St Trinian's 2
Mood:  bright
Topic: Oh So Shiny

So, have I talked about St. Trinian's?  Oh yeah, 'o 'course I did.  Well, I recently found out about the sequel and then recently found out that it was just recently released in DVD form across the pond, and then I recently received my PAL, region 2 copy in the mail.  I don't buy many movies sight unseen, but I couldn't help myself, and no, I wasn't disappointed.  2 is just as fun and frivolous as the first.  Yay!

 

Word Worms -- a long overdue post
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: "Dirty King" -- The Cliks
Topic: Oh So Shiny

A little while ago I read someone else's post about  Word Worms and wanted to help spread the word.  Its been so long that I cannot properly attribute the credit to the wonderful person who clued me in.  And I'm sorry about that, but it won't stop me from talking up this awesome blog/project.    Word Worms remakes old public domain videos into educational music videos for original songs.  I love story telling songs, I love the kookiness of old cartoons, and I love a good idea so of course I love Word Worms.  Now you can love it too!

The Po from Word Worms on Vimeo.

Ali Baba from Word Worms on Vimeo.

Takato Yamamoto
Mood:  bright
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

Googling Takato Yamamoto will result in a slew of blog posts and flickr collections.  Seems a lot of people already know about this amazing artist, but nobody thought to tell me...  Somehow the serene expressions of many of the subjects suggests to me that their being mired/contorted/picked to pieces is somehow a private indulgence that I have just walked in on uninvited.  These works are fascinating, gruesome, and beautiful.  I would like to see much much more.  More than this at the Mondo Bizzarro Gallery.   

Food Party!
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Oh So Shiny

So, even though I was already acquainted with and a fan of Thu Tran's Food Party, I still managed to miss the first two episodes on IFC.  I was even warned about it premiering ahead of time on Serious Eats.  How could this possibly happen?  What could possibly be wrong with me?  Am I so preoccupied and harried that, not only am I not blogging, writing, web building, crafting, I can't even catch a show on TV--or set my DVR to record?  Will we ever know the answers to these questions?  

Much better than trying to figure out, is to bury yourself in the Food Party that's already out there and waiting for you while you wait for the next episode on Tuesday. 

 

 

Another Cinderella Story: almost an awesome teen movie
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny

The DVR is both a blessing and a curse for me.  It allows me to catch shows I am genuinely interested in without having to chain myself to the TV.  It enables me to program my own viewing even more than I did when I would routinely put in a movie to avoid TV programming.  And it helps me catch shows and movies that I would have never seen because my passing curiosity was never enough for me to try and catch it when it aired.  Warner Bros.  Another Cinderella Story is one such movie.  I would have never seen this without a DVR.  That said, I do like a lot of teen movies.  I'm not really sure why I do, and I don't like all of them, but.....you get it, right?  

I pushed play on a lark late one night to peruse the thing and see if it had anything to offer.  And once Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins from Ginger Snaps appeared on the screen, I was committed to the rest of the movie.  I first became acquainted with Isabelle and Perkins from the Ginger Snaps movies.  Werewolves, more than vampires I think, have a cheezy and unfortunate movie history.  Ginger Snaps got it right for me.  Not to say that there isn't enough fuel in the three movies for some robust geek debates, but I was satisfied, and entertained, and happy.  And I was even more happy to see the two actresses who played the sisters in Ginger Snaps playing the evil pseudo step sisters in Another Cinderella Story.  If they were only given more time on screen!  

Unfortunately their parts didn't even have the meat of the adversary role in the film and they primarily occupied a comedy relief position in a movie that was kind of comedy all over.   The rest of the film was kind of cookie cutter, pretty teen drama, with the added bonus of semi-musical, attitude-heavy dance routines.

Anyway.....'sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.  never had to have a chaperon no sir.  I'm here to keep my eye on her......'

Bento Beat Box
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: The Blue Hearts
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

Every morning I turn on the TV while I'm getting ready.  First for the Weather channel (which is really unneccissary in Summer as every day is exaclty the same!) and then to a music video channel.  I can't say why I started TV-ing my mornings, I'm not all that addicted to the box; and I remember, long ago, I used to wake up with a stereo and music.  Anyway, the music video channels have become my only link to popular music in my radio-less existence.  I am far too used to finding stuff online now and have developed a strange and exclusionary music persona.  While I like discovering the random Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name" and Honey Honey's "Little Toy Gun,"  there is only so much Theory of a Dead Man, and 'lil Wayne I can take (no offense--just personal taste).  Well, wouldn't you know it, my incomplete salvation was at hand!  Hiding in a free-on-demand channel in my digital cable was Bento Beat Box on Anime Network.  This half hour show is like a mini music video channel for Japanese Rock brought to you by JRock Revolution. 

So, ah, I'm not going to say that Rock in Japan isn't just more of the same done different--music 's like that all over the globe, but the fact that it is done different is refreshing in its own right.  I'm also not going to say that it's not necissary at all to understand the lyrics in order to get all you can out of a song 'cause there is a lot of beautiful poetry in music, but really there are several popular songs supposedly in English that no one understands.  I am going to say that even people without my strange and exclusionary musical persona could really enjoy the show.  And now that I said all that I'm gonna whine, because I don't actually get the Anime Network as a channel and I really want to, and my free-on-demand doesn't update but once a month so I only have access to one measly episode.  For those of you without my particular obstacles--go and discover some music, boost its ratings and all!

Linda Linda Linda
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny

Last night I watched an awesome movie:   Linda Linda Linda.  About the half hazard construction of a band for the school festival after a key member of the original group is taken out of action.  The new group will be a cover band for The Blue Hearts--a late 80s punk band. 

I found the, sometimes very raw, look at highschool life fascinating.  The humor is dryer than anything I've ever encountered in famous-for-being-dry British humor and the faulty language interaction between the Korean exchange student and the rest of the group is priceless.  

Oh!  And the dream sequence!  One of those real enough to trick you into thinking the movie had just jumped the shark a bit until the Ramones show up and my husband says--"this has got to be a dream."  I initially thought it was moving too slow to take but a little hanging in there paid off in spades of spades.  

The Blue Hearts cover band Paran Maum even had a PV for "Linda Linda:"

 

Yellow Beard
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Oh So Shiny
I have fond memories of Yellowbeard from early on in my childhood.  It stood among movies like Rock and Rule, Young Frankenstein, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Zorro the Gay Blade, and Heavy Metal as fantastical depictions from the world of adulthood and inside jokes.  Upon revisit after a long absence, I can say it is slower paced than I remember and slightly more staged, terribly dry and absolutely wonderful--just like I remembered.  Given the reviews I caught glimpses of while looking around for it, I understand that it is far from everyone's cup of tea.  Originally marketed as the "greatest comedy cast ever assembled for a movie," perhaps it attracted the wrong kind of expectations from its audience.  It is a strange mix of comic style that blends the British dryness of Monte Python and the utter silliness of Cheech and Chong.  Whatever the reason for its initial flop, I am happy I have it in my DVD collection.

Cold Comfort Farm
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

I've just been acquainted with the idea that people who should know about Cold Comfort Farm do not.  This is a grave oversight on the part of the universe and I am only doing my small humble part to correct it in any way.  With a cast including Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, and Rufus Sewel it's hard to imagine that it could have slipped under the collective noses of so many people even if it was initially released on TV in the USA.  

The story follows a young society woman who is left with less money than would allow her to maintain her life-style after her father's death.  She selects a temporary home from among her country relatives and proceeds to re-arrange them in order to get experience for the book she will write at fifty.  

There isn't a normal person in the cast of characters and this includes the heroine herself.  Everyone is crazy and out of touch in their own special way.  This, of course, offers up a host of highly quotable material which I will indulge in a little for you:

"I saw something nasty in the woodshed."

"There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm."

"Nature's very well in her place but she mustn't be allowed to make anything untidy."

"Highly sexed young men living on farms are always called Seth or Rueben."

"There'll be no butter in hell!"

Big Man Japan
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Oh So Shiny

I really love this trailer for the movie Big Man Japan, it is now on my Netflix list and I am sehr excited!

 

Barbucci and Canepa's SKY DOLL
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

 

Originally published in French, Sky Doll by Barbara Canapa and Alessandro Barbucci, got a lovely, glossy, English publication by Marvel.  It is a three issue story about an escaped sex bot who sets out in search of greater meaning and freedom.  For me, it brought images of Rock and Rule all mixed up with ....... more Rock and Rule really.  If you haven't been introduced to Rock and Rule, I promise to fix that shortly--I've been meaning to in any case.  This series also gave me the one moment in my entire comic shopping life where I went looking for the next issue and actually found it on a shelf in a comic shop, just waiting for me.  I'm usually too late finding out about a series to be on top of stuff like that.

Weekend Reading : graphic novels
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Dionysos - La Mechanique du Coeur
Topic: Oh So Shiny

I am only being slightly misleading--I spent much of last weekend catching up on my graphically augmented reading.  Now that our cheap pressboard shelving is warping with the weight of a rather robust book collection my stacks of books by the couch were increasing in size and number a little too much for my liking.  Reading some of the graphic novels and manga that were interspersed in each pile allowed me to relieve the congestion just a little bit.

Since its a peculiarity of mine to wait until I am an old hat within any particular geekiness, I am not going to talk about the manga I fully enjoyed over the weekend.  I've only been reading manga titles for a few-five-six-ten years now, but I have been reading US, UK and Canadian (I'm sure) graphic novels since before puberty.  I have bribed and begged my parents to take me to neighboring cities to comic stores for what would always turn into full day trips.  I've had serious conversations with my Mom about what makes an adult comic an adult comic and why she should go behind the curtain in the comic shop to get me the latest issue of the series I was reading.  My comic box is structurally supported by duct tape.  I may not be the best collector, but it's in my blood now, so on with the show.

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba was the third title I read in my graphic marathon.  I chuckled, I laughed out loud, I backtracked a page or two just to make sure I was getting it right, and when I was done I wanted to read the stories that filled the flashback gap from the beginning of the story.  Glossy and fully colored (still not something I'm completely used to) this is graphic novel candy, but with cleverness and substance--kind of like Flintstone's vitamins.

After the Umbrella Academy I picked up Fables:  legends in exile by Bill Willingham and Lan Medina.  I am a sucker for new takes on old stories, Grimm, Aesop, Shakespeare, so it's actually surprising that I avoided this series for so long.  I may have to collect the whole set now I've read this.  The continuing lives of the characters outside of their stories, and, in this volume, outside of their world were both crazily divergant and completely acceptable. 

I picked up the Vesuvius Club by Mark Gattis and Ian Bass first after putting down the manga, and, I have to say, the two states of mind are not compatible.  I originally plucked this from the shelves of a comic store treasure chest in Virginia Beach because the little blurb/review on the back was written by Stephen Fry (previously), and after that first try I was hoping to heaven that Fry wouldn't be wrong.  After Heaven LLC, and The Umbrella Academy, I am happy to say my mind had unwarped from the six volumes of manga I had read and was fully prepared to digest the Vesuvius Club.  I laughed aloud, I was aghast, and I did indeed want more.  This is an awesome detective story in the mad genius style of Sherlock Holmes scifi noir.  

I always wondered if the irreverant, symbol laden, imaginary world of religious figures fiction ever had problems finding an audience.  I mean, people who fervently ascribed to a religion might be offended and people who fervently denied it might not be interested.   Heaven LLC by Wayne Chinsang and Dave Crosland then is for all those non fervent people in between who can afford a hearty guffaw at the expense of sacred mythologies.  I know that's me, and if that's you too, then this graphic novel is for you.  On second thought, though, Dogma was popular right?  Maybe there is no problem with audience.  Perhaps we are all less fervant than I thought we might be.

Sita Sings the Blues FINALLY!
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Oh So Shiny

Every since I first heard about it I have been itching to see Sita Sings The Blues and some icky rights issue popped up and deprived us all of something awesome.  But no longer!  The movie in its entirety will be shown on NYC's PBS this Sunday.  This might be the only time I've ever wished I lived there.  For me, and all you other folks who don't live in NY, there are now options to see the whole thing online.  I'm so excited about camping out in front of my home computer that I couldn't even wait to view it myself before blabbing about it here.  There will probably be a follow-up to this.

Art store splurge: Copic Markers
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

 

I made a stop by the art store this weekend and indulged, just the littlest bit, in the best marker I have found so far.  Copic Markers Sketch series do everything I want them too without the annoying and weird side effects I have experienced with other markers.

A little back-story.  I am a cheapskate when it comes to my drawing.  I sketch frequently and tend towards a graphic simplicity that results in large amounts of drawings that aren't going anywhere.  While I like to draw with mechanical pencil, I like the permanence of a final inking (mainly in black and white), and I do this all on plain old printer paper.  See?---mechanical pencil, copy paper=cheap.  Since I work on such cheap surfaces I have found it hard to find a marker that can stand up to the type of inking I require while not floating around on the paper like pigment in water.  Enter the Copic marker.

Even on cheap paper with no tooth this marker gives me the control I want and can get from a felt tip pen with the wide swaths of pigment I need from a marker.  EXCELLENT!  And completely worth the price.  I suppose it helps that I don't do much color work as this keeps me buying black and grey, but maybe someday. 

Saibogujiman Kwenchana -- I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK
Mood:  cool
Topic: Oh So Shiny

My Sunday afternoon was blessed and defined by Saibogujiman Kwenchana (I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK) , a movie staring Su-jeong Lim of a Tale of Two Sisters and Bi Rain a Korean singer, dancer, actor who's popularity is skyrocketing in the US and Asia. It is a comedy, romance, fairy tale set in a mental institution where the doctors are as crazy as the patients and the best help the patients get comes from each other.  Entering into the worlds and delusions of each patient constantly undermines the validity of the real and sane world, but the mental institution itself is a kind of insanity.  Only in Amelie/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory day dreams could a mental institution like this exist.  Go see it if you can, you won't regret it.