2012 Movies...

So yeah, everyone else is doing it and I keep seeing lists of Best Movies of 2012 and thinking, urgh "Life of Pi" looks dreadful, why would I want to see this movie?  So yeah, these are my favourite movies of 2012, I don't expect you to like em all but hey, you could give em a shot, they even include two foreign language movies, check me and my world cinema out! In no particular order (tho The Muppets is deffo number 1)...

The Muppets
No brainer really.  I watched this film at the cinema in some hormonal, hungover, verge of tears wreck. I love The Muppets. I love Jason Segel. I love Flight of the Conchords. I even kinda love Amy Adams (Enchanted!), and they sang one of my favourite songs...



It's just a shame Jason Segel had to follow the movie with the truely appalling "Five Year Engagement". I guess with that movie it was nice to see Alison Brie and Chris Platt on the big screen, but it was just so bad. If the film had included puppets, it would have been better.

21 Jump Street
I admit I thought this looked dreadful in the trailers, but hey it's actually pretty good, great cameo from Mr Johnny Depp too. Jonah Hill may now be Oscar worthy material, but he's still able to write a good movie, go him! 21 Jump Street reminds me of a lovely night I spent in Victoria Canada with my friends Brad and Annika watching lots of the original TV series, shout out to those dudes!

The Imposter
I still think the mother killed the kid...

The Cabin in the Woods
Yeah, I thought The Avengers was ok, but this was way better.  Go Joss Whedon! Loved the bit with the unicorn at the end, and that Fred from Angel was in it. The film that polarised audiences, all I heard before I went to see it was bad things for some reason, which I don't really get (go to the cinema with low expectations and you will be rewarded).

The only way this could have been better would have been in Neil Patrick Harris had sang a song with some muppets in it.

Casa De Mi Padre
I'm probably going to like any movie with hotties Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in it, add Will Ferrell speaking (and singing) in spanish and psychedelic stupidness, yeah Alice is happy.


Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
It's not big, it's not clever but it's funny in a weird uncomfortable way. Great Spielberg cameo.  I went to see it with live commentary earlier this year, they seem like pretty normal people in real life. Peter Serafinawicz was there wearing some really odd hipster clothes.

Celeste and Jesse Forever
GOOD WORK RASHIDA JONES YOU ARE AWESOME! Such a sweet movie, with great performances by Rashida and Adam Samberg. Also great soundtrack put together by Sunny Levine who is part of the Quincy Jones family like Rashida. Sunny also produced "Before After" by Ariel Pink (yess, he's the reason why that record is so much better than every other Ariel Pink record) and plays in Alekesam who put out the best album that you can get for free on bandcamp this year.

Take This Waltz
Another movie about sad white people (one of my favourite genres), nice to see Seth Rogen doing another slightly more serious role and Michelle Williams wore some lovely clothes.

The Hobbit
Doh, I love hobbits, elves and wizard shit.

Klown
Don't watch this with a real grown up, it is absolutely hilarious in an insanely inappropriate way, with the most uncomfortably funny ending.  Also as it's in Danish, you're reading the filthy subtitles which will make you blush. They are apparently remaking this in the USA with Danny McBride writing and starring in it and Todd Phillips (who directed The Hangover) directing it, so I guess you can kinda imagine what it's going to be like. I recon that will be pretty good but still check this out first so you can show off to your friends when the remake comes out and is massive. There's a Von Trier connection too, he wrote one of the episodes of the TV series that came before the movie.  See, I'm recommending you classy world cinema!

Looper
Despite having Emily Blunt in it (I don't like her, and yeah I don't rate The Devil Wears Prada, deal with it) and Joe Gordon Levitt pulling really odd "Bruce Willis" faces, I liked this movie.  Kinda preferred the first half of the movie where it was all futuristic nonsense, second half less good, probably cause there was more Emily Blunt, tho the kid was pretty bad ass. What you didn't see it?

Safety Not Guaranteed
Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson and Aubrey Plaza, the three of them are so awesome in different ways. Jake playing up that slightly on edge desperate thing he does in New Girl so well and Aubrey playing a character very similar in some ways to April. Mark Duplass is nothing like his character in The League, and plays this kinda weird guy who has built a time machine.  Kinda a cute, mystery, sci-fi, love story, that makes it sound bad, it's not, it's bad ass, well as bad ass as a movie about feelings and time travel can be.

And also Jeff Who Lives at Home and Wanderlust which I wrote about here and here.

Movies I'm looking forward to see...
This is 40 - the sequel-ish to Knocked Up, Apatow-tastic! (oh yeah pick up the latest Vanity Fair, Judd Apatow is the guest editor so it's all comedy stuff and there are some awesome pictures of the Freaks and Geeks cast in it)
Save The Date - Lizzie Caplan, Martin Starr, Geoffrey (Mr Christina Hendricks!) Arend and Alison Brie do another movie about sad white people. Come on release it in the UK or just let us legally download it, come on!
This is The End - It feels like we've been waiting for this movie for forever, it better be good, it could be bad cause Emma Watson is in it!
OZ, The Great and Powerful - I like stuff with wizards in and James Franco.

I'll try and do my TV round up in the next week or so too, there has been some mega telly this year!

Hope you have a lovely Christmas!
Alicexx

I don't want to fall in love

Well we've been busy, OMG we actually finished the Freaks and Geeks zine, I know, check us!

Check out our lil tumblr for it which has lots of Freaks and Geeks videos and photos I have posted for my own amusement and you can buy a copy of the zine straight from us here.

I've also been watching an insane amount of Buffy, now on season seven which is whoa! I loved the Aimee Mann cameo "I hate playing vampire towns", and did you know that Warren from Buffy is in Common Rotation, the band part responsible for the Martin Starr/Hall and Oates rap that we've talked about before. People off the telly, they all know each other!


I'm so pleased that Weeds is back, I missed Andy so much! Everyone else got excited about the return of Breaking Bad, I got excited about Weeds. Weeds is my preferred "parents gets into drug dealing" program, and it was around first. With the cancer thing, Breaking Bad is like a cross between Weeds and Season 2 of "Party of Five", tho thankfully without Jennifer Love Hewitt.  I do actually like Breaking Bad, just I'm a season behind everyone else, I'm still angry at Walt for letting Jayne (Krysten Ritter) die like that, and I still have to point out "Weeds was first!".

And I loved Burning Love, especially the unexpected cameo in episode 2. I don't want to spoil it for you. It's so good. Just watch it if you haven't.

So a while back I did a thing about actors being in pop videos, now I though I'd look into people we know more as actors that have done music...



Volcano, I'm Still excited!! Band names, with punctuation in them, yes it's kind of annoying! (hey man it's two explanation marks)
Yes it's Mark (what an unfortunate photo to have plastered all over the tube these past few months) Duplass of those Duplass brothers fame, and bless brother Jay made this video, they've just been working with each other for ever. From this quick listen, I like 2nd Gun, reminds me of Wolf Parade, I guess I'm glad that they decided to mainly stick to movies tho, like Jeff... that I reviewed the other month.

I did watch "The Puffy Chair" the other week and it has the most indie-est sound track ever (yep, Death Cab, of Montreal, you got it!), it was kinda a sweet movie, yet again involving a brotherly relationship, aw bless them Duplass brothers and their brotherly love!

Listen to the LP on Spotify... Volcano, I'm Still Excited – Volcano, I'm Still Excited

Did anyone else find this story about Jason Batemen pretending to be tweeting from the "Arrested Development" set hilarious this week?  It was almost as odd as finding out in January that co-star Alia Shawkat covered bloody Chris Isaak with some dude that used to be in Chairlift that hangs out with the Knowles sisters wasn't it? Turns out Alia has been busy playing jazz shows in New York, singing Bob Dylan, hanging with Landon Pigg, being in a Best Coast video with Troy from Community and also playing a hand in this video...


Yep words fail me, but guys.... at least it's not Glee.

Anyway, I'm gonna get going, but let me know if there's other actors that make music I should check out, and before you say anything I'm not going anywhere near Juliette Lewis!

Bye
Alicex
PS USA, if you have any sense, watch the new season premiers of Children's Hospital and NTSF:SD:SUV tonight.

Just go ahead now

Saturday afternoon at the movies, I can't imagine a better way to spend a saturday than with Jason Segel, girl talk, and wasabi nuts, I'm a girl of simple pleasures, what can I say?

Jeff who Lives at Home is the fourth movie written and directed by brothers Mark (familiar looking dude and also in The League) and Jay Duplass, their most notable movie being Cyrus which I mentioned briefly a while back cause my dear friends Still Flyin' were played in one of the scenes.

The film focusses upon Jeff (that's Jason Segel) and his obsession with the movie "Signs" and his conviction that everything happens for a reason, which leads himself on an adventure day following Kevins and helping his brother Pat (Ed Helms, yep the dude from The Hangover) out, saving marriages and lives.  

It's a sweet film about brotherly relationships and how siblings interact and relate with each other when they are both very different types of people, I think it's super cute that the movie was written and directed by two brothers.  It actually made me think a lot about my relationship with my brother, though I'd like to hope I'm not as square as Pat!  The film also touches on what happens in the aftermath of a parent dying, how it affects the family, you see how their mother (played by the AWESOME Susan Sarandon) is still struggling to move on properly and how that has affected how she treats Jeff.

Musically, this is the second movie I've seen this year with The Spin Doctors in it, the first being Wanderlust.  What is that about?  I'd not felt the need to think about The Spin Doctors for 18 years, and I thought I was doing pretty good.  According to the internet (I google The Spin Doctors so you don't have to) the band reformed last year as it was the 20th anniversary of The Album featuring The Song. The singer has also been recording with a band called The Time Bandits.  I kinda hope that they would be ok seeing as they named themselves after a truely awesome movie, but undoubtedly they suck.  Sorry, it's beyond the call of duty for me to listen to the band at this moment in time.

The music was kinda pretty and was written by Michael Andrews who as well as doing the music for Freaks and Geeks (I've got to work on posts that don't mention F&G), Bridesmaids and a load of other films that we all like and he did the music for that Gary Jules version of "Mad World" in Donnie Darko. 

Donnie Darko, now that was a sweet film, all the music sounded amazing in it, though I have to say I probably never need to hear that version of "Mad World" again.  The main reason being that about 7 years ago I went to the Emmaboda Festival in Sweden, which is a fun festival full of lots of beautiful and slightly insane drunk Swedish kids.  They found us English people very amusing and enjoyed talking to us in cockney accents, I spent a lot time being confused as to whether they were taking the piss or not.  At the festival there was a tent that someone had spray painted "Mad World" in big letters on it, and morning, noon and you could hear Gary Jules' "Mad World" being played from the tent on repeat.  I must have heard that song a gazilion times that weekend. I'm so glad I wasn't camped near them, I think I would have gone crazy.  This was quite a few years after Donnie Darko came out so I'm still a bit confused as to why they wanted to have a "Mad World" tent, or why they would want to ever listen to that song again, crazy Swedes!

Real Tears For Fears is better than covers, this was my favourite musical moment in Donnie Darko...

(Can you spot Seth Rogen?)

Anyway, go check out Jeff, Who Lives At Home if you get a chance, Jason Segel and Ed Helms are both pretty awesome in it, and for optimal enjoyment don't forget the wasabi nuts!

Alicexx

geeky dancing

Ha, was just reading back through an old post about Yo Gabba Gabba and I hadn't been able to find the video of the Geeks from Freaks and Geeks dancing on the show.  Well we stumbled across it recently whilst doing research for the Freaks and Geeks zine that me and my girl Kate are writing.
Check it out...



What do you think?  Personally I think it is terrifying!

"Go Crazy!"

Hopefully the Freaks and Geeks zine will be finished soon, it should be epic, I feel like I know every fact about Freaks and Geeks now! We even spotted the Omri Katz cameo, though I do think that only me and Kate are the only people who get excited about stuff like that.   I also got overly excited this week when I found out that Harris from Freaks and Geeks now writes RPG computer game reviews for Vice Magazine. Yep sad TV nerd me.


If you want to know more about Freaks and Geeks check out these extensive interviews with Mr "Freaks and Geeks creator and snappy dresser" Paul Feig.

Enjoy
Alicexx

Don't treat me like a tourist

My my, life has been busy recently, I just got back from Paris where I had a lovely time with my girl Normandie, we saw the AWESOME of Montreal play on Friday night.  The floor was bouncing so much from people dancing it made me feel sea sick! I had the most un French weekend ever, we had burritos and vegan cupcakes, and did an insane amount of thrift store shopping, it was so much fun!

Earlier in the week I saw Kishi Bashi play his first show in London, Kishi Bashi plays violin in of Montreal, so on their break from touring he played a special solo show at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington.  His record has been one of my favourites of this year, beautifully crafted orchestral pop music, with yes hella violins.  His live show is kinda bonkers, he onlys plays violin and sings and uses a looping pedal and effects to manipulate the sound. See for yourself...


Check out his latest pop video featuring a bunch of Kay's of Montreal band mates, apparently some of the people who helped with this video work on that show The Walking Dead too, though sadly Egg from This Life was not in it (he'll always be Egg even with that southern accent).



And yes, also buy his record, cause it is bloody brilliant, ok?

Now, we've talked about Yo Gabba Gabba on this blog before, but I can't really finish this post without mentioning of Montreal's catchy contribution to the show's musical output (and the show's striking similarities to the band's colourful live performance!).  Check out the following videos...
Brush your teeth!


Eat your healthy food!


Wow, of Montreal are full of really good advice!

Now please let me talk TV for a bit...

OMG last week's Parks and Recreation was one of my favourites, when Leslie gave the speech at the end I almost cried, I am such a loser.  Paul Rudd was great in it too, he plays Leslie's political rival and is such a dunce.  As well as the show I am also enjoying these Parks and Rec and Ben Wyatt gifs.  You can never have too many animated gifs in your life.

Also check out Paul Scheer's (The League, NTSF:SD SUV, Human Giant) Breaking Bad animated gif's site.

"Apparently I’m stepping on toes. But haters going hate and I’m going to GIF create!" Paul Scheer 

Hell yeah!

There should be more animated gifs involving pizza juggling.

I am so loving the show "Girls" too, I just watched episode 3, and I like how it's going. It's been interesting reading the backlash against the program, but with all that hype, there are always going to be some people who want to take them down.  I am in awe of Lena Dunham!

I'm also enjoying "Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23" too, it's great to see Krysten Ritter having a lead role, I loved her in Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls, I'm not sure about the blonde girl, but I guess her character is meant to be whiney and annoying?

Apart form Michelle Williams, I never liked Dawson's Creek, but James Van Der Beek is pretty funny in it, as he plays himself and makes a ton of Dawson's Creek jokes. Come to think about it, he was pretty funny in "How I Met Your Mother" too. Maybe he's actually all right it's just that Dawson's Creek was so awful?

Well I best go, but if you're about in London town next Monday, why not come to this show and see my band Cosines play, I mean what else are you going to do right? (OK don't answer that)

See ya
Alicexx

Let's pretend we're bunny rabbits...

So yeah, I haven't posted for a while, I guess partly because I went to see The Shins, and they were so awful that I was like "I have to change the name of my blog!"  I've decided not to, cause well I can't think of a better name! I've also been busy making music with my new band Cosines, why not take a listen to one of our songs? (shameless plug over).

Anyway, what has prompted me to blog this time? Well in Gossip Girl this week in between the double crossing, Blair and Dan getting it on in an elevator, William Baldwin being angsty, Serena pouting, Nate looking broody and a bit confused, good old "Indie Rock Dad" Rufus went to see The Magnetic Fields. I laughed solidly for 20 seconds when Lily proclaimed that he couldn't miss going to see them to go to an Upper East Side party, cause he had been looking forward to seeing them so much.  I hope he enjoyed the show, I saw them at ATP and they were so awesome. Check out their tour blog it is very funny (and where the lovely photo on the left came from). They're playing in London at The Royal Festival Hall later on this month, there could be tickets left if you hurry!

Ahh Gossip Girl, it may be an absolutely dreadful program, but they really do do good with the inane teenage drama and indie references that I feel compelled to watch it, hell they even played Veronica Falls at the end of this episode!

I can't find the video online of them name checking The Magnetic Fields but I found this video instead, hmmm Chuck and Nate?



And yeah that new Veronica Falls tune is pretty awesome too, check out the video below.



Veronica Falls are playing Indietracks this year (a festival that I help organise), we've just confirmed The Vaselines to headline one of the nights, I AM SO EXCITED!!! There are loads of other awesome bands playing this year too including Allo Darlin', Go Sailor, Girls Names, Orca Team and The Language of Flowers, you may as well get your ticket now right?

Hope you have a fun Easter weekend!
Alicexx

Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met

I am off to see The Shins on Thursday!!! And I am off to see Zach Braff's play next Thursday, but apparently it's received some awful reviews so I probably shouldn't be that excited about it. Maybe it will be good if he mentions The Shins in it? So feels only fitting that we should watch this video...



And this pretty cool video for their last single "Simple Song"...


Yey for The Shins!
Alicexx

Tommy's place!

Tomorrow we are going to the Jeff Mangum curated ATP Festival, it is going to be BOSS! I hope April Ludgate will be there...

Andy: Who is Jeff Mangum?
April: The guy from Neutral Milk Hotel.
Andy: Oh Neutral Milk Hotel, what is that?
April: That’s my favorite band I’ve told you that like a thousand times.
Andy: I don’t remember. Why wouldn’t you pick me?
April: I don’t know. You are not technically a rockstar. It’s an indisputable fact that they’re better, they are a real band…
Tom: Andy where’s your boo’s favorite place to smoosh?
Andy: At the Neutral Milk Hotel.
April: Get over it.
Andy: No you get over it. You like some other dude’s band more than me. Do you even think that Mouse Rat is the greatest band in the world because it is starting to not feel that way.
April: That band is really important to me and honestly I’ve asked you to listen to them like a million times and you never have so…
Andy: Because their music is sad and depressing and weird and art is supposed to be happy and fun and everyone knows that…

And yes that was of course from Parks and Recreation from last season, and of course made us only love our favourite intern (I hope she's not an intern any more, she's been there for ages) more.

I found this music video for indie band Father John Misty (no me neither, but the song is all right) , check out the lovely Aubrey Plaza (aka one April Ludgate) eating flowers, dancing with a lamp and generally causing mischief.



The best character in Parks and Rec tho has to be Tom Haverford, played by the awesome Aziz Ansari.  He's announced a USA tour for later on this year, if you live there you should go and get yr tickets.  If you see him tell him to book a show in London, I totally messed up and missed him last year. And to quote Davina McCall, here are Tom's best bits...




I'll be ATP-ing you soon!
Alicexx

Losing my religion

"I made you a leaving gift"
"What is it?"
"A stick with some orange peel glued to it"
(or something along the lines of that...)

So last night after a weekend of unexpected partying, expected partying and recording I took a solo trip to the cinema to see Wanderlust. Very weirdly the cinema seemed to be full of people doing the very same thing, I guess a solo cinema trip is the perfect activity for a rainy Sunday afternoon in North London.

I don't want to give too much of the plot but basically George and Linda buy a tiny flat in NYC, lose their jobs, end up losing their flat (I don't understand why they didn't rent it out, I guess that would be less dramatic) and drive to Atlanta, on the way stay overnight at a commune and have an awesome night, then go to stay in Atlanta, hate it and end up back in the commune, where of course hilarity ensues, there is a money grabbing hippy, a nudist author and yep we get to see Jennifer Anniston tripping out on iowaska.

Watching the movie you spend a lot of time cringing at Paul Rudd embarrassing himself, doing his sexy talk and attempting to play the Spin Doctors. Paul Rudd is awesome as ever, but I think I would have liked to seen writer Ken Marino do the George part instead, he was so good as the cringworthy Ron in Party Down, that I think that would have really worked.  Ken Marino was awesome as George's brother Rick and deffo one of the highlights, though seeing as he wrote it, you think he would make sure he got a good part! Michaela Watkins did a great job as Rick's bored wife too.

I think my favourite bits were with Ken's ex-"The State" buddies David Wain, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black (GO BUY HIS BOOK, mine is in the post!) who play news readers, and yeah, when they parody the Atlanta Grape Lady that kinda made me chuckle.  I also liked all the jokes about hippies, my brother's a bit of a hippy and has hung out with Shamen (but not Mr C), and I do tease him about drum circles and hippy stuff, I think I'd like to watch it again with him!

There are not really any indie references in the movie, but I think I heard an REM song being played, I guess any movie which is set in Georgia should have at least one REM song in it somewhere?  There were more references throughout this movie to "I Believe I Can Fly" than really necessary too, what was that about? 90's tastic!

I was so excited about the prospect of this movie, with so many awesome people being involved, but yeah something lacked a bit in it, still I do think laughing at hippy jokes is a fun way to spend a rainy day in North London.

I leave you with a song...a video from the best band from Atlanta, ExcaliBrah!!!



Official movie site

Big hands I know you're the one!

A rather entertaining Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode, perfect viewing for a wet Sunday night.
Stay dry!
Alicexx

PS Salem the cat was the best thing in this program by a mile, there should be more sarcastic talking cats on TV.

You are hero, you are off the hook

Yes so this blog is generally about indie music invading our favourite movies and TV shows, well sometimes it's the other way round and record labels pay actors to pimp up their videos, whoa!

Anyway I thought I'd use this blog post to show off a few of my favourite videos I've enjoyed over the last year or so.



Yes that's correct, we were all quite surprised to find Mr. Mad Men himself Jon Hamm in a Herman Dune video, but we rolled with it, according to our source he's a fan, wise man.

And good news ladies, I can confirm that Jon Hamm is as sexy in real life as he is on the telly, me and my girl Kate were literally 5 metres away from him at the filming of a Ronna and Beverly pilot the other week which was lotsa fun, and rather hot (it was the lights and that...).  We're in the process of writing a Freaks and Geeks zine so we will write more about it then.  Before you ask "what does that have to do with F&G?" it was a Paul Feig (Mr. Creator of Freaks and Geeks) produced pilot, we're rather excited that Paul Feig is trying to bring some boss TV to England.

Sorry, I got distracted segwaying the conversation to Freaks and Geeks...  Anyway Herman Dune are playing at Heaven on the 19th April supported by the tremendous Allo Darlin', get yr tickets here, see you down the front, mine's a vodka and diet coke etc etc.

Moving on...


I bloody love Apples (In Stereo), and Hobbit Boy Elijah Wood bloody does too! Because as well as starring in this video he's produced the one for Energy and check this, even paid a part in released the band's "New Magnetic Wonder" LP (which was awesome by the way) with his own Simian Records, watch him have a chat about his label, why not?



Apples (In Stereo) are playing ATP next weekend and I am very muchly looking forward to having a bit of a dance to them with my crew. See you down the front, mine's a vodka and diet coke, just in case you missed that before.

Up next Slow Club!

Love this song, but Moshi Moshi obviously spent all their money on getting Mackenzie Crook and paying for the ferris wheel that they forgot about much else!

And now onto the criminally young (he'll frikking 17!) Madeon


And there is also this very similar video of a Yelle remix.  Yes of course that is one Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks, Party Down, you know it), this video and music has some startling similarities to this...



We are currently following Martin Starr's rap career at The Shins Will Change Your Life, though I feel that discussing that here would be just too much excitement for one day! I promise that will be a full post about it at some point.

Anyway, did you enjoy those videos? Did I miss some equally awesome "actor in a pop video" moments? Leave a comment or drop me an email and I'll get onto it!

Hope y'all awesome
Alicexx

You know how much I wanted to meet your friend, the star of stage and local press

You like Belle and Sebastian?  You can act? Then you can be in Stuart Murdoch's movie!  Well you can at least audition...  Yep Stuart is looking to fill roles for 'Eve,' 'James,' and 'Cassie' (I guess you will know them if you know the album?) for his Kickstarter-funded musical film God Help the Girl.
More details here...


Reading the character descriptions the film sounds just like the kind of thing we like here at The Shins Will Change Your Life.  Good luck Stuart!

How to Tie a Tie

I recently discovered that in the last year eight people discovered this blog through googling "Joseph Gordon Levitt Cardigan", therefore to celebrate this, here is a picture of him rocking the great look.

Slightly weirder is that 35 people discovered this blog by searching "alice hubley blog", ok guys admit it, who has been googling me?

This video recently made the rounds on Facebook, it's a rather long Australian advert for Yellow Pages starring none other than indiepop superstar Tali White from Aussie favourites The Lucksmiths. Watch if you must, but it is a tad boring, basically Yellow Pages are good cause they are carbon neutral and a lot of people recycle them (cause they probably use the internet instead?).



Anyway, it's pretty cool that Tali is keeping busy whilst he's not making music, but wouldn't we rather be watching The Lucksmiths? Well in this current climate it's probably not long until the band will get back together right? Meanwhile, fellow ex Lucksmiths and Margarita expert Mark Monnone has been keeping very busy, running Australia's premier indiepop label Lost and Lonesome, playing shows all around the globe with Monnone Alone and also playing bass with TSWCOL favourites Still Flyin', listen and download their new jam now.





Anyway, I'll leave you with a trailer for a film I am so excited about seeing this weekend. It's the new Ken Marino written, Judd Apatow produced, Paul Rudd starring, David Wain directed Wanderlust (phew that was exhausting, but what a line up!). I don't think I've ever been so excited about seeing a movie with Jennifer Anniston in it ever! Anyway, I'll write more about it once I've seen it
See ya
Alicexx

It's Bizness Time!

A massive YEY to Brett McKenzie for his Oscars win last night. I can't work out how to embed the video but here is a link to Brett's acceptance speech, so cute and look at Jason Segel's proud face! It still makes me smile that Jason Segel wrote the film in London "because it felt more Muppety".

Less cute was Emma Stone's banter with Ben Stiller, great god, talk about car crash TV!

I still would've liked to have seen Bridesmaids or Jonah Hill have won something, but I guess the people who vote for The Oscars are old people that think movies about Maggie Thatcher are a good thing. I for one am waiting for "The Iron Lady - The Musical" with music by Iron Maiden, coming to the West End soon. I liked The Artist, partly because it had two people from Revenge of the Nerds in it, but am totally bored with all the awards it has won now. The dog really should have won the best actor award instead of the main dude!

We've just had a party weekend in London with the London Popfest, lotsa great bands played, friends from Scotland and Sweden visited, everyone ate burritos and we had awesome fun times at the late night Finsbury Park bowling alley/arcade games centre. Two of the bands playing, Shrag and Tunabunny are now on a tour that yours truely booked, I'm so proud to have worked with them! You should all go see them if they're playing in your city cause they are a lot of fun, these are the last dates few dates and you can find out more here.
Tues 28th Feb - Stereo, York
Weds 29th Feb - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
Thurs 1st March - Mello Mello, Liverpool
Fri 2nd March – The Chameleon, Nottingham
Sat 3rd March – The Victoria (Dalston), London

You can buy tickets for Saturday night's London show here, do it!!!

Actor out of work (a premonition for the Gossip Girls at the end of this season?)

It's always ace to see one of your favourite bands on telly isn't it? So yes was a welcome surprise to see the lovely St Vincent on Gossip Girl last week! Check it out below if you missed it...

Isn't Gossip Girl ridiculous at the moment?! Though I loved the Nate/Elizabeth Hurley story line and whoo, what an evil prince we have here! Hopefully there'll be another 90's band cameo like when Sonic Youth were on, though it looks like they keep throwing whatever they get at the program so it's only a matter of time. BTW have you heard Taylor Momsen's band?

Other faves at the moment...

New Girl - Love her or hate her, lovely Zooey has definitely become a force to be reckoned with, what with her awesome performance on Saturday Night Live last week (Kristen Wiig's Bjork was particularly entertaining) and her pretty awesome website for girls Hello Giggles and of course New Girl. I think my favourite bit was seeing Zooey and Lizzie Caplan having a crochet night together (hey, I'm an indie girl that's crafty, ok?) and them attempting to play Eye of the Tiger on the bells, I love that song!

Hart of Dixie - We all love Wade right? And the mayor's really weird "sexy" face he pulls when chatting up the ladies, see the photo to my left for an example. We don't have Thanksgiving in the UK, but I'd rather have Planksgiving any day, arrr!!!

Parks and Recreation - Go team Knope! Really enjoyed Martin Starr's cameo the other week, I know how much you all like animated gifs, so here's one celebrating the moment.

Martin Starr has been rapping recently with a band called Common Rotation, they're playing LA tomorrow so go see them if you live there (I dunno who reads this though maybe you could live in LA and read this in time, let me know how it is if you go eh?). They do a rap that samples "Rich Girl by Hall and Oates, how awesome is that?! I'm not sure what the rest of the stuff is like, all the music on the website is country music, well there's not enough rap/country cross over out there is there?

Coming up...
I'm super looking forward to seeing Girls when it comes out, it's produced by Judd Apatow and stars Lena Dunham, and is basically Sex in the City for more normal 20 somethings. And even better Betty Ann Baker (the mum from Freaks and Geeks) is in it! I think I've watched this trailer so many times now, it basically is a more exciting version of my life, April can't come soon enough, enjoy...

And I just bought tickets to see Zack Braff's new West End Play All New People, so looking forward to seeing it, I hope he mentions The Shins in it!

I'm going to try and post more regularly on here from now on, cause I've forgotten about it, probably cause I've been watching too much TV and yes making music with my new band Cosines. Put the 14th April in yr diary, we are playing our first show, crikey! We should hopefully be supporting my dear friends Still Flyin' when they come over in May too, they were played not once but twice on The Office the other week in the pool party episode, yey for them! More information when I have it, now I've got something to plug again I can update the blog!

Hope you're all having an awesome 2012 and got your "operation stay Olympics free" strategy in motion! I will tell you all about mine another time.
See ya
Alicexx


Last but not least, you know how much we like Feist at this blog, I stumbled across this today, how many times does she sing the work "counting"?