I’m quite excited about seeing this when it eventually makes it’s way to Lunar viewscreens (America gets it on 19th September). Apparently it’s about the first days of prohibition in and around Atlantic City and has what looks to be a great cast: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Tommy from Snatch as Al Capone and our very own Kelly MacDonald. And one of the episodes is directed by some guy called Martin Scorsese. Should be a real hoot.
via YouTube
Hi! Apologies for the lack of posts around these parts recently, but hey, you should see my bathroom. Maybe I should flush once in a while. Here’s a great little stop motion animation for Turin Breaks song Sea change. I was quite moved when ‘corporal crouch-with-the-pistol-and-shorts’ died, but now I’ve said too much…
The earth can be a pretty pretty pretty impressive thing sometimes, and I am glad to be considered one of its close and personal friends. Seriously, it like texts me at least 3 times a day. This beautiful time-lapse of the recent Icelandic volcano shows us how lucky we have been for so long. Missing a flight is not so bad. Living next to it might cause problems. Hey, at least it didn’t explode, or worse… at least an army of Mole-Men didn’t jump out and enslave the human race. Yet.
Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.
So there is this thing called StoryCorps…
Since 2003, over 50,000 people have shared life stories with family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind…
Brilliant. I think this is such an important way of making sure history reads us all the way we are.
And now, They’ve animated 5 short films based on some of those conversations. How can I not post this? HOW? TELL ME FUTURE PEOPLE!!???!!!
WARNING: This will be the sweetest animation you will have seen for a while…
Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.
I’ve been marvelling much at a book I bought this week ‘10,000 Years of Art’, a mind-bogglingly long time I’ve been thinking (5 times as long as between Jesus and me in fact). But this has been put into sharper perspective by the latest ‘Where is Werner’ update… He is making a documentary about the earliest known some of the earliest known pictures anywhere; Chauvet cave in France. Using the latest cutting edge technology to bring us closer to the oldest art than we can ever get (the cave is shut to the public but Herzog ‘talked his way in’).
But the man has the imagination and power to make 32,000 years jump before your eyes like a cut between scenes- check here (around 5 minutes in) when he’s talking about how he thinks the paintings would flicker cinematically on the wall in firelight and then swings time to Swing Time circa 1938 when Fred Astaire achieved equally mysterious greatness when dancing with his shadows. (Read this for Herzog on Swing Time);
Then watch THIS for more from Herzog on 3D! Fascinating stuff. (If I sound like I’m obsessed with Herzog, its because I am).
Old news nobody! A special episode of the most recent Turtles cartoon called ‘Turtles Forever’ came out last year or sometime, and over christmas I got a chance to watch it, and I recommend it to all. Funny stuff wherein the attitude-ridden new Turtles meet the cringe-worthy 80’s Turtles, and then they all meet the original bad-ass Turtles from the original comic series. Oh how I laughed.
…Da duh da
I don’t know what it is… but i think the new A-Team film may be the greatest thing ever. As long as that isn’t one of them Hum-vee’s in the smokey background there.
Posting about Winsor McCay recently, I completely forgot to mention that he is probably best known nowadays for making the earliest animated cartoons. That isn’t strictly true; but I’d say he certainly perfected the art form into something we can still gawp at today. The most famous McCay animation has to be Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), touted as the very first recognisable animated ‘cartoon character’.
In truth though, animated cartoons started (sort of) in 1900, maybe being the first twentieth century art form…
Yes, we may have forgotten this but art, and cinema, can be important and beautiful and life-affirming. Bill Douglas knew this.
I am ashamed to say I have never seen the autobiographical Childhood trilogy for which he is famous, despite the fact he grew up just outside Edinburgh, the nexus of my existence. But I am very proud to be the owner of the new DVD of Comrades, which until now - well officially tomorrow (BFI sent mine early, woo hoo)- it was almost impossible to get hold of by all accounts… ad a six week run in London only and then practically disappeared.
Released during the Thatcher era (go figure), the film is based on the Tolpuddle Martyrs of the early 19th century, sent to Australia for daring to be involved in a ‘Friendly Society’ (basically a trade union) and still celebrated today. But far from being a factual documentary, what makes it stand out are the moments imaginative experimentation, of ‘fantastickal reverie’. (It reminds me a wee bit of one of my favourite novels, maybe the Great American Novel, Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon which is based on factual events from late 18th century history but connecting the gaps are flights of imagination from talking dogs to alien abduction.)
Yesterday a bit of browsing in Waterstones (other bookshops are available) led me to find a book of ‘Dream of the Rarebit Fiend’ strips by Winsor McCay, which featured daily in New York Evening Telegram from 1904 to 1911, essentially each strip represents a strange and fantastic dream brought on by the hallucinogenic properties of cheese. The illustration is just stunning, and the ideas are great. He also wrote Little Nemo in Slumberland aimed at kids, which apparently had an influence on Sandman. It just amazes me how newspaper comic strips seemed to reach their artistic peak virtually from the word ‘go’ (although I ’spose cartoons and illustrations had been around much much longer). Another serious love of mine is George Herriman and his Krazy Kat strips created in 1913, but more on him in a future post…
Post-it note style animation from these awesome dudes makes you think… what would you say at the end…
From what I’ve read Admiral Nelson’s last words were ” Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub rub”, although there appears to be disagreement there. My Personal favourite must be Futurama’s “Tell my wife……hello” From the neutral planet.
OK- it’s 40 years today since Apollo 11 took off for the moon landing. Having ‘on the moon’ in our name, and a musical astronaut as a mascot we might as well milk this baby for all it’s worth. Which potentially means 8 days of moon related lunacy…
The Apollo 10 mission was essentially a sort of trial run which took place in May 1969, orbiting the moon within about 8 miles of its surface. Delightfully, the main command capsule was given the All-American call sign ‘Charlie Brown’ and the lunar module, ‘Snoopy’; the Peanuts characters becoming semi-official mascots to drum up support. Charlie’s namesake now resides at Science Museum, London.
The original Blues Brothers film demonstrated an old Cab Calloway preform his awesome ‘Minnie the Moocher’ song, but it’s worth seeing it when he was at his most dynamic;
That’s some ‘mooching’!
Ok, so this is gut wrenchingly awful but as we hit the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing it’s good to see the story getting press attention, even if it is just to laugh at the 2nd Man rapping about his ‘rocket experience.’ Not even a song this bad can derail the footage of what we humans managed to do when we utilized the technology of nuclear destruction to do something marvelous…
Oh and be sure to catch the ‘making of’ below - where hip-hop’s elite take this piss out of an old man who you know… actually achieved something remarkable. Mind you, Aldrin hangs himself when he claims “I have only two passions; space exploration … and hip hop!”
