Watching 409 movies in 12 months is kinda worrying.
Keeping detailed spreadsheets about the experience pushes that into even more questionable territory.
But turning that data into an infographic and blogging about it? WAW. How you like me now??
It’s scary, but if you’d like, click to enlarge…
Regardless of how this makes me look, I’mma keep at it.
So I’ve chucked my 2012 Viewing Log online, I’ll pro’ly be chatting about its progress during the year over at Big Screen Auckland.
Spit, it’s been like 3 weeks or some craziness since Strange Kids Club posted the complete to an’ fro that I had with them. I’m only just now adding it to my blog! I’ve been busy, honest…
For those of you who like lots of reading, HERE IT IS complete with many different spellings of Auckland. Enjoy!
If you ain’t one of those cats, here are the pictures! See, I figured that a lot of my videos wouldn’t really fit that nicely alongside what I was saying. Therefore, I created something to fill those spaces that would otherwise’ve been filled incorrectly. I didn’t do too badly with them, so it all worked out!
- My take on Me meeting their mascot over there at Strange Kids Club. Click to enlarge…
- I learned to draw Ren & Stimpy by chucking tracing paper over the TV while the VCR was on pause. Click to enlarge…
- This is a broken fridge that I lined with pictures of my then-crush, Paula Abdul. MC Skat Cat would not’ve been impressed. Full story over at Strange Kids Club or click the picture to enlarge…
I’ve accumulated a fair amount of music this month (for me). Plus I like lists, which means you get to hear all about it…
- Having recently heard the lumbering DOOM + Thom + Jonny track, I got excited and purchased me some new DOOM. I grabbed the 2011 double-disc reissue of his 1999 effort OPERATION: DOOMSDAY, plus one of his instrumental albums – Metal Fingers Presents…Special Herbs, Vol. 5 & 6. I now have 14 albums from this dude (under his various guises – Danger Doom, Viktor Vaughn, KMD, Madvillain, King Geedorah…) and I never tire of him. It’s all gold. In fact, I still wasn’t sated, so I checked all 90-odd minutes of Lecture: DOOM (Madrid 2011); the slightly-awkward-but-pretty-fantastic interview that he did for Red Bull Music Academy.
- Also from ’99, I bought Sigur Rós’ album Ágætis Byrjun. I had already swiped (and loved) a few of the tracks from it, so I made up for that by coughing up extra for some bonus tracks from the Ný Batterí single. Glorious Icelandic movie-trailer scores that I can listen to on full while typing silly lists just like this one.
- Was struck by the cover art and blurb for Paul White And The Purple Brain over at Now Again, so snapped it up rather quickly. It’s this producer who has remixed the work of some Swedish psych-rock dude into a murky Madlib-ish collage that’s part alien guitar, part hip-hop, all fascinating mess. But after four or five listens, I can tell that it’s not gunna stick with me…
- Canberra’s Danger Beach was giving away a lil’ EP-thing called Milky Way after his genius music video Apache got passed around all over the show. The rough lo-fi guitar has yet to grow on me, but I’m so very in love with his aforementioned song and its accompanying clip.
- Daytrotter is this studio where bands of all shapes & sizes cruise through and quickly bash out a few songs which then get given away (pretty much) on the site. This month I grabbed Mayer Hawthorne’s new session and all four tracks are sunny as shit, just what you’d expect from this fella.
As well as full albums and EPs, I collected some other odds an’ ends, too…
- Lil’ bro emailed me about T.R.A.M., a new group that one of the peripheral dudes from The Mars Volta has started with the guys from Animals As Leaders. Unfortunately they are taking their time releasing anything more than HALF a track on YouTube, so I grabbed a few from the self-titled Animals As Leaders album to hold me over - Tempting Time & CAFO. I really like them, pretty intense instrumental shredding, perhaps I’ll grab some more…
- Jensen Karp’s podcast Get Up On This! is a fountain of things I’m about to be interested in. I was listening to an old episode the other day and he was pretty excited about a brash avant-garde hip-hop crew called Death Grips. I was compelled to buy a couple of tracks – Guillotine (It Goes Yah) & Beware – and listen to them over & over; but I’m still not sure whether they’re for me…I’ll keep trying.
- One of my larger crushes – Molly Lewis – was giving away a new cover she recorded recently. Her & her uke have mashed together Crosby & Nash’s Taken At All with The Beatles’ Dear Prudence. The video even features her in fake hair mimicking Crosby, Nash, Lennon and a creepy Yoko.
- Speaking of those Liverpudlians, I’ve never heard of Carla Hassett, but I read on Wiki that Mike Patton helped her sing along to The Beatles’ Julia. He’s my guy, so I had to buy it. Not too bad.
- I saw Midnight In Paris (Spa/US ’11) twice recently and the film opens and closes with Sidney Bechet’s Si tu vois ma mère. I had to buy this track, all the lovely nostalgia from that film springs to mind again whenever this dusty clarinet piece shuffles on.
- So Mos Def has changed his name to Yasiin Bey. Not only that, he’s back with Talib Kweli for a Black Star follow-up! They’ve been giving away You Already Knew (produced by Madlib’s lil’ bro Oh No) from their upcoming Aretha Franklin-inspired album and it’s some wonderfully chilled hip-hop. I’ve missed those guys, can’t wait for more.
- I caught Kevin Smith’s Red State (US ’11) this month (TWICE, loved it) and was thrilled with their free giveaway; Michael Parks (as Abin Cooper??) crooning the traditional gospel song Just A Closer Walk With Thee. I could go for a full album of that voice, for sure…
- Most folks that I know don’t pay for their music anymore and haven’t for quite some time. I didn’t want to be completely left out, so I went an’ thieved the DJ Food re-edit of that old Sesame Street track by Walt Kraemer & The Pointer Sisters, Pinball Number Count. My maths has improved drastically, crime does pay.
I have just answered a bunch of questions for one of the strangest kids of them all – Rondal Scott III over at Strange Kids Club. It was fun; two things I enjoy is talking about myself and presenting shit all pretty-like. And both were called for here.
He’s a good dude and quite emphatic to boot. He fires these questions off to artists of all sorts and we get to show-off with videos, illustrations and witty banter.
I’ll cram it down your throat a bit more once the full piece is published over there, but in the meantime I thought I’d post a few of the illustrations that never got past the scribble stage. These are all concept sketches of me meeting their mascot (who I guess is the titular Strange Kid? They’ve got an AWESOME puppet of him on their site too). Usually, drawings like this’d just get biffed out, but since I’ve got a blog…
So I was over at the 3News website entering their Golden Ticket competition (tryin’ to win free movies all summer) and I noticed all of their edit buttons were still active, haha! I could switch on Allow Multiple Entries or make the prize quantity greater than ‘1’. Like having a Golden Ticket to the Golden Ticket competition! But I’m such a swell guy, that I entered normally and reported the cock-up.
I make websites sometimes y’see, I know how easy it is to miss a check-box or some shit (except, I don’t miss ‘em, shame 3News). Here’s a simple Flash page I made for Orange Leaf Salon over in Japan and here is another for the now-defunct Every Man For Himself which even has a playable Maniac Mansion-style game I made in homage to the C64! I’m also currently working on some elements over at Zooya too, will keep you up-to-date on that.
You should see this McDonald’s site I was largely responsible for this one time. I can find no trace of it online nowadays and the two tiny snapshots below (apologies for the low quality) are all that I have in my possession. But back in the day it landed Macromedia’s Asia Pacific Site Of The Week, won the Outstanding Website trophy overseas at Web Marketing Association’s WebAwards ’01 and was a design finalist at the Netguide NZ awards the same year. Take that.
By the way, if you’re wondering what my answer to the competition question “Which three summer films are you most looking forward to?” was, I went with:
- Red State (US ’11) – Kevin Smith’s new one out TODAY at Rialto Newmarket! I’mma go catch that tomorrow.
- (Frank Capra’s) It’s A Wonderful Life (US ’46) – playing at Academy the week before Christmas. Probably the only holiday tradition I dig…
- Young Adult (US ’11) – Perhaps I’m just in love with the poster, but the writer and the director from Juno (US ’07) are teaming up again, this time with Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt and I’m looking forward to it. End of Jan apparently.
Also pretty keen for:
- 逆戰 (aka The Viral Factor)(HK ’11) – Wasn’t the biggest fan of Dante Lam’s 线人 (aka The Stool Pigeon)(HK ’10) earlier this year, but something about Hong Kong crime flicks on the big screen presses my buttons. Hoyts, end of January…
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (US ’11) – Next week, EVERYWHERE.
- The Ides Of March (US ’11) – Clooney directing, co-writing & starring, with Gosling, PSH, Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright, et al…? That collection of talent has me noticing…Looking like a Feb release (that’s still summer, right?)
- Piranha 3DD (US ’12) – I had a LOT of fun with the first one and although the writing/directing team has changed, Christopher Lloyd & Ving Rhames’re back for more! Whammy, Hasselhoff and Gary Busey join in, too. February?
- The Muppets (US ’11) – Over a year’s worth of marketing has worked on me. I wanna see what Jason Segal, Zach G, Sarah Silverman, Childish Gambino, Dave Grohl, Flight Of The ConChords, Danny Trejo and the gang all get up to with a favourite from my past.
Oh, and if you haven’t seen Melancholia (Den/Swe/Fra/Ger ’11), I see Event has it listed later this month, so if they play it at the Vmax or something, there’re definitely parts worth seeing on A DECENT theatre set-up.
I’ve got this other blog - Big Screen Auckland – where I occasionally chuck my movie reviews, coz I watch A LOT of shit and like to keep a track of some of it (I’ll have to show you my immaculate spreadsheets some day). But recently, I’ve decided that because I’m such a huge fan of fan art – like the shows they hold at Gallery 1988 for example – that I should start doing my own.
Now, I’m just finding my footing at this stage and while I enjoyed the shit outta whipping these two up, I’m finding it odd working with no master, but I’ll get there. I’m into older film posters at the moment, in case you couldn’t tell, so had to learn how to beat them up a bit in Photoshop…
Two flicks I’ve seen very recently; click to enlarge…
Midnight In Paris (Spain/US ’11)
My thoughts on the film here…
Blood (US ’74)
My thoughts on the film here…
Now I’ve just gotta decide which one to attempt next, I’ve been to see both Casablanca (US ’42) and Conan The Barbarian (US ’11) this week. Possibly the only time those two have been weighed against one another…
I like to think I’m as good a spellist as I am a drawist; seems that’s not quite so…
I’m currently working on some more illustrations and posters for the multi-talented Improv-Warrior Wade Jackson and just got caught out spelling ‘psychological’ wrong on one particular design! Sure, it was only a mock-up, but still – what a pro, heh.
While I’m on the subject, here is a messy collage showing some of the other illustrations I’ve done for the dude’s books an’ whatnot over the years…
I’ve just missed out on some awesome live shows here in Auckland, such as Portishead, Fly My Pretties and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra playing a live score to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (Ger ’27). I imagine I’m about to miss a fuckload more as well, such as Gaslamp Killer (Nov 18th), Mulatu Astatke (Nov 25th) and Chali 2Na (Nov 30th). An’ don’t even get me started on Jean Grae, Pharoahe Monch, Rahzel & GZA playing La De Da together next month or Das Racist getting added to BDO alongside Battles & Girl Talk.
HOWEVER. The misery of missing out on all of that disappears whene’er I listen to one of my all-time favourite live shows – Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii.
“But wait; I own every Pink Floyd CD and this isn’t in my collection!!” I hear you say. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it was never officially released as an album as such, perhaps only DVD. See, when I worked at Blockbuster many, many years ago, my boss (Hi Nik!) had this odd mate that borrowed the disc and brought it back along with an audio copy he’d run off, split nicely into MP3s for us. This is back in the day when I had no idea things like that were possible; in fact, I’d pro’ly still have difficulty working that out even now. But I’m so very glad that he did. I can’t remember the dude’s name, I only recall that his hobbies were gore make-up, brothels and telling Blockbuster employees about combining the two. From memory, he looked something like this:
Anyways, I don’t think he realised what a favour he was doing me (actually, the favour was meant for Nik, so he definitely didn’t realise), because I’d say it’d be in my Top Ten Most-Listened-To-Albums-Of-All-Time (my iTunes counts are a bit whack, so I’m guessing). The intensity of the overwhelming noise is a religious experience for me and I get blissfully lost in the length of these compositions. If you’re into prog-rock at all or the engaging musical landscapes that Tool and The Mars Volta often provide us with, go get this DVD and SKIP THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (horrid wankified version with interviews and bad visuals inserted), jump to the Special Features and locate the original 1972 edition, then soak that shit up (or just watch it on YouTube, above). The crashing of gongs and cymbals, the howling and fuckin’ screaming, the dusty atmosphere of the empty ruins, the concentration going on under all that long hair…I can put this ‘soundtrack’ on and feel like I’m rewatching one of my favourite films, even though I’m actually typing a dopey blog with MP3s blasting in my headphones. It’s also one of those go-to flicks for me when I’m the last one standing, left alone at five in the AM after everybody else has passed out, I need something to zone to while drinking straight from this last bottle of red wine. Unreal.
Just be ready to skip the two minute interlude where the Russian Wolfhound literally takes over on vocals, totally blows my buzz.
