Misleading Trailers

Excitement, amusement and bewilderment are three things that can come from watching a trailer. They began as a mere marketing tool, designed to get the word out about new films and entice people in with flashy special effects and big actors' names with "Academy Award-Winner" pasted over the top (Public Enemies, Above), but now trailers have turned a bit nasty.

It's not that there's anything particularly bad about them, but increasingly you find they mislead the viewer into making false assumptions. Take latest Dan Brown adaptation Angels and Demons for instance (here there be spoilers), in the trailer a chilling voiceover says "If god has issues, it won't be with what we've done, it will be with what we're about to do"

Nothing wrong with that you might say, and you're right, it's a decent quote to stick in a trailer as a dead body is chillingly uncovered on screen and conjures up questions for the viewer like: What are they going to do? Why? and Who are 'they'?

Once you get to the film itself however, this subterfuge reveals itself. Rather than a mysterious heinous act, the quote in fact refers to the simple act of murder. Furthermore the quote has been manipulated so the 'we' that was heard in the trailer is actually 'I' in the final print, instantly taking away all the mystery and suspense since it's obvious that a killer who's already killed and has three prisoners is likely to do so again.

Another example is Minority Report, where another line change changes the meaning of what's going on. In the trailer Colin Farrell's character Danny Withwer is in Pre-Crime HQ with Tom Cruise's John Anderton when he says "I've got a warrant in my pocket that says murder".

On the surface this is a pretty good line and sounds pretty cool, but after watching the film you find it makes no sense and is just untrue.

It makes you wonder how far this will go, there's been plenty of trailers or teaser trailers which have used scenes which were eventually deleted from the final cut (see Xmen 3's "We're not kids anymore" discussion), but surely manipulating lines is a slippery slope and could become a dangerous game of deception.

Will we eventually find films changing as radically as this:



If you haven't seen or heard of The Shining, then you could easily be fooled by something as simple as this, admittedly very well done, spoof.

We can only hope that film companies decide that we can, in fact, handle the truth.

Xbox LIVE: The Past, the Present and the Future

Online gaming is no longer just a novelty, it's a phenomenon, and in the console world if there's one platform that shines brighter than all others it's Microsoft's Xbox Live.

The service launched back in 2002 and had amassed 10 million users by February last year, but will its 'golden age' last? What makes it so successful? Where will Live go from here?

It's difficult to work out exactly how many people log on, since Microsoft keeps such information pretty close to the chest, but since it reported a rise from eight to 10 million users in only a few months, it's clear there’s potential for further success.

But what about the other side? There have been hacking issues, deleted accounts, glitches and cheaters who upset the online status quo for their own personal gains.

Totally360.com spoke to Gary Shaw, the Managing Director of unofficial troubleshooting site Xbox Live the Guide, who believes cheating is a serious issue:

“Cheating has been around since games were invented and it will never go away. I’m firmly from the ‘you’re only cheating yourself’ camp. If it’s not a genuine win when playing PES [Pro Evolution Soccer] or ‘winning’ COD [Call of Duty] with a rapid-fire mod... well... have you really won anything?”

The effect of cheating is that is creates more cheaters, since more people exploit the glitches in games that they see others doing. Colin Miller, a professional Games Journalist, believes that if cheating is allowed to continue it can cause other issues: “The main problem is that it leads to more ‘rage quitting’. I have quit quite a few games of COD: World at War myself after seeing cheaters shooting other players whilst hovering in thin air. It's annoying for players when you spend all that time waiting to join a decent match and then that happens.”

The introduction of the ‘New Xbox Experience’, or NXE, in November last year led to an increased focus on the social side of gaming, allowing gamers to form ‘parties’ and jump from game to game together.

These benefits were generally well-received, with some even going as far as saying it felt like playing a brand new console, but according to Helene Wilson, EMEA Xbox MVP and webmistress of Xboxliveaddicts.co.uk, there is a down side to relying on ‘party’ based gaming:

“Although [it’s] great to have it so we can chat whilst all playing different games and from wherever we are, it’s taking away to a certain extent the ability to make new friends. If you are in a Party Chat and someone comes into a lobby, how are you meant to hear them?

“It's a great feature for people who love to be in a small group, but not so good for new people to Xbox Live who may be looking to make friends.”

Despite this, Xbox Live remains significantly more developed than it’s equivalents on other consoles. The Playstation 3’s ‘Playstation Network’ (PSN) recently announced over 20million members, a significant amount in the two and a half years it’s been up and running.

The key difference between their successes is money. A silver subscription to Xbox Live is free to Xbox owners, but it requires a monthly fee of £4.99 in order to upgrade to a gold membership and access its best features, particularly multiplayer, while Sony’s PSN remains entirely free.

Talking to Edge magazine about the financial worth of Live in 2007, Aaron Greenberg, the group product manager for Xbox and Xbox Live, said “You’re creating your friends list, messaging…. instant messaging, you get a good 80% of the Live experience for free…we feel our multiplayer offering is good value at 50 bucks (£39.99) a year.”

The content of Xbox Live isn’t just limited to games though. Video on demand and other digital distribution has been increasingly utilised in the past year, with film studio Pathé being the latest to sign up only a few weeks ago. The studio, responsible for Oscar triumph Slumdog Millionaire, joins Universal Studios, MGM and Paramount, who are all already providing films for Live.

Video downloads still have some way to go to reach the popularity of DVDs, which had sold over a billion units in the UK by 2007, but Shaw believes attitudes differ between America and Europe: “I think if you live in the states it’s been great. Outside of the US though seems to have been forgotten about. Sure we’ve got a line up of movies but it’s not to the same extent as our cousins over the pond.”

Another major part of the success of Xbox Live is downloadable content (DLC) for games. Almost every week there are reports of download records being broken, the latest being for Xbox exclusive downloadable episode 'The Lost and the Damned' for Grand Theft Auto IV, which became the fastest opening day money-maker on Live, retailing at 1600 Microsoft points (around £14).

There have been numerous controversies and problems with DLC in the past, such as the infamous horse armour for Oblivion, which caused an uproar on release when developer Bethesda charged 200 Microsoft points (about £1) for something which most gamers agreed would have been an unlockable secret in days gone by.

This begs the question of what qualifies as ‘good’ downloadable content, just as ‘The Lost and the Damned’ made us wonder if there should be a limit on how much developers can charge for DLC.

Andrew Hemphill, a Freelance Entertainment Journalist and Sub Editor, believes the quality of DLC can often depend on the individual game: “It’s a very mixed bag, while some of it is priced correctly, there are far too many developers placing a massive tag on their DLC- I shouldn't have to pay £10 to download three maps for COD 4 for example- that's extortionate. It should be capped.”

Some would like to see DLC pushed even further though, Wilson said: “I would like to see in the future all games being downloadable to the hard drive or to some kind of server for consoles, the way they do for P.C. Not only does this eradicate the stack of boxes and reduce the need for storage, but it would also get rid of scratched discs and be much easier to find the game you are wanting to play.”

Another issue which had left the gaming community throwing their pads across the room is ‘pay-to-unlock’ content. This is content which is included on the retail disc and is merely unlocked by paying the Microsoft points.

A chief example of this comes from EA games who publish both Burnout Paradise and Skate 2, both of which have downloadable codes to unlock all the secrets in the game. For some gamers this has already started alarm bells ringing, since players are being offered a choice to pay for little more than a cheat code.

Recently action horror hit Resident Evil 5 released its Versus mode amid a wave of allegations due to the download’s filesize being a meagre 1.5megabytes (about half a song’s worth of music), since it was widely claimed the content was already on the disc. Capcom responded stating that the structure of the mode wasn’t on disc already, but brought together content from all over the disc and bundled it up with only a bit of new code.

The fact of the matter is that Xbox Live works, and with new releases on the horizon, both retail and DLC, there’s plenty of scope for the service to increase in popularity, but what else will change?

Miller believes Live will embrace the social element: “with the fact you can access your account from any computer, I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a bit more of a social network, like a gaming version of facebook.”

Hemphill sees it taking advantage of advances in web technology: “As high-speed internet connections become more popular, I can see an expansion in video and game downloads being forthcoming and possibly entire games being downloadable over the service.”

Wilson envisions a virtual world in your living room: “Touch, speech and movement sensitive controls and I would like to see an Xbox Live radio, web browser and perhaps a place to see how many lobbies are open on a game without having to put your disc in.”

Shaw thinks of the economics of the service: “People ask why Xbox Live isn’t free. I think it would ruin the service. It needs money to make sure it evolves. Although I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to reduce the subscription price a bit or at least offer some sort of discount for gamer families who have to fork out a gold subscription for every child/parent in the house.”

The future economic and global success of Live will depend on the continued communication with its members and responding to their requests for their service, since without them, Live could not exist.

This piece can also be seen on Totally360.com here.

Xmen Origins: Wolverine Review

Wolverine is cool, Hugh Jackman is cool (or hot, depending on your gender), so a film featuring both focusing on both should be a no-brainer, right? This was clearly the thought of Marvel bosses when they decided to launch into the Xmen Origins film series, currently at least two films, the second being focused on Ian McKellan's sublime Magneto.

As it turns out, the film reaches expectations, but goes little further. Wolverine is joined by a cast of fan favourites to make it more than just a one man show, notably Deadpool/Weapon XI (who's already been given the green light for his own spinoff) and Gambit.

X2's evil-nasty-man William Striker returns, this time embodied by Danny Huston, as Wolverine and big brother Sabretooth's (an excellent Liev Schreiber) way out of an exceptionally long military career. You do stop for a moment to wonder why no one seems to notice these recruits enlist for every major conflict in US history and never move up the ranks...

Confusing continuity aside, the brothers are soon among an elite group of mutants, a word muttered under-breath throughout the film, which serves to outline how early in mutant history we are here, there aren't going to be evil plots to mutate world leaders for some decades.

The prequel nature of the story lets us see some of the later mutants in their earlier years, such as a young Scott Summers (a.k.a. Cyclops) and a brief cameo from an even-more-digitally-de-aged Patrick Stewart as Professor X. This is all well and good, but does slightly distract from the general story.

The other supporting players in the story perform well overall. Gambit seems tragically underused, tacked on as a means to an end for our protagonist, and despite being very cool and quick to get back at the big bad Wolf after he's knocked out with a casual elbow to the face, you still feel like the story wouldn't have missed him.

Ryan Reynolds (NOT Ben Affleck as I stupidly assumed at first) put on an impressive turn as Wade Wilson, combining some excellent comic lines with some devastating katana moves in the opening act , and eventually being transformed into the Sylar equivalent of the Xmen universe: Deadpool. There's confusion here since in the comic books Weapon XI and Deadpool were too very different characters, but in the film the two have been combined.

Jackman has maintained countless times in interviews the fact that this film should take the character to a place where he could walk off-screen at the end and walk into the bar where we meet him at the beginning of Xmen.

This is unlikely to remain however, since the teasing out-scenes, now an expectation of the Xmen movies, show Logan drinking in Japan trying to remember who he is. The tragedy of amnesia is that it almost makes the entire film pointless, as everything he's learned, suffered and sacrificed are lost along with his memories, but from a storytelling perspective it's very handy, since it neatly explains why he doesn't recognise Sabretooth as his brother in Xmen 1, for example.

The film overall is a healthy blend of action, emotion, mystery and some more action thrown in. It's a worthy beginning to Wolverine's tale, and sets itself up nicely for a sequel which could bring to life Sin City scribe Frank Miller's stories of Wolverine in Japan.

In terms of the 'Origins' aspect, it doesn't take away from the endearing mystery of Wolverine as a character to know what happened in his past that he can't remember, but the adamantium process, frequently flash-backed in the first two X films, seemed a lacklustre affair compared to the scenes of Jackman covered in blood, desperately trying to escape Alkali Lake amid primal screams.

If you compare this film to the trilogy it bobs around about the same standard as the franchise's debut, with X2 sailing in front and poorly subtitled The Last Stand trailing, aptly, in third. The effort put into the film, but that and its fairly predictable story are let down by a few jarring visual effects, which at times seem set to appeal the videogame generation.

Definitely worth checking out for fans of the series and the genre as a whole, but lacking in enough substance to draw in new viewers who aren't already trapped by the invincible Adamantium claws.

Feel Good Hits Of The Summer: May's Blockbusters

Summer has always been a big release time for film, with films released July 4 weekend smashing records on an almost yearly basis, but does this years crop of films look to stand up to the pedigree of past years.

Last year was dominated by the superhero, as Iron Man and The Dark Knight stole the world's attention, and putting in yet-another case for why comic book films are a serious business.

May is the big month this year, with almost all the big name releases being thrown at us relentlessly amid the (hopeful) sunshine.

Wolverine is the first big contender, or Xmen Origins: Wolverine, to give it its full, overblown title. Originally planned for release May 1, the date was rushed forward after a massively hyped piracy scandal, which saw the film leak prematurely on the internet, to which Hugh Jackman was reportedly very disappointed, since the version which got out wasn't 100% done, and obviously you don't get the full affect of all the nifty special effects.

Jackman is big in terms of star quality and he's a very talented actor, so the film stands to do well merely rested on his shoulders (though Baz Luhrmann may disagree with this logic...), but if you add to that the vast fanbase of the Xmen franchise, both film and comic book, then you've got a massive potential audience before a metal clawed punch has been thrown.

Another film which has a huge, perhaps even epic, potential fanbase, is the latest incarnation of Star Trek directed by JJ "Help I'm LOST" Abrams on May 8. Those who haven't heard of the starship Enterprise by now have surely been hiding under an astoriod, since the plight of the Galactic Federation of Planets has been played out in (at least) five series and nine previous films over the last 40 years.

With veteran Leonard Nimoy back for a cameo as the cooly logical poity-eared Vulcan Spock, hardcore Trekkies will already be unable to resist, while big budget sci-fi has been off the table long enough for it to make a comeback at the cinema.

This leads us inevitably on to Christian "husky voice" Bale in Terminator Salvation on May 21. Not technically a sequel, but a "re-boot" - to translate this industry jargon, it basically it means the last film didn't do quite so well, so they wanted to distance themselves from it and start afresh (see also Hulk, Casino Royale and Batman Begins).

Judgement day has finally come for John Connor and those of humanity who've decided to fight back against evil supercomputer software Skynet and its company: all-round robitics-controlling-nasty Cyberdyne Systems.

Last in May is Disney Pixar animated tale Up, about a...I'm not sure, is it a floating house with a small child an old man going for a walk? Anyway it's set up as being the most impressive Pixar spectacle yet, and since they keep raising the bar with every film (except perhaps Cars, but we'll ignore that - talking cars? That's madness!), we can expect some great things from the team.

In terms of vocal talent the film includes Christopher Plummer of A Beautiful Mind and as OAP with altitude Charles Muntz, along with newcomer SyrianaJordan Nagai as Russell. Family films often tend to do well, since they appeal to a wide audience by their very nature, and Pixar have proved their pedigree numerous times over the years, meaning young'uns will be clamouring for this latest story.

Crashing out of May and into June is Michael Bay's Transformers sequel Revenge of the Fallen, but perhaps we'll look into that a little more another time. Essentially all you need to know to appear up on the latest social trends is that is has Shia LeBouf, Megan Fox and giant transforming robots, simple!

Potential big hitters are Angels & Demons, an adaptation of another book from The Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown, and Drag Me To Hell, a horror flick directed by Sam Raimi, who helmed the Spiderman trilogy.

So, if you decide to see a film this May then you should have a bit more of an idea what to expect, chances are you've already decided what you like the look of and don't but if you choose not to take the big names at face value, who knows?, you might be presently surprised.

Live: The Living End at Manchester Club Academy 21/04/09

Blistering guitar, infectious drums and slammin' double-bass were order of the day in Manchester as Aussie trio The Living End stormed the Club Academy.

As competent support act Tellison left the stage the crowd was wrought with anticipation, it has been two years since the boys last played in Manchester, and tensions were beginning to run very high.

With an explosion of sound, the band leapt into fast-paced opener Raise The Alarm from new album White Noise. The crowd embraced the new material as if it had been in their minds for years, 'woah-ing' at every opportunity.

Following up a strong with a set filled with classics like Prisoner of Society, Roll On and We Want More. Anthemic new tunes such as How Do We Know were accepted by the audience after only a moments hesitation, uniting the groups wide age range of fans in one voice.

With such energy on stage you might expect the musical precision to suffer, but if anything it was enhanced, with lead man Chris Cheney's fingers flying up and down the fretboard of his eletcro-acoustic axe, which is largely responsible for the band's distinct rock n roll twang.

Beat master Andy Strachan relentlessly pounded the drums with an impressive mix of perfectly crafted rock beats, stopping only for a moment when he got a little over-excited and cracked a cymbal.

The third side of this rock triangle belongs to Scott Owen and his famous double-bass. Immediately giving Owen a massive presence on stage, the bass is over a metre and a half from scroll to spike and almost a metre wide, its difference in sound from a standard electric bass is noticeable, as well as the custom glow-in-the-dark paint job leading to the looming presence of a glowing skull when the lights go down.

Owen's impressive party piece sees him hoist the great instrument up in the air and proceed to play behind his head in homage to the great Jimi Hendrix.

Cheney, not to be out-done, soon teamed up with Owen to climb up the side of the bass for a dramatic finale, before using a nearby beer bottle as a real bottleneck to unleash an astounding slide solo as beer sprayed everywhere, only relenting to down the last few drops.

Musical improvisation was by no means an isolated incident, as the threesome broke into fierce upbeat arrangements numerous times during the evening, as the crowd looked on with awe and wonder.

Despite the recent turmoil in their homeland from bush fires, the band were determined to show England that it had only strengthened their resolve on stage, and kept excitement levels raised until the very last. A truly mesmerising show.

Twitter: Fad or fabulous? It's in your hands

It was bound to happen sooner or later, a post about Twitter. (Follow me here)

In recent months, Twitter has been heralded and criticised all across the cybersphere, and little more so than in Blogs.

Opinions are divided, as they often are, over it's value and whether it is anything more than the latest 'thing'.

As Facebook was the phenomenon of 2008 (and to a point even the year before that), Twitter has conjured a media firestorm, with everyone from Jonathan Ross to Oprah Winfrey Twittering away.

Recently cyber-history was made as Aston Kutcher became the first Twitterer to get over a million followers (shortly followed by CNN).

But what exactly does it all mean?

For those of you who haven't been bitten by the twitterbug, Twitter sees you posting answers to the question "What are you doing?" and connecting yourself to other users to see what they are up to as well.

With the post limit at 140 characters, these so called 'micro-blogs' are limited, but often contain urls to interesting sites or news stories, or, in the case of QI Master Stephen Fry, simply the day-to-day interesting goings on in their lives.

You can also reply to people's posts, or 'tweets' as they are known' and send direct messages to them.

Peter Schwartz of the internet newspaper The Huffington Post today voiced his views on Twitter. You can read them here, but if you're too lazy for that the gist of it is that he's not a fan. He feels it's been over-hyped, no doubt by blog posts like this one, and is only a passing fancy which people will soon grow tired off, and far from the "transpersonal communications organism" it's founders are claiming it to be.

Despite Facebook and Google both reported to be trying to acquire Twitter, the site, according to Schwartz, is yet to make money:

"While no one is suggesting Twitter can support the $15 billion valuation that Facebook received for its Microsoft investment several years ago, the mania surrounding Twitter surely indicates the Web 2.0 frenzy has probably peaked." Peter Schwartz

Like many things though, Twitter is what you make of it. On the most basic level it's just a website, but if you involve yourself in it you can connect yourself to people you may never have had the privilage to meet. While it's easy to be bogged down in the spam of people's everyday lives, there are some interesting things to be found on there and through there, it's just up to you to find them.

Is it a fad? Perhaps for some people, but for others it's a serious exchanging of information, and right now it's not going anywhere but up.

Now here's a few of my personal favourites:

1) Xbox 360 Game Left 4 Dead re-enacted
2) 10 Gaming Characters on Twitter
3) Terrible Twilight Fan Art
4) Anything tweeted by qikipedia
5) Classic reply to one of my latest tweets about now being unemployed from VividEphany:

"@James_Parry Sorry to hear that you were laid off. Keep your chin up. This might be an opportunity in disguise. If you need help, I'm here" - Just knowing that makes me feel safer...thanks

How to Record an Album

Is home recording or studio recording better? Why do bands make albums which are overproduced? What does it take to become commercially successful?

These questions answered and more in my detailed guide to the album recording process, featuring interviews from a number of industry professionals.

Check it out here on Music-News.com: http://tinyurl.com/h2album/

Censorship: Protecting the public or hiding the truth?

Film and television have always been subject to some sort of censorship, even at the most basic level, shows or films regarded as too violent, sexual or controversial have been banned. In video games too, censorship is a big issue, with Mortal Kombat being the victim of a media storm in the 90s for its violent finishing moves.

In the age of 24/7 entertainment and relentless information exchange, is it still right for companies to censor information? When you mention censorship, you might think of the limits on the Chinese version of Google or the propaganda of Nazi Germany, but in reality it goes on without the general public even realising.

The most recent example which I noticed was the broadcast of an episode of [Scrubs] on E4. The episode seemed innocent enough, 6 o'clock on a Tuesday evening, but as I watched, I noticed a few things that just weren't quite right. Dialogue was cut short, suggestive lingering camera shots removed and the shows signature fantasy moments bizarrely tame. The reason: censorship. The network, for whatever reason, had taken out the comedy's 'edgier' moments, leaving the show a shadow of it's former self.

There are watershed issues to consider of course, and the concept itself (which essentially forbids the broadcast of illicit material until after 9pm) is important to protect the 'innocence' of children etc. But the real worry is that many of the omissions were nothing more outrageous than you might see on your typical episode of Eastenders, leading us to conclude that either the network is being over-cautious, or deliberately toning-down to appeal to their viewers.

Surely with the show available on DVD, they must know that many fans of the show will have a series or two, so may have watched the show before, making these omissions obvious. Obviously to those who have never seen the show before will be none the wiser, but it is still a concern.

This is just one example of the negative effects of censorship. There are claims long-term exposure to violence on television causes an increased risk of violence in the real world, but there is little evidence to substantiate that this affects more then a sever minority.

Back in 2000, the BBC reported on a study called 'Making sense of Censorship', which concluded that four out of five people would rather watch un-edited versions of film and television, and judge for themselves what not to watch.

The poll also raised the concern of children's viewing, with 98% of adults saying they were responsible for deciding what their children should and should not watch. Interestingly, almost two thirds of people were more worried about censorship on the internet, an issue which has still not been significantly tackled by authorities. At the time the BBC spoke to Nick Jones, head of film programming for Channel 4 and FilmFour:

"This puts the emphasis on facts rather than pre-conceived myths, It shows middle England is more informed and wants to make its own choices about what they watch - based on information and not the intervention of a 'nanny state' It is now time to take a hard look at confused legislation that assumes there is such a thing as 'the moral majority'" (Jones 2000)

There was controversy last year in the wake of Heath Ledger's death, when there were calls to omit the scene in 'The Dark Knight' which showed Ledger as the Joker in a body bag.

In 1995 Simon Birch wrote a report which discusses why censorship should be stopped. He concluded that the system is not working and that there are discrepancies which mean the public is being mis-informed:

"Sooner or later they will have to amend a system which allows more explicit detail of real sexual peccadilloes through the written media than it allows the viewing public to see within a fictional context." (Birch 1995)

In the end, if the public objects to how something is being done, the government is forced to act to change it, but if people do not even know it is going on in the first place, then we may begin to see an ever-increasing problem in years to come.

Reading/Leeds Festival 2009 Line Up Predictions

I'm not generally one for idle speculation, but with the official announcement of the Reading/Leeds Festival Line Up only weeks away (March 30, 7pm), it's about time we all started getting excited about it.

There is, as ever, a knack to working it out/guessing/blagging/etc., but if you look at the Festivals' exciting history things start to become a little easier.

Now that the Download Festival '09 Line Up is out (Slipknot, Faith No More and Def Leppard - check the site for full details) we can say who WON'T be headlining Reading and Leeds.

Of course, you always get one or two bands (The Subways last year for example) who play both festivals, but the big names rarely go for more than one appearance.

Headliners

The most likely contenders seem to be Green Day, with a new album released in April and them having headlined in 2004 (just before the incredibly successful American Idiot), four years seems like enough time to wait for them to come around, and many fans will be disappointed if the Oakland boys don't make a return.

Radiohead also seem to be high up on the rumours list, and are due a new album later this year, at the Featured Artists Conference though, there was little hint of festival appearances this year from guitarist Ed O'Brian:

"We are working on new material, we'll be doing some more recording. It's business as usual."

The band last appeared at Reading in 1994, some 15 years ago, and the band have grown significantly in the public conciousness since then, and some would argue they have been superseded by Matt Bellamy's Muse (who have played numerous times and headlined in 2006), who frequently cites them as a strong influence.

Though there are numerous other names being thrown around, the next strongest contender seems to be Arctic Monkeys, who were second from top on the bill in 2006. The band had only released one album at the time, and managed to get so high in the lineup mostly on hype, not without some justification I might add, but this time they have more experience, more music and more fans, so it seems likely they will use the opportunity to show off material from album number three. Anything to avoid the amateurish utterings from the last festival: "Are you enjoying yourselves? We don't know!"

But what of the rumours that the headliners would all be American? You're thinking of 2008 (a mistake I also made recently).

Other Contenders

Rise Against, Anti-Flag and 36 Crazyfists have all confirmed that they will appear at the festival (the former two toured together in the UK recently).

Numerous other bands are expected to appear, either due to festival tradition or mutterings from the band:

Placebo - The band have played in 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2006, suggesting it's time for them to return with new album material.

The Offspring - After playing Download last year, the band will be fired up to play at Reading/Leeds, since their last outing was in 2004 as second from top on the main stage.

Franz Ferdinand - Headliners in 2006, the band have just released a new album and after a single appearance at Latitude Festival last year, the band will be eager to take on (collectively) the biggest festival site in the country.

Other possible bands

New Found Glory
The All-American Rejects
The Answer
Airbourne
Weezer
Maximo Park
Kaiser Chiefs
Lostprophets
The Charlatans
Alkaline Trio
Less Than Jake
The Living End

Of course there are many many many others, but I hope this has given you some sort of insight into what this years festivals might be like, bear in mind that this is all idle speculation and there is no official sourcing or confirmed information behind this, merely logic.

We only have a week or so to wait until we find out, make sure you're awake at 7pm on March 30, keep your eye on http://www.readingfestival.co.uk/

Interview: Scrubs' Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) talks film, funny and the future

The show may be coming to an end, but for the career of John C McGinley, better known as the sarcastic, egotistical jackass Doctor Perry Cox in the hit US comedy medical series, [Scrubs], it could be a new beginning.

After eight years, the shows future seems sealed according to McGinley, when asked about the prospect of a spin-off, he said:

I've heard about all of that stuff, just Bill Lawrence is too smart and knows the TV landscape too well not to have peppered the eighth season with characters who could be the next generation of [Scrubs], but I don't see it. The show would have had to have done crazy numbers when it came back on in January and we're doing the numbers we always do.

We're doing six or seven million people who are really fanatical and the needle may have spiked when we came back on. If you watched [Scrubs] for the first seven years, you watched it for this eighth year and bringing new people on after eight years isn't really what happened.

As of yet there are no firm details on when or where the final series will air in the UK, but since the series doesn't close in America until the end of May, don't start counting of the chickens just yet.

After all these years, the show has scraped together a tremendous following, McGinley told me about a few of his favourite episodes:

The one where Brendan Fraser comes on and he passes [My Occurance and My Hero] and the whole thing is told kind of like the Bruce Willis movie The Sixth Sense where you don't know that Brendan has passed yet, Cox is still talking to him, and I thought that was really a great great half hour of television.

I thought it was really good when we had a patient come in and he passes [My Fallen Idol] and then we harvest his organs and give them to three other patients and those patients pass because it turns out that the organs were infected with rabies and so all three patients die and Cox decides he doesn't want to be a doctor anymore and I thought the musical [My Musical - duh] was pretty good too.

To many fans, Dr Cox is the character that holds the show together as lead man JD's (Zack Braff) unwilling mentor. Despite the richness of the character, McGinley admits it's not been an easy role to play:

Scrubs has been the biggest challenge that I've ever had, just because keeping something going and fresh for eight years, grinding that deep is really hard to keep it funny and not make it look like it's hard.

Going from about 60 or 70 different films prior to doing Scrubs it's kinda hard to nail down Cox, he's so damaged, one minute he's funny and the next minute he's just a ram rod jack-hammer and teaches these kids, you know, do it my way or hit the highway so because that character was so wonderfully eccentric.

For more of the interview with John C McGinley check out the final issue of PR1 (the University of Central Lancashire's student magazine), which will be released after the Easter break...