No seriously, happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein | SpoutBlog

Karina runs through six layers of Frankenstein myth in film (with Bogdanovich's Targets, starring Boris Karloff as icing), including my personal fave- Paul Morrissey and Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein, a trashy exploitation movie that existed at that strange, florid nexus of 60's hedonism and art-nouveau revival; with gorgeous sets and costuming that would make Gaultier salivate (including some awesome bondage-y orthopedic-looking posture collars that I might get funny looks for saying I like).
Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein by Karina Longworth | SpoutBlog

boxee: the open, connected, social media center for mac os x and linux

I've been using an AppleTV since it was released. A device with great potential (cheap, HD enabled, great integration with iTunes) crippled intentionally by Apple's need to tie it directly to iTunes only- Since it's still illegal to rip your DVD collection to file in the Rip, Mix, Burn style we've become accustomed to in iTunes, the AppleTV eschews any video media you have in naughty 'pirate' formats like DivX, and only wants to play video purchased from the iTunes store or DRM-less mp4 files you ostensibly made yourself or that come from podcasts. Every weird movie curator worth his salt that I know now has a couple of terabyte drives filled with DivX's and subtitle files, and we are not anyone's target user. AppleTV's free online video solution is also centered around YouTube, while Hulu is hosting tons of high-quality free movies and TV shows.
A range of hacks have been available for the AppleTV to make it do everything from play exotic video formats off network drives to order pizza, but they have all been difficult to install (I've learned more unix hacking my AppleTV than when I worked tech support at Apple) hard to use and break frequently, on their own or whenever a small AppleTV update comes out.

Enter Boxee. A new improved application helps you build a usb patchstick, which you plug into the service port on the appleTV, installs boxee and the supporting Xbox Media Center software it's based on. Previous hacks involved building a patchstick and then doing seperate Apple TV installs using SFTP and SSH, but that little difference isn't what makes Boxee better. Once you have boxee installed (and activate your account on http://boxee.tv, you'll need to apply for an alpha tester account first, sorry) the real difference is in the interface and thouroughness of the implementation. Boxee does everything the AppleTV always should have done. It recognizes your network drives (on the Mac you'll have to turn on Samba sharing in your sharing preferences), plays every video format, displays subtitle files beautifully, finds posters, synopses and trailers for media it recognizes online, has Last.fm like social scrobbling features (not to mention actual access to Last.fm, as well as myspace video, hulu, Youtube and a host of other free video and music outlets) and the integration is beautiful.


quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

I installed it last night and I'm smitten.

Voiceovers, flashbacks, and Theron, oh my! THE ROAD has been seen and the early verdicts are in!

Early looks at 'The Road' are describing the film as flawed by a poorly executed voiceover narration (that was not in the script) and an awkward performance by Charlize Theron as the absent wife.
I still have hopes for the film adaptation of this amazing, stark book by Cormac McCarthy- by the director of The Proposition.

"[...]There is voiceover dialogue that was clearly some of the "temp" dialogue we were warned about... not delivered as well as Viggo would have done and sapping some of the tension and urgency from these moments."

So this early cut apparently has a voiceover, something that was NOT in the script I reviewed. Curiouser still, it's not voiced by Viggo or anyone from the cast. Is The Road perhaps suffering from Blade Runner syndrome where the studio feels like people need more background so they wrote a bunch of voice over stuff?

Voiceovers, flashbacks, and Theron, oh my! THE ROAD has been seen and the early verdicts are in! - Quiet Earth

Thanks Rodney!

'I Saw the Bright Shinies'- Divya Srinivasan animates The Octopus Project

My BFF's Divya Srinivasan and The Octopus Project have teamed up to make the cutest video about Russian ghost discos ever!
Link to Peekaboo's video page
Link to Pitchfork's coverage

Hacienda, Hot Pentacostals and Diagonals at Emo's Inside, Saturday Night

Huzzah for 'Learning Processing'

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

Processing is one of those things I've been putting off learning for years. I'm constantly reading and talking about it, I'm always cataloguing the different projects I could be using it in, but like Quartz Composer, I've never been able to make great strides actually learning it. I've never really thought that I could learn a "real" programming language, and that I would be confined to scripting and markup languages and traditional non-interactive video for the stuff I make.

I'm really excited this week because I've been working my way through Daniel Shiffman's book Learning Processing, and for the first time it's actually sticking. I'm reaching that level of engagement with the material that tells me I am in it for the long haul.

I'm only on my second day of reading and today I made this little etch-a-sketch widget (Bloggger won't let me embed Java :/ )

And I didn't just parrot the code either, I took one of the exercises, understood what was going on, and was able to modify it as I saw fit. It doesn't look impressive, but it's a big step for me. I'll post more interesting bits about it as I get deeper in the book. In the meantime, check out some incredible art that people have made using the language.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Austin: An Evening with Don Hertzfelt- Second Show added this Saturday!!!

Cult animator and Academy Award nominee Don Hertzfeldt (THE MEANING OF LIFE, REJECTED, BILLY'S BALLOON) joins us at the Alamo for a rare one-night-only event: A selection of Don's classic animated shorts return to the big screen, culminating in the exclusive regional premiere of his newest film, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU. His longest piece to date, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU is the eagerly anticipated second chapter to EVERYTHING WILL BE OK, Winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Jury Award in Short Filmmaking and named by many critics as one of the 'best films of 2007'. The screening will be immediately followed by a live on-stage interview and audience chat with Don Hertzfeldt.

Link

IPhone Apps: Brian Eno's Bloom Raises the Bar for Musical iPhone Apps

Unlike most music-creation apps, it doesn't take an existing musical instrument and cram it awkwardly into the iPhone's interface. Instead, it creates a completely new 'instrument' designed specifically for the iPhone. Essentially, you're provided with a colored screen and a quiet drone. As you tap the screen in various places, different tones play depending on where you tapped. They then loop, creating a unique piece of music on the fly, one that changes gradually on its own once you stop tapping.

You can also just let it create music on its own, coming up with a new, unique piece every time you run it. It's also beautiful, with the tones appearing as colored spots that slowly fade. It's as satisfying to actively play with as it is to let do its own thing.

Link

Hulu - Slacker

Slacker just showed up on free TV and Movie streaming site Hulu. Kevin Smith wrote an introduction to it, claiming that if we hate or love his films, that the blame should be passed on to Richard Linklater, since Slacker was the impetus for Smith's career. I posted a comment on the page about what I think the primary difference between Kevin Smith's films and Slacker is.

Slacker is a classic movie, uniquely about its own time and place, but also grounded on a solid foundation of art and film movements of the past. That's why the film is so often imitated and rarely duplicated. Because it's got a soul to go alongside its sense of humor. It's a unique and odd piece of art made by real people and full of their character.

Found Via Matt Dentler

Twitch - New Life for "The Birthday"?

[...]You see, it turns out that none other than Guillermo Del Toro has become a huge fan of the film. So much so that when he raved about it recently to a British journalist that conversation sparkedenough interest to bring about a major event screening of the full 117 minute cut of the film[...]

Twitch - Corey Feldman Invading London!

Previous Posts- The Birthday

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