2 weeks ago as I finished packing up my Hackney flat I decided it was time to donate my John Hughes VHS collection to the charity shop (a decision I never thought I’d end up regretting so quickly). I bundled them up into a carrier bag and was about to send them out the door when I realised I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to them all at once, and decided to at least ’save Ferris’.

There’s not a lot of sentiment I can offer in regards to the passing of John Hughes that hasn’t already been offered and worded better, so I’ll be brief. But he was in all seriousness one of my favourite directors, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has remained one of my favourite films since I first saw it as a kid decorating the family Christmas tree (how twee)- cripes even the title of my last post referenced the film.

So here’s to John Hughes and to hoping that the Criterion Collection acknowledges what true cinema classics so many of his films where… or if not, to hunting down where the rest of my VHS Hughes collection is now.

(and here’s also to hoping I won the lottery yesterday so I can buy this flat)

illustration c/o Feeling Stitchy

17 days and no posts, tut tut tut. This was due to being very busy recently (which 9 on the list partially explains) and not for a lack of subject matter, in fact there’s been a tidal wave of subjects I could have written about that I felt overwhelmed at the prospect of catching up. So here is a rodeo round up of 9 things that I could have written about but didn’t since June 1st…

1) iPod Touch 3.0 update. I have an iPod touch so the update is not as thrill a minute for me as the iPhone owners. But it was £5.99 well spent on the ability to copy and paste.

2) Kev and Alice An interesting experiment in which games design student Robin Burkinshaw is documenting the lives of two homeless characters (Kev and his daughter Alice) he created and has let loose within Sims 3  (found c/o Billt)

3) Digital Britain Well who doesn’t know by now that the full report was published this week to a generally ‘its not soo bad’ reaction.

4) American Prince Tommy Pallotta’s (producer of rotorscoperific A Scanner Darkly and Waking life) sequel to Martin Scorsese’s American Boy, American Prince has been distributed for free across tinterweb torrents.

5) Eden I don’t think I’ve ever been as surprised by news of an upcoming video game as I am with Eden; a first person PC follow up to events in Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist – not one for the DS then.

6) Milo All technological wows of Milo and Natal aside- does anyone else have the nagging feeling that Milo is the harbinger of doom who will eventually bring about the death of the human race?

7) Channel 4 Back Catalogue From July Channel 4 is going to be putting all of their back catalogue on the 4oD catch up service for free.

8 ) #iranelection I’m guessing that 99.9% of people reading this post will be on twitter so I don’t need to elaborate on the impact twitter and the Iran election have had on each other, especially in light of the fact that the Twitter rescheduled maintenance to ensure the service stayed up on Monday.

9) New Job and last but not least, I have a new job as an Innovation and New Markets Executive for Screen West Midlands which I’m thrilled about. Meaning I will departing Soda Pictures and London (eep) at the beginning of July to return to my Brummie roots.

About a year ago when 3D was being hailed as the saviour of film I wrote a post on my previous blog listing directors I’d love to see work in the format to save it from my expectations  of ‘poking objects’ cinema (with the exception of Coraline which was then gleaming on the horizon). Although Wim Wenders wasn’t on said list I’m excited and curious at the recent news of his upcoming 3D dance feature film with choreographer Pina Bausch

Yes I admit that at first the uncultured pleb in me was put off at the prospect of a dance feature film other than Step Up, but on second thoughts I wish I’d had the chance to see the dance sequences of Carousel, Moulin Rouge, or countless Fred Astaire performances  in 3 dimensions so I’ve put my hesitations on hold.

Although I don’t believe in an all 3D future I’m glad to see a director I respect exploring the medium’s potential. And I  hope that before the fad is over a few others are given the financial backing and freedom to create some really memorable films to look back on other than a mass of children’s animations and trashy horror.

EDIT 07/07/09: Very sadly production has now been halted on the production owing to Pina Baush’s  unexpected death on June 30th.

The Playmakers is a three way venture between the team behind the Hide and Seek festival and sandpit sessions, Nesta and Think Public with the goal of creating a new game, a documentary of the games progress and another film about ‘play’.

I took part in the 2nd ‘playtest’ of the game being developed whilst at the ICA sandpit in May. It  involved 3 teams bounding about St James park in very flattering brightly coloured sports bibs whilst carrying face masks and a jazzily decorated flip camera mounted on a tripod. Looking suitably insane we then had to perform various timed ‘religious rituals’a different locations. It was a lot of fun, but as you’d expect from a work in progress it was also a little confusing at times.

So if like me you’re happy to adorn sports bibs and get a little sweaty, but unlike me are in London on June 3rd then I highly recommend you head along to the 12th Sandpit session at the Soho theatre (see hide & seek site for full details) for a chance to be be take part in the games 4th highly scientific playtest in the guise of ‘Soho Spy Squad’.

However praise be as sanity may be slowly prevailing as in last weeks Guardian box office round up by Charles Gant came some incredibly sensible comments regarding the pre release leak of Wolverine online…

“Based on the comicbook spin-off’s performance at the UK box office, it seems the online piracy of Wolverine has had little effect. The official opening weekend figure is £6.66m, including Wednesday and Thursday previews of £1.87m. Add in the bank holiday Monday takings of £1.9m, and the prequel has grossed £8.56m in six days – far and away the biggest release of 2009 so far.”

Yes that’s right, a film with a high profile online leak still managed to have the highest opening weekend of the year so far (one that even Star Trek failed to beat by a reasonable margin). I’m yet to know whether the leak online was, as some have suggested, a marketing tactic by Fox and would be fascinated to know if this leak might have actually helped the box office.

Although I don’t think that this news is going to open the flood gates on alternative distribution for blockbuster release titles just yet, at least it does give me an alternative response to ’shut up’ next time someone fires at me the line…

“Our film has been pirated online a billion times, therefore we have lost out on a billion sales”