Yes, We Are The Strange
I've been watching many of the blogs, news footage, short films and trailers that were coming out of Sundance and by far the weirdest and most interesting film looks like We Are The Strange, created by M. Dot Strange.
The film is a mix of stop motion video, computer animation and game engine software. The music, by Noise, Inc., is classic 8-bit Nintendo game soundtrack. The characters are a mix of various technologies and the plot is a dream quest for friendship and ice cream while escaping evil monsters.
Thrown all together this film is a truly bizarre use of lo-fi in Hi-tech. A movie like this really needs to be seen on a big screen. Why shouldn't it be given as much of a shot as the new David Lynch movie.
Never the less the festival ended without anyone offering this movie a deal. This will be Hollywood's loss.
Kramers Ergot at Macalester College
The first (fairly) comprehensive Kramers Ergot exhibit at Macalester College in St. Paul.
January 28–February 25, 2007
With forty contributors:
Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cilla, C.F., Dan Zettwoch, Dave Kiersh, J. Bradley Johnson, David Heatley, Mat Brinkman, David Lasky, Genevieve Elverum, Lief Goldberg, Helge Reumann, Jerry Moriarty, James McShane, Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga, Jason T. Miles, Sammy Harkham, Jeffrey Brown, Lauren Weinstein, Jordan Crane, Marc Bell, Mark Burrier, John Hankiewicz, Zack Soto, Sara Varon, Jim Drain, Matthew Thurber, Ron Rege jr, Shary Boyle, Mat Tait, Souther Salazar, Martin Cendreda, David Brook, Bald Eagles, Stefan Gruber, Tom Gauld, Vanessa Davis, Tobias Schalken, and Paper Rad.
30 in 30
A Daily Dose of Architecture wraps up it's 30 places of interest in 30 days. All of the building are in New York and most of them you have never seen. Of course my favorite it day 14. Then again they are all pretty cool.
The Real iPhone: OpenMoko
While you wait for your iPhone from Apple make sure that you remember the following.
- It will be locked down tighter than a drum. Which means no cool little apps that the millions or so home programmers could create for it.
- iTunes, yuk. I just want to be able to move my music over to it as though it were a USB device.
- New versions every 3 months, so your out of luck on new features. Yeah they have you hooked sucker.
Well the phone pictured above is running an open source OS that will be open to anyone to build upgrades, programs and doohickeys. That's right Doohickeys. It runs on Linux so when the upgrade comes out you just reload the software (Okay, it is way harder than that). But don't get sucked into an iPhone just because it's from Apple.
Read about it at OpenMoko. They also won't be running a million annoying ads on TV and in every magazine. Their website isn't even flashy so they didn't waste money on that. For specs go to the Press Information link.
Read the specs, they do everything that Apple does wrong. It connects to your computer via a USB cable (duh). The batterys charge via a USB cable (double duh). It has a normal audio jack (Wow, you can do that?).
Of course it doesn't do everything an iPhone will do. Check out the iPhone TV commercial.
Who’ll Stop The Rain
Smith Magazine has a new online comic, "A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge". You might remember their comic "Shooting War" that I raved about all last summer. Well here is a new one to read from the start.
This time the story is not sci-fi but right out of our times. Taking place in New Orleans after Katrina telling the story of real people still dealing with the reality of the havoc that was brought upon them.
It is written and drawn by Josh Neufeld who is probably best known for the issues of American Splendor, the Harvey Pekar written comic, that he has drawn.
I loved Shooting War so I am hoping that this is another success for Smith Magazine.
I Swang So High That I Went All The Way Around
This posts tiltle was inspired by last evenings episode of Myth Busters.
Isabel and I have been watching tons of Tom and Jerry lately. "We laugh until our guts hurt" says Isabel. Her favorite is "Mouse in Manhattan". I'm a big fan of "The Little Orphan". This morning we watched Project Grizzly on YouTube and Isabel claimed it was just like Tom and Jerry. What a great laugh.
Free Fiction
If you've been too busy or too Zanaxed out to read a good book lately maybe you should try a good short story. And there is no story like a free story.
This past month two publication have had their fiction issues and have featured some major writers. The Rake Magazine has 8 short stories with writers such as Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie).
The other publication is Vice Magazine. they are able to land such big name writers as Stephen Dixon(The End of I, Frog, Interstate), Chuck Palahniuk (Haunted, Fight Club), Richard Hell (God Like, Go Now), and Andrea Dworkin (Mercy, Ice and Fire). Yes the Andrea Dworkin.
Now go read.
New Cinema
I hadn't been to a movie since Borat and haven't seen a serious film in a long while. So my New Years resolution is to see as many films as I can this year.
Last year was the year of the television, so this is the year of film.
So my first film of the year was "Children of Men". I tried really hard not to read about this film before going because that always taints things. I'm not going to go into any detail on "Children of Men" but for me this film was all about hope. There is a desperation in this film that I have not noticed before. Maybe it is the slow helplessness of living at the end of civilization.
Now that I have seen the film and think that it is wonderful I am reading up on it. Some of the better articles are the ones in Filmmaker and the NY Times.
I think the best overview of it along with an inside look at a filmmakers community was on the Charlie Rose show on Dec. 18th. His guests were three Mexican filmmakers; Alfonso Cuaron, director of "Children of Men", Guillermo del Toro, director of "Pan's Labyrinth", and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, director of "Babel". These three filmmakers all are friends and are a support group for each other. It also helps that they are all very successful.
After seeing this show I really must see Babel and Pan's Labyrinth and then rewatch this episode of Charlie Rose.
Good Bye. Don’t Let The Door …..
Many years ago I was at a MN Gopher basketball game and this man in front of me was really acting like a jackass. It was Glen Mason and he was sitting with someone that I assume was either a friend of his or someone from the athletic department. Mason had just been hired and was in town to sign his contract.
During the game he complained about his hotel room, food, people he had to meet (boosters), the long meetings he had to sit through, the crappy plane ride, and just about anything else you could think of. I made a promise right there that I would never go to a Gopher football game as long as he was coach.
Well I guess I can purchase some tickets now.