Any fellow geeks out there look forward to the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi every New Years Eve? In honor of one of my favorite shows of all time, I give you The Twilight Zone Museum Online.
I can’t believe I recognized all of the props (the watermarks are very irritating though).
Have a happy, safe and wonderful evening!
The other night, I caught the 3rd installment of the Found Footage Festival. By the time I left, my face hurt from laughing.
In short: Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher began collecting found videotapes in 1991 after stumbling across a training video entitled, “Inside and Outside Custodial Duties” in a McDonald’s break room. Since then, they have compiled an impressive collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos.
They introduce each segment and add commentary throughout the presentation (sure to appeal to my fellow Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans). It was pure genius.
Selections included public service announcements, kiddie programs, instructional videos, job training videos, fitness tapes, musical montages, and many other cinematic embarrassments.
I left the theater completely inspired to host my own Found Footage Festival!
It’s going to happen. Oh yes. So feel free to send me your ideas!
More info and tour schedule for the FFF here.
I’ve resisted delving into Thrift Horror video this week, but I couldn’t resist sharing this clip from “Size Small,” a 1982 educational program.
“When that old music is movin’ on down…I like to move with it all over town…”
If you haven’t had enough pain, you can watch some horrendous puppetry and a very uncoordinated dancing “record” (wait until he gets fancy, just after the 30 second point).
I found the links to these gems on PuppetVision.
In my Skeleton Dance post, I lamented the fact that I couldn’t find my very favorite 80’s Halloween special, Disney’s Halloween Treat.
Why in the world didn’t I think to look on youtube? I can’t even impart the gushy nostalgic feeling that came over me when I watched this fantastic collection of vintage villains. I used to have this show memorized and it all came back instantly. Here are the links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
I hope these links stay up!
There’s been much speculation about the approach of 2012 by everyone from scientists to UFO enthusiasts. I’m going to ignore it and skip straight to a true mark of absurdity: Nickelodeon’s 2012 movie…for kids.
Take a moment. Let it in.
The action-adventure storyline revolves around a family who goes on vacation in December 2012, just as the Mayan calendar is coming to a close.
Ah, we can even capitalize on the alignment of the cosmos! Can we look forward to 2012 Doomsday Playsets? One can hope.
(Thanks to Matt P. for sending me an article that referenced this film)
In early celebration of Halloween (I could celebrate all month), I give you one of my all time favorite animations, The Skeleton Dance, made by Disney’s Silly Symphony in 1929.
Although modern CGI is a magnificent technical accomplishemt, I feel it lacks the soul found in vintage animation. CGI strives for visual depth, realism and calculated caricature; vintage animation was far more liberal in the creation of characters and use of wonderful anatomical impossibilities.
A version of The Skeleton Dance was colorized and used in the introduction of Disney’s Halloween Treat in 1982. That was my all time favorite Halloween special as a child, and nowadays it’s impossible to find, save for a very overpriced VHS tape on amazon.
Anyone remember that show? Anyone HAVE a copy?
I’ve heard very little about this upcoming animated anthology, but I really look forward to seeing it.
I believe it comes out 10/24.
Andrew Huang is an artist, animator and director who makes rather impressive short films and music videos.
I just revisited “Doll Face;” a surrealist piece of anthropomorphic tragedy in which a robot struggles to attain a human physical ideal found on TV. Perhaps all young girls should view this short film as a cautionary tale.
The clips in Huang’s Art and Experimental section use film projection to lend life to inanimate sculpture (very cool visual illusions). Simple paper mache and yarn take on life.
I love the creeping branches that give way to…well, something you should see…in the end of All Remote & No Control. This video wonderfully defies time, space, nature and gravity, all with a perfectly apocalyptic color scheme.
Thanks so much for the reminder of Huang’s work, Matt!
I’d like to be a fly on the wall in Jiri Barta’s brain (albeit very briefly, for fear of losing my already tenuous grip on reality).
Okay, okay…so I’m actually a very grounded individual. But life hasn’t yet pummeled the imaginative dreamer out of me either.
Hence my love of Barta’s Labyrinth of Darkness; a collection of short stop-motion animation ranging from six to 55 minutes and encompassing many types of mixed media. Amazing diversity of material and style.
I particularly love “The Club of the Laid Off;” a portrayal of a decaying warehouse used as a dumping ground for unwanted dolls and mannequins…who come to life and engage in awkward acts of typical human debauchery. The chipped rotting faces, frozen in painted joy create a clumsy desperate scene.
Honestly, I speak only for myself when praising Barta, knowing full well that creepy surrealist stop-motion does not possess universal appeal. A high tolerance for the strange and unusual is necessary to love his films.
We watched Black Sheep. No, not the 1996 movie with David Spade and Chris Farley.
THIS Black Sheep, in which a genetic experiment goes terribly wrong and turns hordes of gentle sheep into blood thirsty zombie killers.
The sheep were made by the gifted prop technicians at Weta Workshop (also responsible for Dead Alive, a.k.a. Braindead).
I learned something from this film. The sight of fluffy sheep (particularly in large numbers), charging full speed ahead with murderous intent, is ALWAYS funny. So is an ominous quick camera cut to a deadpan sheep.
New Zealand horror (particularly if Weta is involved) has a certain exaggerated charm. Characters border on caricature, crayola-red blood spurts ten feet in the air, body parts become strangely elastic, and the sound effects are completely cartoonish.
I’m actually shocked that anyone thought to write a serious criticism of a movie that uses “Get Ready for the Violence of the Lambs!” as its tag line.
SheWalksSoftly 