I was thinking about writing another ‘All the Senses’ post for the past week when Yacco tagged me in the current meme sweeping the blogosphere ‘My Week in Media’. So here it goes…

What I’ve read

On top of my daily ritual of blog browsing, aggregated by the lovely Google Reader, there are a couple of things that have caught my attention online this past week. Firstly the intensifying US electoral run-in, the commentary of which has been provided by the Guardian online. Secondly, Mr Nuzzaci introduced me to Time.com’s 50 Top 10 lists for 2007 - where I naturally gravitated towards the listing’s for films, the featured ‘The Lives of Others’ pictured above.

My breakfast porridge microwave blasting sessions have seen me give Creative Review, Grafik and Campaign magazines a good skimming, whilst my xmas Amazon voucher was activated and soon I will be the proud new owner of a copy of ‘The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few’.

What I’ve watched

After being seduced by the blue, yellow and red of Channel 4’s Big Food Fight my Monday night attempt at tuning into the Hugh’s Chicken run failed miserably. What started with good intentions soon resulted in Hugh being relegated to background tv, the only thing I can recall is that intensively farmed chicken’s only live for 39 days, poor little blighters!

By midweek things had picked up as a friend introduced me to BBC Three’s ‘Man Stroke Woman’ which reduced me to man tears on several occasions. The comedy theme continued with BBC2 and the excellent ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ where Mr Amstel’s target this week was ex Hollyoaks stud Jeremy Edwards, afterwhich I had my first experience of the laughter riot that is Little Miss Jocelyn.

The week of watching continued with a thrifty DVD night on Friday where I watched ‘The Bourne Ultmatium’ for the thrid time in as many weeks and we also pooped back and forth courtesy of ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’. The final watch will be tonight as I have booked myself into ‘Louis Theroux: Behind Bars’, the documentary at California’s San Quentin prison.

What I’ve listened to
My brisk walks to and from the bus continue to be charmed by my festive soundscape of choice: Rufus Wainwright’s performance at Cancerigene Hall. The highlight of the week without a doubt was the rediscovery of my appreciation for the super Cornelius, who’s sound can be described as experimental and exploratory, well that’s what my recently restarted last fm widget thing told me!

I will now pass the meme baton of joy onto Joe, Asi and Iain. I will also leave you in Uncle Jack’s capable hands…

About a month or so ago, before the chaos of December arrived I was queueing this post up - a selection of 5 sensational experiences I had in the festive build up which I hope will still satisfy all your senses, even if they are well past their posting date!

1.Eastern Promises at the Rich Mix
If you haven’t seen it yet, do, it was one of the best films I saw last year for sure. A combination of tough Russian gangsters, young Eastern European girls tragically failing to make a better life for themselves in London, a midwife, a baby and the best fight scene of 2007 make this gruesome thriller led by Viggo Mortensen a stunning watch from start to finish. Be warned though, after viewing you may have violent dreams.

2. Eating great food and getting crack
At some point I paid my second visit to the mighty Great Queen St gastro pub in Covent Garden. Between the four of us we had excellent vension, burger on dripping bread and a barley, squash and mushroom risotto, all very tasty indeed! To complete our inner glow we took a stroll down the embankment towards the Tate Modern where we saw the crack before going up to level 7, where we shared four amazing desserts whilst London’s skyline became illuminated in front of our eyes.

3.James Murphy + Tom Mahoney = Fabric live 36
After a hectic electronic start to the mix (which isn’t too studio friendly late morning I’ve found) things calm down and slip into a funkadelic, disco experience that makes you want to dance sexy.

4.International Lefthanders Day
At the time I wanted this poster a lot, it’s been made with Scandinavian skill.

5.Apple iPhone
It’s not about what this first generation product can’t do, it’s all about the amazing things it can do. The touch screen interface is absolutely superb, you consume lots of stuff, you stroke it alot, it’s incredible. I have had iPhone-itous for two months and it feels great.

On Thursday night I was very lucky to go to the closing night gala of the BFI London Film Festival, red carpets and film stars aside this was all about Wes Anderson’s latest film The Darjeeling Limited.

The film tells the story of a spritual journey across India by train undertaken by three brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Scwartzman). They have not spoken for the last year since their father’s death, the trip is planned to allow them to reconnect with each other, to be brothers once again. Without saying too much the trip doesn’t quite go as planned and events unfold to take them on a new journey.

The film was preceded and will be when it’s released later this month by Hotel Chevalier, an entertaining short where Jack, the youngest brother and his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman) are reunited in a hotel room in Paris prior to his trip to India. Whilst it isn’t essential viewing before TDL, it introduces you to a heartbroken Jack and allows you gauge the temperature of what is to come.

So for the main attraction, it goes without saying this film is beautiful to look at, the exposure of the indian landscape and culture reinforces it’s place on my list of countries to visit. The sound track is fittingly quirky and at times perfectly introduced by Jack with the assistance of his bose iPod speakers. The deadpan chemistry between the brothers will keep you engaged from start to finish and you will love the 11 piece family crested luggage, Francis’s control freak personailty and the prescription drug abuse. As much as I wanted to love this film completely it doesn’t quite pack a loveable punch for me. For sure it’s a great film to see on the big screen and I would recommend you to do so, although you may come away like me wanting a little more from it.

Hallam Foe is probably the best film I have seen this year.

It’s a ‘fucked up british teen movie’, well that was the genre the film was placed in by it’s director David Mackenzie at the post screening Q&A session I attended at the ICA on Tuesday night. Black comedy it is, this coming of age tale adapted from Peter Jink’s novel is hugely entertaining throughout.

The film tells the story of Hallam ‘Jamie Bell’ Foe’s journey of grief after his mothers recent death, a journey which forces him to escape his rural family home and step mother for the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. In the city he continues his peeping tom obsession, his liking for fancy dress whilst perfecting his rooftop climbing skills and romancing his new boss - who happens to be a deadringer for his late mother. The cast is rich, full of great characters, I especially enjoyed the efforts of Ewen Bremner (Spud from Trainspotting).

The sound track feels perfect, well I guess it was always going to when they had access to the Domino catalogue, I brought it the next morning and have been playing it far too much this week, Psapp’s ‘Tricycle’ is pretty special. David Shrigley illustrated credits and intro sequence are another good thing.

The film is released next Friday, August 31st, you should go and see it.

Hairspray has been out for a while, and you know what, Ive already been to see it five times! The last time being earlier today. Every time I went to see it, the particular screen in question was packed, and I bet you anything, some of those people must have seen at least seen it once already, judging by the noticeable pre-laughter chatter!

Hairspray is one of those rare films that stays true to its format, its comedic value manifests itself in a politically incorrect kind of way and very visually too, which naturally makes you smile all the way through. It has some excellent production values and it doesnt try to be anything other than what it is, which is a classic musical with really upbeat catchy feel good songs. The cast are spot on and have the underused talent of acting with their eyes. no doubt in years to come this version of Hairspray will be remembered fondly.

here are some reviews I googled:

“[…] the blend of John Waters’ anarchic weirdness, a star-studded cast and some splendid retro tunes creating a beguiling 1960s pastiche that’s an infectious delight from start to finish.” - Channel 4 Review

“Hairspray is ultimately one of the more engaging and fun movies of the summer…” Rotten Tomatoes (93%)

New York Times Review

I finally got round to watching Roman Polanski’s film The Pianist on the weekend. For those who haven’t seen it yet, It’s a powerful account of the ethnic cleansing the Nazi’s carried out on the Jewish population in Warsaw, Poland during WW2. As to be expected the film documents the harrowing extermenation of the enforced jewish ghetto’s, but one man’s (talented jewish musican) determination to survive under the terryifying conditions played by Adrien Brody (who I think looks like a cartoon character by the way) rewards the viewer massively. On a lighter note Paul Bradley aka. Nigel Bates from Eastenders fame, plays an underground jewish newspaper publisher - nice work Nige.

It feels slightly uncomfortable to describe the film as brilliant, but it is - everyone should see this.

Well on the world wide internet anyway. Just so you know, I have been planning and researching my forthcoming holiday to California and these sites in particular have been helpful…

71 miles
Is a site the Nunz showed me at an official Poke graphics catch up a few weeks back. It’s basically a combination of a feed mash up (eg. kayak, google maps) and good editorial to give you a rich, insightful overview to various locations in Northern California.

My Google Maps
Everyone knows how great Google Maps is, now there is the ‘My Maps’ feature. It’s been very handy for me in plotting potential hotels and getting my bearings, and if I wanted to share my findings with my travel companion and everyone in the internet galaxy the option was there for me to.

DK Travel
I never told you about DK Travel did I? This is a project we did a few months ago for the travel book publishers Dorling Kindersley. As you might expect the site has a great wealth of information on various global destinations, but the clever bit is that you can create your own travel guides, that are downloadable and fit for printing at a small cost. For a far more superior / in depth overview of the project read Tom’s post here.

‘Sunshine’ (Fox Searchlight) (Sunshine DNA) (IMDB) was a full on spectacular feast of the senses. Danny Boyle/Alex Garland have created a tale epic proportions with believable characters and minimal yet appropriate reference to an already cliched area. All in all, Sunshine is decent stylish sci fi thriller which Id happily watch again at an IMAX.
In a (Solaris/Armageddon) kinda way, it has a couple of well engineered emotionally resonant highs.. (thankfully void of the typical cliched crutches) accompanied by a loud, all enveloping soundtrack by Underworld.

Despite my reservations about the lead choice Cillian Murphy, casting was spot on, Hiroyuki Sanada of ‘Ring’ fame above.

For you to visit the ‘Alan Fletcher: Fifty years of graphic work (and play)’ exhibition at the design museum (final day is February 18th). I went on Saturday as part of my 2007 week on week off exhibition policy (poke brought me lots of gallery memberships for xmas, and therefore, to do their generosity justice said policy has been introduced).

I first became aware of Alan Fletcher through his book the ‘Art of looking Sideways’, but it is only since his death last year that I have begun to fully appreciate his infleunce and stature within design, so I went along in attempt to fill in the many gaps.

I’m glad I did, what a great story, from start to finish, his training, travelling, design philosophy and career development was fascinating. I loved the self promotional work created for his first company, Fletcher Forbes Gill, plus the moving card he produced to announce he was leaving New York and the typographic posters he did for a coffee shop and much much more - I left completely exhausted, partly due to my hangover, but mostly because of the lifetime of sheer skill I had just absorbed. If you can get there in time, go for it!

Amazon UK : Designing Interactions No boobs here dom. :p
One of those interesting, quite chunky, coffee table/lounge books to dip in and out of. Featuring in depth interviews with the pioneers of todays interaction design scene (if you can call it a scene). I flicked through Paul Atkinson’s copy last week. Youll, see him referenced very early on, and fully credited in the endnotes, as well as 10’s of interesting products and interactive projects you should already know about. This book is fresh from the MIT press and even features Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity. (his site is down)

This mention is actually long overdue, shame on you Simon.
This is a book by Brendan Dawes (mN, brendandawes) with its own site at http://aido.brendandawes.com

Fascinating very readable insightful book about the creative process without the fakery of making intelligent observations and statements have to sound academic. My current copy is with a final year student. and I dont think he’ll bring it back, I’m ordering my second. I admit, Brendan has graciously spared me a sidenote..but Id still be raving about this book if he hadn’t.
Amazon UK : Analogue In Digital Out