Monday, July 12, 2010

Banksy's Movie Is So Unbelievable, It Must Be True

It's no secret among my friends that I'm a huge Banksy fan. If you talk to me about art at any point I'll gush to you about him. So obviously when I heard Banksy made a film I had to see it. Despite not being in my normal theater, I still managed to see it by driving quite a way.
The film tells the story of Thierry Guetta, store-owner, aspiring film maker and insanely likable despite his immense stupidity. But all the graffiti writers have that kinda charm. Shepard Fairey aka Obey, is introduced at a Kinko's with his girlfriend cutting up a giant poster to later illegally hang. Space Invader, one of the many graffiti artists to have his face blurred, started off in his parents garage in France. Even Banksy, the king of graffiti, tells the story about how, for a prank, he forged about a million pounds and threw them into the street. Not until later does he realize the seriousness of the situation, and even then he seems to see it as a particularly funny prank.
Thierry seems all to happy with his life, he sells shirts from thrift stores for hundreds of dollars to various LA bigwigs. He has a wife who is nice and accepting, healthy children and an obsession with videotaping. Oh yes that last thing, Thierry never goes anywhere without it, he lives life through the viewfinder always taping. It really doesn't hit you till Thierry shows you his collection of tapes. Thousands upon thousands of tapes tossed in boxes. That alone is good enough for the best episode of Horders ever, but something happens to Thierry. He meets his cousin. Well that is to say, he meets Space Invader, street artist extraordinaire.
Thierry is soon wrapped up in the whirlwind of street art, and he's there filming it all, claiming to be making a documentary. Eventually he meets his idol and the white whale of graffiti enthusiast, Banksy. Banksy takes a shining to Guetta. He lets him film his secrets, his methods and lets him go along on one of his more dangerous missions. Namely, putting a inflatable doll dressed as a Gitmo prisoner in Disney Land on the anniversary of 9/11. Yea, he's that kinda guy.
As street art makes it big with Banksy setting records at Sotheby's Auction House and Obey now having a Hot Wheel car made from his art, Banksy tells Thierry to make the documentary. Thierry fails miserably, making an abomination of a film called Life Remote Control. Banksy, realizing as he puts it, "that he might just some crazy dude with a camera" decides to take the project and off handily tells him to do some art. A suggestion Thierry goes a bit too far with, putting on a full show, risking his house in the process.
The cast is as weird and quirky as you would expect. Thierry as said is insane and a little bit of a douchebag, but still weirdly likable. Banksy is mainly unseen, but his constant quips at both his and Thierry's work helps drive the film and makes for some funny yet interesting stuff. I have to say the breakout guy in this is Shepard Fairey. He comes across like that one guy in college who kept to himself, but if you ever talked to him he was brimming with interesting ideas. We see his rise from small time to big time and it's actually a very intersting story on it's own.His best moment comes when he walks around Thierry's art and gives the camera a slightly bemused expression, seeming to say "What the fuck did I do?"
Not only will this please street art fans but regular movie goers will be happy to get a glimpse into a world still very underground. Plus I haven't even got to the the the final third which raises question such as "what is art?" The film decides not to answer that, dumping the unsuspecting audience into a huge debate, when all they wanted to see is a movie about a guy breaking the law.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Mega 64: Version 3

After four years of anticipation and a bunch of great skits, Mega 64 comes back with their explosive season three. Does it live up to the expectations?
Yes, a thousand times yes.
If you don't know the plot of Mega64 it's as follows, evil scientist Dr. Poque tests video games on a group of gamers Rocko, Derek and Sean. However as they go deeper into the world of Mega 64, they find that there's a deeper conspiracy to all of it.
While they may be known for their Jackass like skits online their thirty minute episodes really is what makes them great. It goes between rather silly episodes like the Curb Your Enthusiasm reminiscent "Bigger Boat" or the Lost eclipsing finale "Delaware." While they did start off as public access they are almost near big budget movie levels, all on a indie movie budget.
The writing is at the top of their game. The first two episodes are a bit stale as they're a bit rusty from doing full on episodes, not to say they don't have utterly hilarious jokes. One joke in the first episode had me rolling on the floor. As they hit their stride they keep going until one of the greatest finales I've seen. The acting makes you actually care for these joke characters. One scene actually almost brought me near tears. While I have to admit that Rocco has been one of the weaker actors, not to say he's bad, but I think Shawn and Derek have always hit it out of the park. Rocco however does really great work on this DVD.
Now I may be talking a lot about the serious aspect but I will say that this is comedy at it's finest, the jokes that work make you howl and there's tons of jokes you won't pick up until a repeated viewing. The serious bits are sprinkled evenly enough to make them not seem out of place. In fact the only thing that seems out of place in the later episodes are the skits. While they're still funny the skits near the end kinda outstay their welcome as they shoe horned in to please the fans who love them.
Rocco has said multiple times that people should make their perfect trilogy, even if they go longer. As the trilogy closes I feel that they've truly made a trilogy that will be hard for not only them to top, but internet film makers in general.

Friday, April 2, 2010

If Internet Geeks Made Shirts

So here is a collection of T-Shirts made off the internet site ShirtMockUp. In a bit of a mixed blessing you can't buy the shirts, sad because I wanted some, good because I have no money.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Why Maya Ibuki is the most depressing Evangelion character.

Mad Evangelion Spoilers Ahead!
Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom
Yep I'm talking about what many call the only sane character in Evangelion. Truly she should be the happiest character. She has no mommy or daddy issues to deal with. She seems well off and she's always smiling. Everything would be perfect except for one thing. She's in love with Ritsuko Akagi.
Is it the lab coat?
But unfortunately for Maya, Ritsuko doesn't return the feeling, instead she goes and bones the same guy her mom did. So now imagine you to work every single day for a couple of years. Slowly but surely you fall in love, but you're confused, you're worried about your sexuality as your boss is also a women. You know she's straight so you're love will never become mutual. Most frustrating is that this will go on for years, as I stated earlier, seeing the person you love but will not love you back every single day. Even worse she acts like nothing is wrong and is always friendly.
You goddamned tease.
Okay now imagine you're having a bad day, like the worst day of all time.
Like this bad.
You're scared you don't know what to do. People are dying around you, including friends and children. You're ready to crawl in a corner and give up. Then the person you've never expected to love appears and says that she does love you. That everything is going to be alright and that there's nothing to worry about. You're the happiest you ever remember being in a long time. Finally you got what you've wished for all these years. Then you fucking explode.
Yep, that's Maya's hand.
Okay, maybe Shinji and Asuka has had more stuff happen to them, but Maya's plight is more relatable. Everyone has has unrequited love, whether it's homosexual or not, and it sucks to be jerked around by that person. Plus the Rei clone seems to go especially hard on Maya. Most people are killed almost instantly upon contact, but Maya gets to see her, be told "I Need You", hugs her and then explodes, that's just depressing, there is nothing that can make it more depressing.
I should learn to keep my mouth shut.
In an effort to lift some spirits, here's a cute/creepy pic of Maya.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Anime Expo Cosplay Awards

The (nonexistent) votes are in and here are the Awards! All photos from the great Japanator.
The "How The Hell?" Award:
It took me a while to figure this one out, I mean if I saw this walking towards me I would run away.
Cutest Cosplay:
Some may give this to a cute girl in a bikini, but look at that L, that is the cutest thing I've seen all day.
Funniest Cosplay:
To get the full hilarity photo, picture an elevator opening and those blank eyes are staring back.
You're welcome.
Most Unexpected:
What? Someone did Coraline, this is gonna suck right?
Holy... I have no words, that's just awesome.
Best Internet Cosplay:
Now I have to say something about Rule 1 and 2. You know the drill.
Scariest Cosplay:
GAAAAAAAH! Seriously, this will haunt my dreams.
Best Prop:
Costume is okay, but that prop looks right outta the game.
Most Impressive:
GIGA BUSTAH!
Best Female Cosplay:
It's the claws that sold me on this, that's going all the way.
Best Male Cosplay:
Remember, this is best cosplay, as in it's got to look like the character.
And I'll be damned, that guy looks just like Gordon Freeman. He would have also won best prop if he wasn't winning this.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

An AT Field Review!

So I just bought the first two volumes of the fabulous webcomic Girly. Took a super long time to get delivered, but it was worth the wait (especially cause I got an extra drawing of Marshmallow Kitty.) But getting to the comics, Girly is the story of Otra and Winter, a leader and sidekick team that have adventures. That's really is all I can say, I mean this is one of the most nonsensical comics I've ever read and that's part of the appeal of the comic. Where else can you see an elephant busting phat beats? Volume one introduces the characters and hooks up Winter and Otra. The art is very good, walking the line between old cartoons and anime. The writing does fall short at some parts, sometimes the character will go into long speeches. I wouldn't usually even mind, but Josh L, the writer/artist recently rewrote some particular scenes for a recap chapter and it's got some great stuff. Still a great book.
Girly really doesn't get really good till the second volume. The art starts to get more cartoon inspired and the writing becomes amazing. The thing that surprises me is that Josh is able to not only have dozens of characters, but he is able to make you believe every single one. No matter how crazy they may be, they all great characterization and personalities. They may live in a crazy world but that doesn't mean they can't be believable. One of the best webcomics out there, it deserves all the praise it gets.
You can read Girly here, and read Josh L's livejournal here.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

What is Nico Nico Douga? (And why you should care.)

So I guess I'm back, It's not even that I was doing something that made me not update, I'm just lazy. So I give you a short article about my newest obsession, Nico Nico Douga. Basiclly it is a cross between YouTube and a music community site. It started as a regular video website, but it quickly became know for it's medleys. The first of which is entitled Nico Nico Douga Chuudoku no Kata e Okuru Ikkyoku which you can see here being sung almost a capella.
There's Kumikyoku which has this awesome Mario level.
The most famous one was called Ryuuseigun which has three different versions, regular,
a capella and with a full orchestra.
So why is this important? It shows how a group of regular nerds can make a huge project
from nothing. Seriously that orchestra had little to no training together and still did great.
If every nations nerds could do that we could all make some epic things.