Matt Bailey - Web designer and front-end developer

So, without further ado and in no particular order…

Chris and Phil Present

“A lighthearted look at the world of movies. Insightful, intelligent film reviews and nonsensical chatter from Brighton‘s finest.”

To be honest I listen to Chris and Phil more for the humorous banter than the actual film reviews. They have a great rapport together, with Phil brilliantly coming across as a put-upon, long suffering reviewer, subject to the tyranny and dry wit of Chris. However, far too much cake eating goes on!

Chris and Phil Present

The Empire Podcast

Yes this is a bit mainstream, but as a long-time subscriber to the mag it’s been enjoyable getting to know some of the team through the magical medium of audio. I enjoy the format, comprising of listeners questions, news and interviews. I also like the fact that the team rotate, so there are different folks to listen to each week.

The Empire Podcast

Horroretc Podcast

Ok, don’t be put off by the name. These guys aren’t just about horror and when they do talk about it, it’s always intelligent and interesting. The subject matter they cover really is broad, from Giallo, to Lovecraft, to Hitchcock and even TV shows, such as Dexter and The Walking Dead. Occasionally they even do a book show, which they should do more often in my humble opinion.

Tony and Ted (and sometimes Dug) really are some of the nicest guys you will probably never meet (they’re all the way over the atlantic in Canada - somewhere I would really like to visit one day).

Horroretc Podcast

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews

Another mainstream one, but you can’t really call yourself a film fan and ignore it. Mark and Simon are the Dons of the film review world as far as I’m concerned. They’re like the Homer and Marge Simpson, the Ross and Rachel, the Clark Kent and Lois Lane (you get the idea) of the podcast world.

If you’ve never heard Mark’s infamous Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 rant (it goes on for 10 minutes and I don’t think he actually takes a breath!), track it down now!… Actually I’ll give you a hand - here it is on YouTube.

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews

Mondo Movie

Mondo - Extreme in degree or nature

That definition says it all really. Sadly Ben and Dan are no longer doing the podcast (although apparently it may return), but the back catalogue is still available on iTunes, all 117 episodes! If you have any interest in cult movies, world cinema, horror, exploitation or genre you need to check this out.

Mondo Movie

Yeah It’s That Bad

These guys arrived on the scene a couple of years ago with a fantastic concept - to re-evaluate movies on Rotten Tomatoes and ask “is it really that bad?”. Most of the movies really are a pile of c**p, but occasionally a gem turns up (Constantine anyone?).

However, it’s the brilliant rapport between the hosts, Joel, Kevin, and Martin (other than that their identities remain a mystery…), that makes this worth listening to. Some people (i.e. non-Americans winky face) may find their constant guffawing a bit grating, but I find it somewhat endearing.

Yeah It’s That Bad

And there you have it, my current, favourite film podcasts.

If you want to recommend any that I’m missing out on please let me know. Probably the best place to get my attention is on Twitter, but you can also leave a comment below.

Happy listening!

*Update - You Total Cult

Deserving of an honourable mention is You Total Cult, the ‘bastard love child’ of Chris and Phil Present.

“From a dank dark Brighton basement two groan men chat and argue about classic cult favourites, unmade masterpieces and obscure films that they probably had no business watching in the first place.”

It's not a particularly scientific test as there are many factors involved in perceived page load times, but it seems to give a useful indication.

It works by using javascript to compare the difference between the download complete time and the render complete time, the result being the window paint time. It then records these results using localStorage and generates an average window paint time. Obviously the more times you click a test the more accurate the average.

All the Grunt documentation can be found here: http://gruntjs.com/getting-started

At the time of writing the node.js and Grunt versions are as follows:

node.js - v0.10.0 grunt-cli - v0.1.6 grunt - v0.4.1

1. Install node.js

Download and follow the install instructions for node.js here: http://nodejs.org/

2. Install grunt-cli

grunt-cli docs: http://gruntjs.com/getting-started

Install grunt-cli (the Grunt command line interface):

npm install -g grunt-cli

This puts the grunt command in your system path, allowing it to be run from anywhere.

3. Install grunt-init

grunt-init docs: http://gruntjs.com/project-scaffolding

grunt-init is a scaffolding tool used to automate project creation.

Install grunt-init:

npm install -g grunt-init

4. Install some grunt-init templates

Install some grunt-init templates to help get you started. For example:

git clone [email protected]:gruntjs/grunt-init-commonjs.git ~/.grunt-init/commonjs

git clone [email protected]:gruntjs/grunt-init-gruntfile.git ~/.grunt-init/gruntfile

git clone [email protected]:gruntjs/grunt-init-gruntplugin.git ~/.grunt-init/gruntplugin

git clone [email protected]:gruntjs/grunt-init-jquery.git ~/.grunt-init/jquery

git clone [email protected]:gruntjs/grunt-init-node.git ~/.grunt-init/node

5. Initialise your project

You can use grunt-init to scaffold a project from one of the templates you just installed, or create your own project from scratch. Full templating instructions can be found here: http://gruntjs.com/project-scaffolding

5a. Using grunt-init to scaffold a project

Create a project based on one of the templates you just installed.

Example - Run the following command in the root directory of your project:

grunt-init jquery

This will scaffold a jQuery plugin project, including QUnit unit tests (at the time of writing trying to install the QUnit Grunt plugin as outlined in section 5b1. below will throw up an error - this is a known issue).

In your project directory you should now see a number of folders, including node_modules, plus package.json and Gruntfile.js files.

5b. Or create your own project template

Create a folder for a project. For the purposes of this tutorial let's call it myproject.

Inside myproject create a folder called src, a folder called build, and a README.md file (or you will get warning messages when you install some of the grunt plugins).

Inside the src folder create a file called myproject.js.

Below are basic examples of package.json and Grunfile.js files.

5b1. package.json

Create a package.json file in the root of your project:

{ "name": "myproject", "version": "0.0.1" }

Grunt and any grunt plugins you want to use will need to be installed.

You can either install each plugin individually from the command line... For example:

npm install grunt --save-dev

npm install grunt-contrib-nodeunit --save-dev

npm install grunt-contrib-uglify --save-dev

The modules will automatically be added to the package.json file, which should now look something like this:

{ "name": "myproject", "version": "0.0.1", "devDependencies": { "grunt": "~0.4.1", "grunt-contrib-nodeunit": "~0.1.2", "grunt-contrib-uglify": "~0.1.2" } }

Or, if you already know the versions of the plugins you want (you can find this out on the github repo of each plugin) you can create the package.json file with the devDependencies pre-filled, and then from the command line simply run:

npm install

5b2. Gruntfile.js

Create a Gruntfile.js file in the root of your project:

module.exports = function(grunt) { // Project configuration. grunt.initConfig({ pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'), uglify: { options: { banner: '/*! <%= pkg.name %> <%= grunt.template.today("yyyy-mm-dd") %> */\n' }, build: { src: 'src/<%= pkg.name %>.js', dest: 'build/<%= pkg.name %>.min.js' } } }); // Load the plugin that provides the "uglify" task. grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-uglify'); // Default task(s). grunt.registerTask('default', ['uglify']); };

6. Run grunt

Finally, from the command line and in the root directory of your project run grunt:

grunt

All being well you should see the following output:

Running "uglify:build" (uglify) task File "build/myproject.min.js" created. Uncompressed size: 10 bytes. Compressed size: 0 bytes gzipped (0 bytes minified). Done, without errors.

If you now look in the build folder you should find a minified version of your myproject.js file, called myproject.min.js.

Congratulations, you've set up and run Grunt successfully for the first time!

Taking things further

Naturally this introduction only covers the very basics of a Grunt install and project set-up.

Using the methods above and, by following some of the other examples on the Grunt website, you should be able to introduce new automation features, such as 'linting' your javascript code, or compiling your .less into minified .css, or setting up a 'watch' script to automatically run a new build when changes are detected, and so on.

To learn more I would highly recommend reading through the Grunt documentation. Hopefully if you've followed the steps above things should make a bit more sense: http://gruntjs.com/getting-started