inside LOVEFiLM

I don’t know about everyone else but I had an excellent Bank Holiday weekend – hours of watching films and playing games, mainly LA Noire, which has taught me that being a woman in the ’40s was not good for your health, and that if someone looks away while talking to you, they are definitely lying. Most of the time. But even with the extra day I still haven’t caught up on even half of the things I want to see and play…

I totally missed Source Code when it came out in the cinema – a film with Jake Gyllenhaal, a science-fiction/time-twisty plot and directed by Duncan Jones, the man who gave me Moon to love and cherish forever. It’s top of my rental list, with a few others which have “odd” as a common feature.

As a big fan of sci-fi and anything weird, I’m also looking forward to seeing Attack the Block. I used to watch Adam and Joe religiously and I love it that Joe of the duo has gone on to make a proper film. Even if I suspect that, post riots, my sympathies may be a bit skewed towards the aliens…

In the same area of weird, Red Riding Hood, Sucker Punch and Beastly also appeal, though with differing expectations of quality. Likewise, I’ve heard mixed things about Your Highness, and while I worry that the trailer may have included the best bits, I’m still hoping to be entertained, and a parody is always welcome. Though I know it won’t come close to The Princess Bride.

Lastly, I have been dying to see Insidious. The moment I saw the trailer, with the weird face behind Patrick Wilson, I knew it was a film for me – horror movies that are genuinely frightening and spooky are always right up my street. I get chills just thinking about that trailer…

All this film watching is going to seriously hamper my game-playing time, of course. I haven’t even finished Gears of War 1 and 2, and yet I cannot wait to see Gears of War 3; more alien busting action from the one and only Marcus Fenix. Oo-rah!

Then there’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which looks ah-maz-ing, and has three different modes of play: action, stealth or hacking. Though I suspect my usual stealthy preference will give way to all-out ‘blow it up! blow it up!’ terror when I face a boss.

And finally, there’s the return of zombies, albeit in a beautiful holiday setting in Dead Island. To be honest, I will likely watch Dead Island being played, rather than play it myself. Horror movies are fine, but horror-survival games… well, we don’t get on. I blame Silent Hill. It freaked me out forever and now I can’t play horror games at all.

Seeing all of that I’m wondering when I’m ever going to fit it all in… If anyone has one of those time-turner things from Harry Potter, please get in touch.

Alexa Muir, Merchandising Manager

So, we’re here already. The final Bank Holiday of the year (not including Christmas, obviously, which is couched in an altogether different holiday vibe).

After the multiple Bank Holiday madness of April and May, we’ve powered through June and July. And now even August’s month-long tribute to that great Kevin Costner epic with all the boats and stuff is squelching to an end. Which means just one more long weekend to enjoy.

Whatever the weather has in store, the extra day definitely means more time to deck out in front of a good film. So here are a few suggestions to watch instantly, and at no extra cost…

New arrivals include Ewan & Scarlett going big n’ Bay in The Island, animated intergalactic conflict in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Spielberg’s all-time classic that launched a juvenile Christian Bale into the world, Empire of the Sun.

Last chance to see some streaming favourites – Noel Clarke’s Kidulthood, the revealing Tyson – The Movie documentary, and the weird & wonderful Jean-Claude Van Damme post-modern actioner JCVD all disappear after Monday, so watch them while you can.

Thoroughly Brit melodrama Glorious 39, the inspiring Amazing Grace, Michael Douglas in King of California and – ahem – a LOVEFiLM streaming guilty pleasure, Zombies Zombies Zombies, are all on their way out too.

There’s a bit more cartoonery, if that suits you, and of all kinds as well: from the fluffy and family friendly – Happy Feet, Looney Tunes – Back in Action, Hoodwinked - to the rather more adult fare of South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut.

It being a Bank Holiday though, I’ll most likely find myself indulging – for the umpteenth time – in some proper brainless and highly enjoyable Nic Cage nonsense: maybe Face/Off, probably The Rock, almost certainly Con Air. And singing along with the choicest lines – altogether now: “Put the bunny back in the box…”

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager

Hey, Simon Morris here – I’m CMO (that’s Chief Marketing Officer) at LOVEFiLM, so one part of my job is producing the TV ads.

We’ve had a great deal of interest in the song used on our latest ad. I’m pleased it has captured people’s imagination, and although it’s a bit different from the soundtracks of previous ads, we think it works well.

It’s by a band called Plain White T’s and the song’s called Rhythm of Love (see what we did there?!) You’ve probably heard Plain White T’s before: they had a massive hit with Hey There Delilah a few years back.

Music has always been a big thing for us, and for me personally. Picking and choosing tracks is a great part of our job. We even did a LOVEFiLM CD album back in the day – a gift for all our customers in Christmas 2004 – which was an album of (rather loosely) love orientated tracks from the movies. Should we do another one?

In a former life I had the pleasure of working on a weekly youth lifestyle/interview/music show called TFI Friday, hosted by Chris Evans. We had three bands on every week, some real heroes of the day, and of all time – great show, huge fun.

The best band I can remember in the four years we were on air? Without a doubt: Aerosmith. Close second? James. (Now who remembers them – Sit Down, anyone?) The most down-to-earth? That would be a band called Travis, who came to the pub with us, the production crew and the audience after the show. Great lads!

Incidentally, I have just been considerably out-voted by the entire team here about the song for the next ad. Wait till early September and then I’ll play mine against the winner in this blog, and see what you think.

Please yourselves, but I think we should get some late 70’s punk in there next time.
How about The Ruts…?!

Simon Morris, Chief Marketing Officer

Like my honourable colleague, Robert “Rob” Holloway (see blog post below), I have a similar hankering for the halcyon days of youth, in which summers were brilliant and sun-scorched and stretched for weeks into the shimmering distance.

And while younger days were filled with BMX ’stunts’, ghost-knocking and inappropriate usage of a magnifying glass (still have the scars to show for it; on all fronts), double-digit years were spent in urban America, the Wild West, and galaxies far, far away.

I blame The Empire Strikes Back. And growing up in the 80s, where the movies were as gloriously varied (and often as hilariously cheesy) as the music.

But to this day, the prospect of any time off immediately turns my mind to what I can watch. Bit annoying that I’ll be at work all August, but I’ll squeeze in as much as possible, and one look at our Top 20 for the month puts the lie to the idea that this summer’s films are a bit thin.

I might challenge you to watch all 20 before August is out, but there are a few premium pay-per-view titles in there – Limitless, Knuckle, Sucker Punch and Little White Lies – so it may seem like a shameless attempt to fleece you for extra cash. So look, watch them if you can/want.

Cinema-wise, I’ve already seen Cowboys & Aliens and loved every ludicrous second of it: Indiana Jones and James Bond in a Western, with flying saucers and evil alien monsters, and Olivia Wilde. It truly is as if Jon Favreau & co taped my dreams for a month and forged a film out of them – dreams, more than obviously, born in the 80s.

Super 8 is cracking too, another film fully flavoured by that decade, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed – by J.J. Abrams – exactly as Spielberg would have done in his 80s pomp, right down to the gang of kids, splashy action and sense of wonder. A double dose of monkey magic looks promising as well – fictional (we hope) in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and real-life in Project Nim.

More fantasy and wonder on DVD (Source Code) and as part of the no-extra-cost streaming service – I’ll definitely be having some Signs (even if the end makes me wince a bit), yet more Spielbergian brilliance in Empire of the Sun, and once again returning to a far off galaxy for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

A fit brunette, an adolescent lad, frequent scoldings and scrapes… sounds like my teenage summers all over again. Just with fewer BMXs and more lightsabers…

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager

Back when I was a lad (and all this was just fields, etc etc), the summer holidays seemed to last for ever. It never rained, nor did I ever get bored. We’d while away those lazy days building tree houses, fishing for sticklebacks, befriending dolphins, that kind of thing. Ah, the memories…

Of course, the reality doesn’t quite match up to the kind of rose-tinted fabrication I’ll gleefully bore my grandkids with one day. Pretty much all I can recall of those days is collapsing out of bed after my parents had gone to work and spending hours watching the likes of Inspector Gadget, He-Man, and – of course – Why Don’t You? on TV.

I’m sure things are much the same for today’s youth, perhaps with more gangsta rap and less Roland Rat. But while we had to make do with the BBC and ITV’s meagre offerings, nowadays kids are spoilt for choice, and the LOVEFiLM streaming service has plenty to offer.

For little ‘uns (and perhaps some nostalgic parents too), we’ve got truckloads of Thomas and Friends, a positive plethora of Pingu, a barrelful of Bob the Builder and Barney, plus a fair few Fireman Sam episodes. In addition to that, we have all ten episodes of the wonderful Wallace and Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions.

We’ve got some excellent animated films to amuse and excite the whole family including Hoodwinked and Arthur and the Invisibles (both of which boast all-star ensembles providing the voices), an alternative take on a fairytale classic in The Ugly Duckling and Me, and the surreal genius that is The Spongebob Squarepants Movie.

The adventures don’t end there. Older children – as well as adults of all ages – are spoilt for choice. We’ve got all three classic Neverending Story movies, adrenalin-fuelled action in Speed Racer, plus Nancy Drew, March of the Penguins, 80s sci-fi comedy Innerspace… the list just goes on and on!

Actually, come to think of it, forget plonking the kids down in front of you PS3™ or internet-connected Sony or Samsung TV, push them out the front door and force them to get some fresh air. It’s not healthy for them to be cooped up inside all day. Not when there’s so much quality family viewing for the grown-ups to enjoy!

Rob Holloway, Senior Content Manager – Devices