Review: Motivational Growth (2013)

Posted on by indiemacuser

 Originally reviewed for Battle Royale With Cheese

‘Motivational Growth‘ is the 2013 dark comedy/horror film from Writer/Director Don Thacker and has already been well received on the festival circuit; winning several awards.

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The story revolves around Ian Folivor (Adrian DiGiovanni); a reclusive slacker who dispels his own schizophrenic, self-effacing view of the world. The film opens with an excellent stylised montage of retro trash TV as Folivor flicks between channels on his old TV set ‘Kent’; his only companion as he spends his life on the couch. When the set malfunctions Folivor attempts to bring an end to his miserable existence; he wakes up after knocking himself unconscious only to discover The Mold (voiced by horror veteran Jeffrey Combs) is talking to him. He starts to take advice from The Mold and begins to clean up his act but as the story continues we see this relationship turn sinister; think Little Shop of Horrors but without the songs.   Continue reading →

Retrospective: Alien³ (1992) *Spoilers*

Posted on by indiemacuser

Written by Lewis Mainwaring

 

Alien³ is a 1992 American science-fiction horror film and the debut feature film of director David Fincher(Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network).

This film is the third instalment of the Alien film series;alien-3-australian-movie-poster-27x41-1992-david-fincher-sigourney-weaver set directly after the events of the previous film Aliens         (1986 – which was written and directed by James Cameron and is personally my favourite instalment of the franchise).

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Behind The Blog: It’s a Small World After All

Posted on by indiemacuser

The last few weeks have shown me it really is true what they say…the internet makes the world a whole lot smaller;  and there has been a number of exciting and unexpected developments with the blog that I would like to share with you. Continue reading →

Interview: Scott Schiaffo – Character Actor from ‘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 character actor/musician Scott Schiaffo who played ‘Chewlies Gum Guy’; a memorable comic character part in the film.

A native of New Jersey, Scott got his big screen début in 1994 with Clerks but has gone on to appear in many independent films and shorts; including another notable character part as Travis Lee in the film Vulgar(2000) from director Brian Johnson and executive producers Kevin Smith/Scott Mosier.

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Review: Pride (2014)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Co-Written by Lewis Mainwaring

Pride tells the story of ‘Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners‘; a real activist movement who came out in support of the miners during the 1984-1985 strike.

pride Continue reading →

New iCloud Storage Pricing – More for Less?

Posted on by indiemacuser

Following Tuedays iPhone/Apple Watch launch event, Apple have quietly released new monthly iCloud storage plans. This is supposedly getting ready for the new ‘iCloud Drive‘ functionality which will be supported in the new iOS 8 & OSX Yosemite operating systems. This is expected to be a real step up for Apple’s cloud services which have faced criticism in the last few years; especially with strong competition from Google Drive, DropBox & Microsoft’s SkyDrive. If so, this is good news for existing Apple users.

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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.