Cinephilia

That Friday Feeling

Flicking through this month's new Sky Movies magazine, you'd find it hard not to get mildly excited by the fabulous array of new titles coming to the channels in the next few weeks.

It's all very well harping on about King Kong, Jarhead, Flightplan and The Producers... but did anyone else notice that Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies will be showing from 8pm on Friday 26th Jan?

If the tagline doesn't get you going then nothing will: "That Korean guy from American Pie, the Asian guy from Van Wilder, from the director of Dude, Where's My Car?..."

In the States, it's Known as Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle - their favourite chain of Burger restaurants - but my favourite incarnation has to be the French Canadian effort Harold et Kumar chassent le burger. Say what you see boys!!

Here's one of my favourite scenes in which Kumar dreams about his marriage to a 6' tall bag of weed:

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Allow me to introduce three of my most recent aquantances... The Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Made up of the super-intelligent but highly irritable Frylock, the incredibly selfish and rarely well-meaning MasterShake and the cute, loveable but oh-so-brainless wad of meat MeatWad - they sort of solve people's problems and sort of don't!

In fact, if self-appointed leader Shake got his way he'd spend all day cooling off in his neighbour Carl's pool, eyeing up the laydeez, watching TV and, though it's all too easy, generally fooling MeatWad for his own amusement.

You can catch up with my new chums, along with other humourously animated nonsense from the likes of Seth Green in [adult swim] on Bravo (Sky channel 124) during the wee small hours.

Click here to become MeatWad and save the world from the Mooninite Marauders.

Dom B

Did you hear the one about the Lobster and the Tomato?

If, like me, you're about to reach boiling point with another viewing of Film 4's really clever utterly stupid Lobster and Tomato campaign, you might enjoy this fiendish lesson in piggy-backing.

Sky Movies have gone and made their own Lobster Bisque (without spending £4 million I might add) and the message is simple...

We spend money on quality films rather than dressing up the odd Dame as a Tomato. Oh, and we don't interrupt our movies with endless advert-breaks either.

To see it in all it's Thermador glory... CLICK HERE!

When you see the pop-up, choose your speed and wait for the clip to load.

Right click on the video window and select 'Zoom' for Full Screen options.

Jabba the Slutt

On a cold English summer day, i was scouring the Star Wars picture galleries on Skymovies.com and what did i find? Some extremely random and useless (if not funny) information... for example did you know that the blue dude from Return of the Jedi heads a band with a guy called Droopy McCool?! But the most unsettling information was about everyone’s favourite crime lord/obese slug Jabba...

"If you were to read Star Wars literature, you may see him referenced by his full name, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. You might also learn that his homeworld is known as Nal Hutta and that he is, in fact, an Hermaphrodite (though he possess a male personality)!"

well who'd have thunk it?!

Click here for all things Star Wars...

Star Wars: Reduced and Reloaded

Over the last week or so, the browsing of other blogs and chatrooms has revealed that there is some kind of Reduced Star Wars theatre show in the pipeline. Unlikely though it seemed, it turns out that Sky is actually doing it!

Apparently Sky have been talking to LucasFilm and it's going to be a one-off event, in London, with three actors – and it's expected to happen over the next couple of months. Watch this space, we’ll keep our ears to the ground and tell you more as soon as we hear it.

The Greatest Story Never Told

The weekend papers were full of it. Possibly the funniest 3 minutes of television news. Ever.

In brief: The BBC cocked up bringing a guest on set, so instead of respected computer journo Guy Kewney sitting down for a chin wag about the Apple Vs Apple ruling on News 24 last week, viewers were treated to his cab driver.

You can watch it here.

Never have so many different emotions visibly washed across a man's face in such short a time.

And it does ask loads of questions about how a presenter can possibly go on with an interview that is clearly not quite right...

But I have a slight confession to make. I did know about this last week. But because some of the people closely involved are friends of mine, I decided to sit on it and see how it played out.

So there you have it. We could have had an exclusive that gave us all a great laugh and scooped the nationals both online and in print. Instead we're left with a bunch of friends who'll still talk to us and who still have their high rolling, cocaine fuelled media careers.

Hey, this isn't he Washington Post, it's supposed to be fun. You don't like it? Sue me.

Mike Taylor

Hard News Weblog

Sky News has been taking a bit of a kicking this week what with one thing and another, so we thought we would redress the balance a bit by pointing out that one of the channel's real stars, Jeremy Thompson, has his own blog.

And yes - he bloody does write it himself (unlike some certain BBC presenters that we could mention if we were drunk enough and wanted to take their entire licence-fee sucking news operation outside for a much deserved bitch slap) (Lose this bit - Ed)

JT, as he is known around the Sky Newsroom has just about been everywhere, done everything and lived to tell the tale. And really the nice thing is he isn't one of those flack jacket wearing, gung-ho macho reporters/presenters who tries to quietly convince you he's really out there being James Bond.

Of course when Thompson isn't behind the desk at Sky Central he probably could be out there being Bond - and if he is we reckon he'd be Brosnan.

Do yourself and favour and check out his blog for yourself.

EDIT: Thanks for the massive mailbag we've had on this item. Sorry - we can't get you onto the Sky News set to meet JT. Oh and one or two of you may want to grab hold of the dictionary and look up "humour". To the person who sent in the laptop idea: I don't think it would fit.

Mike Taylor

Granny Should Not Skydive

Fresh from You Tube - a thirty second lesson showing exactly why Granny SHOULD. NOT. SKYDIVE.

Click Here to view.

Cath and Sam from Sky Publicity are doing this sort of thing soon. We are all very keen to see what they lose on the way down...

Chip Off The Old Bloch - First Picture

There's something in the water here at Sky Movies. Work here for five minutes and you realise that everyone is always pregnant. Last the whole day and you'll probably go home pregnant yourself.

The latest to fall to this invasion of the body stretchers is the lovely Emily, wife of Cinephilia staffer Dom Bloch. This is the first time we've announced a "Parish News" style happy event here. Why this time? Because we are all having such time with potential baby names...

Topping the list so far are Breeze, Chocka and Mental. Congratulations guys...

Dodgeball Dating

We don't always do things the obvious way at Sky Movies - we decided to celebrate Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story by helping out London's singletons.

So the first ever Dodgeball Dating took place last Friday night. We were nervous... would anyone turn up? Is the game too vicious? What would we do if anyone ended up in hospital?

Turns out we needn't have worried,  some very nice and rather attractive people had a lovely time slinging a ball at the opposite sex in the hope of securing their next date. In fact it worked so well we've got people fighting to nick our idea and make it a regular thing.

Tracey Jaques