Ever since I first saw Feist's "1,2,3,4", I've learned to become rather impressed with the film making skill that goes into single-shot videos. Seriously, it takes a lot of coordination and planning to pull these kinds of things off, whether or not you're actually resorting to CGI or anything like that.
And so I totally loved this video given (1) I like the song, (2) it was also taken in a single shot and (3) it's the fun kind of video that makes you think that you can do. I can so see this happening with my geek friends somehow representing all the different fandoms or something, hehehe.
The Emmys may not necessarily as "big" as the Oscars every year, but it doesn't make it any less important. Celebrating the successes of the small screen (figuratively speaking) is always a great reason to gather and the Emmys have always found interesting ways of celebrating their brightest moments.
This year, a lot of buzz went around Neil Patrick Harris hosting the event given the inevitable cameo of his online sing-along blog character, Dr. Horrible. Instead of just him appearing alone, he had the entire cast with him discussing the end of television and the rise of internet-based entertainment:
But I have to admit what I really enjoyed more was this tribute featured on the Daytime Emmys this year celebrating 40 years of everyone's favorite children's program, Sesame St.
She opened her 24th season with a live performance by the Black Eyed Peas this year. Naturally, they performed their hit song, "I Gotta Feeling", which personally I've grown to love and look forward to every time I hit the club scene. Now this being an Oprah Winfrey production, it wasn't enough to have a major record label band perform live for the season opener - they also decided to attempt what is now being touted as the largest single-city flash mob to date.
Sure, we all know it was choreographed and staged but just seeing it on screen was just priceless. It's the kind of video that makes you think of why ImprovEverywhere used to be a lot cooler than it is today and at the same time makes you ponder if you'll ever get to participate in a flash mob like that. Seriously, I wouldn't mind performing a dance routine like that with hundreds of other folks.
If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, then here's the video for your viewing (and potentially dancing) pleasure.
OPRAH FlashMob 24th Season Kickoff & "How Did They Do That?!" aired 9/10/09
You know how it goes - everyday more and more applications are created for the iPhone. They range from the amazingly useful like various productivity apps that help you manage to-do lists and schedules to the silly like apps that simulate bubble wrap.
Yes, there's bound to be an app for any purpose that you can possible imagine, as presented in the mock commercial below:
I love statistics - it's probably because of my background as a debater or something. You have to admit that we tend to appreciate information more when it's presented to us in factoids, charts and percentages. It somehow makes things easier to understand.
Socialnomics has put together an interesting video looking at the effect of social media on the current marketplace. Sure, it's clearly directed at companies in order to convince them to start allocating funds towards social media advertising and other online efforts, but that doesn't the fact that the video does present a number of interesting notions and ideas and certainly shows us an aspect of our development in this social media driven world.
His more recent production, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus has had the added bonus of being the last work of Heath Ledger. Given his death, it's interesting how the film has evolved to include three other actors playing the same character as Heath Ledger - Jude Law, Colin Farrell and fantasy's favorite friend, Johnny Depp. The trailer certainly looks promising and it seems to indicte that this just may be a pretty striking work even though initial reviews and previews have very mixed feelings. I'm just highly appreciative of the fact that they managed to somehow retain the look of the portagonist despite four different actors playing him and of course Gilliam's signature love of high fantasy, dizzying visuals and exciting sequences.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) Movie Teaser HD
There's more to life than just playing Guitar Hero. Apparently for this guy, it means trying to solve 2 Rubik's Cubes while playing Mr. Crowley on expert level on Guitar Hero. As much as you wonder how long it took this guy to master this (without leaving the confines of his home), you certainly have to give him credit for actually pulling it off.
#10 - The Multicolored Multitask (Guitar Hero + Rubik's Cube)
I've been a Roald Dahl fan for quite some time and it seems his movies are often revisited in order for Hollywood to find something else to milk. Despite the clear monetary incentive involved in such productions, one can't help but enjoy them and the unique brand of creativity that is Roald Dahl.
When I saw this trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox, I totally freaked out since (1) it was a Roald Dahl story and (2) it involves stop-motion animation, which I have a bit of a thing for. Plus there are some pretty big stars involved, chief among them being Meryl Streep, who is just divine quite frankly.
The odd entertainment "family" that is Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter is getting a little weird given the number of projects they do together, but is never cause for complaint either. Let's face it - they make great movies together, and Burton's next project certainly shows a lot of promise.
The world of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland has always been a lot darker than how it's presented in mainstream media - we have Disney to thank for that, I suppose. Should one look at the original illustrations in the first book and you'll understand what I mean - that Cheshire Cat is absolutely menacing - you just know that he's dangerous.
And thus something like this is just perfect for the unique vision of Tim Burton, and the trailer for this film is certainly promising, if not disturbing depending on your tastes. I just hope Johnny Depp doesn't end up repeating his Willy Wonka performance but with different make-up - the similarities are clearly there.
In 1982, everything changed with the release of the movie, Tron. It was so radically different from many films before it and it chose to explore something that was still a fairly new concept to most - the insides of computers and the networks between them. The special effects were pretty cutting edge for time but more importantly the story itself was tight enough to be coherent yet distinct and creative enough to be forever memorable.
When they announced they were going to make a new Tron movie, I was pretty skeptical. How dare they decide to touch this classic movie, something that had remained largely untouched over the years save for an appearance in the game Kingdom Hearts II. Was this going to be just another addition to the long list of films that have been bastardized by Hollywood, subjected to the remake bug and thus forever raping our childhood all for money?
Thankfully they have announced that this is going to be a sequel of sorts and not a full remake, and they're trying to make sure the movie can stand on its own even if people hadn't seen the original film. The trailer officially released during this year's Comic-Con shows promise, but I'm not making any final decisions until it comes out in 2011.
Oh yes, this video is so worth sharing since the best way to vent your issues with the airline industry is to write a song about it and post a video on YouTube.
I'm not sure what got people so excited about the number 9 this year, but it's clear that we have to major movies with science fiction overtones related to the number, and personally I'm pretty excited for both of them. On the one hand is the animated film "9", based on a short film released some time ago by Shane Acker and somehow involving Elijah Wood. The other is a larger-scale production called District 9, that really promises to knock your socks off. Then again, this film is being produced by Peter Jackson, so that does indicate some pretty heavy guns behind the scenes.
District 9 is the odd story about an alien race made to live in not-so-great conditions on Earth in some sort of a community / refugee camp called District 9. Of course something is going to happen to disrupt the status quo, but why listen to me? The trailer does a heck of a better job of showing you just how potentially awesome this film could be.
Oh, and did I mention the mecha-style power armor?
V was a classic series from the 80's involving alien invaders called "The Visitors" that gathered a bit of a cult following in its time. It's interesting to note that they networks are finally trying to revive the series and hopefully present it with a fresh look similar to what had been done for the Battlestar Galactica franchise.
Cross your fingers. At least the trailer looks pretty good.
Apple iPhone Applications are a pretty diverse group. You have an amazing set of highly useful apps like those that interface with sites like Gmail or Facebook or that perform essential functions. Yet of course the larger variety of iPhone Apps out there tend to be of the stupid and inane variety like those that pretend to be mood rings or those that summon hordes of Daleks to occupy your iPhone. I kid you not.
Then you get apps like the iSnort, which really make good use of the accelerometer and the various gadget tweaks available to the iPhone, although for pretty questionable purposes...
With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen looming on the horizon, the studio folks have been releasing more and more trailers, teasers and clips to whet the appetites of many fanboys and fellow Transformers geeks alike.
This one was especially revealing and I have to admit that I'm REALLY excited for this movie to come out!
#8 - ShoWest Transformers 2 crazyness !!Amazing!! HD
I've always considered commercials to be a potential art form in themselves. In the same way that poetry relies on brevity of wit to express a concept in fewer words, commercials have a very limited time to deliver a message. Sure, it tends to be related to a product, but the discipline of distilling the essence of a story into a 30-60 second clip is fantastic.
Then again, a lot of the time you get terribly funny and sexually suggestive ads like this one:
Groups like ImprovEverywhere have done a lot for the world, and not just the realms of viral video. They've added that sense of possibility and hoping for something surreal / magical to happen in our every day lives and just reminding us that we don't have to stick to the mundane and expected - there's just so much more to life than that.
This time it's a very large group dancing to the Sound of Music at their own central station. I so love this!
#7 - Centraal Station Antwerpen gaat uit zijn dak!
As a geek, I have to admit that I'll always be a sucker for numbers and statistics. There's just something wonderfully comforting about hard numbers no matter what you're taking about.
Of course in this Web 2.0 age, viral videos are some of the best venues to discuss causes, ideas and new concepts. You can create colorful presentations, funny videos or just interesting segments like this one.
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