“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.”
“It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. … No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
As quoted in The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991) by Agnes de Mille, p. 264.
Martha Graham, photographed by Edward Steichen for Vanity Fair, 1931. (via)
Over in a SomethingAwful forums titled 3D Emoticons Redux – Now With NEWTONIAN Physics!, SchmuckFeatures writes, “I’m sure everyone’s familiar with this image:”
“My version of it turned into… this.”
Music: “Vessels” by Philip Glass, from Koyaanisqatsi. Via Kyle McElroy.
Everything’s majestic +1 when you throw some Philip Glass at it, eh?
Flickr user turezure recently snapped this menacing picture of the Humax Pavilion in Shibuya. Doesn’t it look like it’s just sitting there, biding its time, waiting to bust a move, Megatron-style?
The Pavilion was designed in 1991 by Hiroyuki Wakabayashi, who also designed the Nankai 50000 train series, seen above. The design theme for the train was Outdated Future, and indeed, there is a suspicious resemblance to the 1978 Cylon Centurian model.Wakabayashi’s other works include the breathtaking Uji Station and Maruto Bldg. No.17 in Kyoto. [via Battling Pink Robots]
The indignant responses from various Cinematic Sammich Completists are arguably more entertaining than the YouTube montage itself.
sinnedllib1: “How about Ally Sheedy’s Cap’n Crunch and Pixy Stix powder on wheat and buttered white bread? How was that classic forgotten?”
jtapia1123: “REALLY DUDE the minority report sandwich is not here!”
SGeorge244: “This is fantastic, simply fantastic, but the sandwich Bill makes for his daughter at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2 is still the most cinematic sandwich I can think of.”
klugyboy: “You missed a lot.
But the most important ones.
Rodney Dangerfield’s in Back to School (I mean how could you miss that one)
The huge sandwiches when Miller gets his mission in Saving Private Ryan”
maalbe987: “WTF?!!! He left out Weird Al’s Twinkie Weiner Sandwich in UHF!!!!!!”
After more than a decade, ruddily engorged by countless commercial and artistic coups d’états, the Kansas City-based design and filmmaking collective known as MK12 still excels at chewing bubblegum and kicking ass and making the baby Jebus cry. PROOF:
FITC is a design and technology events company that celebrated their 10th annual flagship event in Toronto just last week. MK12 produced this brief-but-brutal animated title film to mark the occasion. Indelibly. In your shuddering brainmeats. For all eternity. Nnnngh.
Pipe dream of the day: MK12 makes a full-length movie in cahoots with Al Columbia.
What a week, huh? Yeah, pretty crazy. It’s Friday though, so it’s almost over. And since it is Friday, how about some FAM?
Today we have 1992’s Man Bites Dog (French: C’est Arrivé Près de Chez Vous, It Happened in Your Neighborhood), directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Benoît Poelvoorde. A mockumentary, the story follows a crew of filmmakers, including director Rémy (Belvaux) and cameraman André (Bonzel) as they record the day to day adventures of Ben (Poelvoorde), a prolific serial killer. Ben brings them along on his excursions, introduces the crew to his friends and family, and discusses the ins and outs of his “craft”, as well as pontificating on subjects ranging from philosophy to architecture. Soon, however, the crew is drawn in to participating in Ben’s increasingly random and violent crimes.
I recently re-watched this with someone who had not seen it previously and it is definitely a movie of two halves. The first half of Man Bites Dog can be very funny, in a way that only dark comedies can be. There’s even an homage to the running gag in Rob Reiner’s seminal mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, with the crew losing a number of sound men during filming (due to “occupational hazards”), with each receiving the same eulogy from Rémy. It is a cynical humor to be sure. The shift occurs 2/3rds through the film (Editor’s Note: Oh for— You said this was a movie of two halves and now you’re speaking in thirds. What is wrong with you? Must you be terrible at everything?), with a brutal scene that heralds the active participation of the film crew. It’s a powerful moment and it works by both removing the distance the crew afforded themselves from what they were filming, as well as removing the distance the viewer was afforded from what they were watching. In that moment, all the laughter sort of gets sucked out of the room.
Watching it again, over a decade since I first saw it, I was struck by how well it still holds up. The cast is superb, especially Poelvoorde who plays Ben as a man simply making a living, regardless of how monstrous the means may actually be. It is a manic, bizarre movie; violent, cruel, and funny. And yet, despite that last bit, it never feels like it condones what is happening on screen. In the end, all involved are judged guilty, and all pay for it.
Carisa Swenson of Goblinfruit Studio creates curious critters who seem to have wandered quietly out of a child’s fable of forest creatures, gleaming-eyed and grinning from beneath be-fanged overbites. Yet for all their grimacing, there is no sense of malice, no reason to fear this peculiar lot; look closer and you will find something profoundly endearing, familiar, and gentle about this oddball cast of creatures. Though they are semi-feral fairytale beasties from a dark wood, one gets the feeling from their earnest, even kindly expressions that they, just like anyone, are yearning for a happily ever after.
From the artist’s site:
Carisa Swenson’s passion for creating curious creatures springs from many sources—a love of Greek mythology and Ray Harryhausen’s creations when she was a child, an appreciative eye for Henson Workshop in her teens, to the weird and wonderful films of Jan Svankmajer and The Brothers Quay in her twenties. But when Carisa studied with world-renowned doll artist Wendy Froud, the final die was cast: posable dolls would forever own her soul and trouble her nights, stirring her with a fervor that could only be quelled by stitching and sculpting her dreams into reality.
“Since 2006 Carisa’s work has been featured in several exhibitions and publications, including the Melbourne Fringe Festival, NYU’s acclaimed annual “Small Works Show”, Art Doll Quarterly, and Spectrum 17.
Coilhouse recently caught up with Carisa for a bit of a Q&A; see below the cut for more concerning the Curious Creatures and Aberrant Animals of Goblinfruit Studio.
To promote his new David Lynch Signature Cup Organic Coffee, the film auteur made this insane or absolutely brilliant video of a conversation he has with a Barbie doll about the coffee. The video consists of a relentless four minute close-up of Barbie’s head firmly clenched in Lynch’s hand as he provides all the dialogue, making very little attempt to distinguish between his gravelly voice and Barbie’s.
Yep, you just watched four straight minutes of one of the most influential filmmakers of all time making small talk and flirting with a doll head. Intrigued? Befuddled? Creeped out? Laughing hysterically? Irritable? Delighted? All of the above? Let’s talk about this.
There’s something misleading about the title Hambuster. Vaguely obscene, it feels like it should be referring to something far more profane than a film about killer hamburgers. And yet, that is exactly what we’re talking about here: man-eating, sentient fast food. Directed by the quintet of Paul Alexandre, Maxime Cazaux, Dara Cazamea, Romain Delaunay, and Bruno Ortolland, Hambuster tells the story of what happens when our food rebels against us.
The animation here is fantastic, and the directors wear their influences on their sleeves, even going so far as to put some great, B-movie homages in the credits. The story is simple enough, one could almost say well-worn, but the team is talented and well versed enough in the tropes of over-the-top horror/comedy to do it justice. The diner scene, in particular, is a highlight, featuring a wonderful attention to facial expression and an absurd amount of viscous, red fluid. At the very least, it holds the distinction of being one of the few films featuring a protagonist in the possession of multiple, swaying chins.
The amount of music Seeger has made in support of civil rights, cultural tolerance, non-violence, and environmental protection over the past century is epic. Songs he either composed or co-wrote include: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song),” and “Turn, Turn, Turn!” He –in cahoots with Joan Baez– was also greatly responsible for popularizing the spiritual “We Shall Overcome” during the 60s.
Seeger was just shy of his 90th birthday at the time of the above Letterman performance, during which he intoned: “We sang about Alabama 1955, but since 9/11, we wonder, will this world survive? The world learned a lesson from Dr. King: we can survive, we can, we will, and so we sing. Don’t say it can’t be done; The battle’s just begun. Take it from Dr. King, you too can learn to sing, so drop the gun.”
He is 92 years young today.
Via Wiki: Pete Seeger entertaining Eleanor Roosevelt (center), honored guest at a racially integrated Valentine’s Day party marking the opening of a Canteen of the United Federal Labor, CIO, in then-segregated Washington, D.C. Photographed by Joseph Horne for the Office of War Information, 1944.
