23 year old Deadboy produces dizzy heartbreak anthems which blur the lines between garage, house, R’n'B and dubstep. His tunes feature swirling synths, warming bass and chopped up vocal loops and bring a sexy, summery, loved up vibe. Local support this Saturday night is premo featuring Kit Pop & Zeke (live), {Move} DJs, Deadweight! DJs, D.Y.P, Clunk and Rekab. It’s going to be a big night – better have an early one on Friday .

To get you in the mood here a couple of Deadboys incredibly infectious singles, If U Want Me and U Cheated.

Deadboy – If U Want Me

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Deadboy – U Cheated

Also… vote for Tomás Ford in the 2010 WAMis. He’s up for Most Popular Live Act, Best Electronic Producer, Best Electronic Live Act.

Tomás Ford (Website)

WAMi voting (Website)

The Electro Wars (Website)

The Holidays – The Moonlight Hours (Jonathan Boulet Remix)

The Holidays (Myspace)

The Face Facts short film competition is asking young Aussies to produce an original 60-second film to highlight the dangers associated with taking the drug ecstasy. The competition asks the question – how would you warn your own mates about the dangers of taking ecstasy. The winning film will receive a cool $10k cash, while five runner-ups will pocket $1k each.

The competition opened at 10am today, and those keen to get involved can find more details at the microsite (here). Entries close on April 30, when six final films will be chosen and uploaded to this microsite. Then anyone can log on, watch the films, and vote for their favourite to be in with a chance of winning $5k themselves!

My objections are pretty simple and you can read them after the jump…

The poster attached to this post sums up exactly the wrong way to approach drug education. It makes me laugh to think that people would actually select this kind of image to stop drug use, nobody takes drugs in places like that! They go to parties, festivals and clubs and have fun, and there are good reasons for why ‘fear’ campaigns don’t work.

There is an inherent flaw in the design of these campaigns. If you’re lead to believe that drugs will cause you harm (tremors, nausea, memory impairment, etc… and of course in extreme cases death) and you take the chance and try drugs, and no harm comes to you, you feel like you’ve been lied to, which of course you have. You’re now less likely to believe any future fear campaigns, because you know there’s little truth in their claims.

Instead I think it is more beneficial to tell the truth. If you take ecstasy you’re going to feel good, and MDMA itself isn’t going to harm you in it’s pure form. MDMA was originally used as a couple’s therapy drug to increase libido and ‘closeness.’ Today the risk lies in quality control. There’s no guarantee the product you buy is what you think it is.

It’s also important to highlight the facts about addiction, often included in most fear campaigns. When you first try a drug (whether it’s illegal OR alcohol) you don’t know if you’re going to become addicted. It’s the risk you take and this needs to be highlighted, drugs and alcohol can be attractive ways to avoid your problems but they do little to solve your problems in the long run.

If we educated people about drugs, and don’t induce fear, we’re more likely to have the effect we want, less people causing themselves serious harm.

Well, at least it’s original.

The latest offering from Grant Heslov (better known for his acting, but now rarely seen unattached to George Clooney’s hip/coattails) is exactly as madcap as it sounds.  Ewan McGregor plays Bob, a cuckolded small-town journalist, who decides to prove his manliness to his estranged wife by heading to the Middle East to become a war correspondent.  (Naturally, the most obvious way to win back your woman is to go to the other side of the world.)  Languishing in Kuwait City with no way to cross the border into Iraq, he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney at his comedic best), who reveals himself to be a military-trained, US-sanctioned Jedi Knight, on a covert mission to rescue his former mentor, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, clearly having the time of his life wearing full military garb with a long gray French plait).

What follows is something of a cross between a rescue movie, a buddy comedy and a total piss-take of New Age philosophy.  When Django is eventually found, it is in a facility run by Lyn’s former rival, a fellow military recruit by the name of Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey, again proving that nothing he does for the rest of his life will ever be as good as American Beauty.  Even K-Pax.).   Lyn fears that Hooper has delved too deeply into the “dark side” of their “Jedi powers”.  Really, one can’t help but be impressed that this film got made at all, since surely innumerable takes would have been ruined by Obi-Wan McGregor laughing at the dialogue, or possibly everyone laughing at McGregor.

The laughs abound – in fact, if you’re curious about the film at all, it would be worth seeing it soon just so that nobody ruins the jokes for you.  However, while it’s easy to enjoy The Men Who Stare At Goats, it falls a little shy of excellence.  It’s hard to tell whether casting McGregor is a help or hindrance to the film.  While he is indisputably a talent, his performance isn’t so good that one cannot imagine the film without him, which is possibly more thanks to the fact that he is the “straight man” in most of the comedic scenes.  However, a lot of the laughs come from the “inside joke” that he played a Jedi in the recent Star Wars prequels, and after the first hour or so, it starts to seem that the film is relying on this gag a little too much.

The finale of the film is also a little forced.  The showdown that seems inevitable doesn’t quite manifest, and even though this subversion of the traditional narrative structure works in an oddball film like this one, the eventual direction of the film seems a tad abrupt and hollow.

Still, The Men Who Stare At Goats works hard for most of its duration, packing the witticisms, double-speak and New Age tomfoolery into a great little package that gets a lot of laughs.  It’s a terrific film, but falls just shy of the comedy classic that it might have been.

Your Mission – to interpret the phrase “Run Rabbit Run”

The Rules – There are no rules

The Prize – Judges Prize: $1000

- Peoples’ Prize $250

The deadline – 5 March 2010

Award Ceremony – 18 March 2010 at Llama Bar

The answer is yes – just. 

The long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s kiddie classic is visually glorious, emotive and generally a viewing pleasure.  It’s not a complicated story: youngster Max is confused by the world around him, escapes to a strange land populated by oddball creatures, does some awesome stuff, does some not-so-awesome stuff, gets bored, and comes home to Mum.  It doesn’t exactly sound enthralling on paper (or on a computer screen) but on film, well, golly.  It looks incredible and, without banging on about it too much, is a testament to what can be achieved when a director invests as much time in costuming, practical effects and location scouting as they do in the new-fangled computer trickery.  If more directors took Jonze’s lead, we would no doubt be watching many more films that are genuinely visually engaging, instead of just golden calves symbolising how many CGI soldiers, waves and explosions money can buy.  Max Records is well cast and suitably adorable in his little costume.  The soundtrack is indie-licious, and the film is beautifully lit. 

However, the most interesting aspects of the film are the Wild Things themselves, and not just because they are an amazing accomplishment from a technical perspective.  Sure, they are an almost perfect example of the practical and the computer-generated joining forces, and the realistic feel of them goes a long way to giving the film legs.  But it’s the Wild Things as characters that really grab hold of the audience’s attention.  The fraught romances, the hopelessness, the desperation to break out of the cycle they’re stuck in – the Wild Things are tragic figures, clinging to Max’s coat-tails until he wearies of them and jumps ship (literally) back to the human world.  There’s no resolution for them; they are left saddened while their friend returns home to have his cake (and eat it, too). 

Of course, there’s a strong argument for the Wild Things not needing any resolution.  They are the creations of Max’s mind, and a nine-year-old kid isn’t exactly under an obligation to provide his imaginary friends with a satisfying emotional conclusion.  However, it is possible that Jonze is under such an obligation to the viewers, and he doesn’t quite come through for his audience here.  The film, which travels at a pace one could kindly describe as meandering, does seem to rush through its finale, and one can’t help but feel that if Jonze was prepared to put so much effort into creating this host of interesting, three-dimensional characters, he could have given them a better farewell than rushing them out of frame in the final minutes.  

Do the Wild Things learn anything from Max, and vice versa?  In the end, it appears the answer may well be, “No.”  Even though that seems like a negative comment, the truth is that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The difficulty with this film is that it is wonderful to watch, but doesn’t bear much scrutiny.  It needs to be viewed as a child views the world: impulsively, emotionally and completely.  This film will immerse you in its landscape and make you feel like a child again, if you let it.  For a hundred minutes, you will receive the rare gift of feeling like you could create an entire world just because you willed it, and it is amazing.  However, when the credits roll and you stand up and walk out, blinking in the light, the cracks begin to show if you analyse it too much. 

Arcade Fire warned us in the trailer – when we grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.  Watch this film with the heart of a nine-year-old, surrender yourself to the memory of being a kid, and get lost in this wonderful, wild world.