Review: Blood Valley – Seed’s Revenge (Seed 2)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Co-written by Lewis Mainwaring   Originally reviewed for Battle Royale with Cheese

This film from writer/director Marcel Walz is the follow-up (but not a direct sequel) to the 2007 film ‘Seed’; which followed Max Seed on a rampage of blood and gore.

seed-2-watermarkedMax Seed (played by Nick Principe in this film) is not in our opinion a modern day slasher icon such as Michael Myers (Halloween franchise), Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th Franchise) or Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise) but was clearly deemed ‘popular’ enough to spawn a blood-soaked sequel; although this time he’s not killing alone.

The story resolves around a group of four friends (Christine – Natalie Scheetz, Olivia – Christa Campbell, Claire – Annika Strauss and Barbara – Sarah Hayden) on their way home from a bachelorette party in Las Vegas. The film opens strongly with a grotesque horror sequence that stays with the audience long after the fade out before flashing back to the girls leaving Las Vegas; this in itself is not an unusual device for a horror film but as the film continues we realise the story is chopped up completely out of sequence and scenes appear to be inserted at random without consideration for the plot and character development Continue reading →

Interview: Marilyn Ghigliotti – Star of ‘Clerks’ 20 Years On

Posted on by indiemacuser

 To mark the anniversary of the release of the indie hit film Clerks(1994) from writer/director Kevin Smith we talk to actress Marilyn Ghigliotti who played Veronica; one of the female protagonists in the film.

Born in New York, Marilyn started her acting career in local theatre after moving to New Jersey before getting her big screen debut with Clerks in 1994. She has since gone on to play a variety of roles in indie horror, comedy & action films. 20 years on, we ask her about the experience of making the film as well as her life and work since. Continue reading →

JUMP FOR EQUALITY

Posted on by indiemacuser
 Fund-raising for lesbian, gay and bisexual equality charity Stonewall (the UK equivalent of It Gets Better) my partner Lewis is part of a nationwide skydive on 27th September !!!!
#Skydive25He will Jump for Equality this month, to raise money for leading lesbian, gay and bisexual equality charity Stonewall and raise money for Stonewall’s work to tackle homophobic bullying in Britain and internationally.

Jumping from Swansea airfield (in south wales), Lewis joins over forty divers from across the UK who are all taking part in the initiative. Stonewall’s #Skydive25 will celebrate the charity’s 25th anniversary. The funds raised by those taking part will help to support the charity’s international campaign.

Lewis said: ‘I am absolutely petrified about doing the jump but as Stonewall is such a worthy charity that has helped so many people over the past 25 years (myself included) I really wanted to get behind this initiative and throw myself in (literally !!!!!) ‘

Richard Lane, media manager at Stonewall said: ‘We’re delighted to have such a huge group of jumpers, who are passionate about what Stonewall does and want to support our work. Our Challenge Events are extremely important for engaging with the community and contribute vital funds to the work that we do.’

You can support Lewis by donating to his jump via JustGiving:

www.justgiving.com/Lewis-Mainwaring

PLEASE DONATE EVEN £1.00 ($ etc) WILL HELP RAISE FUNDS FOR A GOOD CAUSE 🙂

Further information on #Skydive25 and other Stonewall events can be found at www.stonewall.org.uk/events

Enquiries: Richard Lane, Media Manager, on 020 7593 3469 or 07525 359960

 

Plex – Turn your Mac in to a Media Streamer

Posted on by indiemacuser

A while ago, I was looking for a way to stream Movies and TV Shows stored on my hard drive to my bedroom TV.
There are a great range of set-top boxes available such as Roku, Apple TV, Now TV Box & Chromecast which allow access to streaming content such as Netflix; however none offer an easy way to stream your own content out of the box. Even with an Apple TV; you are obligated to use iTunes to manage your content. This is where Plex comes in.

So what is Plex?
Plex is an application for your Mac or Windows PC that allows you to stream content from your hard drive such as Movies, TV & Music to a variety of devices including iOS, Android, Roku & Chromecast. Streaming works on your local network but you can also view media remotely if you have a good enough connection speed.

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Set-up is fairly simple once you have installed Plex on your main computer. You don’t have to add items manually; Plex will search through your files and pull information and artwork from the internet; in much the same way as when you import a CD into iTunes. It will even play the theme tune from TV shows in the background while you select episodes. The user interface is sleek, easy to use and allows you to sort and display your content in various ways.

iTunes music/videos/podcasts and iPhoto photos are fully supported and it can also access content from external channels such as YouTube and iTunes Movie Trailers as well as videos/photos from your mobile devices. The only downside is you can’t play movies bought or rented from the iTunes store.

The paid ‘PlexPass’ version includes extra features such as a ‘cinema mode‘ that will play trailers before films to create an enhanced home viewing experience. The free version works perfectly well without these features however so there is no need to purchase a pass.  This has been a relatively stable and stress free way for me to stream my media around the house: I currently use it on an iPhone 5, MacBook Pro, Roku 3 Box & iPad Air and the interface and performance has been consistent across all platforms.

It is worth noting however performance will be dependant on the speed of your network and the speed of the computer you are using as the ‘Plex Server’ as it will use up Bandwidth and CPU.

 

 

Movie Gem of the Week: Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Safety Not Guaranteed is the big screen debut from American director Colin Trevorrow & writer Derek Connoly (both currently at the helm of the new Jurassic Park sequel ‘Jurassic World’) and stars Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass & Jake Johnson. Producers Peter Saraf and Mark Turtletaub were also involved with 2006 indie hit ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.

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Three Short Film Reviews

Posted on by indiemacuser

As part of my ongoing contributions to film site Battle Royale With Cheese I was asked to review three short films.

These three shorts were produced in the UK by Chocolate Bear Productions.
All three will be featured at the Portobello Film Festival on September 14th, 2014.

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Behind the Blog

Posted on by indiemacuser

‘Behind the Blog’ is a more personal feature that details some of my experiences as a blogger.

Firstly, these last few weeks since I have started writing again have been an incredible and fulfilling experience for me. I started with the article ‘Kevin Smith, Podcasts & the power of Fandom‘ which received a great response from the fan community and in general; it even got a mention from some actors from Kevin Smith’s film ‘Clerks’; which I never expected. This has really encouraged me to keep up with my writing and attempt more challenging articles. Truly, this is a dream come true for me. My fiancé, Lewis has also been incredibly supportive of my writing.

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For The Weekend: Time Travel Movies

Posted on by indiemacuser

This week we explore the much loved and discussed sci-fi sub-genre of time travel.
We’ve chosen not to focus on blockbusters like Back to the Future in order to bring you some of the lesser known films of the genre; although films like those arguably deserve their place as well.

Although this device is often used it is rarely mastered; as attested to by hundreds of posts on blogs and IMDB ‘goofs’ pages. The true time travel fan will not be fooled if the time travel concept is ill thought out or if there are obvious problems with the time-line. Similarly, the best examples of this genre will explore the consequences; both positive and negative, of travelling through time; pushing them almost to the extremes whilst at the same time avoiding convenient plot devices.

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Movie gem of the week: The Living Wake (2007)

Posted on by indiemacuser

The Living Wake(2007) directed by Sol Tryon & written by Mike O’Connel/Peter Kline is a delightful and somewhat disturbing trip to the absurd in a similar vein to Withnail & I, Napolean Dynamite & Wes Anderson’s ‘Rushmore’. 

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For The Weekend: Great Workplace Comedies

Posted on by indiemacuser

This is a new semi-regular feature ‘For The Weekend’

For The Weekend – Great Workplace Comedies

This week we delve into the great font of comedy that is the workplace-orientated film. Some of these you might have heard of but hopefully others you will discover for the first time. The selection is fairly complimentary so if you have seen one of these films and enjoyed it you should at-least appreciate the others.

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