Louis Armstrong, Death Metalled At Last

A death metal version of a What A Wonderful World!

Armstong's expressions work awfully well for the metal growl. He was a pretty growly singer after all, but I hadn't expected the quietly disdainful sideglances he gives his audience in this vid. :3




Link here if you don't see the video!

Cherry Festival! Non-Violence Festival! Saturday the 10th!

Heard about it? It's taking place on Victoria Park island in Kitchener from noon till 9 pm.

"The 6th annual Nonviolence Festival Day in the Park brings together local community groups, vendors, artists and the public for a day of music, food, meditation, crafts and games under the banner of nonviolence.

Admission is free, and the day is made possible by volunteers."

If you be a violent man or woman with an affinity for cherries, the Cherry Festival might be more to your liking. That's going on from 11am to 6pm at Cherry Park, Kitchener which is at the corner of Strange St. and Waverly Rd. Cherry related foods should abound. Here's the link!

A Pokémon Commentary

This video filled me with the utmost joy. Two guys shouting at a Pokémon movie.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Link here.

I too feel that Snorlax is supreme.

It reminded me of this quick video that had me laughing in hysterical fits, which probably seems strange to anyone that isn't much for Pokémon:



Link here.

I like that the guy's already angry when he starts to guess.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #41: The Crazies (1973)

Get this hippy restrained!

Before checking out the remake I thought I'd give the George Romero original a shot.

Ugh.

It's annoyingly edited, and operates at a break-neck and confusing pace. Shots seem to be made up mostly of close-ups. You might see a cut to a close-up of a guy talking to someone, which then cuts to a close-up of a guy shouting at him from somewhere, which then cuts to a close-up of an arm picking up a gun, followed by a close-up of somebody running, or a car parking, or whatever. You don't see the motion that connects the images, which leaves you really disoriented.

The dialogue is delivered at ridiculous speeds as well - the moment one line ends someone else pipes up with another. And everybody's yelling at each other all the time. Conversation quickly ramps up into panic and anger, which makes the movie feel really emotionally forced and especially unjustified, since very little of the viral outbreak is actually seen for the first half of the film. It's pretty much just people yelling at each other in offices about what to do. No, wait, not what to do. It's not really conversation. It's more yelling out unreasonable reactions. Usually in the form of exposition.

I guess you could argue that the camera work and editing is meant to...well, make you feel as crazy and disoriented as the characters succumbing to the virus that drives them into delirium, but if that's the case, the techniques are used where they shouldn't be, and not used where they'd do good work. And the film actually abandons its style and slows down during the last third of the film, which just makes it all seem like bad audience emotion management.

Now Dawn of the Dead is one of my all-time favourite films, and I'm very fond of Romero. But he tends to be pretty hamfisted with his social criticisms, and this movie is no exception. The Crazies is a pretty barefaced hate-on for the Vietnam-era military, and ends up as a mostly hokey and cheap-looking anti-government piece. It works to depict a military and governmental disregard for the rights of civilians so complete that it's hard to take the plot seriously until you remember that Vietnam was a horrific and rights-shattering embarrassment.

I will say this in the movie's defense: it sports a very rare protagonist - a man who wears a mighty unibrow without shame. I've always been wowed by 70s films that weren't afraid to cast unattractive or strange-looking actors into their male roles. Unibrow's comrade has warts all over his boney face. It's incredibly refreshing.

So: Can't say it's worth the watch, but if you're curious about Vietnam-response films don't look this one over.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #40: Thrashin' (1986)

Him: Thrashing man - it's just an aggressive style of skatin'. We thrash.

Her: What do you thrash?"

Him: ....What do you got?

= ATTITUDE

This movie is one of the most 80s films I've ever seen. It made me feel so strange.

It also sports a really young Josh Brolin in his second film role - just after the Goonies. Like Goonies, he's a thoroughly unlikable slab of beefcake. Thrashin' basically gives him the same character, but is centered on the California skateboard culture that was, at that time, just starting to pick up mainstream attention. It's filled with girls in bikinis, punks in denim vests, and brightly coloured valley-boy neon t-shirts. It's a skater romance, like West Side Story with boards and without singing, and oddly enough, is directed by David Winters - who worked as a dancer on West Side Story.

According to the film, in L.A. everybody boards. This movie is 40% skate tricks, and Dogtown is a skate park. When you go to a club, say, you bring your board and dance with it. You'll dance with other boarders and do tricks on the dance floor to a mostly not-very-risque New Wave soundtrack. DEVO, thankfully, is on there. At the club you might chance to see a performance by a new band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which was the scene in the movie that apparently scored the least with preview audiences. It's really very surreal.

I love 80s films where everyone looks really edgy and metal, but is presented with the glossiest camera work alongside the tamest audience friendly music they could find. It's really dorky and funny. It's forky. So forky that the film eventually steps out of silly land and into absolutely ridiculous territory when Brolin has to 'joust', which means he has to face his enemies on skate boards and swing padded flails at each other. The padded flails are shaped like hearts. Which is about the gentlest and most impractical way you could try to harm someone:

1: It's padded enough not to hurt that much.
2: It wouldn't really knock you off your skateboard.
3: It just degenerates into a fist fight anyway.

So: I love time capsule movies. This one's a wonderfully bad 80s romp. Best part: Brolin brought through a skateboard factory and shown advanced board designs, built to withstand nuclear attack.

8-Bit Star Craft

A lovely animated 8-bit rendition of what Star Craft on the Commodore 64 could have been. Star Craft at its most adorable.