Tag: videos

do you want to watch a movie?

7:35 DE LA MAÑANA from Morituri.

7:35 in the Morning is a short from 2004 that I think Andrew found through StumbleUpon before it was nominated for an Oscar. We used to have little Found Media nights where people would bring DVD’s or drives with videos they had liked and downloaded from the internet, like YouTube parties before the social networks caught up with our habits and everything was given over to the cloud, and I remember this one making quite the impression when we put it up on the screen. A bit like when we found The Hire BMW films in early 2002. (Called The Hire, we found them stripped of their context and named them The Driver series and loved them all the same.)

The internet is interestingly timeless, insomuch that what is old can be new again, as new waves of people discover old art. It’s strange to think that 7:35 in the Morning is from a decade ago. I haven’t seen Andrew in months, I couldn’t name more than five people who used to come to those parties, but here I am, tracking it down and posting it to my LiveJournal, just like I did ten years ago when I was twenty:two.

It came up this evening because I’m sending some of my favourite short films to a dear friend who’s at home with anxiety. It’s not the hair-dye girly party we planned, but I’m still managing to help her with her gluey, uncomfortable head-yuck, so I’m a little disappointed, but not as much as I would be if I couldn’t find a way to help.

Other films I’m sending her that you might like as well:

Johnny Express, by Kyungmin Woo – A slightly shady delivery gone terribly wrong. Animated with a nod to disaster blockbuster tropes, it’s a sweet yet efficient bit of ha-ha ouch sort of slapstick.

Hotel Chevalier, by Wes Anderson – Partner short to The Darljeeling Limited, Jason Schwartzman plays the same character, but before he got his emo heart all ker-smashed by his ex-lover, played by Natalie Portman. More atmosphere than plot, but nice.

Marilyn Myller, by Mikey Please – From the description, “A year in the making, the full six minute stopmotion short features the voice of Josie Long, one zillion hand carved tiny things, literally tens of carved foam puppets, two eye fulls of in-camera, long-exposure light trickery and a pair of tiny dolphins, smooching.” It also pointedly makes fun of high art while being, at it’s heart, high art.

The Centrifuge Brain Project – Lies, damned lies, and mock documentaries about scientific experiments. Contains nearly believable amusement park rides and a touch of death.

This Is a Generic Brand Video, written by Kendra Eash for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency – Made entirely of stock footage, (excepting the custom narration), this short gleefully skewers the poisoned well of advertising conceits it draws from so successfully.

Oktapodi, by gobelins school of animation students – Two octopi in love. One is captured, meant for a dinner table, the other must get it free. Chaos, of course, ensues just as ridiculously it should.

Trois petits points, by gobelins school of animation students – Supremely stylish, a seamstress sews things back together during and after a war, while her husband is resentful. Thick with myth, this one, and darkness.

C’est la vie, by Simone Rovellini – Attractive and bewitching, this working girl is especially charming if you’re a fan of Amélie. Similar whimsy and cinematic style, though very different plot. I will love this one until I die.

like a rose left on a digital doorstep

To celebrate my insanely exciting travel/adventure news, I’ve been blasting my facebook with the good times virus. Here’s a round-up of some of the cheerful links, as well as a few extras:

  • A video of Mariachi Connecticut serenading a beluga whale at the Mystic Aquarium.
  • A video of a plane to plane skydive, taken by one of the skydivers.
  • A Swedish man was arrested for trying to split atoms in a home kitchen reactor. “Mr. Handl, 31, said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove. Only later did he realize it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.”
  • Revival, Beats Antique’s brand shiny new music video.
  • One of the best sci-fi trailer-teasers ever made. (I wish it were for a new favourite television show, but no, it’s for a terrible video game).
  • According to Gawker, Newt Gingrich might have paid for the majority of his Twitter followers.
  • Art installation: books rupturing through a wall of an advertising agency in a building that used to be a library.
  • Starting next August, U.S. insurance providers will be required to cover all FDA-approved birth control methods.
  • Timelapse of 3D printout of Stephen Colbert’s head.
  • Explain like I’m five, simply worded answers to complicated questions.
  • Fastest Shave Ever.

    • don’t let it break your heart

    Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic
    Cyanide & Happiness pt 1 @ Explosm.net
    Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic
    Cyanide & Happiness pt 2 @ Explosm.net

    A time-suck directory of 80’s era music videos on YouTube.

    Now that I’m unemployed, I never know what time it is. My watch battery ran out three or four weeks ago, and I never bothered replacing it. The money can be better used elsewhere. I leave the house early enough to guarantee I’ll arrive at interviews ahead of time and when planning trips outside of the house for other ventures, I rely on that strange social habit wherein all strangers must answer when asked the time. Even at home, I’ll be sorting through job advertisements or photographs taken during the day and only realize it’s three in the morning because my friends in Japan pop up on messenger. Like now. Ouch. Yesterday I was worse, getting home at four a.m. and going to bed close to eight. This sleep thing the kids talk about – I’m considering trying it, you know, for the novelty.

    Silly Austrian scientists suggest that sharing a bed with someone temporarily reduces men’s brain power.

    Longbaugh: You know what I’m gonna tell God when I see him? I’m gonna tell him I was framed.

    I can’t turn my back on you for a minute. I’m in from the cold, inspired by darling gunn to fix my dye, so wandering on-line while waiting for all the coloured goo to set. I look and it’s like Warren wrote the news on an especially bitter-hate-world sort of day.

    Australia’s on a second night of Race Riots.

    The United States, (as insidiouswanker points out), “always so fond of criticizing China for human rights transgressions, just keeps on running with that human rights abuse.” As an aside to that, The United States now ranks behind South Africa in civil rights. (for counter-point: A stylish music clip setting to get the vote message across to South Africans.)

    All in the same month, a cram school teacher murdered a twelve year-old student, a Peruvian killed a 7 year-old and left her body in a cardboard box, another 7 year-old was stabbed to death in Ibaraki, and a high school girl was murdered by a fellow student because he thought she was “going cold” on him.

    As if to top it, the State of California has just executed a man nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    What the hell people? Do we have to come over there and fuck-start your heads? Make where you live a better place to be, already.
    Spread this link around. This one right here.

    I’m not sure what one wears to a politcal soiree


    (c) Vee Speers
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    This link is vikings rocking out in marching band fashion in ships that transform into giant musical samurai. Just watch it. It’s too awesome for me to describe in any accurate way without using up far too much space. I say too much because you will be reading my descriptions instead of watching it, which is the important bit.

    I’d also recommend you watch this, as perhaps the most accurate portrayal I’ve ever seen of SinCity, the monthly fetish night I’ve been attending regularly for four years. That and just sort of goth clubs in general, when they don’t suck. I swear I’ve never been to one that played Cat’s in the Cradle, however. That bit was added purely for comedy. Either that or I fail at wearing fishnets even more than I thought.

    “The World Summit on the Information Society starting on Wednesday is heading for a showdown over governance of the Internet, amid attempts to shift the balance of power away from the United States.“

    More comics from Michel arrived in the mail today. I am on more pages of Star Wars than I thought, though I still don’t get a lightsabre. I am going to have to borrow a scanner from someone so that I may theft and pirate my slick little pages. Now I’m wondering how to possibly word such a thing on my resume. Incidentally modeled for pages of Star Wars.