” I saw her standin’ on her front lawn just twirlin’ her baton…”

For a while now I’ve been interested in what the filmic equivalent of a certain set of bands would be, Springsteen, The Gaslight Anthem, Lucero et al are all extremely evocative of certain visuals, but where could I find this represented in film. When we got the Badlands trailer onsite I realised everything that I’d been missing…

Americana is one of the loosest of all terms used to express a genre, so it makes sense that I would try and write a list of movies that fall under it’s conventions - but here goes:

Badlands - 1973

This is pretty much the definitive americana film for many, and with good reason. Terrence Malick’s Badlands was the inspiration for Springsteen’s Nebraska, and brandishes this particular kind of Americana much the same way that Sheen’s Kit brandishes his weapon - seemingly unaware of the power it holds.

Without this film there would be a lot less entries on this list. There’s not space here to explain the brilliance of Badlands, lucky it’s on at the Southbank and you can go and see it on the big screen in all its glory and witness it for yourself.

Search For the Wrong Eyed Jesus - 2003

This 2003 documentary directed by Andrew Douglas follows Alt.Country/Americana singer Jim White on a tour around America’s southern states and examines the creative spirit so prevalent in the poorer states. It’s the kind of film that is tagged beautiful, cinematic and atmospheric on every review you’ll see. It features the music (and some interviews with) The Handsome Family and 16 Horsepower and a whole host of others. It is, as they say, the real deal. You should definitely pick up a copy.

Blue Velvet - 1986

Trying to decide which Lynch to add to this list was hard. Almost his entire body of work is arguably more entirely American than any other auteur (well, any that are still working). I decided on Blue Velvet as it’s probably the best at taking Americana and flipping it on it’s head til it means something altogether more menacing.

The films opening, dissected in a million Film Studies 101 Classrooms, hints at everything to come. Suddenly the white picket fence seems a little less aspirational…

All the Real Girls - 2003

It’s rare you’ll see a film as beautiful as All The Real Girls, narrative and characterization aside, as a movie it just looks fantastic. The characters are real, and stumble over words and barely make sense and never really say anything poetic. But isn’t that how life is when it actually plays out in real time? I have a feeling that this is why people recall ATRG so fondly. That and it’ll rip your heart out, in the best possible way.

Shotgun Stories - 2007

Jeff Nichols feature debut is imbued with small town americana.

Right from the incredibly simplistic picked intro of a Lucero song repeated over and over again to the violent conclusion. It is drenched in small town life, but Nichols never romanticizes it (like his pal and producer David Gordon Green) , instead we are led through the narrative as an impartial observer. There is nothing dreamy at all about this movie, but that doesn’t stop it being an amazing view. Watch this guy. Continue reading “Americana Movies”

Yeah, you read right, and no - it’s not 1973. The good folks at the BFI are screening Terrence Malick’s cinematic masterpiece at the BFI Southbank and various other venues around the country. Click here for info on dates and venues

We’ve got three sets of tickets to give away for the BFI Southbank. The screenings commence on August 29th and run for 3 weeks.

To win a pair of tickets to a date of your choosing - email us your full name and postal address to kitandholly@blinkbox.com - entries must be received by August 31st to be considered.
P.S. On the off chance you haven’t seen Badlands - you really, really, really should. You can watch the trailer on blinkbox.com

Hot on the tail of the Hellboy II review, we’re giving away five Hellboy II promotional packs. Each one includes; a poster, a t-shirt, an 18″ Hellboy II figurine and the good ol’ merch pack staple - a baseball hat.
To win this hellish treat, send us a mail (with your name and postal address, so we can send the stuff) to big-red@blinkbox.com answering the question - What does BPRD stand for ?

Hellboy II - The Rise of the Golden Army is IN CINEMAS NOW

I went to a screening of Hellboy II - The Golden Army, a few weeks back, and while I was watching it I was mostly rapt with the actiontastic sequences and the vivid array of characters (many of whom spring from Guillermo Del Toro’s very own brainbox). Entertaining though it was, something wasn’t sitting quite right for me. It was only after a couple of days of digesting it, that I figured out what it was.

It’s that Hellboy II is a great Guillermo Del Toro movie, and if you love him, you’ll love this. But it’s not a great Hellboy movie. Sure, it’s set in the BPRD and all the characters are there and Mike Mignola co-wrote the script, but it just feels like too much of an auteur piece, Del Toro’s direction and imagination are present in every scene, and to some degree, outplay Hellboy himself.

All of this being said, if you’re not a huge Hellboy geek and you’ve liked Del Toro’s previous outings/and or the LOTR trllogy (which, it has to be said, is probably most of the world) then it’s a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy romp.

The premise is this; there is a world beneath our own, where elves and goblins and fairies all exist, the evil prince of this world decides to start a war with humanity and it’s down to Hellboy and the BRPD to stop them.

Luke Goss (yep- him from Bros) shines as evil Prince Nuada,Doug Jones does a pretty good job of trying to sound like David Hyde Pierce as the Abe Sapien (who was perfect in the original) and Seth Macfarlane’s voice makes a welcome addition to the cast in the shape of Johann Krauss.

You can’t fault Ron Perlman as Hellboy himself, he plays the big red guy to a tee, stuck between two worlds and a misfit in both. This is the part that Del Toro gets exactly right, he makes the two worlds fit together seamlessly, as demonstrated by the fight with the Tree God outside the Goblin Market.

All in all, this is totally worth watching, it just lives in the realm of fantasy as opposed to the more traditional Hellboy home of the Supernatural. Oh, and those flesh eating spider things were awesome.

7.5 out of 10.

Hey you guys!

In this summer of blockbusters the next contender to the throne is The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

It’s hitting UK screens on August 6th and you can watch the trailer on blinkbox.com.

Brendan Fraser & co return for more exploration antics, this time they’re in China, battling against Jet Li’s Han, The Dragon Emperor and his terracotta army.

We’re lucky enough to have 5 Mummy Adventure Packs to giveaway. Each pack includes:

T-Shirt

Kite ( I so want one of these, lets bring kite-flying back)

Back Pack

Temporary Tattoo

To enter just send us an email to mummystuff@blinkbox.com with your name and mail address.

© 2008 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Oh okay then, Autumn MUST SEE TV. (You have to watch this, or the internet will point and laugh). These are my 10 picks for indoor season greatness. Rejoice, fellow TV lovers, for soon you will once again have an excuse to not leave your house, hell, your room.

Gossip Girl Season 2

OMG! The Fall Schedule kicks off on Sept 1st with the new season of Gossip Girl,after an inspired advertising campaign, see here we’re ready to have some questions answered. What is up with Nate and Serena? How did Little Jens summer internship go? How long will Dan stay single? What will Blair be wearing? Ooooooh, I can’t hardly wait !

Dexter Season 3

After watching the trailer for season 3 I found myself thinking a lot about new Dexter. I’m about 90% sure that this season is going to rule. Season 2 was incredible apart from the terrible tack on end to the finale. I’m looking forward to Jimmy Smits joining the cast, and from the looks of the trailer this seasons central theme is Dexter killing an innocent person and dealing with the repercussions of breaking Harry’s code. Woah.

True Blood Season 1

I’ve seen the pilot for True Blood, and it’s every bit as awesome as I wanted it to be.In HBO’s new show adapted from the Southern Vampire Mysteries,the stories of Sookie Stackhouse,a young (psychic) barmaid in Louisiana.
Alan Ball has the golden (well more of a macabre) touch, and when you combine that with a strong cast, a southern location and the magical ingredient that is Vampires, there’s no way it can fail.

Heroes Season 3

Please please please Heroes Season 3 be awesome, and right from episode one, there are too many people willing to write you off after the debacle that was Season 2. I have hope that this can happen, the webisodes are pretty good, and Sylar has his powers back, and it’s about Villains. Ooohhh. Proper bad guys, that’s what we were lacking in Season 2.Oh yeah, and maybe we’ll find out WHO THE HELL SHOT NATHAN PETRELLI?!?

Supernatural Season 4

Supernatural started okaaaay and got better and better as it went on, season 3 was great and WOW cliffhanger. I’d watch it anyway (hi, two hot boys, an awesome car and demons?) but I’m especially interested to see how they’re going to make it work, what with Sam being in hell and all. How will Dean cope ? Will the Winchester boys ever be reunited ? There’s supposedly an actual love interest in this season, so we’ll see….

Fringe Season 1

I am not a LOST fan, and I abhor Star Trek, but hell I liked Cloverfield, and that’s enough to make me interested enough in Fringe to give it a go. Altered States meets the X-Files sounds  like a pretty good premise for a show.

Dollhouse Season 1

Oh Joss Whedon, television god (yeah, maybe Firefly sucked, but look at how huge Dr Horrible got!) we’re so glad to have you back. And with Faith from Buffy too! It seems to be some sort of a cross between Blade Runner, and Alias. Whatever it is, the script will be super well written and it’ll draw you into its little world regardless of whether you want to be or not. (Can you tell I’m a huge Buffy geek?)

Californication Season 2

David Duchovny made himself cool and popular again with last years Showtime hit, Californication. He plays Hank Moody, writer and fuck up extraordiniare. It’s funny, smart, well written and it’s on Showtime so there’s sex and profanities galore (just like real life)
No-one seems sure when this is going to air, it was tentatively scheduled for Summer 08, but now it’s been pushed back to the vague season that is “Fall”

Criminal Minds Season 4

Listen, you can take your obvious and popularist CSI , file it on a shelf marked *seen it all before* and prepare yourself for the awesomeness that is Season 4 of Criminal Minds.It focuses around the BAU (Behavioural Analysis Unit) of the FBI, who fly places on their jet to profile serial killers. I’m dying for the episode one, you may remember that Season 3 ended with the crazy cliffhanger one of the BAU’s vehicles being blown up in NYC, with one of them inside. But who? WHO? Please let it not be Reid!

How I met your mother Season 4

You’ll note that How I Met Your Mother is the only half hour sitcom on this list, this is because sitcoms usually suck, Not in the case of how I met your mother. Good soundtrack,  (see top 10 soundtrack moments in tv shows list) and, unlike friends, the last great NYC hipcom, these characters not only have jobs,but they drink alcohol, every night, at a bar. Take that Central Park. Oh, and Neil Patrick Harris’s Barney Stintson is the funniest character on television today. Period. If you haven’t watched this show yet, you have 3 seasons to catch up on before September, it’s what I would recommend for August. A little laughter to ease the threat of the aforementioned, zombies, ghosts, demons, aliens, serial killers and general misanthropists.

It’s like giveaway central round here this summer - we’ve just got 3 packs of Batman goodies (we’re calling them batpacks for fun and convenience) because we (and everyone else in the world) is stoked at the imminent release of the Dark Knight.
I did a survey, by talking to people I know, and I can assure you there is no way that this movie can suck. Even the internet - home of all that is cynical in the world - loves the Dark Knight.

Oh, yeah, included in the batpack are:

A pen

Moleskine Journal with bat logo on it (ooooohhhhh)

Buttons

Silicon bracelet

Keyring - like a utility belt, but on a smaller scale

Batman Begins on Blu-ray - birth of the Dark Knight in crystal clarity

I’d tell you something about the movie, but really, if you’ve managed to avoid the well oiled Dark Knight PR machine up until now, then you probably won’t be reading this post. It’s out on July 24th here in the UK, up until then you can just keep watching the trailer over and over on blinkBox.

If you want to be in with a chance of becoming a Dark Knight merch-strumpet, then mail us at
batstuff@blinkbox.com with your email, your real life address and your full name, by August 1st and then cross your fingers.
Sorry international readers, this is a UK residents only giveaway. If it helps though, you get to see the movie first!

See all the X-Files swag? We’re giving it away - and yes that is a HEAT ACTIVATED mug (!) and X-Files pointer (!!)
We have 5 packs of premium X-Files Bounty to give away, now including The X-Files Essentials DVD, which features 8 of the best episodes (including Bad Blood and The Host from our list) So now if you win you’ll get 8 episodes of goodness on DVD too. I’d be pretty excited.

Should probably mention that the giveaway is open to UK residents only, which means you have more chance of winning, so it makes sense to enter. All you have to do is click the link and a pop up will appear for you to answer our survey question and enter your details. Good luck.

TOP 10 BEST X-FILES EPISODES EVER (according to Us)

• Bad Blood Guest starring Luke Wilson. Real/fake/real vampires. Drugged FBI agents. Pizza. Mulder chasing a winnebago around a trailer park in his underwear. The list goes on and on. Super funny, super awesome, super OCD.
• Jose Chung’s From Outer Space Hands down the funniest episode of the X-Files, in no small part thanks to it’s Rashoman effect. Mulder and Scully as the men in black? Role reversal? Written by Darin Morgan (frequent X-Files guest star) the plot twists and turns and has you laughing out loud. If you never liked the show, watch this one and prepare to change your mind. It’s worth it, just for Mulder’s girlish scream when he sees the body.
• D.P.O What’s not to like about extreme weather and punk rock? Exactly. Nothing. Which is why this episode (which combines the two) makes this list. Giovanni Ribisi stars as backwards mechanic with the power of lightning, and the Vandals playing really loud behind him. Vintage X-Files.
• Squeeze/Tooms Eugene Tooms was the first *monster of the week* and is uber-creepy, because like some kind of stretchy cat man, he can squeeze through any space, no matter how tight or tiny. Ergo. You’ll never be safe. He is an amazing lurker-in-the-shadows, oh and the bile nest he makes? So extremely gross.
• The Host Flukeman rates pretty high on most peoples favourite X-Files monsters list. Interesting fact, he’s played by Darin Morgan, who penned previous list entry, Jose Chung’s From Outer Space. All icky and sludgy and pink and murderous and horrid - he may well be my favourite X-Files monster.
• Anasazi The X-files season 2 finale (when watched in sequence) is a roller coaster ride of a TV show. Earthquakes, FBI conspiracies, Navajo folklore, and two seasons worth of unanswered questions about the truth culminate in this episode and leave us with. A cliffhanger. Frustratingly fantastic.
• Syzygy Another Chris Carter penned comedic episode makes the list. A tongue in cheek look at small town America complete with satanic cults, telekinetic teenage killers, unusual death scenes, astrological alignments and Mulder and Scully on perfect form. This is almost as funny as Jose Chung’s. X-Files at it’s finest.
• Home Know what’s creepy? This episode of the X-Files. Coming on like a David Lynch directed Tobe Hooper movie is Home. Scary scary inbred brothers, bludgeoning people to death in middle of nowhere America (since popularized by 70’s horror remakes) Watch this on your own in the dark and try not to jump, especially when the female appears. Jeez!
• Millennium It was the X-Files/Millennium crossover we’d all been dreaming of. Frank Black (albeit a totally mental Frank Black) teaming up with Mulder and Scully. WOW. It was a pretty good plot too, with Millennium group members trying to bring about the end of the world with their own suicides. Oh, and Mulder and Scully KISS.
• Tunguska Russians! Aliens! The Black oil! The Syndicate! Tunguska promised (well alluded to) the answers to all of these. In true X-Files fashion it only delivered just enough to keep you obsessively viewing. An amazing episode nonetheless.

Apparently, the answer to that is NO ONE. Entertainment Weekly have put Twilight on the cover. Seriously. It’s a lot of hype for a movie not due out til Christmas, but I’m not complaining. I’m keeping myself going with vampire movies and Buffy boxsets in the meantime. Come on Yule

In other un-movie related news - click here for something sort of gross and sort of funny to brighten the last day of a looooooong work-week.

Oh, and watch this space for X-Files fun, very soon.

1. How I Met Your Mother S01E01 - Pavement - Spit on a stranger

So, everyone tuned in for that new Doogie Howser show, wasn’t quite sure about it, I mean, it was funny enough, but were you really going to tune in again? Until- at the last moment - the opening lines of Pavement’s Spit on a Stranger danced out of your television like tiny rays of happiness, as Ted kisses Robyn for the first time. Suddenly, this show had crossed the line, this show may even be cool.

2. The OC - The Seth Cohen Starter pack.

The episode where Seth figures out he likes both Anna and Summer and decides to get them the same gift for Christmas? He gets them the Seth Cohen starter pack, which includes among others, Transatlanticism by Death Cab, Oh Inverted World by The Shins, and an undisclosed Bright Eyes album. The hearts of a million girls swooned , and I <3 Seth Cohen shirt sales went through the roof.

3. My So Called Life - Buffalo tom - Late at Night.

This was the moment from the short lived 90’s show that redefined TV as we know it. Jordan has been keeping his relationship (?) with Angela a secret, and told her “she was sort of crowding him” when she showed up to hang with him at a Buffalo Tom show, while they’re playing Late At Night, only to have the song repeated when he walks up to her in (OMG!) the school hall and takes her hand and leads her off. Even Sharon Trewsky wells up.

4. Gossip Girl - Young Folks - Peter Bjorn & John / Death Cab The Ice is Getting Thinner

Season one of the OC was book-ended with awesome. In the pilot the first thing we hear as the (now familiar) NY montage appears, is the whistling of Peter Bjorn & John’s young folks, even before the narrator utters a word. Fast forward a whole year later - we end at (SPOILER ALERT) Serena & Chuck’s parents wedding, with a (very recently) broken up Serena and Dan dancing to Death Cab. Swoon. This is one of many, many reasons that Gossip Girl is 2008’s perfect TV show.

5. One Tree Hill - The Road Trip

Okay - here’s the deal. I am not a One Tree Hill fan. It doesn’t do much for me, I will probably at some stage go back and watch it all from the beginning, and why? because I own the third soundtrack - The Road Mix, it’s from one episode when the cast take a 20 hour road trip from NC to Texas, and it has Iron and Wine, Songs Ohia AND Lucero on it. I don’t know who did the music for this episode, but they’re my new hero. Serious.

6. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Full of Grace - Sarah McLachlan

The ending of Buffy Season 2 is traumatic enough, Buffy has already told her mother she’s the Slayer and been banned from the house should she decide to go out and save the world (which she does, of course) been taunted by the evil Angelus, watched him turn back into the love of her life Angel, and then had to kill him to close a hell portal. She decides to run away from her life as the slayer, and as we see watch her departing Sunnydale on a Greyhound, as Giles and the gang wait for her at school, Sarah McLachlan’s Full of Grace begins to play. There’s not a dry eye in the house my friends.

7. Criminal Minds - Band of Horses - The End’s not near

In the mid season 2 two-parter, Reed is kidnapped and beaten and injected with heroin and his pals at the BAU can only watch the internet broadcast, powerless to find him. The schizophrenic holding him is no other than Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek. Anyhow, when the FBI eventually find Reed, who has killed his capture while being forced to dig his own grave, it’s hugs and apologies all round, and band of horses starts to play, and it’s all a little moving.

8. Six Feet Under - Death Cab - Transatlanticism.

Clare on Six Feet Under loved drugs. This particularly memorable group singalongadeathcab takes place after Clare has painted TERROR BEGINS AT HOME on her bedroom wall, while (we assume) crazy high. She is with her (soon to be) lesbian sweetheart played by Mena Suvari and an assortment of art school stoners, as they all start to need each other, so much closer….

9. The OC - Black Flag - Wasted.

The OC is making another entry here, remember that period where Seth was getting high? It’s true that most people think of this as the episode where Johnny dies, uh uh, it’s the episode that had BLACK FLAG on the soundtrack. Seriously. I know this is the show that gave us parents in Husker Du shirts, but Woaaaah. What would Rollins say? (Yes, I know he didn’t do vocals on that song)

10. Californication - Death Cab - Passenger Seat

I know this is the billionth Death Cab entry on this list, they’re on a lot of soundtracks. (thanks the OC) but this is a particularly effective use of Passenger Seat, as Becca tells her loser father, Hank, just how things are in the episode, Girls Interrupted. Y’all should watch it for yourselves. My explanation won’t do it justice.