Ron Mueck & Puppetses

 

 I was informed today that they're having an exhibition of Ron Mueck's giant half-naked people at the NGV in Melbourne. I'm told the only real way to experience his artwork is to see it in person but unfortunately it looks as though I won't get the chance, as the exhibition closes Sunday.

However, while I'm using Ron Mueck as a reference in my art folio (school again. I'll be interesting soon, I promise), it's not his giant naked people that interest me the most, but his other work. Once upon a time Mueck was a prop-maker and puppeteer, and he worked on the Jim Henson's Labyrinth, not only making a certain puppet, but doing the voice.

Now if they had his Ludo puppet in the exhibition I'd be there for sure.

For those who are interested, there's a video of Mueck making one of his giant people here.

Paper Street Soap Co.

 

Writing a desgin brief is a pain. Writing a design brief from the point of view of a fictional company from a movie you really like is much more interesting. But still a pain.

As well as studying Art this year, I'm also undertaking Visual Communication & Design, and part of your 'do this to pass' is that you've got to pretend that a company has approached you to do something for them.

Anyone who's seen (or read) Fight Club will know Paper Street Soap Company.

For those who don't, Tyler Durden makes soap from the fat that's dumped from liposuction clinics and sells it to rich people. I believe the remark about it is something along the lines of:

"We're selling rich ladies their own fat asses back to them."

 I'm pretending Paper Street is a proper company that just make fancy soaps, and thus far my teacher seems to not have picked up on it. Shame.

Anyways, in searching for a witty name for their latest collection of soaps, I found the Paper Street Soap Company website, which is full of wonderful in-jokes (hover over those little circles for links). And then I remembered that Last Exit To Nowhere, maker of wonderful movie-nerd shirts, has a PSSC t-shirt.

Available here, which I've been wanting for awhile.

Not-A-Sci-Fi Sunday: The Wolfman

'Kay, so... The Wolfman is not a sci-fi movie but for once I actually saw a film within a short time of it coming out and I feel the need to share. Also my DVD player is possessed, but more on that at a later date.

The movie begins with a man walking through a dark fog-laden forest, freaking out at every noise, gun in hand. Something is after him and DUN DUN DUN he gets ripped apart by a big bad monster. It's probably the most tension you'll feel throughout the movie, with some nice pacing and good music cues. Expectations are raised. You think, hey, maybe this'll be pretty good after all. Depending on how high your expectations are, you might be right. But probably not.

We discover that the walking in the fog man was Ben Talbot, and his widow Gwen (Emily Blunt) writes a letter to his estranged brother/Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) beginning him to come back and help them find him, because at this stage he's merely missing to the good people of Small English Town. 

When Lawrence arrives, he's greeted by the corpse of his dead brother, as well as some small-town politics ("It's the gypsies!"). Lawrence decides to go investigate and visits the gypsy camp just as the angry townspeople arrive to chase the gypsies out of town, bringing with them a nice big full moon. Cue wolfie.

Big beasty circles the camp, taking out villagers one by one before just going nuts, and ripping everything/everyone to shreds. The best moment occurs when after hearing noises coming from a gypsy van, one of the men goes over, all casual-like, to have two wolf claws shoved into the underside of his jaw, with the fingers/claws coming out through his mouth, before he's pulled into the van and cut into tiny pieces. It ellicted an 'ooh' response just for the imaginative use of claws alone.

Lawrence gets chased by wolfie who then bites him but is scared off by Men With Guns. He's taken to the gypsy healer who sews him back up (in real nice detail), while the gypsies argue that she should just let him die. She doesn't, obviously.

This is around about the point where my attention started to wander. The slaughtering scenes are quite entertaining to watch but all the storyline in between is just a bit hollow. There's some great villiany from Talbot Snr (Hannibal Lector Anthony Hopkins), and the awesome Inspector Aberline (Agent Smith Hugo Weaving), who was the highlight, for me, although my mind kept making Matrix references where del Toro was Neo and that was quite distracting. You never really care about the characters' plights though, because well, you just don't. You've got some excellent actors and great scenery, sets and costumes but there's no real emersion in the movie at all. And so when the big dramatic climax arrives, you find yourself wishing they create as much carnage as possible so you can see some more disembowlings.

I saw The Wolfman with two friends - all of us female, between the ages of 17 and 23 - and I'm not sure what it is other than the possibility that we're a bit sick, but... we didn't find it scary, just kinda funny.

And we might have just maybe laughed through a lot of the not-at-all funny moments, such as the attack on the gypsy camp, the human to wolf transformations, the Wolfman vs Wolfman end battle which looks a bit more like wookie vs wookie and that weird wolfboy who looked a hell of a lot like Gollum.

There are a few jump scares that caught out a couple of audience members, but a lot of them are so predictable you can spot them from a mile away. And when the evil doctor-man says that Lawrence turning into a werewolf is as likely as him sprouting wings and flying out the window, you better believe he gets thrown out the window once Lawrence turns.

And then impaled on a fence!

All that said and done, I really enjoyed The Wolfman - just for all the wrong reasons. It was entertaining and funny and the music was pretty good, but the best part about it had to be the sets, scenery and costumes. There's so many great foggy woodland areas and the dilapidated mansion and mausoleum are so well done, that's it's almost worth watching the movie to see those things alone.

A classic, this movie is not, but it's worth renting the DVD or going to the movies if you've got some time to kill to see it, and confirm if my friends and I should go see a therapist or something.

Horror Science

From a series of ads for Science World.

As part of the 'fight or flight' response, pupils dilate (amongst a myriad of other reactions) to allow you better sight.

Because science is awesome.

Via Superpunch. 

More about the Fight or Flight response at Wikipedia.

Month of Music: The End is the Beginning is the End by the Smashing Pumpkins

For my last song collection, I bring you on of the few reasons to watch Batman & Robin.
...Set to footage from Batman Begins.
Because, well... I think you can make your own nipple-suit jokes by now.

And with that, the Month of Music draws to a close.

Was it good for you?

Month of Music: Science Fiction/Double Feature

I don't think anyone needs this explained to them, other than it's awesome.
But then again, you should already know that.

Summer television is still being awful so I'm still watching movies instead.

Month of Music: Little Drop of Poison by Tom Waits

The last song from my unintentional Tom Waits movie soundtrack songs triple bill.



This time from Shrek 2.

Month of Music: Underground by Tom Waits

Another Tom Waits song on a movie soundtrack.
However, while yesterday's song choice was from the R-rated Fight Club, today's song is from something a little bit more PG-rated...
Robots.

Month of Music: Goin' Out West by Tom Waits

Summer TV drives me to watch DVDs more than normal.
Summer heat makes me too lazy to get up and search through various rooms of the house to find something new to watch.
So I keep watching the same movie, over and over.
Fight Club is thankfully worth watching and rewatching.
This track, while not as often remembered as The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' during the end of the film, is equally as cool, and played during the first official Fight Club scene in Lou's Tavern.

Sci-Fi Sunday: The Thing (1982)

Is that a man in there, or something else?

I think I liked it.

I'm not sure though. The premise was good, and the sociological aspects of it were great, but it was... a bit slow. At times the slow pacing added to the suspense, making you wonder just how long was left, other times it just felt like they'd run out of script and you wondered how long before you left.

Originally, I'd wanted to do a double-feature comparing this to 'The Thing From Another World', but apparently none of the local video stores have even heard of it. This one I already owned, but never watched. I decided I probably should seeing as there is talk of a prequel being filmed this year.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The special effects, while not brilliant in the world of today, with Avatar's giant blue people, I imagine would be quite impressive in the early eighties, and provided a few "Ew" moments, particularly during the dog explosion, which is more than I can say of a lot of the movies I've watched recently.

Once upon a time, this was a husky.

The film follows the basic plot of 'something strange is found, it turns out to be evil, and it tries to kill everyone' which is a storyline we should all be familiar with by now. As the 'thing' takes the form of whatever it kills, there's no way for anyone to know who's the bad guy, and so the crew of the remote arctic outpost turns on each other in an attempt to stay alive, and to prevent it from reaching the rest of humanity.

Luckily the crew know the basic rule of the unknown evil: Kill it with fire.

Flambé anyone?

Also, I've been resisting the urge to make this joke all day;

"Look deep into the parka"

Month of Music: Duel of Fates Remix

While the Imperial March may be the classic piece of music from the franchise, I consider Duel of Fates to be the best. I've said it before, and I'm sticking to my guns blasters on this one.
And so I give you this video, with a remixed Duel of Fates. Enjoy.
Enjoy or I force choke you to death.

Month of Music: Lotion by the Greenskeepers

I love a good pop-culture reference.




The entirety of this song is an allusion to The Silence of the Lamb's Buffalo Bill, for those unaware.
And you know how I love my fictional serial killer pop-culture references.

Month of Music: Clash of the Titans Trailer

The highlight of the half hour of advertisements before Sherlock Holmes was the trailer for Clash of the Titans.
Don't get me wrong - I don't really want to see the movie itself, but this trailer? I could watch it all day.



The editing of the video to the audio is brilliant. The audio in question is a remixed/edited version of 'The Bird and The Worm' by The Used.



It's not my favourite song of theirs, I'm more of the opinion that their first albums were their best, and that this song, being on album #3, wasn't the best they could do.
But in the Clash of the Titans trailer, it was epic.

Month of Music: Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack

Those following my meaningless blathering on twitter would know I saw Sherlock Holmes two days ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I also thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack.

 

 I enjoy listening to movie soundtracks while making things, or writing things, or just doing things.

Zimmer is a favourite of mine. His score for The Dark Knight was my super-special favourite, and so it makes me happy to know that according to my intensive research (wikipedia) that Ritchie used it during editing. The actual soundtrack includes the use of banjo, violin, broken piano and this thing. 

You can listen to samples from the album on Amazon, or you can buy it for download there for less than $8.

I, however, am going to hunt down a physical copy of it. Because I like wasting time and money and also because my internet speed is really really slow.

Month of Music: Put the Blame on Mame by Anita Kert Ellis

From the 1946 film, Gilda.

While the woman you see singing and playing the guitar here is Rita Hayworth, her singing voice belongs to Anita Kert Ellis.

And yes, I watch black & white films from the 40's. Quite a bit more often than I'd like to admit to, actually.

Sci-Fi (Almost) Sunday: The Core

First, I must confess, I have seen The Core before. Twice, in fact.

My first viewing of The Core was probably in 2004/5, a year or two after it had been released in cinemas and flopped incredibly. The television was being particularly uninteresting and this was the best they had to offer. The main memory I have of it was falling asleep half-way through out of boredom. Not exactly a great endorsment.

The second time I saw it was sometime in 06/07. In science class.
Everyone knows, watching a movie in class is always good, even when they're just boring educational nonsense, because sitting in a dark room, the teacher doesn't know (and usually doesn't care) if you're paying attention or not. I thought that seeing as I didn't see the ending last time, I should pay attention to parts of it. Plus our teacher said that this way we could learn about the different levels of the core of the earth. To this day, I couldn't tell you anything remotely sciency I learned from watching The Core. In fact, scientists voted The Core to have the worst basis in science for a science fiction movie.

Sciencey.

So it must have lots of other cool stuff to make up for the complete disregard for science, right? ...Not really. As far as disaster movies go, The Core is strong on the doomsday, but rather light on the explosions. The acting is decent, but not even Two-Face and Hilary Swank, I mean, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank can make this movie any more than bearable. There's also "the guy who was in The Devil Wears Prada" (Stanley Tucci) as the movie's annoying guy, "the guy who's been in a dozen of my favourite tv shows" (DJ Stanley) as the computer nerd, and "that French guy from all those French films" (Tchéky Karyo) as the weapons specialist.

Two-Face talking about sciencey things. Next he plays a trumpet.

That's right, weapons. Because you see, the core of the earth is said to be made of molten metal, which spins around and around and around and keeps the planet doing whatever it is that keeps us alive, until one day it stops. So the plan is that they build a ship to take them to the core of the planet, so they can detonate some nukes to get it running again. Very sciencey. They conveinently skip through the 3 month building process, explaining it all in very simple terms, so in the end none of it really makes sense. Eventually they get there after lots of stuff goes wrong and lots of people die and they save the planet! Which is such a surprise.


Ultimately you're going to have to see it for yourself, just to witness the complete disregard they have for even basic science principles. And that's what makes it watchable, in the end. It's so bad it's bearable. Watching them trying to explain the vacuum inside the earth filled with amethyst is hilarious, and much fun can be brought from guessing who dies first (and next). And don't forget the whales (you'll have to discover that on your own).

And you thought I was joking.

Everybody Scream

Been busy busy busy getting everything done. Just finished The Gardener (ten, fifteen minutes ago), so right now I'm having a bit of a rest and playing The Nightmare Before Christmas in the background. Because nobody else is home and I can.

Anyway, because I didn't post anything last night I thought I post a few videos this morning. This is Danny Elfman's This Is Halloween, from TNBC. As you would all probably know. The first is the original movie version, the second is Marilyn Manson's cover of it, and the third is Panic! At The Disco's cover of it.







Manson's is my favourite because it's actually quite dark, but I do love the original and Brendon Urie (the singer in the last clip) has a beautiful voice. Manson wins though. The only problem with it is that's it's perhaps too good and the movie feels a little lackluster in comparison. Manson's version was on the Nightmare Revisited album released awhile ago, along with quite a few covers from quite a few bands. Korn's cover of Kidnap The Sandyclaws is my favourite from the album, and it's so great I have to mute the scene it's from because the original just doesn't compare.

Sci-Fi Sunday: Alien

Ooh look, alliteration. Kind of.
I felt like I needed some sort of themed-post thing going on so I've decided to create Sci-Fi Sunday. Every 3rd Sunday of the month (and what ever other Sunday that I have nothing better to write about) I'm going to write about something Sci-Fi related. Most likely movies. I like movies.

Anyway this weekend I watched the Alien films. All of them - Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection. Even Alien Versus Predator, and then later tonight I'm going to watch Alien Versus Predator: Requiem. I have a lot of things to not be doing.

I'd never actually seen an Alien (or Predator) movie before this weekend. I live under a rock, several thousand leagues under the sea. On Jupiter. Luckily for me though, my brother is slightly obsessed with them, owns them all on DVD, and has been bugging me since AVP2 was released to WATCH THEM ALREADY!
Fair enough. He did have a point. Or several.

I'm not going to go over each of the films in great detail because, well most of you will have already seen them, and those who haven't probably don't care. I know I never did. So here's a very superficial view of the franchise.

Aliens are cool looking. Except the chestbursters. They're a little... well... I giggled. The first time you see a chestburster, it's meant to be incredibly dramatic and like, totally scary, because like, nobody's like, ever seen one before, you know? I couldn't help it, it's entrance made me laugh. And then it ran across the table. Man, I was about to die I was laughing that hard. One could say that it was the result of forcing myself to sit through Batman & Robin just moments before - I found it very hard to take anything seriously after that. But the obviousness puppetry of it really took any of the scare out of what was meant to be a defining moment.

Grr!

But back to the Aliens. I dig the design. If I had to be an evil space alien, I think I'd want to be one of them. Except for the mouth inside the mouth. I want to stay far far away from the mouth inside the mouth. It just continues the chestbursters' phallic imagery, which, to be honest, creeps me out. Don't look at me like that, you know you were thinking it too. If not, well... you do now. Sorry.

Alien was rather average, for me. It wasn't horrible but I never really cared about any of the characters, which made it hard to really care whether or not they got impregnated and eaten. Except Jones. But Jones was a cat, and therefore unlikely to be impregnated/killed. Although that theory didn't really pan out when in A3 an alien is inside a dog. Mostly I just wanted to make sure that Jones wasn't left inside his little catbox on board when the ship got blown to pieces. That would've made me sad.

Hiding skills superior to those of a human. Or aliens just don't eat cats.

Aliens was definitely a step up from Alien, at least in terms of characters I actually cared about, and ergo, suspense. And boy did they like the suspense. It's alive! No, it's dead! No, it's alive! We're safe now. No wait, it's still alive! We never saw that coming! Surely someone would think to check the ship for aliens and alien eggs! We also discover their fondness for air-locks. Sure, it makes sense, but after seeing it used for what felt like the billionth time in Resurrection, I really just wanted some good Kill It With Fire.

Most importantly, we see Jones get left behind when Ripley decides to go with the marines. What happens to Jones after that, seeing as Ripley never ever comes back? I'd like to imagine he takes over Ripley's little house-thing and spends the rest of his days in happy-cat-land. And yes, clearly my attention span is too short to be watching these types of movies, but I liked Aliens. There were believable characters and nifty turret guns, and she set fire to the Queen.

Alien 3 was... fairly good. I don't really remember much of it, to be honest, and I'm pretty sure I only watched it this morning. It started on rather a sour note for me, with the two and a half characters I actually liked being killed off in the first few minutes - Hicks, Newt and half of Bishop dying when their pod thingies hit the ground. Then we get to see Ripley be quite a bit more spacey as she discovers she's pregnant with a really ugly baby. The Queen! But dispite being on a space colony filled with murderous rapists, they're all actually pretty nice guys and all but one of them dies trying to save her. Aw. And then she dives into molten lead to kill both herself and the creepy beast inside her. Oh and she gets a haircut. Which makes me very happy because I've been bred on female leads who look pristine except the token bloody cheek in horror movies, and her hair was driving me a little insane.

 

After seeing her die in A3, seeing her reborn in Resurrection was a bit... eh. Didn't really care anymore. Interest peaked in the second movie and it was all downhill from there. Swimming aliens were a cool addition, as was Winona Ryder, but ultimately I didn't really care at all. Especially at the end with the birth scene and the creepy scientist fellow. And then more airlockage. Although I did like seeing the human-alien having it's innards pulled out through a small hole. Made me feel better about the whole experience.

"What a beautiful butterfly"

Seriously, did no one else think this looked like they melted E.T.?

Just when all hope was lost, then came Alien Versus Predator. Oh sweet merciful entertaining movie. The whole premise of it was a little overdone but after watching my thousandth airlock death it was a breath of fresh air. I went into it expecting to be rooting for the aliens. I had for most of the other movies, so I saw this one as being no different. However, I definitely found myself on the predators' side. Sure, they're massively ugly, but they have cool weapons. And they're actually pretty nice fellows too, it turns out. The two best parts of this for me were that 1, there's an ass kicking female... who's not Sigourney Weaver. As much as I liked her "I can kill it" attitude, Ripley was beginning to really grate on me with her spaced out-ness in the later movies. And 2, the set design and dressing. All the symbols and the sacrificial tables and most importantly, all the bones. Bones bones bones bones bones. Very pretty. Bonus points also for bringing back Bishop as Weyland, the man who takes them out to the remote arctic post in the first place.

My brother tells me Requiem is just as good, but my memory of the trailers is that this one is set in a wooded area, rather than sacrificial pyramid for death games, so I might not like it quite as much. But what I do like is pictures like this:

There's a few of these in the series, and I think I have The Art of Darkness blog to thank for posting a link to them, although I'm not entirely sure. If I'm wrong, hit me. Or better yet, shove me out an airlock.

Idol Worship: The Obscure Hollow

The Obscure Hollow is my go-to site for inspiration when it comes to atmosphere. The concept behind the blog is simple; they - Kerry Kate, Micha Michelle and Rebecca Kasner - watch horror movies (haunted house movies in particular) and provide us with lovely screenshots of the decor.

This year's Halloween decor is inspired by these shots from their post about Fear In The Night. Choosing dust sheets and minimal lighting was perhaps the best decision I've made this year. Also great source material for this year was the post about the first movie from The House That Dripped Blood. It's the attention to detail that I love, and my friends and I have been collecting old books since I showed her the photos.

Now Watching: Impalements

All good deaths involve a good impalement. There, I've said it. It's just cool. Non-lethal impalements are also pretty neat. (See; Hot Fuzz). The final battlescene in the awful movie Gabriel featured a nice double-impalement with a steel pipe, possibly the only moment I actually enjoyed. Although sadly, only one of them died in the end. Boo.

In Hot Fuzz the uber-villian Simon Skinner (played by Timothy Dalton) and Sgt. Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) are having a fight in a model village of the town. Skinner slips on a model car and catches his chin on the church spire. Particularly entertaining as earlier in the film, the writer of the local paper gets his head blown to smithereens when the actual church spire falls on his head. I was unable to find a decent clip of the model village scene, but I did find one of the church spire head explosion.

There are quite a few fun impalements out in the movie-verse but I prefer slightly-comedic movies, so that tends to narrow it down a bit. Hot Fuzz is a comedy, which may come as a bit of a shock to anyone who has only seen the clip above. Gabriel is not even a movie (okay so maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Just save yourself the time and don't watch it), but to each their own.

The last impalement I want to talk about is from a movie called A Film With Me In It. When I went to go see it, I hadn't really watched, heard, or seen, anything about it. But I knew Dylan Moran was in it, and wrote it (r helped write it, can't really remember), and so it didn't really matter to me. Rampant fan-girling at best. I expected a comedy. Moran is, afterall, a comedian. A Film With Me In It is sort of a comedy. A really really dark comedy. I couldn't find a clip of my favourite moment (again), but in the trailer below you can briefly see it as Moran's character, Pierce, points to the dead girl on the floor with something protruding from her chest. It's a clarinet stand. Plus the landlord stabs himself in the neck with a screw driver. Not necessarily an impalement but still very funny. Sort of. Don't look at me like that.

TVtropes.org has a nice list of death-by-impalement. Be warned though, for those who have never been to the site may find themselves wasting hours clicking link after link after link. There is, coincidentally, a comic about that.