife if you were a gay Russian composer, and shoot it like it were a classical music video". It's a bit like 'Marie Antoinette' in that it's so tinged with the era it was made, but all the better for it.

A Marylin Monroe statue on wheels? What did you expect.

Then there's 'Tommy', which gets better every time I see it and has a scene with Ann-Margret rolling around in bubbles, liquid chocolate and baked beans (all together), Tina Turner going scary nuts, Keith Moon as a huge pervert and is a musical by THE WHO. Enough reasons really.

I dunno, Ken Russell just has this bold, fearless style that hugely appeals to me. Sort of an ugly kitchen sink realism, but with all the colour/brightness settings turned up. Wikipedia calls him "flamboyant". Just so many surreal and wonderful images that you're left scratching your head wondering what you've been watching. I've only ever seen these three films, but would love to see more.

Especially this, this looks bloody great.

Lair of the White Worm. Snake cults, yes please.

(images for Women and Worm pinched from the very good film blogs Snuffboxfilm and Filmconnoisseur on Blogspot, check 'em ooout, they like him too)

"Fear" paintings and video.

Above are a couple of things from my college project on fear, made using the noble method of finger painting!

And another, this one's paint and chalk on photocopy of a dead locust. I was into Francis Bacon at the time, but you can’t tell AT ALL.

Carrying on the buggy theme above in mixed-media...

And the last one. These were all done in 2008 during my final major project at college -- like the huge creep I am, I chose irrational fears and phobias for my theme. It's quite wonderful how many people are terrified of insects and choking and choking on insects.

I also made this short film expressing fears about spiders, premature burial, weather and dogs through some rather twee stop motion sequences. It's a bit crap (not to mention hugely compressed) now that I look back on it, but evidently I have an irrational fear of being proud of my early work, and would say that!

Woman in Black/Muppets

The Woman in Black made me do that thing where you peek through your fingers as if it stops you from seeing anything scary. It ought to; everyone is freaked out by unstable women, things moving when they shouldn't, children gazing into space (many horror films evidently find kids horrifying) and a whole antique shop's worth of clockwork toys. When it's being subtle and old-fashioned it's genuinely frightening in a Haunting/Others/Orphanage sort of way -- look out for the rocking chair scene. Slicker than an IKEA advert, uses all the horror cliches but it worked rather well I thought!

The Muppets is enjoyable (if you can stand Disney musicals), but it milks the fact that you've almost forgotten about them A LOT. I've never felt so guilty and nostalgic about a bunch of singing puppets in my life; rather serious for a Muppet film! Probably reading into it too much, but it really made me think about how our collective sense of humour changes along with fashion -- perhaps that was the point though hmm.

Also, how many Snow White films are coming out this year, and...WHY?

Sad 90s ladywoman songs + vids.

Garbage - Stupid Girl, directed by Samuel Bayer.

"The clip was shot in just four hours entirely within a warehouse. Bayer cut the film into pieces, and soaked it in his bath, applying deliberate fingerprints and abrasions to the footage before putting it back together by hand."

First saw Bayer on a music video documentary I taped, explaining how with Stupid Girl he wanted to make a film that looked "destroyed"; I found that really appealing. Shame about some of his other stuff. I'm a big fan of using real film, I would do it more often if it was a) cheaper and b) not so easy to ruin. Filters don't quite cut it though and my Super8's gathering dust.

Another doomy, gloomy goody...

Portishead - Humming, directed by Ben Waters. 

I love Beth’s vocal on this, but that first minute or so of instrumental is actually HAUNTING. Worth a watch too, the video’s got an almost Lynchian thing going on there.

War Horse, TGwtDT and cinema adverts.

I thought War Horse was alright. But it did seem a bit like a long series of heart-warming events (lit with matchingly gross warm tones of orange) culminating in the horse not actually dying.

Heart of stone, I know!

I did really enjoy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo though! YEOUCH, probably not a suitable date movie. And I lurve Lisbeth, even though she has no eyebrows. It was as though they'd tried extra hard to make a good film because it's already been made and they didn't want it to be completely pointless. That opening sequence, what the foosh!?

Is Karen O collaborating with everyone and everything now? Not that I'm complaining (because I never complain lol).

From the pre-film adverts it appears that Virgin own EVERYTHING, EVEN SPACE, AND NOW YOUR MONEY. And there was an advert for cake or cookies or some shit, which looked like it was ripped off from God's David Shrigley's animations. Or he could be really broke and needed to sell his soul..

On a positive note, SHERLOCK! Who's either dead or not going to be on telly again for like another year. Yaaay.

Dorian Gray film review in one sentence.

I tried to watch it, wondered why they'd massacred Wilde's plot and filled it with badly edited 'horror' effects, a painful script and some of the worst sex scenes I've ever seen, then turned it off.

The Red Shoes.

Moira Shearer/Victoria Page's amazing face! Some stills I took from Scorsese's restored edition of 'The Red Shoes', a Powell and Pressburger film from 1948, with cinematography by Jack Cardiff.

It's pretty special I think; very dramatic, theatrical and like receiving a big Technicolor slap in the face. It has some sublime sequences and is well worth a watch, even if you hate ballet. Will let go some dodgy acting...but the whole (SPOILER) "you have to choose between being a loyal wife or pursuing your talent, else your husband will leave you and your shoes will try to kill you" thing didn't really do it for me.

Obviously an influence to films such as 'Singin' In The Rain', 'Moulin Rouge!', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and of course 'Black Swan'. Sometimes I really wish I were graceful enough to be able to dance.

My first video, 'WE ARE ROBIN HOOD'.

Just back from seeing my old friends in Nottingham, I’ve really missed it. On that note; here’s a video about Robin Hood I made on my art foundation, at college a few years ago.

It was a week-long project and we had to make something about an “Icon” (I nearly picked Harry Potter oops). At the end of the week we got to vote on each other’s work and somehow, mine won joint first place. This was actually my very first experience of filmmaking…and believe me, you can tell!

I want Tintin's job and the PHWOAR HORSE.

The very beautiful and sensitive new film; War Horse. Not a romance, or a bromance, but a whoooa-mance!

Come on, now that is what I call a passionate stare... I'm sorry. The trailer was supposed to make me cry wasn't it. Why can't I watch anything without somehow turning it into bizarre smut?

Take 'The Adventures of Tintin' for example!

I don't know if I was just in a funny mood or if I'm going a bit strange, but on a second viewing it seemed a rather homoerotic film. Oh dear. Aaand I'm fifteen again. Fanfiction.com beckons...

It's also very confusing. How old is Tintin even supposed to be? One minute he looks "abaht twelv" and basically dresses like a schoolboy, the next minute he has his own flat, his own dog, buys antiques, carries a gun and can fly a plane. WHAAAT. I guess I just want to know if he's jailbait or not (for goodness sake calm down, he's not even REAL).

And what is Tintin's job exactly? He just noses into other people's lives and gets into scrapes, rather like the Famous Five. I want to be a journalist/reporter/thing if it's anything like that! Maybe I should just get a job writing bad fanfiction, if such a career option exists.

Do I even have a job yet? I have an interview next week actually. I'm excited.

Michael Powell film appreciation.

Stills from director Michael Powell. Black Narcissus, The Thief of Bagdad and The Red Shoes respectively. 

I'm a sucker for camp technicolour, but these are all worth checking out for sheer beauty. They will make your eyeballs tingle! One is about nuns, one is about Bagdad and one is about a pair of magical ballet shoes. But don't let that put you off.

Cinematographer Jack Cardiff needs a mention here, seeing as it's his input that makes Narcissus and Shoes such incredible eye-candy. For some reason the horror film Suspiria comes to mind? All the colours, shadows and mad angles mmm.

Powell has a wide selection of films under his belt (still need to watch Peeping Tom at some point) but these three appeal to me most I guess.

Thief of Bagdad used to be my one of my faves when I was little, mostly down to the horrifying giant spider bit.