Monsters University; to watch or not to watch?

Monster's University is the prequel to computer-animated, family comedy Monsters, Inc. It has been a long 12 years since the release of the first film in 2001 and in 2005, Pixar and Walt Disney joined together to create this movie in the hope it could live up to the first... seven years later it is here and the verdict is in.

Rating: 7.9/10

Genre: Comedy

Starring: Billy Crystal and John Goodman

Directed by: Dan Scanlon

Trivia: The voice of Mike is done by Billy Crystal, a 65-year-old man.

Plot: Rewind the Monsters, Inc story a few years and the two beloved characters, Mike and Sully, are venturing to Monsters University. However, things aren't how you'd expect them to be and as the guys start to get to know each other for the first time, they don't exactly see 'eye to eye'...

Verdict: A MUST WATCH. A genuinely fantastic, feel-good, family film. It has gone straight in with the Disney classics and in my opinion, was as equally good as the first, if not better. For a film mainly aimed at children and families, I feel as if it can be enjoyed by any audience and is beautifully emotive. You can laugh, cry, feel nervous and get angry whilst watching it. I'm going to be honest, it's also really relatable, despite the characters being monsters in a mythical land. Get yourself to the cinema and watch it as soon as possible!

Three Awesome Things You Could Be Doing Right Now

Bored this Sunday? Nothing to do? 

Why don't you...

LISTEN TO JIMI HENDRIX'S NEW ALBUM

'People, Hell and Angels' is deceased Hendrix's newest album, released on March 5th,  2013. Recorded between 1968 and 1970, it contains 12 previously unreleased and digitally remastered songs. The album really does take the Hendrix experience to the next level, everyone needs to listen to it.

WATCH THIS ENTHRALLING DOCUMENTARY

Who knew African grassland documentaries could be so interesting? I accidentally stumbled across this documentary when looking for something else on YouTube and immediately fell in love with it. Samuel L Jackson narrates the journey of lions and leopards across Africa and along with the incredible soundtrack, this documentary is like an animal reality version of Game of Thrones... kind of.

LISTEN TO DALLAS GREEN'S BEAUTIFUL VOICE

Dallas Green is one of my favourite artists of all time with his solo project City and Colour. He is one of the only artists I have seen that is as good live as he is recorded, if not better. This song is from a recent album and isn't acoustic, but I think he's worked the song to sound perfect in this acoustic performance.

Bands to Watch out for at Boomtown Fair 2013

It's 47 days until 'the UK's maddest city', Boomtown Fair, opens the city gates to thousands of festival goers. Hampshire better be prepared for the intense amounts of tie-dye, dreadlocks and tea shades ready to party to some incredible bands... such as;

Toots and the Maytals

You may be wondering why the first band on the list is crossed out. This is because I started writing this blog post when they were the headlining band on the first day, but they have since dropped out. Disappointment. It must be on the record how much this grinds my gears.

Arrested Development

Best song: People Everyday

This is the kind of band you'd expect the Fresh Prince to be bustin' some moves out to. Arrested Development formed in the late 80s and are the epitome of decent black American nineties music. A big ol' mixture of rap, hip hop, blues and funk combined with political and socially conscious lyrics, AD are a must see band for Boomtown this year.

The Skints

Best song: You Better

The Skints are a through and through London band, you can tell straight away from listening to them. The mix up reggae, ska, dub and punk making a new genre, which they have named 'East London Reggae'. I personally preferred their more chilled songs such as 'You Better' but they also pull it out the bag with more up-tempo songs such as 'Rise Up'.

Gentlemen's Dub Club

Best song: High Grade

These guys must be high at least 98% of the time. At least they do something productive though, like make totally bad ass music. They have extensive festival experience, they've previously played at festivals such as Bestival, Glastonbury and V Festival. GDC are guaranteed to put on a decent performance.

Bigtopp

Best song: No Doubts

This is the band I'm most excited to see, I've seen them a few times before and they have always got the crowd going with their intoxicating rhythms, upbeat songs and catchy lyrics. Bigtopp may not be as well-known as some of the aforementioned bands but they deserve to be, you can not miss them this year!

For more information about bands that are playing or Boomtown Fair 2013 in general, visit the main website, boomtownfair.co.uk

Random and Irrelevant Film Trivia

This blog post is exactly what it says in the title... random trivia about films from the past fifty years that you don't really need to know, but maybe one day it will come up in conversation and it can be your time to shine... probably not though.

Without further ado, here we are.

• In the Godfather, there are approximately 61 scenes in the film that feature people eating, drinking, or just food. 

• The Departed is the movie with the most uses of the word "fuck" and its derivatives (237) to win the Best Picture Oscar.

• The large poster in Harold and Kumar's apartment in Harold and Kumar get the Munchies is for a 1942 anti-marijuana propaganda film known as "Devil's Harvest". 

• The "Scuba Steve" action figure in Big Daddy is a fictional doll made up by Adam Sandler. "Scuba Steve" is based on a doll that Adam Sandler owned when he was a child, called Diver Dan. 

• Oliver Stone wrote Scarface while fighting a cocaine addiction.

• The shot of Vincent plunging the syringe into Mia's chest in Pulp Fiction was filmed by having John Travolta pull the needle out, then running the film backwards. 

• When a Fight Club member sprays the priest with a hose, the camera briefly shakes. This happens because the cameraman couldn't keep himself from laughing. 

• Alan Rickman's feature film debut was the original Die Hard.

• In the final scene of Snatch, the 86-carat diamond is referred to as an 84-carat diamond. 

• Johnny Depp wore contact lenses in the first Pirates of the Caribbean which served as sunglasses so he wouldn't be squinting in the sun all the time. 

Introducing... Go Lazarus

The three strapping gentlemen you see above are tonsillitis sufferer Adam, almost-apple-genius Ant and half Italian, half film nerd Dan. These men are each a third of the alternative rock band Go Lazarus. They spent their twenties looking for the perfect sound, experimenting with different bands such I Am Without Shoes and Red Feather Lake, and have combined all their varying musical tastes and copious experience within the industry together to create something new, catchy and pretty damn epic. This month I caught up with Ant and Dan to get to know the inner workings of Go Lazarus.

When and why did Go Lazarus start?

Ant: Well, GL actually started in 2006 but when Dan and I were at college, we used to play together a load, like Stone Roses covers and stuff, then life kind of got in the way. We went to uni so stopped for a bit, then started, then Ant went travelling for a year, so we stopped, and when he got back we finally decided to do something properly.

Dan: It's like the Blues Brother, we were trying to get the band back together... we basically procrastinated for ten years.

If GL could play with any band, who would it be?

Ant: Mutually, it'd be the Stone Roses. Imagine saying something like "Did you like our support act, the Stones Roses? They're pretty good, ain't they?". It would be cool to play with Alexisonfire but they're a completely different genre so it'd be a weird gig...

Dan: I'd quite like to play with Bloc Party... or early the Cure... or maybe Led Zeppelin.

So if you could be one musician for the day, who would it be?

Dan: Buddy Rich, all jazz on your ass. That is jazz not jizz by the way, that could be awkward.

Ant: I'd have Eddie Hazel [psychedelic guitarist from Funkadelic] but he did have a pretty bad PCP addiction so… maybe not.

Dan: Adam would probably be Daniel Beddingfield, he actually loves him. 

Use one word to describe Go Lazarus.

Ant: Fractured

Dan: What? (A similar reaction to my own).

Ant: Musically, recording, writing, when we're tryna organise who drives to a gig... fractured.

Dan: Tempestuous.

It was at this point Ant and Dan decided to look up old Victorian words that are the best to describe oneself.

Ant: Lunting; walking whilst smoking a pipe... haha, this is a good one; "Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger, what we would today call a columnist".

Where is the band going to be in five years time?

Ant: Lunting whilst fractured; then spermologing.

Dan: Hopefully still together.

Ant: Emotionally.

Dan: Spiritually, physically...

Ant: Hopefully we'll still have all our teeth.

Dan: and our hair... we're pretty fucking rock and roll. Yeah.

Who writes the songs in the band?

Ant: That would be me.

Where does your inspiration for song writing come from?

Ant: Just life, I guess. I write what I want to listen, I write something I hope the other two will like. 

Lyrically some songs mean a lot, for instance 'Avalanche' was about someone who's parents passed away, but sometimes I write throwaway songs that I just feel like writing at the time.

Tell me about the new EP.

Ant: It was recorded in Cambridge last December with a guy called Mattie Moon.

Dan: We spent the majority of the year writing the tracks and went down there for a couple of weeks to a shitty little industrial estate with no heating. We laid the tracks down and he spent a month producing them.

Ant: At one point, I had four amps at once, it was like an acid trip with an ego.

Some of your songs seem to be different genres, some more rock based, some more indie based. 

What direction do you see GL going for in the future?

Ant: I like stuff to be up tempo 'cause I get bored. I get a lot of my influence from The Rapture and warehouse parties, much to Dan's annoyance. It's all varied though. We'll just continue playing the best music, a combination of all our influences put together.

Since the release of the EP "3 Strikes" in February, Go Lazarus had been played on the radio in America, Australlia, Canada and have been played on numerous occasions on BBC Introducing. It can be bought on iTunes or listened to at www.soundcloud.com/golazarus.