Animator v. Animation

One of the best little animations I've seen in a while, courtesy of Alan Becker.

Motion Theory & Modest Mouse

The Motion Theory music video for Modest Mouse's 'Dashboard' is one of the best I've seen of late: clever narrative, really striking cinematography, and fairly decent music (I guess that part's important). I'll be interested to see if their new album -- We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, which releases on March 20 -- returns to the days of The Moon & Antarctica, before they started producing lyrical disasters like "Float On."

A Year in Movies, Briefly

Particularly next to my film studies major friends & neighbors who know every line of Federico Fellini's work by heart, I don't know much about cinema. Still, blogging is all about contributing your own largely-unnecessary, largely-ignored opinions to the wonderful institution that is the internet, and it would be a shame to ignore tradition. Admittedly, I have not seen The Science of Sleep or Babel or Volver or The Departed or Children of Man, all of which I've heard are really good, but what can you do.



* * * * *

Little Miss Sunshine
Between a Nietzsche-obsessed silent brother and a suicidal Proust professor uncle, the characters of this movie are amazingly bizarre but somehow still strangely lovable. It's black comedy in the extreme -- and at times feels a little too tragicomic (how can so many bad things happen to any family at once, in manner of Meet the Parents?!) -- but all in all unique and enjoyable in its oddity.

* * * *

Casino Royale
My father had a minor heart attack when I told him that Casino Royale might be my favorite Bond movie yet, but there you have it: it's sarcastic, witty, the opening credits are amazing, and best of all the movie constantly pokes fun at the old Bond stereotypes (Bartender: Shaken or stirred? Bond: Does it look like I give a damn?) and is a general modernization of an old classic (Mathis: It's amazing what you can do with Photoshop nowadays). I went in with low expectations -- which always heightens enjoyment if a movie is anything above mediocre -- but still, I thought it was quite wonderful.

The Devil Wears Prada
Meryl Streep plays the Cruella De Vil of New York City and carries off the role fairly efficiently. Though a little too happily-ever-after at its conclusion for my tastes, it's a thoroughly entertaining two hours. For about two days after seeing it I was also plagued by a horrible desire to go shopping, which I think is vaguely antithetical to the movie's raison d'etre, so to speak, but I can't help that.

* * *

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Admittedly, there were many absolutely hilarious moments -- most of which, unfortunately, were effectively ruined since I'd already seen them on YouTube -- but those were far outnumbered by "oh my god please make it stop auuurrrgggh" moments. Even worse, a subsequent string of revelations that proved scenes were either staged or coerced made the entire premise seem even more horrible.

* *

The DaVinci Code
Suffers greatly from "not as good as the book" syndrome -- which is a little sad, considering that the book wasn't that great to begin with. Also, Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou (two of my favorite actors, no less) both look vaguely nauseated throughout the entire film.

*

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
What were you thinking, Disney? Almost as shameless as the second Matrix film -- and anyone who knows how much I hate those movies understands the gravity of that comparison. Honestly, I only bothered for Johnny Depp.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Well, I suppose I can't really judge this obscenely offensive excuse for a movie since I walked out of the theater about 20 minutes in. I'm returning to my "no Will Ferrell, under any circumstances" rule.

Call Your Grandma

From Sufjan Stevens, a slightly bizarre but naturally wonderful animated video to accompany one of the songs from his holiday album, Hark! Songs for Christmas Volume 2.

Whiteboard Stop Motion Animation

For Your Viewing Pain:

Specimen 1:
In which Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) flips out at a few audience members in the Laugh Factory with a series of choice racial slurs. Lovely.

And much, much worse...

Specimen 2:
In which an Iranian UCLA student is tasered five times by the campus police for refusing to produce his ID while inciting a riot no, wait, studying in the library.

Kiwi!

Dony Permedi's thesis animation project is kind of adorable.

From Nexus Productions

This spot for Orange is one of the most wonderful ads I have ever seen.

Elsewhere in Adland, this ad for an Ariston washing machine is beautiful, as is the older French Citroen commercial.

Veer.com

I recently stumbled upon Veer while searching for pretty fonts on the 'net, and was absolutely fascinated by Sam Buxton's Mikro-Man sculptures, which are essentially business-card-sized plates of stainless steel that unfold into miniature works of art. Beautiful.

Other oddities in their online store include the wonderfully dorky Lorem Ipsum and Baseline t-shirts, as well as this surprisingly attractive tape dispenser.

And! In addition to selling fonts, stock photography, illustrations, and video footage, Veer also maintains a pretty little blog with design tips and ideas. Definitely worth a look.

300

Generally speaking, I have a strong aversion to Hollywood-bastardized cinematic retellings of the ancient classics. Mention Troy, for instance, and I will launch into a 30-minute tirade on why Brad Pitt should have died minutes into the film, how a 10 year war cannot possibly last for two weeks, and why Paris shouldn't get his way just because he's played by Orlando Bloom (who really only looks good with long blonde hair).

Anyway.

As much as the movie industry alarms me when they get their hands on classical history, I am actually exceedingly excited for 300, mostly because 1. it's Frank Miller, people, and 2. I suppose since there's no conventional epic foundation anyway, there exists no story line to utterly ruin -- only historical accounts about the Battle of Thermopylae to distort, at the worst.

Watch the trailer. The graphics are stunning, although I'm slightly bothered by the typeface at the end that makes "300" look more like "ZOO."

Spam, Beans, and Really Big Flowers

Found Leo Bridle while surfing YouTube ... pretty impressive, I thought. Check out some of his other films, like the quirky and beautiful Still Life With Flowers.