Local Color - The Movie, Coming Summer 2009

The movie - Local Color - looks beautiful!
It supposed to come out sometime this summer.

Character artist Jack Kirby

An interesting interview with Jack Kirby, creator of quite a few famous comic book super-hero characters. (From A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part four))

I'm also reading Watchmen right now. (I'll tell you how it goes.) It's got a lot of acclaim, plus they're releasing Watchmen as a movie in March. It looks pretty intriguing. (Great website design too!)

Steampunk Moves Between Two Worlds

I read this article - Steampunk Moves Between Two Worlds - today on the New York Times website about Steampunk & its subculture - wow! Amazing! ...

It's an aesthetic of the industrial age - brass, gears, burlap, time travel, adventure, creativity, etc. ... It reminds me of Waterworld, The City of Lost Children, Matrix, Around the World in 80 Days, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the video game Myst. ... I found Abney Park - a band that promotes themselves at "steampunk", Tom Sepe - who built a steampunk motorcycle(with lots of other cool inventions!), Gypsy Moon, a steampunk fashion site, and even SalonCon, a victorian/steampunk ball.

I really enjoyed looking through all of it ... I was even seeing the world through a sort of steampunk vision - pretty cool to think about! :)

Danielson Famile - Did I step on your trumpet?

A cool video for "Did I step on your trumpet?" from The Danielson Famile.

Also check out the documentary movie on them.
Here's a preview of the movie that came out in 2006.

Imagine! France sings for USA

Wow! Check this out ... France sings to the USA - "land of the free" is the part that really struck me ... France is the nation who gave us the Statue of Liberty. They know what freedom is all about, and we need its fullness! :) ... Bravo! beautiful!

(There's also a longer version.)

A great idea by Johannes Leonardo for Pangea Day, a global event bringing the world together through film. I love the other films they made about countries singing other countries' national anthems too, especially these two - USA sings for Mexico, and UK sings for Argentina since I'm more familiar with those countries.

Imagine! USA sings for Mexico

Imagine! UK sings for Argentina

Keep it up Johannes! I'd love to see more!

"Falling Slowly" Wins Academy Award

I'm so glad that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won an Oscar for their music in the movie Once! They sing of HOPE ... looking past the suffering & despair, focusing on the beauty of what IS and the hope of what CAN BE. It's beautiful to see the Irish & Czech hearts singing together to bring hope to the struggling artists all over the world, to keep looking up and believe. Once is a beautiful movie and their story is amazing as well ... just ordinary people passionate to share their hearts of love, of beauty of hope.

I hope you are honored tonight.
Thank you for sharing your voice!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

I've been reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis for the first time, and I'm really enjoying them. I haven't enjoyed reading that much since jr. high - when we had to stop at every chapter and evaluate every little detail. It's been a long time since I've read for pleasure ... and now I've been getting back into it with "The Monument" by Gary Paulsen and "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis. I love how imaginative the Chronicles of Narnia are. They're richly creative and I can sit reading for hours without noticing the time fly by.

I look forward to seeing Prince Caspian as a movie too. I think they did a great job with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." I do enjoy the books - since I have to use my imagination to see the fantastic worlds - but the movies are awesome too!

sxsw brain-spinning

I'm back from SXSW ... wow! what an experience - great people, ideas, discussions, etc. It was over-whelming at times - too much information & people, but really good. I got to see a few friends/alumni who had moved away, hang out with my co-workers and listen to some of the most forward-thinking people in creative technology. I took notes on the panels & will try to share them soon ... there was lots of information. I'm trying to bring as much inspiration & ideas back into my workplace, and hopefully make things even more productive & enjoyable. My brain is kinda fried right now. I'll come back later with more. (I think I have enough ideas to keep me busy for the next year at least.)

One thing, yesterday I saw the world premiere of the movie Helvetica ... which was a great documentary film about how helvetica came to be out of the swiss design school and how it has (positively & negatively) shaped our society from different people's perspectives. There was a Q&A at the end with the director Gary Hustwit & designer David Carson. Whether or not you're a designer, I think you'll like it a lot.

The Ringer in Theaters

A movie I worked on in the Fall of 2003 is finally out! =)
The Ringer

It stars Johnny Knoxville and was produced by the Farrelly Brothers.

I watched it the other night with my sister & mom. We all thought it was pretty good. Good humor, good story.
I didn't see myself as an extra in the movie, but my name was in the titles under Art Dept interns.

Go check it out. It's in theaters now. Let me know what you think.
Have a Happy New Years!