i made this

Satyricon - Live at Capitol - Perth

I haven't blogged in a long while because I'm on a teaching practicum at the moment and it's extremely tiring. It's all over at the end of this week, so more videos and blog posts will be coming very soon.

Anyhow, Norwegian black metal band Satyricon played last night, supported by the super dooper Morgl, played last night and I went. If I was a sensible young man I would have stayed home, written up some lesson plans and had an early night. I am not a sensible man.

Satyricon were fantastic. Their new stuff didn't seem to be quite black metal, but it was pretty super live. I'm all set to check out more of their more recent albums. Also, they played Mother North as their final encore, which is the whole reason I went. The rest was just a nice surprise really.

I'll post again soon. Until then, here's a couple of super pics from the evening.



jej

P.S. Thankyou internet:

Man, they're quick

I just uploaded this video, and ALREADY, before it's even been processed completely, there's a bloody Warner Bros copyright claim on it or some junk. What? You'd rather people weren't giving you free advertising?? Jeez. This youtube copyright garbage sucks. I'm making zero dollars from these little videos. Who cares what I use?? Really. I'm not directly posting anything I didn't make more than 99% of myself. It doesn't make logical sense. Anyway, my new nerd vid is available here, because I can't embed it due to WB being stingy bastards.

jej

2nd Tuesday Book Club- Albert Camus' The Outsider

Very few numbers at cool club this time around ('cool' is what predictive sms text does when you type 'phone' and it's kind of stuck). This month's book of choice was The Outsider by Albert Camus. I read The Plague years ago, bought a copy of this, and then never read it for some reason. I wish I'd read it long ago. It's fantastic. Camus' style of writing is very poetic and all that while still being fast paced and extremely easy to read. I don't read French (yet) so it was just a translation I read, but I'd imagine the style of writing was at least similar. The main character of the tale is very indifferent to everything. He kind of observes and doesn't judge or put value on people or things. Despite being so much of an outsider, he's really easy to relate to on some levels. When faced with the human constructs of religion and values he just can't comprehend what the big deal is and refuses to pacify anyone. It's kind of sad that a lot of the themes, specifically about the media and society's judgement of anyone outside of the 'norm', are still more than relevant today. I will more than likely read this one again very soon. Only Noelene and I read the book of the month, and we both dug it.

Corey, unable to get hold of it from the library, opted to read another Camus novel instead. The Fall is written in a monologue style, where the reader is being spoken to and taken to the pub by the main character. Corey says that it was interesting to start to like this guy and then decide by the end that he's kind of a jerk. He also read The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster again; a book he loved as a kid. He said it's a bit like The NeverEnding Story but funny, in a Roadl Dahl sort of style, but better. The theme seems to be make the most of your time.

Adrian read Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness and couldn't help continually joining it to the film based on it, Apocalypse Now. He could also see Watchmen in there, because they all have similar themes of Nihilism, making the world as good as you can forcefully, dictatorship. Adrian sees Kurtz as an absolute, an illustration of not being able to see beyond the material to it's logical extension.

Noelene also read David Mitchell's number9dream. She said she got stuck in the middle but overall it was good. It's about a 19 year old guy trying to find his father. He picks up a manuscript for a children's book and reads it throughout the novel. Noelene couldn't see how this connected to the main plot so found it kind of boring and hard to get past. There are also a lot of references to Japanese culture that she found confusing. Despite all this she still liked it and said it had an interesting conclusion.

I read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I have an all new appreciations for notations. While I would have understood the narrative fine, I would have missed out on all the references to Jane Eyre and the relevance of the feminist aspects of the novel. Antoinette is a character in Jane Eyre who goes crazy and is locked away and forgotten in the story. Jean Rhys gives her a voice. The novel is set in Jamaica in the 1830s. The story alludes to characters from Jane Eyre in order to dig at the masculine nature of classical literature. Antoinette is married, and part of the story is told from her husbands point of view, but he remains unnamed. There is a lot about identity and place. When Antoinette is taken from her Jamaican home she becomes 'doll like' and loses her identity. Her husband keeps trying to call her something that is not her name, but she rebukes him. He will not take her identity from her. Of course, eventually he does, but 's extremely well written. It's not a straight forward damning of men or anything too clinical. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading.

I also read The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Pynchon is seen as one of the first post modern writers, and he is still writing today. I REALLY loved this book. It's a mishmash of ideas and references and meanings, all shoved together in a clever and funny way.Even the names of the characters can't escape from having some kind of inference shoved on them. Oedipa finds out that she is the executrix of a former lovers' estate. She drives to San Narcisco to take care of things, and she slowly becomes involved in a conspiracy about an underground mail service. Amongst this is a machine that can supposedly fight entropy. All this links to media saturation, people becoming the same, cultures becoming one, and a whole lot more than I will write here. I loved being able to pore over the small details and refernces in this book, trying to unlock something that possibly isn't actually there. It ends in an extremely amiguous manner, and I dig it. His style reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut, but with more referencing and movement.

I also read Don DeLilo's White Noise. Haven't quite finished it yet, but it's fantastic. DeLilo is also a postmodern writer, but the narrative and humour seem more obvious. It's less challenging than Pynhcon, but I think it has a bit more poetic style going on. Again, it's a novel about media saturation, identity, and our obsession with death. Sweet.

I'm doing a unit at uni at the moment called Literary Theory and as you can see it's put me onto some great literature :)

Next month's book? A Brief (or briefer) History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

- jej -

Techno Viking

Thor casting agents, look no further. Techno Viking is your leading man.



jej

Japanese Spider-Man

Marvel is posting these sweet episodes weekly. The first two are up.

It's a super combination of two of my favourite things:

Spider-man, and crappy b-grade Japanese television. So sweet. It takes a little while to get exciting, but wait until you see Spider-man's first transformation. It will blow your zipper mind. You also get to see him get into a flying car that transforms into a giant robot. Of course it does.



jej

Marvel Sucker Speedy Round-Up

Saturday Morning Watchmen

Thanks to comic book club for putting me onto this.



Any fans of the Watchmen graphic novel or film, and fans of Saturday Morning toons, should totally click here. This thing is ridiculously accurate.

or just watch this ;p



jej

Ed Brubaker's Angel Of Death

Ed Brubaker, one of my favourite comic book writers, has created and written an internet TV series called Angel of Death starring the awesome Zoe Bell. Here's the trailer.



If you've got 7 minutes to kill, kill them with episode one. It's freaking sweet.

jej

War of the Roses - 8 hours of Shakespeare Awesomeness

Imagine Shakespeare mixed with this video....... (stupid embedding disabled) ....mixed with this video.....



....and this video.



That's what we spent 8 hours watching yesterday. It was freaking awesome.




The first act opened to all the characters standing facing the audience, and there was all this golden paper confetti falling over the entire stage, from really high up. It kept falling for most of the act, over the actors faces, like snow. Then when Cate Blanchett, Richard the 2nd, gave up his crown, it stopped falling and Cate Blanchett looks totally upset and I freaking balled my eyes out. (yeah email!). Part One, Act One, ended with Henry Bolingbroke taking the crown, but also being upset that Richard has died. He gets on his knees and, with the rest of the cast from Act Two on their knees behind him, slowly marches towards the front of the stage as you hear Nick Cave sing 'I am the king!' and the curtain falls. So great.

Part One, Act Two saw Ewen Leslie as Prince Henry perform fellatio on the elderly Falstaff, spit the semen into his hands, and then flick it around and rub it onto his face. I know there was more going on than this, and it wasn't just a shock value play or whatever, but it was great to see Shakespeare played in the dirty, punkish fashion that the tone of these plays already has. The score for the second act was provided by live guitar noise. There was a Marshall stack placed just off centre stage, fairly prominently. A guitarist faced the amp, on his knees, and played guitar noise that rose to excruatiating levels at some points throughout. I was loving it. Feeling the music in my gut was pretty super.

Part Two, Act One, saw the infamous 'war of the roses'. It also introduced what I thought was an ingenious way of incorporating the 'breaking the 4th wall' or whatever you want to call it into the dramatic. Let me explain. The actors 'costumes' were pretty much just regular clothes. They were probably chosen specifically, but they weren't traditional Shakespearean frocks or anything. On the stage there were large sacks of flour and bottles of fake blood. When characters were killed, the killer gulped down some fake blood and spat it in the faces of their victim. Then they grabbed a handful of flour and blew it onto them or threw it into the air above them. This act of making them look dead, the repeated ritual of killing, became so familiar to the audience that it was played for laughs a couple of times. When Queen Margaret wanted to die she started without the murderer, covering her arms and face in flour, but no one will kill her. She's begging and pleading to be killed and no one comes to her aid. It was strangely moving. The whole act of 'play' had been used on an emotional sort of level. This kind of thing happened throughout.



Anyways, it was totally classy. It may be completely sold out, I'm not sure, but if it ever comes to your neck of the woods then pay whatever it costs to see this thing. It was fantastic.

OH and Pamela Rabe as Richard the 3rd was so great. She can totally do that 'shakespeare as regular conversation' thing so well, aswell as going mad without just being a big joke. It was super.

Great video interviews with the cast here and here.

jej

I'm just sharing

Thank Kate for this one


jej

Some Great News

Well, the unthinkable has happened. Faith No More are back together. I thought this would NEVER happen. In interviews 'back in the day' (dumbest saying ever??) Patton certainly seemed to say it wouldn't, but here we are in 2009 and it's happening.

According to the band's statement: "What we've discovered is that time has afforded us enough distance to look back on our years together through a clearer lens and made us realise that through all the hard work, the music still sounds good, and we are beginning to appreciate the fact that we might actually have done something right. Meanwhile we find ourselves at a moment in time with zero label obligations, still young and strong enough to deliver a kickass set, with enthusiasm to not only revisit our past but possibly add something to the present. And so with this we've decided to hold our collective breaths and jump off this cliff… back, God forbid, back into the monkey cage!!!"

Patton has played in Australia, more specifically Perth, many times over the past few years in his many different bands, so my fingers are firmly crossed, hoping that I will finally get to see Faith No More live. Such great news.

In other news, Futurama may not be completely over. The 4 films are done and out there for our repeated viewing, but no official word on a continuation of the series or more movies yet, but David X Cohen says that Fox are 'discussing more Futurama. The bad news is they’re not discussing it with us. They are only talking among themselves, and I don’t know what they’re thinking. I place the odds at 50/50.'

The fourth film, Into the Wild Green Yonder is really solid Futurama. Let's hope that we get some more.

That is all.

jej

Nerdy Picky Watchmen Review

Great film. Not my video, I mean the actual film.



jej

Another New NErd Vid

Floating TP

I was just sitting on the toilet, doing the things a person normally does whilst sitting on the toilet, when I noticed a small, stray torn off piece of toilet paper that was seemingly floating in mid air, stationary.





It's probably just attached by some cobweb or something that I can't see with my untrained, non-bionic eyes, but it looks kind of strange. It's just sitting there, in mid air, not touching anything around it.



Maybe next I'll see a cat walk past, and then the same cat walk past immediatly afterwards.

jej

Moofies - Ghosts, Yucky Pie, and a 3D chin flying at you

Moofies. I haven't quite stopped watching them, but I haven't written about any for a while. I should really be making a comic book vid right now before I go to uni, but I'm all sleepy from staying up until the early hours of the morning finishing my first assignment of the year. Why is working late at night way more productive for me than pacing myself in a normal fashion?

Okay, My Blueberry Nights is, as far as I can tell, Wong Kar Wai's first English speaking film. I've seen some of this guys Chinese stuff and they're alright films. This is alright too, but waaay less so. The cast is all fine, even Norah Jones was pretty easy to watch, and that Cat Power chick makes an appearance if you're interested, but some things just don't work across cultures. Late one night Norah Jones is eating blueberry pie in Jude Law's cafe which seemingly never closes. She falls asleep, her head leaning on the counter. Jude Law notices she has some pie spilled on her lips and chin, so her leans down, and kisses it off. They've spoken, but they aren't romantically involved yet or anything. Even if they were, ewwwww. Eating food off sleeping women's faces may be romantic in China, but as far as I can tell in Western culture it's pretty rank. Some segments of the film also drag on way past their welcome, and the huge drama of Chinese cinema seems even more over the top when it's being portayed by Rachel Weisz. It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone ever.



Next up, The Duchess.



What can I say? These period films all seem pretty similar to me. Great ways to kill an afternoon, but I've never seen one that really blew me away or anything. Fancy costumes and intrigue. Oh my.

3D moofies are like going on a theme park ride, but with a feature length storyline. It's like a 3D Viewmaster that's moving around and has surround sound. WOOT! The film itself is a half decent horror story with not very many surprises, tons of gore, and chin man from Supernatural. I had so much fun watching this. Having a gun pointed at me, having a guys chin ripped off and thrown towards me :D It was the best! All the 'scaryness' of it seemed extra comedic because it was in 3D too. So great.



Gran Torino was a simple, likeable movie. Zero surprises, some likeable performances from a cast of people who can't really act all that well, and a pretty simple moralistic tale. Clint Eastwood almost overdoes the 'grumpy old man' bit, but he's Clint Eastwood so it's awesome anyway. Also, he sings over the closing credits. Listen to this and then tell me Clint Eastwood isn't freaking awesome. I dare you.



Rachel Getting Married is Jonathan Demme's attempt at a dogma film. At first this premise is annoying and stupid, but there are moments in the film that would only work in this handheld 'real life' format. Anne Hathaway could be annoying in this, but she was totally awesome. I've never been a drugged out problem kid with a dark past, or whatever, but I still sort of empathised (is that the right word??) with her. This could have been too sugary, or too overly dramatic, or whatever, but even though the story reads like that, the characters are all pulled off in a realistic way. It wasn't super awesome or anything, but I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. Plus, Anne Hathaway is sweet.



Ghost Town should have sucked way harder than it did. There's been a handful of these tired hollywood plots being made stomachable by starring cool, funny British stars. It totally works. Ricky Gervais is funny in the same way he always is, and the niceness is nice. That's it. I (shamefully) cried a little watching this. I also laughed a bunch. Those two ticks mean this film did everything I would expect from this sort of film well. It's nice.



That's it I guess. Time to get back to the uni junk thing. OH WAIT!

One more thing. While grabbing the trailer for My Bloody Valentine I had the pleasure of seeing this little advertisement on the sidebar.




Tell me that's not the funniest thing you've seen today? I haven't seen Crank and have no intention of ever seeing this, but seeing bloody Statham whatsisface put a car jumper cable to his tongue has made my day.

jej