Savage Popcorn

There are some films that just demand to be seen. Films like Chihuanhas, for example:

When a curio-collecting Professor returns from South America with a mysterious Piranha idol, it casts an ominous curse on his innocent Chihuahua, Lulu Bell, and impregnates her with a litter of amphibious, mutant Chuhuahua-Piranhas.

Check out the rest of the synopsis, because it just gets better and better.

Via Undead Brainspasm.

Dreaming wasn’t the first single I ever bought, but it was one of them. So I am indebted to The One Thousand for pointing me in the direction of this video of Debby Harry doing what she does best.

Continue Reading »

Bad Apple!! is a stunning piece of stop-motion animation made from 6,566 still photos of printed bitmaps.

I found this at Pink Tentacle, who have a bit more information about the short, which was made by Nico Nico Douga user, shige-ruuu without the use of any photo-editing software whatsoever. The images were simply captured on a webcam and the effects were achieved by adjusting the zoom, focus, brightness and gain.

Continue Reading »

You may have noticed that I have been a bit quiet for the past few days. There is, of course, a reason for this. Since I’d had such a good experience with Ubuntu, I thought it would be interesting to see what other Linux distros were out there and, after a bit of poking around, decided that Sabayon would be worth a try.

After a few issues, all of my own making (note to self: check the install disk is working before you reformat your hard drive) I now have it up and running and am in the process of restoring my data, settings and email.

Sabyon itself is looking very nice indeed – it’s handled all of my hardware without any problems and I am very interested in seeing what the XBMC Media Centre can do. But the point of this post is to let you know that, if you have sent me an email I am slowly catching up and will respond in the next day or so,

In the meantime, here’s a relevant bit of YouTubery.

Continue Reading »

You are probably aware that Apple’s latest gadget is looking like a bit of a disappointment. Inevitably, the fine tradition of Downfall spoofs continues with Hitler’s response to the iPad (via @jonobacon).

Stephen Fry, however, is a little more enthusiastic.

I mentioned One Fat Cigar a few months ago, but since the site is now online, it’s worth mentioning again. One Fat Cigar is a film oriented social network but one that is staking out a surprisingly unique bit of territory. While there are plenty of sites that help film fans to find each other and at least one that brings film makers together, this site is aiming to fill all of the gaps. It is aiming to connect film makers and industry professionals with each other and with up and coming new talent as well as with thousands of film fans worldwide.

In theory this is a great idea and anything that helps people find newer, smaller and more original films can only be a good thing. It’s too early to say how well this will work in practice but, from an initial poke around, the site does look remarkably well designed and well worth returning to.

It would be nice to see some RSS feeds up there, but it’s early days yet and the site certainly has a lot of potential. If you are interested, you can find me over here.

If you are not aware of Four Lions, you should be. Chris Morris, the man behind Brass Eye has made a film about terrorism. Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point.

As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that-while terrorism is about ideology-it can also be about idiots.

The film premières at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, but for the rest of us The Guardian has a fantastically funny clip from the film which demonstrates how not to buy bleach for bomb-making. Watch it here.

This sounds good. The BBC has commissioned a new eight part SF series from Kudos Film & TV, the people behind Life on Mars, among other things. The series is set on a recently discovered planet and follows the lives of the first settlers on this world.

Set in 2040, Outcasts begins on the day the last known transporter from Earth arrives, prompting great excitement on the new planet: Who is on board? Friends and loved ones? Important supplies and news from Earth? But also many questions: Will the new people bring the problems of Earth with them? Will the mistakes that destroyed Earth be repeated? Will the arrival of a new, would-be leader, rock the fragile and precarious equilibrium of our fresh, unified and courageous new world?

No casting has been announced yet and shooting isn’t due to begin until April, but the concept certainly has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see what the BBC can do with it.

Originally released in 2005, Alex Ferrari’s Broken is a very stylish and visually stunning thriller. What really makes the film stand out, though, are its visual effects which are incredible – the filmmakers really did manage to put every last cent of the film’s budget on the screen.

The film is available on a DVD which is packed with three hours worth of extras and, now, is also available for free online.

Go watch it

Continue Reading »

Spider Robinson is an American born SF writer, now living in Canada. He has a generous attitude and his writing can be described as being both humanistic and humorous and plenty of examples of it can be found in the archives of the StarShipSofa podcast.

Not is all good in the Robinson household, however, as Spider Robinson’s wife Jeanne is fighting cancer and they’re both struggling to pay the bills. You can help: 100% of any money used to purchase Larry Santoro’s excellent e-book, Lord Dickens’s Declaration, will go directly to the Robinsons. But you need to buy the book before December 31st, after which time it will become available.

In order to bring this fundraiser to an end with a bank, Matthew Sanborn Smith is calling on people to buy the book today. So click, click, click. The book is well worth a read and you have the additional bonus of having done some good for a fellow human being.