Infographic: How to Drink Like It’s the World’s End

I’m still in a good mood about The World’s End, the conclusion to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy. If you’re enjoying your copy of the film at home and want to drink along in the pub crawl, I have the perfect tool for you to use. Here’s a manual detailing exactly how you should drink (including a few specific brands) if you want to imbibe like any of the crawlers along the Golden Mile.

Quick Thoughts on The World’s End

I’ve written about it several times over the last year and a half. The TDYLF banners this week have shifted as a tip of the cap to it. I even drove 6 hours away and spent gobs of money drinking in its honor. But once I finally got to see The World’s End, did I actually like it?

The World’s End Begins: The Pub Crawl

You may recall a few months ago when I mentioned that, out of my excitement for the release of Edgar Wright’s The World’s End on August 23 (my birthday!), I was planning on a massive pub crawl to celebrate. You can find all of the details here. That day has arrived. As it turned out, it worked best for all of us to travel to Madison for a pub crawl on Monday instead of the day the movie came out. This way, we’ll all be sober when we actually see The World’s End. The spirit of the pub crawl lives on, mirroring the film- a group of friends reunite to relive their halcyon days of drunken debauchery. Here are all of the details of where we’ll be, and you can follow along as I’ll be live-tweeting our crawl until I lose motor control. And if you’re in Madison and following along, come join us.

Coming Soon: A Pub Crawl Inspired by The World’s End

Fans of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have anxiously awaited the third film in the trio’s Cornetto Trilogy for years. Our patience will be rewarded this August in the US when The World’s End hits theaters. The third film centers around a group of friends who return to their hometown to complete a 12-bar pub crawl that they failed twenty years earlier, only to discover that something is amiss about the town. If you’d like to know more, you can find the trailer here. One of the themes of the film would appear to be attempting to relive the halcyon days of youth. Given how much I enjoy Wright, Pegg, and Frost’s work, and given that the film comes out on my birthday, it’s all given me an idea.

Movie Director Baseball Jerseys

There aren’t many opportunities to combine two of the greatest things on earth- baseball and movies. However, to quote Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams, “There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place and the universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what’s possible.” The possibility today is that I’ve found a way to create baseball jerseys for 15 movie directors. Baseball fans will appreciate that almost all of these have a direct MLB jersey equivalent. There are even a few nods to baseball fans north of the border. Movie fans will enjoy the symbols and themes associated with each individual director.

The Soundtrack Series: Edgar Wright

The Soundtrack Series takes a departure from the norm today. Typically, the series has featured filmmakers with massive filmographies, providing lots of scenes to choose from for the series. Today’s choice, Edgar Wright, has directed just three feature films. And so it should speak volumes for how impressive the soundtracks have been for Edgar Wright films that he can be included in a series that has also featured directors like Stanley Kubrick, the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese, and Wes Anderson. Here is the Soundtrack Series: Edgar Wright.

Dead Right and the Joy of Directorial Debuts

After watching Hot Fuzz a million times between the theater, cable, and at home on DVD, I finally bought the Blu-ray. Clearly, the purchase was long overdue. But the actual feature film wasn’t the biggest reason I was excited. That honor belongs to one of the bonus features on the disc- Dead Right (1993), the 48-minute short film that a precocious Wright directed at age 18 (that’s 18-year old Wright in the header, in a still from the film). Seeing Wright’s debut film made me think a lot about other directorial debuts.

Edgar Wright is Doing a Bunch of Stuff I’m Excited About

I’ve made no bones whatsoever about being a huge fan of Edgar Wright. I’m not paid to be a critic or a professional journalist of any sort, so I’m allowed to “cheer in the press box”, so to speak. From his work with Spaced all the way up to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, I have found his writing to be as razor sharp as anyone else working today, especially in the realm of comedy. The same goes for his list of recurring actors, writers, and producers- Simon Pegg, Nira Park, Joe Cornish, and Nick Frost. So you can imagine my excitement to hear all of the buzz coming out of Comic Con surrounding Wright’s upcoming projects.

Spaced: A Character Primer

Netflix Instant recently made Spaced available, thereby making it easier for US fans to recommend the show to people. Trust me. I know. I’m a US fan who’s been trying to get my friends to watch this show for a few years now, often to no avail because of availability issues. For those of you who don’t know, Spaced was a brilliant British sitcom that had two series of seven episodes. The first came in 1999, and the second was in 2001. It was written by Jessica (Stevenson) Hynes and Simon Pegg, and was directed by Edgar Wright. And now that it’s available on Netflix Instant, you can get in on the fun. To  help you become acclimated to the show, I’ve created an infographic–a Spaced character primer.

The Edgar Wright Infographics: A Follow-Up

Back in March, I watched all three of Edgar Wright’s major studio releases- Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)– with the trivia track on. Each time a film was referenced in the trivia track, I wrote it down. Then I used the info to create an infographic for each film, listing each film that influenced Wright’s movies. You can find the finished product here.

After I completed it, I showed it to my friend Marty. “Now”, he said, “you have to watch all of those movies”. I laughed it off at first. The last thing I need is another genre or list to binge upon. But he had a point. That list was ripe with potential for good films. And if those movies are good enough for Edgar Wright, they’re sure as hell good enough for me. Eventually, I started tackling the movies that I hadn’t already seen that were listed on those infographics. It’s a slow and steady process but it’s opened up my eyes to some really great movies that I never would have seen otherwise. Thankfully and not surprisingly, Edgar Wright is a damned good ambassador for some unknown films. So far, I’ve seen: