Sampled Room is a slick little composition by Mateusz Zdziebko. I’ve seen a couple of similar experiments that use household objects to create digestible sounds, but none as clean as this.
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Ponyo loves Sasuke! And I love Ponyo. Once again too slow to catch it in the cinema, I finally was able to sit down and watch Hayao Miyazaki’s most recent film on DVD. It’s a treat – and my recommendation if you’re looking for something to watch this weekend. The basic plot is that Ponyo is a goldfish princess who wishes to become human after she falls in love. My very favourite part of the movie is when Ponyo licks the blood from Sasuke’s cut:
Fun fact – Ponyo’s name is an onomatopoeia, based on Miyazaki’s idea of what a “soft, squishy softness” sounds like when touched.
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My local dive, Whammy Bar, has a great selection of rock n’ roll tunes; I seem to find myself dancing to this in the wee hours of every Friday night.
“If rock and roll had another name it would be Chuck Berry” – John Lennon
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This trip. Sensational. No, better. Sorta like a dream? I flew Air France from Paris to Copenhagen then back again. I listened to Air France on my headphones. They are Swedish and good. Air France (the airline) upgraded me to business class. I thought they were pretty good too. Then they lost my luggage and my worldly possessions. It was then I learnt the phrase, c’est la vie.
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How do you like the new The National album? It’s been growing on me. This video makes Bloodbuzz Ohio even more mellifluous. As Jess said in an email, “Sweet beard, excellent tailoring, feeding ducks. Fin!”
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Youth, summer, hopes and dreams. This is the video for the song Young Blood by Auckland band The Naked and Famous. It’s an apt name, I think know they have a grand future ahead of them.
The video was directed by Special Problems, who have this ethereal, glitchy, breathe-in-the cold-clean-air niche nailed. Another example? The music video they made for Sydney skate-rat Jonathon Boulet’s Community Service Announcement (he’s signed to the fantastic Modular label).
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Sometimes things just don’t go right. Shitty moods, flaky friends, mountains of study. What to do? My advice is to sit back and watch some videos of baby sloths. If you don’t feel better after watching this one, well then, you are a DEPRESSED ROBOT. Sorry.
Or for a more intellectual cheer up, watch and learn from this video:
Now I want to marry David Attenborough (swoon) and become a sloth farmer.
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I have a total soft spot for ridiculous 80′s movies, especially if they are set in THE FUTURE. In this case, the future is a post-apocalyptic year 2017 – Las Vegas is smothered by sand and outlaw is a popular career choice.
Cherry 2000 (dir. Steve De Jarnatt, 1988) is so bad it’s incredible. By the looks of it, we’ll be able to take robot wives, enjoy Kartell kitchens and have Larry Fishburne serve as our Glu Glu lawyer.
I love the outfits and interiors of the movie. Camp-tastic. If you’re ever flicking through the outer reaches of your cable subscription and you see this movie playing, stop. It’s well worth watching for the laughs, and a sneak peek at the guns we’ll all be toting in 7 years…
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Sony’s ‘Around The World In 80 Seconds’ video, directed Romain Pergeaux and Alex Profit, makes me want to pack my bags and get on a plane with a camera in hand. Right now.
I love how the globe spins as the action moves across the planet: London – Cairo – Mumbai – Hong Kong – Tokyo – San Francisco – New York – London. The route is a tribute to the famous Jules Verne book “Le Tour Du Monde En 80 Jours” and took 3 weeks to travel.
Lo fi, high impact advertising – over one million views already.
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Logorama is short film directed by the French animation collective H5. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009, opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short. A deftly composed film. My favourite touch? The Evian mountains.
Cayce Pollard would have a conniption if she saw this.
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This made me giggle! As a teenager I was obsessed with short films, and eventually attended film school for a year. Of course, any good filmmaker needs a larger production company moniker, and mine was ‘Missing Limb Productions’. It was named for my pet axolotl Dragon, who had his left leg scarfed by his tank mate CinCin. (Aw, I miss making movies and my slimy little friends.)
Anyway; it’s based on a Craiglist missed connection, it’s succinct, and beautifully shot. Is This Your Limb?
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Iceland, wow. It’s just skipped into the top ten of the ‘places-I-madly-want-to-visit-next’ list. Make sure you watch it full-screen.
ICELAND from Gunnar Konradsson on Vimeo.
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Burning question: Who do you want to be when you grow up? Fever Ray, Shirley Manson and the Pussy Cat Dolls all have uh, different dreams. I think when I grow up I totally want to writhe on some scaffolding, wearing combat boots. Possibly looking like Fever Ray.
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Dinner with Murakami is a 2007 documentary directed by Yan Ting Yuen about the life and work of legendary Japanese author Haruki Murakami.
“Largely structured round Murakami’s enigmatic absence, the film dramatizes Murakami’s impact on his readers and takes the camera into the hinterland to determine what is “Murakamian” in the Japanese landscape. The resulting film has a beautiful sense of form and poetic structure.” [Indie Flick Pick]
In the film everybody from groupies who hang outside Murakami’s old jazz club to schoolchildren, share their piece on the publicity shy writer. Norwegian Wood has been likened to the Nippon equivalent of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye; so it is unsurprising most Japanese people have a story to tell about their relationship with Murakami’s work.
See also: Imagine, a BBC documentary series. Alan Yentob goes on A Wild Sheep Chase: In Search Of Haruki Murakami.
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