Savage Popcorn

Today is Valentine’s Day, so here’s a date appropriate song from Tim Minchin, from the 2008 Secret Policeman’s Ball.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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A native to New York City, filmmaker Brian Lonano has a fondness for B Sci-fi and Horror Movies from the 50s as well as experimental filmmaking, and enjoys mixing the two. Critics and colleagues say his expressionist approach, use of lo-fi special effects and propaganda bring to mind the schlock style of Ed Wood (in a good way), 1984 and War of the Worlds.

He is probably best know for Attackazoids, a short film in which bipedal war machines, have been deployed to the off-world settlement in order to deal with an uprising of humans that threatens to destroy order and civility.

Attackazoids can be seen online and now, until Christmas, so can the prequel: Attackazoids, Deploy!!

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Terry Pratchett on religion via Pharyngula

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I first saw Forklift Driver Klaus: The First Day on the Job (Staplerfahrer Klaus: Der erste Arbeitstag) at the 2002 Fantastic Film Festival in Amsterdam. I knew nothing about the film when it started but by the time it had finished the entire cinema had collapsed in laughter.

So thanks are due to the Shorts blog for pointing out that the full ten minute film can be seen online.

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White Wine in the Sun, the entertainingly sentimental encore to Tim Minchin’s Ready For This? show has now been released in the UK as a single. Inevitably enough, there is a video on YouTube and, if you like really long odds, click here to try and help the song into the UK charts.

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