“It” didn’t sell at last month’s auction, so maybe you still wanna try and pick “it” up: Artist Michael Whelan’s original acrylic painting, above, for the Jacksons’ famed 1984 work, Victory.
This Is It.
November 5th, 2009 — Art, Black Music, Design, Entertainment, Pop Culture
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That’s Some Sweet Goatee, Goat.
November 4th, 2009 — Advertising, Animals, Design, Entertainment, Film, Government, Humor, Satire
Try not to drool over this super-cool poster, above, from The Men Who Stare At Goats, out this Friday, November 6. As Overture Films notes on their YouTube channel, the movie
was inspired by Jon Ronson’s non-fiction bestseller of the same name, an eye-opening and often hilarious exploration of the government’s attempts to harness paranormal abilities to combat its enemies.
The flick stars George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey, all somberly coin-profiled on the poster. But besides the dry humor of the Illuminati-ish background graphics—and the trailer, below—what I dig most are the image’s soothing ochre tones, the full credit for “Goat,” and that hair on his chinny-chin-chin. The Men Who Stare At Goats original one-sheet, 27 in. by 41 in., rolled, single-sided, $18, Movieposter.com.
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Utterly Wild Style.
November 3rd, 2009 — Art, Controversy, Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, Hip-Hop, Pop Culture
Feast your eyes, folks, on the above test pattern. It’s from my personal collection, and was actually produced by yours truly: An embroidered reproduction of a compass-shattering piece by Phase II, writer, artist, musician (right), and historian in the trade of aerosol art.
After eyeing this immaculate conception in Phase and David Schmdlapp’s 1996 treatise, Style: Writing from the UnderGround, I strove to have it perfectly captured in thread, with the goal of licensing the design directly from the master. While those plans haven’t taken off yet, the image is so intricate and fetching that I use it as a desktop. But if you’re cogitatin’ about doin’ the same…don’t bite my style.
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Sword Play.
November 2nd, 2009 — Art, Culture, Design, DVD, Film, Military
Do you like a good sword? Now available on DVD, the documentary Reclaiming the Blade geeks out on the history and power of “the Medieval and Renaissance blade, a profound and beautiful object hand-crafted by master artisans of old.” Indeed, the weapon is
an object of great complexity, yet one with a singular use in mind – it is designed to kill. The truth of the sword has been shrouded in antiquity, and the Renaissance martial arts that brought it to being are long forgotten. The ancient practitioners lent us all they knew through their manuscripts. As gunslingers of the Renaissance they were western heroes with swords, and they lived and died by them. Yet today their history remains cloaked under a shadow of legend.
Reclaiming the Blade is narrated by the stentorian John Rhys-Davies and features, among others, Lord of the Rings actor Viggo Mortensen talking on swordcraft. Sounds sharp.
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Feeling the Awesome Power of Patti.
October 30th, 2009 — Advertising, Black Music, Entertainment, Music Video, Pop Culture
The music video is crap. “All Right Now”‘s incendiary production, and blazing performance by Patti LaBelle, above, though, are both out of this world. Check out this studio masterpiece from her her 1992 Live! album. Play loud.
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To Terrorize Y’All’s Neighborhoods.
October 29th, 2009 — Black Music, Dance, Music Video, Obituary, Toys
Sideshow Collectibles brings it, again, with this astounding, 12″, fully poseable Michael Jackson, from his legendary, 1983 “Thriller” video.
From manufacturer Hot Toys’ Icon series, the 1/6th scale figure features, right,
• Hot Toys’ slim version TrueType body with over 32 points of articulation
• 2 interchangeable heads – Michael Jackson head and MJ Zombie head
• 2 costumes (original red jacket and pants & zombie suit)
• 2 pairs of white socks with black shoes
• Five (5) sets of interchangeable hands and one (1) additional posing right hand
• 12-inches figure stand with the classic Thriller title and Michael Jackson nameplate
The accessories enable you to alternately create either the cute, moviegoing Michael Jackson, above right, or the zombie MJ, above top, with only one purchase.
I’ll make a bet, watch my words: Some brilliant, self-taught white kid living in Minnesota, or Kansas, is going to get one of these, a video camera that shoots still frames, and recreate the entire zombie dance sequence from “Thriller” using this, as an animation project. Me, I wanna get two of them and make ’em fight each other. Hot Toys’ Michael Jackson “Thriller” 12-inch Figure, out 1st Qtr 2010, $189.99.
[via Tomopop.com]
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Sweet Sticky Thing.
October 28th, 2009 — Art, Controversy, Culture, Pop Culture
In the work of L.A.-based artist Michael Hussar, nymphs decadently suck crimson fruit, their skin puffy and blanched, save for blackened, spearlike fingertips.
Crawling the razor’s edge between erotica and rot, pieces like 2008’s Cherry Pie, above, unnerve the viewer in the gut…before being snatched up hungrily by Francis Ford Coppolla, Leonardo Di Caprio, and their ilk. Bon appetit.
[via conceptart.org]
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Stop, Left 4 Dead 2: You Had Me At, “You Get To Play This Game As a Sister, While You’re Killing Zombies.”
October 27th, 2009 — Entertainment, Gaming, Gender, Pop Culture, Race
You’d have to read MEDIA ASSASSIN or my Twitter feed for mere seconds before realizing that I’m absolutely crazy about videogames and I’m cuckoo for zombies. So, from my perspective, the release of Valve’s hellish, undead apocalypse, Left 4 Dead, last fall was akin to declaring a Federal holiday.
Well, hell has a sequel. On November 17th, in Left For Dead 2 (Xbox 360/PC), Valve revisits the world where an unnamed pandemic is turning human corpses into fast-moving, flesh-eating gargoyles. However, this time, one of the four playable “survivors” is a Black woman, above. Hell better step the hell back.
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Say What You Want About Keanu Reeves’ Acting, People: His Career Is Going To Last Forever.
October 26th, 2009 — Entertainment, Film, Humor, Pop Culture, Youth
Whoa: Why is it, as TMZ reported last year, that actor Keanu Reeves, above, has seemingly not aged in a decade-and-a-half?
Because, according to this YouTube video, below, not only is Reeves the beneficiary of a notoriously immobile, and thus unwrinkled, face, but he is also one of the eternal undead.
That is, Reeves is also French actor Paul Mounet, right. (Go ahead. Take a close look: The resemblence is uncanny.) Born in 1847, the thespian allegedly “died under unusual circumstances; no body was ever found.”
Yeah, right. Well, at least it would explain what they say about Reeves’s acting. After 150 years, you’re bound to be a little stiff.
[via Buzzfeed.com]
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Hungry Heart.
October 23rd, 2009 — Advertising, Animation, Anime, Children, Comics, Design, Energy, Entertainment, Film, Pop Culture, Science-Fiction, Technology
Astro Boy, the American CGI feature based on Japanese manga master Osamu Tezuka’s 1951 character, opens today. It features the voices of Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy, with Nicolas Cage, Charlize Theron, Samuel L. Jackson, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, and Donald Sutherland, among others, pulling up the rear.
Cage, who plays scientist Dr. Tenma, the robot’s creator, says “the sadness of the story”—that of a machine who dreams of becoming human—drew him to the movie. For the rest of us, there’s this stunning, double-sided teaser one-sheet, above, dramatically rendering Astro in silhouette, save for his awesomely-powered heart. $25, Movieposter.com.
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