I'm A Little Bit In Love With Karl Urban

The man who rocked a frightwig and silly helmet

better than anyone in Lord Of The Rings...

...shot lens flare from his eyes in Star Trek...

...gets his own character poster in RED...

...and who, in spectacular style, named his son

(who shares his birthday with me) Hunter...

...is about to play JUDGE DREDD.

The scowl needs work, but have faith. Kurbs Is The Law.

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Don Black: ICON, Apparently

Great news for dreadful amateur songwriters out there last week: lyricist Don Black will have the title of "Icon" bestowed on him by the BMI at their annual awards next month!

Don Black is, as you're all aware, the man behind the words to some of the greatest Bond themes of our time. Let's have a look at some of his work in detail:

Tom Jones - Thunderball

A cautionary tale: "His needs are more so he gives less"? I tried that in Tesco once. I needed more fish fingers so I gave the lady on the checkout less money. When she asked me what I thought I was playing at I explained that it's how James Bond goes about achieving success and that they call him the winner who takes all. She quite rightly pointed out that nobody's ever called James Bond that and if he came in here and tried that shit she'd strike him in his Thunderballs.

Lulu - The Man With The Golden Gun

Be honest Don, when you wrote that you weren't concentrating were you? I bet you were watching Yugoslavia thumping Zaire 9-0 in the 1974 World Cup. Don't worry, I think you got away with it.

Shirley Bassey - Diamonds Are Forever

Don claims that Shirley Bassey added all those extra letters in but I think he fell asleep on his keyboard and was too embarrassed to admit his mistake.

Having said all that, Don - along with The Incredible Suit hero David Arnold - was responsible for the Bond theme that never was that absolutely should have been: "Surrender" by upper-case-phobic k.d.lang, which had to be content with slouching grumpily over the end credits of Tomorrow Never Dies when it was relegated in favour of Sheryl Crow's abysmadirge ("Darling I'm killed / I'm in a puddle on the floor").

k.d. lang - Surrender


All of which gives me a good excuse to shove up this clip from one of the greatest Bond documentaries ever made, available to watch in irritating chunks on YouTube at your leisure.



So congratumalations Donald! I always said you were the best at what it is that you do.

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Snub Pollard: It's A Gift

Snub Pollard may not be as well known as his contemporaries, but his 1923 short It's A Gift is silent comedy gold. This is a re-edited version with a daft voiceover and annoying digital glitches, but it's the best quality example on the intertubes. You can watch the short in a more complete version here, but the picture's not as good and the final gag is badly cut, so if I were you I'd stay here and enjoy six and a half minutes of insanely-moustached Wallace & Gromitesque buffoonery.



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Saturday Playlist #4: Michael Giacchino

This week's orchestral orgy comes courtesy of Pixar and JJ Abrams regular and spelling pedants' nightmare Michael Giacchino, best known for being the film composer most often confused for an overpriced coffee.

There's no point in me explaining who he is and what he's done while Wikipedia still exists, so do head over there and edumacate yourselves. But before you do...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO

SATURDAY PLAYLIST #4:

MICHAEL GIACCHINO

Disclaimer: This playlist includes an abridged version of Giacchino's monstrously majestic masterpiece "Roar!", composed for the end credits of Cloverfield, because the full twelve-minutes-and-nineteen-seconds leviathan isn't on Spotify. You can get it on iTunes though and I wholly recommend doing so as fast as your wallet will allow.

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The Jewel Of The Nile: FACTGASM

Against my better judgement and, indeed, my own advice, I didn't watch a load of great movies on Bank Holiday Monday. Instead I watched The Jewel Of The Nile, the One True Voice to Romancing The Stone's Girls Aloud.

I won't bore you by banging on about how, in the long and sad history of inferior sequels, this one stands mulleted head and shoulders above most. Instead, prepare yourself, because I'm going to FACT you till you fart.

Just so you know, these facts have been independently verified by the Fact And Truth Checkers of the United Nations Trust Society.

FACT!

The poster is 28 times more exciting than the film.

FACT!
The video of the song of the credits of the movie, which repeatedly features the popular misheard lyric "Go And Get Stuffed", is single-handedly responsible for the death of the trend in which movie stars appeared in music videos for their own films.

FACT!

The novelisations of this film and its vastly superior predecessor were credited to Joan Wilder, the romance novelist played by Kathleen Turner in the films. That's meta before meta was even invented.

FACTETTE!

The cover design for the Romancing The Stone novelisation kicks the Jewel Of The Nile cover's ass off.

BEST FACT EVER!

The Jewel Of The Nile was the last film to be released on Capacitance Electronic Disc, or "Selectavision", an utterly bonkers prehistoric home video format which worked like a vinyl record, with grooves and a stylus and everything.

You may consider yourselves well and truly FACTed. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

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Milla Jovovich Does The Sensible Thing

I think if I were starring in Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D, I'd probably shoot myself in the arm too.

Drew Struzan Documentary: Not Coming Soon Enough

Some very nice people have made a documentary about movie-poster-making-chap Drew Struzan, some of whose work can be seen in this fawning post I wrote yonks ago. Nobody's picked it up for distribution yet so it's going to be ages before we see it, but when we do it will make sweet airbrushed love to your eyeballs.

Don't believe me? Don't just take my word for it. TAKE STEVE GUTTENBERG'S.



In unrelated news, it's my birthday in November.

This book is released on September 24th and is just £16.24 at Amazon. Just saying.

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