And the winner is……

As the year is coming to an end there are always awards to be won, presents to receive, and lots of turkey to eat. 

Across many of the media websites there are the ranking of the top 10 agencies, ad campaigns, and even the worst.  But what do those specialists really know anyways?  The real voice is the people from the agencies….Maxus.  So in usual fashion let’s put it up to have a list.

What media campaigns stand out in your mind from the past year?  They do not have to be maybe an entire campaign but a neat implementation idea.

For me it has to be Virgin Atlantic TV commercial with the flight attendants in the overly red suits.  However, I did like the expansion of comparethemeerkat.com online to a facebook page that had new information up every day or so.

ITV1 has a new drama and it’s promising to be the new Cold Feet.

Married Single Other is a six part-er with and ensemble cast featuring amongst others, Lucy Davis (The Office) and Ralf Little (Two Pints and Royal Family)

First aired on February 22nd it made a promising start with 6.2 million viewers and a 25.5% audience share in the 9pm slot however, I am cynical and dubious about it ever becoming or having the success of the highly acclaimed Cold Feet that had 5 series and won 20 major television awards during it’s 6 year stint as one of ITV’s major rating success stories.

I have watched both episodes and I have to say I am not hooked. Yes, there are 6 of them, and yes, they are all friends but that is the only comparison I can make between MSO and Cold Feet. The casting director must have been having a laugh or on medication when he decided on the role of Ralph Little as the ’stud’ because everytime I see him on screen with his circa 1993 M&S suit and his greasy boyband hair i find it completely unbelievable that he has girls swooning over him. Also, Babs’ the middle aged married lady stuck in a rut with her gambling addict husband is the Malteser advert girl. She will ALWAYS be the Maltese girl and therefore it’s very hard to concentrate on anything she is saying when she is trying to act.

Maybe I am being a little harsh, give it time I hear you say, but frankly I have a feeling this may be Married Single Other’s first and last outing at ITV1.

What do you think?

Soundtracks can make or break a film, and some are obviously better than others…

I for one am very much looking forward to seeing the new Martin Scorsese flick Shutter Island. After the warranted success of his last film, The Departed in 2006, I believe Shutter Island will keep up his usual standards in delivering exceptional pieces of modern cinema. His collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed & now Shutter Island) always seem to portray both lead and director as two artists at the top of their games.

More important to this piece however is Scorsese’s ability to deliver amazing soundtracks. A brief glimpse at his back catalogue (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino and the above mentioned – especially The Departed) not only brings to mind scenes of greatness but also the songs that accompany said scenes – Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb fading in and out during a tense scene in The Departed for example.

I have listed below, in no particular order, my top 10 movie soundtracks. Feel free to comment / leave your own list.

Gladiator
Top Gun
Kill Bill v.1 & 2
Empire Records
Rocky IV
Pirates of the Caribbean (Curse of the Black Pearl)
Star Wars (original trilogy)
The Departed
Human Traffic
Apocalypse Now

He’s one of the most iconic men in the world, the face of many an advertising campaign, and recently a new member of the philanderer club. He now keeps company with famous footballers, singers and actors as he airs his dirty laundry in the newspapers and websites of our information hungry and celebrity driven society.

The issue is not that he ever did this necessarily, more what does he now have to do as a husband, and also a public figure.

Like many others in his position, should he be provided with the privacy that you or I would demand as individuals? Or does he owe a duty of care to millions of people that consider him a role model? Lest we forget, it is us that put him on this pedestal, is it also our right to be involved in his private affairs?

Should Tiger Woods be forced to make a public apology?

The hype of podcasts has risen and slightly floundered now that video has such a strangle hold on the web but recently I have started to become an avid fan of a number of great podcasts which I have came across.

For sport, football and general blokey nonsense and banter it doesn’t come any better than Danny Baker’s Radio Five show from Saturday mornings and the legendary Football Ramble which has to be one of the best and most consistently entertaining pieces of entertainment ever. Coffee Break Spanish has been great at providing bite size commuter chunks of Spanish to help me try and get some basic Spanish under my belt, which the Veteran Gamers podcast provides an insight and mature observation on gaming that doesn’t concern itself with any of the fan boy idocy.

Despite having these though I want more and besides trial and error it is hit and miss at finding the gems amongst the rough so I put it to you, people of the internet, to recommend some further podcast joy to get me through the weekly commutes.

There has been an interesting development from Warner music who appear to be about to stop their music being streamed for free on the likes of We7, Last.fm and Spotify. What will be interesting to see is whether they are alone in making this move or if other labels will follow suit pulling all of their music or even just certain artists.

The economics for record labels obviously aren’t stacking up for Warner and the ‘freemium’ model isn’t delivering the sort of revenue they were hoping for and this must also highlight some of the pressures of streaming costs on the music services as well.

It seems the record labels are yet to find a way to regain even a small percentage of the perceived lost revenue by illegal downloading and with the mounting losses and debts could it be that 2010 could start the decade with the biggest shake up ever to the music industry and one of the big labels goes into administration or worse? Surely they can not continue losing money as they are forever?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8507885.stm

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.