When Stranger Things debuted last summer we were treated to something weirdly familiar. The small-town Spielbergian feel, that Stephen King font, countless Dungeons and Dragons references… The Duffer Brothers’ 80s-set sci-fi series was literally dripping with VHS-tinged nostalgia. Thankfully, it also featured some weighty turns from Winona Ryder, David Harbour and Matthew Modine. Combined, they saved it from getting lost in a bouffant-hair tangle of retro callbacks but still - that nostalgia factor undoubtedly played a huge part in shooting it straight to the top of everyone’s binge list in record time. 

​It’s not that surprising. With pop-culture’s incessant need to reflect on its own past achievements, a retro-gaze show like Stranger Things felt sort of inevitable. Twelve months later and with the Duffer duo prepping an eagerly anticipated second season little seems to have changed, although whether or not it’ll be gobbled up as ravenously by fans remains to be seen. If the show’s marketing push is anything to go by, Stranger Things has delved deeper into pop-culture regression than any of its scrawny cast ever dared delve into the shadowy Upside Down. It raises the question: how long can the show rely on self-aware nods in place of original tone-setting? 

Whatever the reason, it’ll surely have to make this transition sooner or later. With a reported four-season arc in the works, Stranger Things’ sophomore series will be a defining and crucial moment for the story. Will audiences lap up its numerous nods to the shows, movies and music that defined their youth or will they clamour for something a little more fresh and exciting? With any luck, The Duffer Brothers have a few left-field surprises waiting for us lurking in the deep and eerie darkness of the Upside Down...

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Does Stranger Things' nostalgia bother you? Let me know in the comments below!

​This weekend I returned to Leeds Festival for the second time following a whopping eight year gap. If you were wondering just how much a festival can change in that amount of time the answer is… well, loads. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. Leeds Festival itself hasn’t really changed all that much - Look around the arena and you’ll see all the same tents, stages and dodgy fairground rides right where they were way-back-when. It’s the people who fill those tents and stages and puke outside those dodgy fairground rides who have changed - and pretty dramatically too. 

Leeds Festival was the first festival I ever went to back in the olden-days year of 2003. Back then, the festival’s demographic was dominated by greasy teens with beanie hats, Slipknot hoodies and stoner-red eyes. The acts reflected this as well - Metallica, System of a Down, Linkin Park and Blink 182 were just a few of the headliners that year. Cut to 14 years (OH GOD) later in 2017 and the Leeds crowd is again largely made up of teenagers, however instead of grimy mosher attire these teens are preened, tanned and survive on a diet of reality TV, Snapchat filters and various pouty poses.

I know, I know… this is making me sound old, right? Maybe it is but this startling change didn’t stop us from having a fun weekend. In fact, ‘change’ in general is to blame for vastly improving our festival experience. Back when I made my festival debut as a spotty wee 16 year old I’d never seen anything like it and as such made loads of rookie mistakes. For starters, we arrived at a drop off point that felt a million miles away from where we intended to camp and the trek over very nearly killed me. Seriously. By the time we arrived at our chosen spot I looked worse than Frodo arriving at Mount Doom. 

Not the case this year, though. The older and (sort of) wiser me quickly learned from this mistake and planned accordingly from there on out. Plus, unlike Awkward Teenage Simon, (still awkward) Old Man Simon has a job - a job that gives him the opportunity to cover the event for a press outlet… and use the easy-access guest camping area. 

Handy. Especially considering the chaos that can sometimes ensue in general camping. Like the time during one of my final Leeds stints as a teenager where I woke on the last day, groggily emerged from my tent and was immediately hit directly in the balls by a rogue apple launched into the air by a distant stranger. No one was awake to see it happen. I was left to deal with the pain without even getting a funny story out of it. If nothing else, it was kind of an impressive shot. Well done, stranger. 

But I digress. I suppose what I’m really trying to say is Leeds Festival has changed but I’ve changed too and change, in any form, isn’t always such a bad thing. Especially when it reduces your chance of unexpectedly getting nailed in the crotch by an airborn fruit. 

Photography ©​ Vanessa Louise Worswick.

What was your first ever festival? Let me know in the comments below!

Superhero movies. We’ll have to find a way to live with them because there’s absolutely no chance we’re ever going to live without them. Remember simpler times where death and taxes were the only guarantees in life? Well now spandex clad heroes with dodgy backstories have joined the ranks of things we’ll never be able to escape. At this rate, the most audiences can hope for is to have their time and money rewarded with compelling stories driven by well thought out narrative arcs. That’s why it was a little disheartening (if not entirely surprising) to learn that DC and Warner Bros are planning a stand-alone origin story for the Joker. 

First off, we know what you’re thinking: Jared Leto probably is youthful enough to play a younger version of himself. You’re right but it doesn’t matter. In fact, very little matters with this one. DC and Warner Bros’ Joker movie aims to kick start a whole new storytelling offshoot aimed at expanding DC properties with different actors playing iconic characters that have already been cast in other DC movies. So is it linked to Justice League? No. Suicide Squad? Naa. What about Affleck’s stand-alone Batman movie? Nope. The only assumption you’d be correct in having is that the cinematic DC universe is totally winging it and has been for some time. 

In contrast, its cinematic rival Marvel is like the kid in high-school that’s revised all year and is ready to reap the rewards, with their upcoming Infinity War double-punch poised to tie up loose ends and make good on all of the promises peppered throughout their twenty film,
three phase arc. As a result it’s been a fruitful experience for fans and studio execs alike, with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 set to keep both parties smiling for at least another decade. 

DC on the other hand has been doing some frantic last minute cramming. Their haphazard game of catch-up has seen the studio fast-track its own answer to The Avengers, with a two-part Justice League film just a few months off despite three of its brooding heroes lacking stand alone films. It rubbed its core audience the wrong way with a neck-snapping Superman and a gun-toting Batman and raised the eyebrows of movie critics everywhere with features plagued by dreaded reshoots. The only gem in the DC crown so far is Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, a film that flourished by taking a back-seat from bigger-picture storytelling. 

Perhaps that’s the key to getting the DCU back on track. Good things come to those who wait and their die-hard demographic would likely respect them all the more for taking the time out to do a bit of concrete future planning. Do this and who knows? In a few years Marvel could finally have a worthy adversary. After all, if superhero-led studios are determined to slog it out on screen for the foreseeable future, let's make it a battle worth watching. 

This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk. Take a look here!

Do you think DC has a game plan? Let me know in the comments section below!

With last week dominated by interview scheduling conflicts and last minute panics, this week has been relatively tame in comparison. That’s sort of how it goes with freelance work though - you can be intensely busy one minute then scrambling for a good idea the next. Nothing is guaranteed unfortunately, and when those dry patches roll around (and they do), you can start to get a little itchy. Like you might never get another commission ever again. The scary part is, that could very well be true. Like I said: No guarantees. 

However these slower moments do give you time to reflect on the bigger picture and do a little forward planning. Having written for various magazines over the past seven years or so - and watched more than most fold and disappear without trace - your thoughts inevitably turn to the long game at times like these. With print journalism in peril and a paycheque for an online piece rarer than a shiny Charizard, more and more I get the feeling that I should be trying to transition into something more substantial. 

I’ve been aware of this for a while though - the really tricky thing is figuring out what to do about it. Transition periods are hard to navigate by their very nature and unless you have a plan, you can find yourself going round in circles pretty quickly which is frustrating, to say the least. Without a set destination, you won’t get anywhere. The question is: where exactly do I want to end up?

So that’s what has taken up most of my mental energy this week: focusing on a game plan for a transition. This comes complete with a load of additional questions though; like what is it that I actually want to do? How do I go about doing that? Do I have enough talent to even bother trying? They’re all difficult to answer but you can’t let them get in the way. I hate the feeling of wasting time, so with that in mind - I’d rather do first and worry about the rest later. If you don’t try you’ll never know, will you?

Stuck in you own transitional period? Let me know in the comments below!

HBO aren’t having a great week. For starters, they’ve recently fallen victim to a massive hack. In something that’s becoming an increasingly regular occurrence, a group of unidentified cyber-bandits targeted the studio and made away with a whopping 1.5TB (i.e loads, to all non-techies) of data. Their haul was a good one too, including scripts and unaired episodes of shows like The Rock’s Ballers, Larry David’s long-awaited Curb Your Enthusiasm return plus their most popular show and well, the most popular show of them all right now, Game of Thrones. 

Resisting ransom requests, the mystery hackers then made good on their promise and began leaking things online; scripts, shows, emails - the lot. Clearly a bit frazzled, HBO Spain then accidentally aired an upcoming episode of George R.R Martin’s fantasy epic a whole week ahead of its scheduled release date. It wasn’t up for long but like everything digital, that didn’t matter. Once out, it was impossible to get back. Even by Westeros standards, HBO has had a brutal few days. 

However on the flip-side of the coin it’s like Christmas come early for Pirate Bay regulars. Those long waits between air-dates suddenly evaporated into thin air, leaving their favourite new shows just a click and binge away - and click and binge they did. It seems that in the process of changing the face of silver screen storytelling, HBO may have earned viewers’ ratings but not really their loyalty. 

In fact, perhaps the binge model ushered in by streaming services like Netflix has changed the game more than we think. These days, punters don’t seem to mind where they get their content from as long as they get it; be it via file-sharing torrents, dodgy streaming sites or (usually the least popular option) direct from the studio that made it. After all, HBO’s crowning jewel Game of Thrones was the most pirated show of 2016, a fact that’s all too revealing.  

It raises an interesting point - Have audiences evolved past the days of week-long waits between shows? Maybe we have and we’re just too stubborn to admit it. That’d certainly be true for studios, with their drip-feed method working like a free marketing machine when it comes to shows that fuel water-cooler chit-chat. Why would they throw that away? Well, maybe because audiences are clearly past it. 

It’s hard to say how studios may counter these turbulent times but underneath all the hacks, leaks and binges, one thing remains constant: Today’s telly addicts want everything and they want it right now. Your move, content providers.

This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk. Take a look here!

Love telly binging or prefer the drawn out approach? Let me know in the comments section below!

This week my focus has been on trying to arrange an interview with a director. Ordinarily this isn’t too tricky however this one’s had a couple of hurdles to navigate. The first is the director’s insanely hectic work schedule which makes finding a time that suits us both difficult. The second is a chunky eight hour time difference between me and him, so when we do find a suitable time to chat it has to be either crazy early or really late for one of us. As a result, this week I’ve been up late, woke super early and stopped what I’m doing to power-walk to the nearest suitable interview spot all to no avail. I’m not complaining though, far from it - it’s all part of the deal with freelance work and I love it - but it did get me thinking about interviews in general. 

I enjoy doing interviews, mainly because I find them hard to do. I’m not naturally a very conversational person and sometimes casual chat can seem like the most daunting thing in the world for some reason. With that in mind, I often wonder why I voluntarily put myself into the position of actively seeking out one-on-one conversations with people who in in all honesty, have no reason to chat to me whatsoever. And yet I still do it - regularly. I think the endorphin kick that comes from actually proving to myself that I can do it and coming out the other side having had an enjoyable chat with someone I had no real right to ever cross paths with is probably what keeps me coming back. 

That’s not to say there haven’t been a few awkward moments here and there. In fact, now I think about it there have been plenty of funny-in-hindsight bits during the chats with actors, directors and musicians that I’ve collected over the years. Like the time I spoke to Hanoi Rocks frontman and hair-rock veteran Michael Monroe and he kept telling me the same story of when a gang attacked their tour bus at a gas station during their early years in Finland over and over and over again. Remember Del Preston’s M&Ms story in Wayne’s World 2? It was like that, only real and harder to think of an original reaction to after the fourth time I'd heard it. "A gang you say? At a gas station? What happened next?"

Then there was the time I got into a bit of an awkward ‘Thank you’ loop with Flight of the Conchords man Jemaine Clement. The chat was coming to a close when he joked that I’d thanked him too many times. Then for about the next three minutes I was unable to figure out how to end the conversation without saying it again, like some sort of malfunctioning robot. Transcribing it was painful. Went a bit like this:

Me: So thanks for taking the time to chat…
Jemaine: You did it again! 
Me: *Awkwardly Laughter* I guess I did! … *Long Silence* So thanks again.. 
Jemaine: You just said thanks again. 
Me: I guess I like to say thanks! …*Pause* So thanks again for taking the time to chat.." 
Jemain: There it is again!

​There’s plenty more moments like this lurking on my dictaphone but I’ll save them for another post. ​

Got an awkward chat story? Let me know in the comments below!

Rick and Morty may have only been around for a few years but it’s already firmly established itself in today’s pop culture lexicon. You can thank Netflix for that. With just two seasons under its belt and a long-awaited third currently being drip-fed to audiences, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s bizarro space comedy has so far churned out loads of quotable lines, a good indicator for any cult-show in the making. With that in mind, here’s a few of the best and a handy guide on how you can successfully utilize them in everyday conversation...

Where’s It From?
Season two’s Big Trouble in Little Sanchez saw Rick transport his brain into a high school version of himself, instantly becoming the coolest kid in town. Pretty soon though, his de-aged self turns into a minuscule threat.

How You Can Use It:
Throughout the episode Tiny Rick randomly shouts his own name whenever he’s excited or triumphant so that’s how this one should be used in everyday chit-chat. Won a quid on a scratch card? Bust out a ‘Tiny Rick!’ Bagged the last meat and potato pasty at Greggs? You better believe that’s a ‘Tiny Rick!’. Try it, it’s fun.

Where’s It From?
When family patriarch Jerry is rushed to an intergalactic hospital, Rick hooks up a multi-verse cable TV box to help kill time while he recovers. During a channel hopping spree the Sanchez family stumble on ad-libbed action epic Jan Quadrant Vincent 16, a show set in a world where it’s up to actor Jan Michael Vincent to maintain order… for some reason.

​How You Can Use It:
The episode Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate was catchphrase gold thanks to its clearly improvise-first-then-animate format. The line stands out due the determination in its delivery. Got to finish off that overdue dissertation? Well it looks like it’s time to Michael Down your Vincents, isn’t it?

Where’s It From?
This happy little line is the trademark sound of none other than Mr Poopy Butthole, a long yellow bloke who first popped up during season two’s paranoia-laced Total Rickall. This adventure sees Rick’s family plagued by a space parasite that inserts itself into people’s memories as a survival technique. You remember this one, right?

​How You Can Use It:
Despite experiencing a bit of a rough patch during his story arc, Mr Poopy Butthole remains incredibly optimistic and upbeat. Use this one whenever you’re in a good mood or about to eat something that looks especially delicious. The more exciting/tasty looking the task/food you’re about to undertake/gobble down, the longer you should drag out the ‘Oooh’’s and ‘Weee’’s.

Where’s It From?
Did we mention Total Rickall was catchphrase paradise? While there’s plenty of zingers we could have selected from this episode (a little ‘Real fake doors’, perhaps?) the catchphrase pinnacle of the story arrives in the form of a cutaway highlighting Rick’s many sayings. 

​How You Can Use It:
This one’s versatile. Try dusting it off during an awkward silence. It’s pure obscurity is guaranteed to ease the tension and raise a few eyebrows. Maybe you’d like to use it as more of a condolence when someone needs a ‘life must go on’ pick-me-up. In fact, don’t limit yourself to just this one - any of Rick’s lines from his catchphrase medley can (and should) be used on a regular basis. Go on, knock yourself out. 

Where’s It From?
This gem of a line was taken from season one’s closer Rick Potion #9. In an attempt to impress his high-school crush, Morty swipes an incredibly potent love potion during an adventure with Rick. The good news is, it works. The bad news is everyone falls head-over-heels for Morty and he accidentally destroys the world. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

​How You Can Use It:
This episode ended with Rick and Morty ditching their doomed universe, relocating to the nearest similar one, killing the local versions of themselves and taking their place. Dark stuff. As such, this line should be used with equal venom. Bust it out whenever someone’s ranting at you for the ultimate argument ender. 

This blog is now on Nerdly.co.uk. Take a look here.

What's your favourite Rick and Morty quote? Should "Pickle Rick!" have made the cut? Let me know in the comments below!

Last week, those technical wizards at Weta begun work on James Cameron’s bundle of Avatar sequels. While there’s no guarantee that the futuristic sounding year of 2020 will give us flying cars, meals in pill form or an iPhone battery that lasts more than twenty minutes, what we definitely will get is the first of Cameron’s four planned revisits to his floaty made-up planet Pandora. You remember Pandora, right? Well, you’d be forgiven for forgetting. After all, the last time we saw the place was almost a decade ago when Avatar hit screens and broke records in 2009. With such a long wait between films, the question lingers: Do audiences still care about this franchise?

Let’s just think about it for a second. Eleven years is a hell of a long time to wait for a sequel, something which, by its very nature, is designed to quickly capitalise on the success of its predecessor. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule. The upcoming Blade Runner 2049 picks up a whopping 35 years after Ridley Scott’s first introduced us to his smoggy, neon dystopia. Peter and Bobby Farrelly waited a full 20 years to fill us in on what Harry and Lloyd had been up to in Dumb and Dumber To, even though it really wasn’t quite worth the wait. Regardless, films like these warranted follow ups despite large lapses in time due to their deep rooted relationship with fans. Give a film long enough to burrow under the psyche of an audience and if it’s good, smart or culturally relevant enough, it probably will. 

Maybe that’s the problem with Avatar and its (count ‘em) four upcoming sequels. Even though it had the better part of a decade to resonate with fans, the film has sort of slipped into that weird ‘meh’ middle ground where viewers might catch a bit of it if it’s on Channel 4 on a Sunday evening and nothing else is on. These days we’re surrounded by opulent blockbusters - even beloved franchises once believed dormant are being brought back to eye-watering life. While Avatar undoubtedly raised the bar and introduced us to a new era of 3D storytelling, it could be argued that it never quite managed to do much else. All in all, it’s not a film that requires or encourages repeat viewings, something that sets it miles apart from its late-sequel counterparts. 

Perhaps its legacy is destined to be in the realm of the technical rather than engaging storytelling. Across Avatar’s new four-film arc, Cameron (in true Cameron style) plans to push Weta’s already groundbreaking capabilities to new places, specifically cutting out the specy bit of enjoying a 3D film. It’s a process that’ll reportedly cost Fox a total of $1 billion dollars before their Pandora trip comes to an end in 2025. Will audiences stick around for the ride? Only time will tell. Hopefully Cameron won’t be left feeling blue. 

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​Are you looking forward to the Avatar sequels? Let me know in the comments below!

Two things happened this week. I went on holiday and I went to London. The two events happened with little downtime in between. I was back in the UK for just a few hours before shooting off to the Big Smoke and thanks to the sun’s glorious beams, I had a nice painful chunk of sunburn to take with me. It got me thinking about how easily I burn. Seriously. Sit me in direct sunlight for a few minutes and I’ll come out looking like Zoidberg. It doesn’t matter how much sunblock I slap on my face, arms or back. I’ll still come out looking like some sort of painful Peperami man. 

The tan tends to go through a couple of stages. At first, I thought I’d escaped it. Take that, sun! I’ve beat you and your skin frizzling ways. This rejoicing ended later that evening when I noticed that the sun had, in fact, totally won. The initial sunburn stage is a sort of painful red glow that I have to wait to slowly pass whilst sitting perfectly stationary and resembling a giant Haribo Strawb. Any movement results in a raw bristle of pain. Nope, I’ve got to be motionless to survive this first bit.

Once this has passed I become a sort of pink colour, all half healed and irritable. I look like a cross between those hairless mice you see on nature documentaries and a big Flump. These two stages stick around just long enough for the holiday to end, forcing me to stroll around beaches and pools looking like a fire extinguisher with a face. I don’t usually tan until I’m back home where no one can see it and boy, does my skin commit to tanning. As I’m typing this I’m roughly the colour of an old mysterious treasure map. 

But that’s enough about my weird tan. I also briefly went to London to do some work on the Southbank in Waterloo. As soon as I got there it reminded me of an incident that happened the last time I was in Waterloo. It was back in 2010. I was working in London for a bit and had arranged to meet a friend for the afternoon. We didn’t know each other very well and while it wasn’t obviously awkward, the potential for dead silence lingered. 

At first, everything was going well. We got a burrito near Angel and wandered onto the Southbank to make the most of the sun. We strolled along the Thames passing musicians, food stalls and the London eye. We were chatting. Things were going okay. So far so good, I thought. It was at that point where I walked directly into a small child, my knee sending him flying onto the pavement like a little chocolate-loving football. The poor kid hit the floor so hard he did a little bounce. 

I stood there shocked and wide-eyed looking at the boy on the floor, not knowing what to say or do. The kid looked back at me, locked in that weird pregnant silence that comes seconds before a child realises they’ve been hurt and remembers to scream. My friend looked embarrassed. The scream came not long before the little boy’s parents. He was fine, the parents we’re fine. I haven’t seen that friend since. 

Have you ever accidentally floored a small child? Let me know in the comments below!