WORST FILMS EVER: The Village

I am in the process of compiling a list of the worst films ever made. There are many obvious choices (Battlefield Earth, Plan 9 from Outer Space, etc) but I want to expose other films which are always overlooked when someone puts together a list like this. First up, M. Knight Shaylamalan’s The Village.

I suggest you leave now if you actually want to see the movie, or if you can’t read… and if you can’t read, feel free to call me at home, anytime, and I will laugh at you. Of course, the joke will be on me because if you can’t read, everything I just said to you was just a bunch of weird looking squiggly lines.

*drum roll* (played preferably by a drummer in a gorilla costume)

There is just so much to talk about in this drama/piece of crap/horror/comedy that I don’t know where to begin… I’ll break down my review of this truly exquisite movie into a few, more focused, sections.

THE BLIND GIRL
Totally believable! There wasn’t a second in the movie where I didn’t believe she was blind– even when she would look directly into others actors’ eyes! And even when her father came to the doorway behind her and she said “oh hi dad, I know it’s you even though I’m blind and my back is turned, and you didn’t make any noise to suggest it was you” – So convincing! In fact by the end of the movie I was convinced that I was blind!

THE MONSTER
Alright, some might think that it makes more sense to reveal that the monster is just a handicapped guy in a costume AFTER the big monster-chases-girl scene, but not M. Knight Shaylaalamalan. He switches it up and reveals the twist AND THEN has an extremely long scene of a man in a monster costume stumbling after a “BLIND” (see above) girl. It is terrifying. I peepee many times.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
I heard some other people in the theatre screaming “I can’t watch this trash!”, “This cinematography sucks!” and “Where am I?” I disagree. Brilliant.

USE OF ADRIEN BRODY
Stupendous, my only fear is that he will now be type cast - remember he also played that handicapped monster man in The Pianist.

THE DIALOGUE
The seamonkey who wrote the script deserves an Oscar nomination. Example: “Do you not sometimes don’t do something because it’s the very thing that you do want to do sometimes do?” The writing is, in a word: Life-changing!

THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE SKINNED LAMB
Easily the third best skinned lamb performance I ever seen.

JOAQUIN AS LUCIUS
My favourite part was when Joaquin Phoenix wanted to make out with his sister and she wouldn’t let him! And then in the end, when Russell Crowe stabbed him! Oh wait - that was that other movie, Gladiator, where he also played a guy named Lucius who gets stabbed in the stomach.

THE SOUND
Terrifying! Especially the over the top orchestra noise every time someone enters the forest! I also thought the voice saying “Be very afraaaid” over and over was a nice touch. It’s the small details that make or break a film, for instance when Adrien Brody stabs Joaquin Phoenix in the stomach everyone wondered where the audio went (this scene appears to be silent) - obviously they didn’t hear him whisper “OUCHY” like I did.

CONCLUSION
I give it 5 useless walking sticks out of 5!

Just to clarify, this is sarcasm. Last weekend was slightly more enjoyable than this movie; I found out my parents didn’t love me on Saturday and fell of a cliff onto spikes on Sunday.

Winter Sticks

Endeavor’s got a double-page spread in this month’s Manual Magazine. I’m really excited to see people start riding the boards! It’s different than designing clothes, knowing that it’s something that people are gonna interact, and have fun, with.

Of the four I designed I think they picked the my favourite one.

Marok’s board is so sick! Check out what he’s got going on with Lodown Magazine.

Brick City Kids!

After posting that pre-illmatic Nas stuff I got lots of requests to post some more music. I am not going to turn this into a hip hop blog (I promise) but I am in a giving mood so here’s some more goodness from the East Coast - Artifacts (Tame One and El da Sensei). Freestyle or studio produced album, Artifacts killed it. What I have zipped is a selection of demos and rarities I came across quite some time ago. (I’ll try to track down the zip I have of their best freestyles, it’s around somewhere)

Zip file of Artifacts Demos + Rarities and some videos after the jump…

Graffiti taken to the next level.

Muto by Blu. This is an astonishing work of art. I have never seen anything like this. Street art turned into a stop-motion animation on public walls in Buenos Aires and in Baden (this apparently took several months - i don’t doubt it)! I am not just impressed by the “trick” of turning graffiti into an animation, the animation itself is engaging and quite beautiful to watch. I am stunned.

Thanks for the link, Panthea.

Make yourself a camera!!

The design geniuses at FWIS have created a series of Pinhole Cameras for World Pinhole Camera Day. The greatest part is that the cameras are available at Corbis as downloadable PDF’s - so you just print them off your printer, and assemble your very own, functioning, pinhole camera!!!

Did I mention they look stunning?

Take a look at the four other cameras after the jump!

R.I.P. Rauschenberg (1925-2008)

Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg died yesterday at age 82.

In memory of him and his work, I present you with one of his most famous pieces Bed. The story goes that he woke up one morning ready to paint but had no money to buy a canvas so he grabbed the quilt from his bed and some paint, nail polish, and toothpaste. And BOOM, it was a masterpiece!

Rauschenberg never achieved the same level of fame that Warhol did but his work was dealing with a lot of the same blurring of art and the everyday. Similar to Duchamp’s coining of the term “readymades”, i believe Rauschenberg coined the term “combines” in describing his painting/sculptures.

I also came across a fascinating video of one of his most controversial works, in which he erases a Willem de Kooning drawing. It is really interesting to see his obvious respect for de Kooning’s work and, at the same time, his sense of humor and brilliantly mischievous thought process. Gotta love controversy, especially in the art world!

Take a look at the video after the jump.

Sleep is the cousin of death!

Have you ever wondered what Nas sounded like before he dropped Illmatic? Wonder no longer. This is a reward to all my faithful readers out there! Apologies to all you torrent-downloading-backpacker-know-it-alls, this zip file will be old news to you, but hey at least you’re still way cooler than the rest of us.

I forget where I got this, it wasn’t off a torrent though - Remember the days before torrents? Before Limewire? Before Napster?… I’m talking FTPs son! I’m talking Audiogalaxy! The old Audiogalaxy! Searching through random FTP’s uploading stuff just to get download privileges and leech accounts? Was I the only one? Collecting obscure hip hop was so much harder in those days… Anyways, I’m not here to promote stealing music, but when you can’t buy this in a store anyways I don’t see the harm in it.

The link to Nas’ Pre-Illmatic music circa 1993 is waiting for you all after the jump!

bruce campbell soup

I need this book. Translating Hollywood is a new book coming out by Sam Sarowitz. The book focuses on interesting and downright bizarre foreign movie posters for American films. I found this superb Japanese poster for Army of Darkness from the book, over at Posterwire. Only some crazy Japanese person would add those soup cans in there, a pun so bad that it borders on genius. (Click the image for the full size!)

The Aqua Teen Hunger Force version of the same poster as well as a comparison of the U.S. and Polish versions of a poster for Tootsie after the jump…

back to the drawing board

I have been experimenting a bit with illustrator lately and a pretty unique looking style has started to emerge. A friend also asked me to do some flyers for his website Sphere of Hip Hop, so I’ve been incorporating these experimentations into the flyers. You may be seeing some personal work like this in the near future.

New N.E.R.D.

Spinemagazine just posted Spazz, the latest N.E.R.D. song from their upcoming N3RD album! Maybe a tad worse than the “All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom” madness that is their first single, Everyone Nose. This shot is from the making of the video below - Yeezy and Chadnizzle standing next to Kaws’ nose character.

I feel like these songs are the kind that grow on you (like athletes foot). A good video and everyone will be singing along for months, and with Diane Martel at the helm you know it’s gonna have that trademark look (Lapdance, Rockstar). *EDIT, I just saw the whole video and it’s horrible! Martel you FAIL.

N.E.R.D. - Spazz [mp3 via spinemagazine]