A Frankenstien Monster Post

Tue, 16 Jun 2009

Well shit, I’ve taken a bit more of a break from blogging than intended, but ah well here’s the catch-up…

Been working well too much in the last week, balancing filming and working. Still have to work on actually combining the two into a one regular thing.

48 Hours continues to be prevailing. C4 is currently screening three 48 films from this year every night at 11pm on a weeknight. Starting Wednesday, they’ll be screening the regional winners, Friday will be the wildcards as picked by Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (super cool) and Saturday will be the televised finals (at 9pm if you are interested in watching). Our film will be screened last on Wednesday night which will be really cool and you’ll get to see our retarded intro and possibly my retarded interview as well. Past that, we don’t have any illusions of actually winning the entire competition and while it is an international competition and there’s no telling who could be picked for whatever reason, I highly doubt we’d win anything and it’s basically just cool, if not still surprising, to have gotten this far again.

Oh and if you’re unable to watch any of the episodes of the 48 Hours tv show, they’re online at the C4 website here. It’s pretty much how I’ve been following the show as I’m working when its on and come to think of it, might not even be available to watch the finals when they screen.

There’s plenty of other things to mention, but I’ll save it for another post. This week shall just be catch up week really as I start sorting out what I need to do next. Room currently looks like a post-tornado site and the boot of my car is filled with just as much junk to go through.

In the meantime here are some videos:

A very cool ‘stop motion’ video with post its and computer who ha.

An online comedy video series thing that’s pretty funny and manages to keep being so in subsequent videos.

And my current favourite awesome, the latest N.A.S.A. music video for the tract “A Volta”. Totally brilliant.

Also a few New Scientist articles I’ve enjoyed and cause the tabs are still open…

Seven things that don’t make sense about gravity.

10 scientific objects that changed the world.

And the very cool article on The inside story of the Conficker worm.

This is how you’re meant to love money…

Sat, 23 May 2009

Llamas with Hats

Tue, 12 May 2009

Why was this not pointed out to me earlier? Awesome…

Ani*Kuri15

Thu, 30 Apr 2009

While I await the viewing of Geinus Party Beyond, a collection of anime shorts, I’ve discovered Ani*Kuri15, an awesome collection of 15 one minute anime shorts by an impressive line up of directors made for the NHK channel.

While the official website that hosted them seems to be down at the moment, you can find these videos on youtube quite easily, though almost all of them don’t have english subtitles. But that doesn’t matter much, cause these videos are in the hands of some damn fine directors. Here’s a couple of my favourites…

A Gathering of Cat by Makoto Shinkai. I love this guy’s films, check out Voices of a Distant Star and Places Promised in Our Early Years if you can.

Invasion from Space – Hiroshi’s Castle by Shōjirō Nishimi. This guys a newcomer, but he was involved in the awesome Tekkonkinkreet and basically this short is a helluva lot of fun.

Project Omega by Shōji Kawamori. From the creator of one of my favourites The Visions of Escaflowne, this one is just fun.

Good Morning by Satoshi Kon. By far one of the best anime directors out there and one of my personal favourite filmmakers of all, this short is just… great.

Some videos that I’ve meant to post about in the last few weeks but kept closing the window before finishing

Mon, 27 Apr 2009

Continuing on a love of Craig Robinson and porn. Here’s Craig Robinson in the lastest PG Porn video. Hilarity.

Probably the last Watchmen related thing I’ll post. Not that I’ve been posting much about Watchmen. Not that I really care. This video is amusing anyway.

The trailer for The Brothers Bloom is out and this is near the top of my can’t wait to see list of upcoming movies. Big love for Rian Johnson and Brick and the word is this is right up there. Check the proper HD trailer hereA.

And finally, coming back to porn, is Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno, which is now out with a second season. Green Porno is a series of videos where Isabella Rossellini reenacts the animal kingdoms mating ritual with cardboard cutouts. I remember when the first season came out and it was a bitch to try to watch it outside of the US but now its all viewable in any country and viewable here. Its awesome.

Tough Like the Ukulele

Wed, 11 Mar 2009

Best Nirvana cover ever.

General Movie Jibba Jabba

Sun, 8 Mar 2009

Not content with just the robots taking over the planet, I’ve been reading up a lot of articles on the big bang theory and the ultimate fate of the universe, which, though long after the robots have enslaved our planet, stripped it of all its resources and took to the stars, is the theory that the universe is actually expanding at an accelerating rate and eventually will be nothing but redshift to radiation. Gotta love science.

Anyway, been pretty shit still at keeping this constantly updated, which I still maintain is a robot conspiracy. Caught up with some friends over the weekend and managed to stay conscious through the most of a friend’s Samurai movie marathon and got to watch a few films that I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time. In particular is Hari-Kiri by Masaki Kobayashi which was just great and something I’ve got to get my own copy of sometime. Wonderful lighting and intense performances from all, check out his other film Kwaidan if you can sometime.

Also caught Watchmen which left me at a loss for an opinion for a few days and even now I’m not as close to deciding if I liked it or hated it. On one hand, the adaptation of the comic in terms of visuals and dialogue have been done brilliantly well and the film looks amazing and lots of the scenes reminded me of bits exactly in the books, on the other hand, that’s almost just saying that comics are nothing but movies that don’t move and I think that’s the growing attitude towards graphic novels which is stupid. While this worked in Sin City and 300 cause there was this macho attitude towards everything in the comics and that attitude was there on screen, Watchmen the comic is full of nuances and subtext and themes that just weren’t there on the screen. It was like a hollow doppleganger or carbon copy of the general plot and no soul behind it.

In saying all that actually, I think I’m getting closer to not hating Watchmen. Other gripes I had were that the pacing of the film was very off, the soundtrack (apart from the wonderful use of Dylan in the opening credits) was awful, the changed ending was terrible, most of the action scenes were boring and unnecessary and what the hell was up with Nixon’s nose? It was hard to pay attention to anything else when the damn thing was on screen.

I wanted to like the movie, I really did, and I admire Snyder for “staying true” to the comics, but in doing so, he’s just made a hollow moving picture version that made me want to go back to the comic and stay there.

Really, I should have posted this semi-review separately, but meh. Here’s a version of Watchmen I’m certainly glad they never did and yet strangely would have still watched it anyway…

Some Post-Birthday Boosh

Mon, 2 Feb 2009

Had a pretty damn good birthday shindig and many thanks to all who came along to celebrate. This week will see me enjoying the rockin’ sounds of Ryan Adams and drinking a farewell to a friend who’s jumping across the ditch to Australia just cause he can. The crazy bastard.

My friend Fin has resumed blogging again to which the world gives praise to Robot Jesus for. Commence reading his sultry words here at https://findlaydonnan.wordpress.com/. There’s a birthday post somewhere he made for me that includes a video of me some years back. I’m not gonna directly link to it, cause I’m passively embarrassed like that, but feel free to look for it yourself.

My other friend Joe also sent me this, it’s actually intended for Christmas, but his powers of procrastination can rival mine at times, so I’m gonna post it like its a birthday thing.

Actually, I also got sent this by Shoshana, originally taken during my birthday party. Don’t ask. I’m not even sure what I could give as an answer.

And finally, here’s a three cello rendition of The Final Countdown. Boosh!

What I’ve Been Watching: Frisky Dingo

The most awesome new adult swim cartoon of recent years. It’s so hard to describe and to pin point where exactly in all the crazy randomness lies the awesome, so I can only say that it is all awesome. Rather than a scene, here’s a compilation video of their use of the word “boosh”.

It’s like kakow.

What’s awesome?

Wed, 28 Jan 2009

A Japanese Obama action figure. With inter changeable ties, weapons, a microphone, American flag and what’s that? Lightsabers you say? I’ll take three.

And catching up on some 30 Rock, here’s the best scene from season two and Alec Balwin at his finest…