November 2010

mission to mars GIF

Comments Off on mission to mars GIF

Credit where credit is due dept.:

This gorgeous GIF of fish morphing into reptiles morphing into dinosaurs morphing into woolly mammoths chased by cavemen, currently making the internet rounds, is a clip from the Brian De Palma movie Mission to Mars (2000). At the film's climax, a hologram of a long-extinct Martian shows U.S. astronauts a 3D video of his planet being hit by a comet millions of years in the past, then the DNA-seeding of the Earth by Martian scientists in the months before their civilization is completely annihilated. The DNA grows into Earth's variegated lifeforms.

Mission to Mars had a huge budget and is a visually stunning film despite its somewhat sci-fi conventional, Spielbergesque ending. Critics completely trashed it and it died a box office death even with Disney bankrolling (coming on the heels of De Palma's success with the first Mission Impossible movie). Disney notwithstanding, the movie is pretty dark, featuring an astronaut being torn to pieces in a Martian dust-tornado and Tim Robbins' face turning into a freeze-dried skull when his spacesuit faceplate shatters. Gary Sinise spends the entire movie in a depressed funk.

big little brother mark

Comments Off on big little brother mark

Tracking the doings of Facebook from outside, before its inevitable demise, has become a hobby, so expect occasional posts on the diseased mind who rules your world (that is, Kevin Mark Zuckerberg).

Here is a nugget from Lauren Weinstein's blog, Facebook's New Chat/Email Feature Apparently Records Everything You Say.

Update: I keep forgetting that a-hole's name. Originally this post was titled "big little brother kev."

NY BYOB installation pics and vid; BYOB LA

Comments Off on NY BYOB installation pics and vid; BYOB LA

byob-youtube1_530

Rafael Rozendaal, who curated the BYOB NY show, has some posted some installation photos and a video of the event.
The video is also on YouTube.

In this one-night exhibit at Spencer Brownstone gallery participants brought their own beamers (projectors) to the gallery and covered much of the available wall, ceiling, and floor space. This is a biased blog post and not a review, which explains why my projection is the largest in the above photo, ha ha. (This is what that image looks like on a small scale.)

Will Brand has written about the show at AFC, and there are more links to images and video there.

Another BYOB event opens Friday, November 19, in Los Angeles, called BYOB LA, curated by Chris Coy and Guthrie Lonergan.

small craft warning

Comments Off on small craft warning

thank_you_eno

Disquiet discusses Eno's new one, Small Craft on a Milk Sea. I chimed in with some reminiscences of What Eno Meant to Me, eons ago. The caption in glitter text (a song title) is explained.

As the immortal Omar -----------r and the Dead M-----s once sang:

I hate the Urban Verbs
I hate Eno too
He and Roddy Frantz
Like to b------- and s----.

(Work safe version of late '70s proto-DC hardcore song "I Hate the Urban Verbs")