Theremin-soaked electronica duo Zombie-Zombie cites John Carpenter and Goblin as two of their biggest influences. Appropriately, the “unofficial” music video for their Goblinesque tune “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free” is a surprisingly complex re-enactment of Carpenter’s The Thing. It features stop-frame animated G.I. Joe dolls wandering stoically through carefully lit, finely crafted model sets, confronting one unearthly horror after another.
I was genuinely creeped out! And suddenly I’m deeply nostalgic for low-budget 80s horror flicks. Time to bust out The Stuff.
The volume was already tattered by the time it made its way to me, passed almost reverently between the awkward 8th graders who usually spent most of their ride on the packed schoolbus (“Cattlecar 47” we named it, after students started sitting on the floor) staring out the window.
The book was Tears of an Angel, the second volume of Battle Angel Alita, Viz graphics’ translation of Yukito Kishiro’s Gunnm.
This was 1996 and in our part of the world, at least, manga was all but unknown. Inside we found a world like nothing we’d seen. An oppressive city hung in the sky over a massive scrapyard where no birds (or anything else) could fly. Bodies were replaced constantly with rugged, mad machinery. Blood flowed like water. In the midst of it all, the characters tried, desperately, to carve out their own peace. We were enraptured.
Not all youthful inspirations stand the test of time. But re-reading “Alita” recently, with a James Cameron-directed (urgh) movie on the way, I was pleased to find that it did. Even today, few visions of a mechanistic dystopia are as relentless, ballsy and downright heartbreaking as this.
THEY are coming for your FLESH and BLOOD! Now the last hope of the family rests on a sexy faithful MAID! The most brutal clay-animation you’ve ever seen!
So trumpets the blurb for a squishy animation by YouTube’s claymation horror star, Takena. Most likely NSFW, this clip is a hellride through a quiet family evening turned to living nightmare and one maid’s heroic effort to save her home. All she needs is courage and a chainsaw. Avoid anything resembling gummy candy while you watch, below.
You’ve probably at least heard of Star Wreck – a parody that launched Energia Productions into the public eye beyond internet stardom. Now from the same creative team comes a new production. If you, refined reader, like Doctor Strangelove and maybe Spaceballs, prepare to dig Iron Sky.
Towards the end of World War II the staff of SS officer Hans Kammler made a significant breakthrough in anti-gravity.
From a secret base built in the Antarctic, the first Nazi spaceships were launched in late ‘45 to found the military base Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) on the dark side of the Moon. This base was to build a powerful invasion fleet and return to take over the Earth once the time was right.
Now it’s 2018, the Nazi invasion is on its way and the world is goose-stepping towards its doom.
What’s particularly inspiring about Iron Sky is the way it’s being created. To start, just look at this crew list! In an effort of what director Timo Vuorensola is calling “collaborative filmmaking” the project is semi-automated, gathering large numbers of volunteers and acquiring financing through WreckAMovie.com. Wreck-A-Movie intends to “blend the Internet and the film industry together by unleashing the creative potential of Internet communities, and changing the whole chain of filmmaking”. Yes! This here, peeps, is someone using the Web’s power for good, someone Doing It Right.
The footage in the gorgeous teaser below isn’t from the film, more of a taste of what’s in store. If you like what you see you can help bring this film to life by joining the production, buying War Bonds or submitting your resumé, here.
A while back, my talented chum Danny Cantrell landed a gig composing all of the music for a new animated children’s show, and he enlisted me to fiddle for it. The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is the cracked brainchild of Thurop Van Orman (previously a writer for Powerpuff Girls). I’m at a loss to describe Orman’s vision properly, but if you were to picture Ren & Stimpy style shenanigans unfolding in a beautifully watercolored Treasure Island setting, you wouldn’t be too far wrong.
Flapjack is an innocent young cuss with an unquenchable thirst for adventure on the high seas. He’s being raised by a somewhat overprotective blue whale named Bubbie, and his best friend/partner in crime is a scraggly, no-pants-wearin’ pirate with two peg legs who goes by Captain K’nuckles. Hilarity and high jinks ensue.
In addition to being gorgeously drawn and painted, Flapjack is rife with non sequiturs, uncomfortable silences and gross-out humor, so I thought you perverts might appreciate a heads up. We’ve been working on –and giggling over– this weirdness for months now. (Wish I could show you the Tentacular Lovecraftian Horror episode. So warped.)
Nothing says quality children’s programming quite like a pair of hairy, floppy, tattooed man teats. Unless it’s fart noises. Flapjack has plenty of both.
The first episode premieres today on the Cartoon Network at 8:30pm, EST. Folks with cable and a hankering for “ADVENTURRRRE!!!” are encouraged to tune in and report back.
Glukoza‘s been spinning her high-pitched nasal rhymes since 2002, but it’s the video for her single Schweine [Pigs] that caught my eye, initially. A 3D animation like most of her videos, the story takes place in a world overtaken by Nazi pigs, where brave Glukoza stands up to their tyrannical ruler.
And the song itself? Incredibly catchy, actually. The lyrics are decidedly girl-power much like in the rest of her repertoire – refreshing against the slew of saccharine pop sluts plaguing Russia’s airwaves. You watch now:
This was one hell of a day, mm? Many thanks to our guest posters for providing crunchy brain sustenance for all! And now, as you loosen your bootlaces in preparation for the evening, it’s time to take a moment and appreciate these elegant anime robots.
I’ve been hearing about Ergo Proxy for ages but didn’t start watching until last week. Just 4 episodes in so far, I’m admiring the perpetually dusky post-ecodisaster utopia and identifying with the heroine’s utilitarian fashion sense. Of special interest to me, however, are the Entourage AutoReivs – as their name implies they are robotic companions to each citizen and help with everything from shopping to driving to occasional protection.
More stylized in appearance than the humanoid Companion models also present in the world of Ergo Proxy, some autoreivs vaguely resemble bearded men, and others have the shape of a statuesque female, hair pulled back into a strict bun. Despite the appeal of an autoreiv’s services one should remember that they store all of their owners’ data and monitor their actions. Could Big Brother be near? And beware Cogito, the self-awareness virus – it seems to be spreading across Romdo Dome City and all autoreivs are subject to infection…
Spaniard Teruel Segundo de Chomón y Ruiz (1871-1929), a lesser known film pioneer with a particular fondness for hand-tinting his work, came to renown working for the Pathé brothers in the 1900s. While much of his work is directly informed by Méliès, Chomón’s distinctive aesthetic and deadpan humor set him apart and set a precedent for the surrealists Buñuel and Dalí. He also invented the film dolly.
The Golden Beetle (1907) is Chomón at his most delightfully innovative:
I learned of Chomón while watching the fantastic Landmarks of Early Film, Vol 1 collection, which also includes shorts by the Lumières, the aforementioned Méliès and some very early Kinetoscope movies. You can pick up a secondhand copy on Amazon for 20 bucks.
Waaaaugh! Why didn’t anyone tell me about Skywhales? This is incredible. Have you seen it? What about you there, in the back, wearing the Dragonriders of Pern tee shirt? Ever heard of Skywhales? Yeah?
DAMN it. I’d never even heard of Skywhales until just now. What a huge, unsightly gap in my nerducation.
My old friend Adam Lamas and I were just wasting many precious hours of life watching catshavepsychoticepisodes on Teh YooToobz when suddenly he asked “wait, time out, have you seen Skywhales?” Nope, never heard of it. He made with the clickies and I promptly spilled bongwater wine all over myself.
My manta ray is all right.
Completed in 1983, Skywhales is an animated short about a race of green-skinned humanoid aliens who live on a floating island in the upper layers of a gaseous planet’s atmosphere. To survive, they hunt enormous manta ray creatures in pedal-powered airships. As this fansite author puts it, Skywhales “is a window onto an alien way of life–language, culture, taboos… as complete a picture as a short film has ever painted, and its final revelations are nothing short of haunting.”
And how! The “boo bee boo boo bee” stuff is a bit grating at first, but hang in there. It’s epic, as Nadya would say. Uber, even. Circle of life. See it! Skywhales! (Sorry, I just really like saying that. “Skywhales!” While making jazz hands.) But seriously. It’s gorgeous and poignant and disturbing. Like your mom. With a mohawk.
Skywhales!
Skywhales! Directed by Derek Hayes and Phil Austin and produced for Channel 4.
The oldest known folk song of Japan is called Kokiriko-Bushi. Villagers in secluded Gokayama used to perform it in honor of local Shinto deities.
A wonderfully daft electro-pop wizard who goes by Omodaka came up with the idea to revamp the song with chiptune vocals and Stevie Wonder-isms. He then handed the track over to the equally wonderfully daft animator Teppei Makki, sick who made the following video. It features a breakdancing marionette skeleton cutting a rug with a dexterous disembodied hand and assorted Residents reminiscent eyeball-headed women at the cosmic discotheque. Enjoy:
