Monday, October 30

Abracadabra=David Blaine

The other night I watched a David Blaine special on TV where he performed "street magic", which was a lot of card tricks and stuff. It totally blew me away. His magic is amazing. I kept watching his hands to see if I could tell when he palmed the card or made the switch, but I couldn't. He was absolutely flawless. It made me want to go out and learn some magic tricks.

Blaine also does "stunts" such as encasing himself in ice, being buried alive or trying to hold his breath for over 8 minutes. I wouldn't call these stunts magic they are more of a type of performance art and endurance challenges.

I have a magic trick of my own that I would like to do but I need help from a member of the audience. Ok you sir you will do, what I need you to do is click on any link to make my blog disappear, but while you do it you must say Abracadabra! Now click on a link and make my blog disappear.

David Blaine.com Official website.

Wednesday, October 25

Art School Confidential
( 2006, Terry Zwigoff)

Love, Murder, Art and a bunch of Art School Cliches is what you get in Terry Zwigoff's dark comedy Art School Confidential. I'm not sure if I liked this movie because I went to art school and it poked fun at all the art school cliches and stereotypes or if it was actually a funny good movie. The movie follows Jerome Platz, played by Max Minghella as an artist who wants to become the greatest artist of the 21st century, so what does he do to do that, why he goes to art school of course. While at art school he falls for the nude model in his drawing class Audrey Baumgarten, played by Sophia Myles. I don't know about you guys but if I had a nude model who looked like her when I was in art school I think I might of paid more attention in class. Well needless to say the movie revolves around Jerome trying to win the affections of Sophia and also gain recognition for his art. But the question is to what lengths will he go to do that...oh wait did I mention that there is a serial strangler on the loose.

Also in the film are appearances by John Malkovich, Anjelica Huston and Ethan Suplee(who can now be seen playing Jason Lee's brother in the tv show ED).

As my parting words I will leave you with this. If you've never seen a Terry Zwigoff film before, Art School Confidential is not what you should judge this filmmaker by. I would recommend seeing Crumb (1994) a documentary about cartoonist R. Crumb and also see Ghost World (2001). He also directed Bad Santa (2003) but I have yet to see it. If you have seen one of his films before then Art School Confidential will give you a few good laughs but overall it might leave you feeling a bit empty inside.

Art School Confidential website and trailer.

Saturday, October 21

Monsieur Chat

So Johnny Strike, from Seen Any Good Films Lately turned me on to Monsieur Chat after he had read my blog on Space Invader and said it was similar to the "Monsieur Chat" phenomenon that has taken place mostly in Paris but also other European cities. "Monsieur Chat" or just M Chat( as in J. Lo or P. Diddy) is a graffiti cat that had begun showing up on the sides of buildings following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The most notable feature of M Chat is its large Cheshire Cat grin. M Chat is often depicted in various poses and sometimes is accompanied by the tagline M. CHAT in small letters. The graffiti artist or artists of M Chat have so far remained anonymous.
Do you know who they are?
M Chat Flickr group
Wikipedia article
monsieurchat.free.fr: A site in French documenting appearances of the graffiti cat

Thursday, October 19

Space Invader

Who is Invader, the Parisian guerrilla artist who cements pixelated mosaics of the widely popular classic arcade game Space Invaders on walls across cities of the world? Well if you want to know more about him and his guerrilla art than check out his website which is pretty fun. It features photos of where his Space Invaders have landed, maps and movies of him in action. See if your city has been invaded by Invader. If it has than you can take a walking tour of your city, hunting out his fun pixelated mosaic Space Invaders.

Space Invader

Wednesday, October 18

Webcomics

So a few blogs back I wrote a little blog about this webcomic that I stumbled upon called Manual Comics. Well one of the commenters on that blog had recommended a few other webcomics to check out. The procrastinator that I am I haven't gotten around to it so I'll just supply you with the links and you guys can check them out for me. If you think they're something I should waste my time on let me know and I will do just that.

Webcomics:
Alien loves Predator
Scary Go Round
Monkeys might puke

Sunday, October 15

The Lake House
( 2006, Alejandro Agresti)

So The Lake House is a romance movie starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in which the somehow break the space time continuum and exchange love letters with each other even though they are living 2 years apart(yeah I said 2 years apart). Keanu is 2 years in the past and Sandra is 2 years in the future. The one common factor between them is The Lake House that they had both lived in, at different times of course. So to save you some time from watching this movie I'm just going to tell you how it ends. They eventually find each other and they embrace and kiss and eventually do something else but that's left up to our imagination because that's where the movie ends. If you have 105 minutes to waste than yes watch this movie it was better than expected. If you don't have the time to waste or have something better to do like cleaning out your belly button lint then just know that every thing works out and there is a happy ending to the movie(surprising yes isn't it).

Friday, October 13

Lady Sovereign

Is the next rap super star a 5' 1" white girl from England, who goes by the name Lady Sovereign? Well I'm not an avid hip-hop/rap listener but if the punk rock/drum-n-bass tracks that I've heard are any indication of what Lady Sovereign has to offer than I would say yes. Plus it doesn't hurt to have Jay-Z sign you to his label and have everyone from Adrock, of the Beastie Boys(who did a remix of one of her songs) to Timbaland, Snoop Dog and the Neptunes wanting to work with her.

Although Lady Sovereign hasn't reached superstar popularity in her homeland of England due to her being mislabeled as a Chav and being associated with the Chav culture. She is sure to make a big splash on this side of the pond, mainly because I think the US rap/hip-hop audience is looking for something new in their hip-hop which we can see in the success of Gnarles Barkley, MFDOOM and Danger Mouse. So why don't you throw on a hoodie and trow back a Heiniken and give Lady Sovereign a chance, you never know you just might like her.

Ladysovereign.com (official website)
Wikipedia article
Lady Sovereign's Myspace Page

While checking out Lady Sovereign's myspace page be sure to download the live version of Public Warning. You can also find a bunch of other Lady Sovereign's songs floating around on the internet that you can download(you just have to know where to look), but if you like what you hear support this talented artist and buy her music.

Monday, October 9

Make money while Blogging!

So I was turned on to this site, PayPerPost, by Bobby over at The Bestest Blog of All Time(see side bar for link) and I think it's a great idea. You get paid to write blogs! Essentially you write a review (which doesn't necessarily have to be a positive one) about gadgets, movies, TV, music and website from their list of advertisers. This is something most of us do anyway so why not get paid for it right! This is what you do to get started, simply create an account then pick from this list of opportunities(advertisers) that they pay you to blog about. You blog about what you like, submit it to the system and 30 days later you get money in your PayPal account. Could it be any easier!

If you do decide to give this a try don't forget to put me as the person who referred you to the site. All you have to do to do that is use my email address m-2@earthlink.net as the referrer. They pay you $5 to refer people to the site and to get them to sign up. So if you do decide to give this a try don't forget to put me as the person who referred you to the site. All you have to do to do that is use my email address m-2@earthlink.net as the referrer

Remember the site is PayPerPost!

Sunday, October 8

The End of the Internet?!

We as a species always are curious what's out there.
As kids we always wondered what's out there at the end of the road?
As explorers, we wondered what's out there at the end of the world or the end of the universe?
As we age we wonder what's out there at the end of our lives?
As avid internet user, what's out there at the end of the internet or is there an end?

Well, just today I've finally figured out the answer to one of those age old questions and you can find it here.

What's out there at the end of....

Thursday, October 5

A Battlestar Galatica public service announcement

Hey all you sci-fi tv watching geeks, the season premiere of Battlestar Galatica is on this Friday, October 6th at 9/8c. Don't miss it.
Be there or be square

Wednesday, October 4

Elephant
( 2003, Gus Van Sant)


With all these recent school shootings, Gus Van Sant's Elephant comes to mind. It is a highly powerful film in which he recreates an everyday ordinary boring school day, showing the kids going through what many kids around the US go through everyday. It's not until near the end of the school day that this seemingly average boring school day erupts into a spasm of violence reminiscent of the Columbine school shootings. I would recommend highly watching this movie, when the credits are rolling at the end you'll just be sitting there with your jaw opened and stunned at what you just saw, in this powerful compelling movie.

A LOST Public Service Announcement



What ever you do today, don't forget to watch the Lost season premiere on ABC tonight Wednesday, October 4 at 9/8c!


Be there or be square.