(image from foto decadent)
Mumbling's of a daydreaming kitten who loves unicorns, glitter, and vintage jizz jazz.
Saturday 17 April 2010
Friday 16 April 2010
Love Hearts
I think we've all had a Love Heart sweetie before and read the lame messages written upon them. Well today within my packet of Love Hearts I was welcomed by this:
Granny P! What la hell? Granny P? Do they mean granny pee?
Well I admit I wasn't expecting that to pop up in my packet of Love Hearts.
Its so random lol.
I did have a green one saying "Me Julie Best Mum" now what's that supposed to mean? lol.
Strange strange love hearts sweets.
This love heart talk reminds me of Topshop Unique's Spring 2009 collection:
This stunning collection reminisces in 80s stylings so refreshingly that it tingles your taste buds. I adore the simple heart prints in rainbow colours, the stone washed denim, the pastel toned fabric and retro graphic prints. This collection is commercial yet remains chic and individual. It possesses a relaxed, casual feminine charm. I simply want it all! I invite you all to come and live in my wardrobe pretty please.
Wednesday 14 April 2010
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
Here's the trailer:
I wish I could erase my memory. Sometimes certain memories are too unbearable and I just wish they would disappear. It would make life so much easier if you could. You could move on without all those painful memories stinging you every time you hear a particular song, or smell their scent, or every time you eyes you're haunted by their face. To just forget it all, right now I'll do anything to erase that stabbing sensation. Even though in the film it didn't work, as after both Joel and Clementine erased each other from their memories they still managed to find each other as fate drawn them back together. Hopefully the sun will help melt away my tear stained eyes.
I love Kate Winslet's character 'Clementine', I can really relate to her and kinda see myself in her. She's openly kooky and proud to be individual, she wears her heart on her sleeve, is self proclaimed as being high maintenance, is super paranoid and impulsive, she escapes her vulnerability and loneliness by creating an erratic personna to hide behind, and completely lives in her own little world. Sounds familar? lol
There's sooo many awesome lines Clementine comes out with but there's one where I actually shouted out "OMG that's me!" upon hearing. Here's the quote:
"Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours."
This is so me; I am a fucked up little girl and I'm just trying to find out who I am and really all I want from life is to be happy. I have dated guys before who thought that I was something super special and that I could save them from their self destructiveness. And of course I couldn't save them, because obviously I'm not some special saviour. I can't even save myself. If anything I'm la one who needs saving!
My head hurts and my heart is heavy, and bank people are super smelly. I think I need hummus and poppy seed bread in my belly.
I spotted these images on Curiouser and Curiouser's blog that came from I♥FAKE magazine and they remind me of Clementine with her green hair when she first met Joel.
I found this picture on Yes, Nefarious blog, which I thought was a super Clementine picture, that turquoise hair is immense;
Saturday 10 April 2010
JOJOHONTAS, POKEMYHONTAS
So I've been drawing again and this time my muse is my dear friend; the beautifully ethereal, awe inspiring Joanne Billingham.
This illustration is based upon a truly awesome photograph of Jo dressed as Pocahontas for a fancy dress party. With her awkward stance and adorable pairing of native Indian dress, cute headband, with socks and heels - well OH MY why wouldn't I fall in love and feel inspired!
Wednesday 7 April 2010
I think I'm in love
These beautiful beasts are now mine!
It surely was destiny as there were no other bids, meaning they were meant to belong to me!
I'm being terribly naughty and have 11 more gorgeously stunning nic nacs I'm watching and want to come and live with me :) do wish me luck!
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Flatpack festival
**Just to warn you this is an uber long post about my week at Flatpack Festival**
So as you know I went to flatpack festival 2010 in Birmingham. Flatpack is a random little festival that has a whole bunch of different exhibitions and screenings showing over a week in different locations in Brum. It mainly showcased an array of screenings of animations, shorts and feature films, that are different, original and innovative. Some screenings were free and others were priced around £6.00 but flatpack offered a package of 4 screenings for £20.00. It was definitely a most random adventure. I think ELECTRIC SHEEP best describes flatpack as “Like the perfect mixtape…you’re not quite sure how or why the selection works, but that is what makes it so magical.”
Here are two films that were entered into Straight 8 that I really liked and thought were successful mini films.
Sticks and Balls (Jacqueline Wright and Alice Lowe 2007)
Catch (Lyndy Stout 2009)
After Straight 8 finished there was the event The Uncle Hans Peter Party, which was also held at Vivid and was priced at £4.00. Now this turned out to be one of the strangest occurrences ever! Now if I had read the festival program properly I would have been aware of the strange events that take place at Mr Uncle Hans Peter party. So basically we were asked to don masks and listen to this German Uncle Hans Peter tell us weird stories of him tying his nephews up, and perving at people from an upstairs window, IT WAS ALL WAY TOOO WEIRD FOR MY TASTE. No one really knew what was going on and what to expect, which made it all that little bit more scary. Especially when Mr Hans Peter gave us (the audience) instructions to follow, like to clench our fists and breathe deeply in and out. I was ever so creeped out!
Here's some pictures from the event:
It all started with A MODEL CHRISTMAS (Dir: Chris Randall, Animated by Chris Randall and Ian White) This was a short animation based upon recordings of real peoples comments about christmas and turning them into Lego people within the Lego version of the Bullring. It was funny but I feel it ended rather abruptly.
DOUGIE'S FIRST DAY (Drew Roper) A quaint animation about a labourers hard day at work. This animation has an old school slapstick comedy about it. I really like how it was animated and the voice over fitted well with the animation.
TROLLEY (Written/Directed by Anna Shelton, Produced by Rachel Carter, Animation by Eight Eyed Seabass and Vince Lund (Rapid pictures) Trolley mixes live action with animation, and is a story about Lenny, a strange boy misunderstood by his peers, who entertains his loneliness with his inventive imagination. The sequence where Lenny overhears two elderly ladies gossiping outside his house and then imagines the decorative pigeon border in his bedroom coming to life and chatting away to each other was truly quaint. It was simple and subtle and worked extremely well. Another sequence I liked was where Lenny bumps into a group of chavs who are mean to him and he imagines a giant mechanical bird flying down and then eating the chavs. The animation was executed really well. If you're wondering like I was where the 'trolley' comes into the story, Lenny works at a supermarket attending to the trolleys. The ending portrays Lenny finally standing up for himself when he pushes the trolleys at the chavs whom are taunting him, although his imagination envisages the trolleys transforming into a dragon and chasing after the smelly boys. This story kinda reminded me of the 1980s fantasy film 'Never Ending Story'. You can watch Trolley by clicking here.
ARGUING IS A NICE HOBBY (Constantinos Syrimis) I wasn't so impressed by this animation. I don't like the CGI animation. This is about an elderly couple who keep arguing and a record producer man gives them a record contract and they become famous. That's about it really.
BICYCLE DIARIES/REVOLUTION MAIN (Steve Chamberlain) Based upon Steve's journey of cycling across Mexico for Macmillan Cancer Support in March 2009. This film is based upon a video taken with a Flip camera, drawings and photos from the trip, in which Chamberlain describes it as an animated diary "about the series of impressions that travel leaves you with, sometimes they seem to be the most incidental things, a sort of road movie." The theme wasn't exactly to my taste but i liked how this film was created by drawing over the video stills to create a line animation. Unfortunately I couldn't find any links or footage of this film.
MAIDEN FLIGHT (Dir: Chris Randall, Animation: Chris Randall, Ian White and Karen Richards) Again I couldn't find anything to post on this film. This animation was only two minutes long and was about someone creating a Origami butterfly using stop-motion and CGI animation. It was quaint although rather short.
LET ME IN A film by Work and Play which is a lottery-funded project based in Telford to support adults with learing disabilities to explore their creativity and make their own art. This seems like a great scheme and its such a shame that I cant really find anything on it, especially the animation. I find find out that the animator Neil Webber helped create the animation. Click here to view his website, although he does have anything on there to do with this animation. Which was about the theme of 'who is knocking at your door?' and shows four stories about different people knocking on four people's door. Including a girl of a man's dreams, a giant horse, the police and a ghost.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASSES (Vicky Norris) This is a CGI animation about a girl who perceives that she's fat and is terribly unhappy with her appearance. And although she attempts to lose weight by exercising she loses all hope and kills herself. Yes very depressing. Although when she does kill herself you see that in fact she was super skinny and it was all in her head that she was fat depicting that anorexia is a disease. I wasn't keen on the CGI of the girl but I think its really good that people are tackling subjects like this.
And finally there was THE MOON BIRD (by The Brothers McLeod) And oh golly I loved it! This animation was executed to professional standards, and the story was very strong. The Moon Bird is a dark fairy tale about a little orphan girl and an evil sorceress who wants the tears of the girl to transform her into a terrifying monster. Though the girl has help from the Lunar Bird and a little bug to help defeat the sorceress. Its a sad story as the magical Lunar Bird dies, the little bug gets eaten by the witch and the girl drowns. Although the girl and the Lunar Bird get resurrected and kinda merge together to create a super magical girl/moon bird and defeats the sorceress who had transformed into the monster. No matter how sad the tale this was truly an magnificent film! Below is the trailer for The Moon Bird but also do check out The Brothers McLeod's website here, they have more cool animations to see so do go take a look.
Then it was onto the Ikon Eastside to watch the screening of 'Whatever! A double bill of filth and fantasy'. Now this was the main reason I wanted to attend flatpack, to watch these two awesome films. The first film was a musical called 'BOY' created by SSION.
Imagine an American version of The Mighty Boosh well that's BOY. It was exciting, vibrant and refreshing, kinda like an Opal Fruit sweet. BOY is like a rainbow explosion with trippy sexual undertones and splashings of comical New Romantic style songs. Below are the trailer of BOY and some of the catchy songs from the film.
The second film was Pink Flamingos, something I've wanted to see for a very long time! I definitely had a huge anticipation and expectation of this screening. Created by John Waters (1972) this film is described as the most filthiest film ever made and bloody hell I have to agree. There was several moments in this vintage comedy that made me want to vomit! And I'm not joking either. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the film, excluding one or two scenes that is, and I would definitely recommend that people watch it, but not with your parents or grandparents or young children. God no! So Pink Flamingos stars the iconic Divine, a transsexual man playing a woman, who in la film is known as the filthiest person alive. Basically the story line is that married couple The Marbles are jealous of Divine's filthiest person title and want to steal it from her and for themselves to become the filthiest people alive. And throughout the film you bare witness to 'filthy' scenes including Divine rubbing raw meat on her private regions, a naked man perform shall we say party tricks with his bum hole, a very weird sex scene with married couple The Marbles, a sordid kidnap scheme of women to impregnate them and sell their babies to lesbians, Mr Marble perves on women with a sausage tied to his penis. But the worst three scenes from the film have to be (1) Divine actually giving head to her son Crackers, whom although his very rehearsed lines of pleasure was definitely not enjoying it which made the whole experience very squeamish (2) Divine eating dog poo. Yes you heard me, eating freshly pooped dog poo! It was disgusting he was gagging but trying to smile and act like he was enjoying it. GROSS SO GROSS! and (3) probably the most traumatic thing I have ever seen - the sex scene with Divine's son Crackers and a girl called Cookie where Crackers violently forces chickens in his kinky sex act while his lady friend Cotton watches. It was so disturbing. I hate chickens but what I witnessed upset me. They violated poor innocent animals and killed them during the sex scene as well! WAY TOO FUCKED UP FOR ME!! I was and am offended by that scene. There was no need to kill the chickens and I feel they only did it to create a drama and to shock the world.
But the film in all is worth seeing, if purely for the humour of Divine's mother Edie, a fat woman attired only in her underwear, who is locked in a childs play pen. There are several comic scenes with Edie and her obsession with eggs and the Egg Man including the humorous quote "Mama you're suffering from egg paranoia" (well it made me laugh).
So yeh Pink Flamingo's is definately an experience I'll take to the grave!
Here's the trailer:
And here's the clip with the 'Egg paranoia" catch phrase:
Below is details of all the screenings:
LISA LI-LUND: BLOODFACE (Dir: Ben Lister) This was a hauntingly beautiful music video to Lisa Li-Lund's equally beautifully eerie song Bloodface. This dark fairy tale follows a puppet girls travels into despair. This film reminded me of the 80s fantasy film using puppets The Dark Crystal.
HANG IN THERE (Dir: Leslie Supnet) A divinely cute paper animation about two children being chased by bees that look like bear. Illustrated in a superbly cute hand drawn manner, this film reminds me a little on Winnie The Pooh. I was unable to find the film upon youtube but here are a few of her delightful illustrations that I found upon her website. Here is an illustration I found upon her website that best depicts the HANG IN THERE animation:
ROUND (Dir: Kirk Hendry) This is a music video created by using hand shadow puppets. This simple technique was executed to a professional manner creating a world by layering hand shadow puppets. Kirk Hendry created the wilderness along with wild animals to accompany the hunting song.
THE TALE OF THE LITTLE PUPPET BOY (Dir: Johannes Nyholm) This is probably my favourite screening from Puppetology. The title pretty much explains what the film is about, and is presented in a 4 part episodes and explains the tale of when Puppet Boy's lady friend comes over to his flat, which turns out to be a right drama, hence running over to 4 episodes. This is definitely the film which contains the 'adult humour'. I wont go on and bore you just watch the first episode below and see for yourself. (I had difficulty in finding the other parts to the story so if anyone finds them please do shout the link to me thank you's)
DARK ISLAND (Dir: Jons Mellgren) This film was quite a bit longer than the others running for 10 mins. This was a story about a boy who comes to live with his grandparents. His granddad is terminally ill and dies part way through the film. The boy makes friends with a girl who lives near by in the village but suffers taunts from the loutish local older boys whom even sexually taunt the young girl to provoke him. This is quite a bizarre tale and not really to my fancy. Although I liked the simple nature the film was made in with paper puppets on wire, and the pop up scenery. Here is a link to the film and Jons Mellgren's website.
MOUNT SHASTA (Dir: Oliver Husain) This was a super bizarre film which I totally didn't understand what the meaning to it was supposed to be. The film started with a babble of text which confused me lots, then the film started with the puppeteers wearing white jump suits to make themselves 'invisible' parading around with puppets while a man sings at a keyboard. This film came across pretentious, trying to be 'avant garde' when it really wasn't anything of the sort. Well that's my opinion. Here's a still from the film:
DOG IN THE BURNING BUILDING (Dir: Fran and Will Krause) This was an entertaining music video for Miles Kurosky "Dog in the Burning Building. There's puppetry and animation in all different drawing styles, ranging from child like scribbles, to cartoon drawings, with Muppet style puppets and sleeker animation elements accompanied to a catchy tune, this is a catchy engaging video.
PIVOT: IN THE BLOOD (Dir: Alex Smith) This film seemed to merge the puppet used in the first screening (Lisi Li-Lund) with the technique of 'invisible puppeteers' dressed in black jump suits. Although this film was executed well I didn't like the plot, which is based upon a shark attack. It was too gory for my liking.
DREAMS FROM THE WOODS (Dir: Johannes Nyholm) The second screening of Nyholms work, though in complete contrast to The Little Puppet Boy, this story is so quaint and is produced beautifully. Dreams In The Woods is created by using shadow puppet theatre with paper puppets on wire and layered fabric backdrop which moves in the breeze creating an eerie essence. Below is only half of the story, not sure why its not all there or why the music's different but you get to see and understand the essence of the story.
A STYLE CALLED (CRYING CHIC) (Dir: George Wu) I completely forgot about this film until I youtubed it again for this. Although I did forget about it, I do quite like it! A simplistic music video made from flat paper props. Awesome catchy song and great somehow nineties feel video. Love it!
MR WOBBLE'S NIGHTMARE (Dir: Joel Trussell) A bizarre music esque video about zombie fruit. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I'm scared of zombies so this naturally isn't really to my taste. The animation is quite simple but it works well for the essence of the film. The animators used rotting fruit for the zombies which obviously works well for la living dead fruit. Technoy electronic music (I think, I'm not good with music labels, I'm not a fan whatever music it is). It's humorous to a point, drags on a bit though.
RAMONA FALLS: I SAY FEVER (Dir: Stefan Nadelman) The last film of Puppetology ended in the music video of Ramona Falls 'I Say Fever'. A echoing song accompanied by a collage 2D video set in the 1800s Wild West where a mysterious carriage arrives in town, and the people seem to have animal heads under their human faces which appear to be masks hiding their true faces. Definitely worth a watch.
Later on was 'A Plasticine Party' in which I had high hopes but was sadly disappointed. The night started well with fine wine, jazz music and an extremely interesting plasticine film CAS'L by Bruce Bickford. It was so intriguing I couldn't take my eyes off it as there was so much going on. But it lasted a whole 45 mins so became annoying after a while, as it was repetitive. Here's a small snippet of the film.
There was plasticine available to play with and make anything you desire. I was feeling a little of a misery guts and didn't make anything. But here's some pictures I took the following day of all the plasticine models people made:
After Bruce Bickford's film this weird ass band came on and started to perform this bizarre act. I didn't get it or like it. They were a three piece act, an elderly dude in the middle playing keyboard and two men either side dressed in white boiler suits. Their 'performance' as I shall put it consisted of the men making monkey noices to techno music. They, I presume where attempting to be 'avant garde' but came across as impeccably lame and pathetic. So not cool.
So as you know I went to flatpack festival 2010 in Birmingham. Flatpack is a random little festival that has a whole bunch of different exhibitions and screenings showing over a week in different locations in Brum. It mainly showcased an array of screenings of animations, shorts and feature films, that are different, original and innovative. Some screenings were free and others were priced around £6.00 but flatpack offered a package of 4 screenings for £20.00. It was definitely a most random adventure. I think ELECTRIC SHEEP best describes flatpack as “Like the perfect mixtape…you’re not quite sure how or why the selection works, but that is what makes it so magical.”
Wednesday 24th March
So the adventure started on Wednesday at Vivid with Straight 8 2009 . Straight 8 is a kinda competition venture where they send you a reel of super 8 film and then you create an unedited film based upon anything you like. Then you send it back to them with a soundtrack to accompany your film and Straight 8 process it all for you. They assess all the entries and choose the best ones to screen at flatpack. Here are two films that were entered into Straight 8 that I really liked and thought were successful mini films.
Sticks and Balls (Jacqueline Wright and Alice Lowe 2007)
Catch (Lyndy Stout 2009)
After Straight 8 finished there was the event The Uncle Hans Peter Party, which was also held at Vivid and was priced at £4.00. Now this turned out to be one of the strangest occurrences ever! Now if I had read the festival program properly I would have been aware of the strange events that take place at Mr Uncle Hans Peter party. So basically we were asked to don masks and listen to this German Uncle Hans Peter tell us weird stories of him tying his nephews up, and perving at people from an upstairs window, IT WAS ALL WAY TOOO WEIRD FOR MY TASTE. No one really knew what was going on and what to expect, which made it all that little bit more scary. Especially when Mr Hans Peter gave us (the audience) instructions to follow, like to clench our fists and breathe deeply in and out. I was ever so creeped out!
Here's some pictures from the event:
Here is a picture of the fake acid they handed out at The Uncle Hans Peter Party.
Thursday 25th March
Thursday was my favourite day of events. It all started with Shorts On Walls, a free event held at Vivid. This event showcased 9 short animations. I enjoyed all of the screenings, but two really stood out to me. The first was Trolley and the second was The Moonbird. It all started with A MODEL CHRISTMAS (Dir: Chris Randall, Animated by Chris Randall and Ian White) This was a short animation based upon recordings of real peoples comments about christmas and turning them into Lego people within the Lego version of the Bullring. It was funny but I feel it ended rather abruptly.
DOUGIE'S FIRST DAY (Drew Roper) A quaint animation about a labourers hard day at work. This animation has an old school slapstick comedy about it. I really like how it was animated and the voice over fitted well with the animation.
TROLLEY (Written/Directed by Anna Shelton, Produced by Rachel Carter, Animation by Eight Eyed Seabass and Vince Lund (Rapid pictures) Trolley mixes live action with animation, and is a story about Lenny, a strange boy misunderstood by his peers, who entertains his loneliness with his inventive imagination. The sequence where Lenny overhears two elderly ladies gossiping outside his house and then imagines the decorative pigeon border in his bedroom coming to life and chatting away to each other was truly quaint. It was simple and subtle and worked extremely well. Another sequence I liked was where Lenny bumps into a group of chavs who are mean to him and he imagines a giant mechanical bird flying down and then eating the chavs. The animation was executed really well. If you're wondering like I was where the 'trolley' comes into the story, Lenny works at a supermarket attending to the trolleys. The ending portrays Lenny finally standing up for himself when he pushes the trolleys at the chavs whom are taunting him, although his imagination envisages the trolleys transforming into a dragon and chasing after the smelly boys. This story kinda reminded me of the 1980s fantasy film 'Never Ending Story'. You can watch Trolley by clicking here.
ARGUING IS A NICE HOBBY (Constantinos Syrimis) I wasn't so impressed by this animation. I don't like the CGI animation. This is about an elderly couple who keep arguing and a record producer man gives them a record contract and they become famous. That's about it really.
BICYCLE DIARIES/REVOLUTION MAIN (Steve Chamberlain) Based upon Steve's journey of cycling across Mexico for Macmillan Cancer Support in March 2009. This film is based upon a video taken with a Flip camera, drawings and photos from the trip, in which Chamberlain describes it as an animated diary "about the series of impressions that travel leaves you with, sometimes they seem to be the most incidental things, a sort of road movie." The theme wasn't exactly to my taste but i liked how this film was created by drawing over the video stills to create a line animation. Unfortunately I couldn't find any links or footage of this film.
MAIDEN FLIGHT (Dir: Chris Randall, Animation: Chris Randall, Ian White and Karen Richards) Again I couldn't find anything to post on this film. This animation was only two minutes long and was about someone creating a Origami butterfly using stop-motion and CGI animation. It was quaint although rather short.
LET ME IN A film by Work and Play which is a lottery-funded project based in Telford to support adults with learing disabilities to explore their creativity and make their own art. This seems like a great scheme and its such a shame that I cant really find anything on it, especially the animation. I find find out that the animator Neil Webber helped create the animation. Click here to view his website, although he does have anything on there to do with this animation. Which was about the theme of 'who is knocking at your door?' and shows four stories about different people knocking on four people's door. Including a girl of a man's dreams, a giant horse, the police and a ghost.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASSES (Vicky Norris) This is a CGI animation about a girl who perceives that she's fat and is terribly unhappy with her appearance. And although she attempts to lose weight by exercising she loses all hope and kills herself. Yes very depressing. Although when she does kill herself you see that in fact she was super skinny and it was all in her head that she was fat depicting that anorexia is a disease. I wasn't keen on the CGI of the girl but I think its really good that people are tackling subjects like this.
And finally there was THE MOON BIRD (by The Brothers McLeod) And oh golly I loved it! This animation was executed to professional standards, and the story was very strong. The Moon Bird is a dark fairy tale about a little orphan girl and an evil sorceress who wants the tears of the girl to transform her into a terrifying monster. Though the girl has help from the Lunar Bird and a little bug to help defeat the sorceress. Its a sad story as the magical Lunar Bird dies, the little bug gets eaten by the witch and the girl drowns. Although the girl and the Lunar Bird get resurrected and kinda merge together to create a super magical girl/moon bird and defeats the sorceress who had transformed into the monster. No matter how sad the tale this was truly an magnificent film! Below is the trailer for The Moon Bird but also do check out The Brothers McLeod's website here, they have more cool animations to see so do go take a look.
Then it was onto the Ikon Eastside to watch the screening of 'Whatever! A double bill of filth and fantasy'. Now this was the main reason I wanted to attend flatpack, to watch these two awesome films. The first film was a musical called 'BOY' created by SSION.
The second film was Pink Flamingos, something I've wanted to see for a very long time! I definitely had a huge anticipation and expectation of this screening. Created by John Waters (1972) this film is described as the most filthiest film ever made and bloody hell I have to agree. There was several moments in this vintage comedy that made me want to vomit! And I'm not joking either. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the film, excluding one or two scenes that is, and I would definitely recommend that people watch it, but not with your parents or grandparents or young children. God no! So Pink Flamingos stars the iconic Divine, a transsexual man playing a woman, who in la film is known as the filthiest person alive. Basically the story line is that married couple The Marbles are jealous of Divine's filthiest person title and want to steal it from her and for themselves to become the filthiest people alive. And throughout the film you bare witness to 'filthy' scenes including Divine rubbing raw meat on her private regions, a naked man perform shall we say party tricks with his bum hole, a very weird sex scene with married couple The Marbles, a sordid kidnap scheme of women to impregnate them and sell their babies to lesbians, Mr Marble perves on women with a sausage tied to his penis. But the worst three scenes from the film have to be (1) Divine actually giving head to her son Crackers, whom although his very rehearsed lines of pleasure was definitely not enjoying it which made the whole experience very squeamish (2) Divine eating dog poo. Yes you heard me, eating freshly pooped dog poo! It was disgusting he was gagging but trying to smile and act like he was enjoying it. GROSS SO GROSS! and (3) probably the most traumatic thing I have ever seen - the sex scene with Divine's son Crackers and a girl called Cookie where Crackers violently forces chickens in his kinky sex act while his lady friend Cotton watches. It was so disturbing. I hate chickens but what I witnessed upset me. They violated poor innocent animals and killed them during the sex scene as well! WAY TOO FUCKED UP FOR ME!! I was and am offended by that scene. There was no need to kill the chickens and I feel they only did it to create a drama and to shock the world.
But the film in all is worth seeing, if purely for the humour of Divine's mother Edie, a fat woman attired only in her underwear, who is locked in a childs play pen. There are several comic scenes with Edie and her obsession with eggs and the Egg Man including the humorous quote "Mama you're suffering from egg paranoia" (well it made me laugh).
So yeh Pink Flamingo's is definately an experience I'll take to the grave!
Here's the trailer:
And here's the clip with the 'Egg paranoia" catch phrase:
Friday 26th March
After I finished work on Friday I popped round to the Bullring to the Created In Birmingham shop where the free exhibition A Thought. An Afterthought. Created by David Hurley (click here to view his website) This instillation consists of mannequins whose heads have been replaced by various technical objects including projectors, typewriters and televisions. Maybe this projects how humans have become mechanical and how humans cannot survive without technology. Maybe, maybe not. Here are pictures I took from the exhibition:
Saturday 27th March
Saturday the 25th took us to a new location; The Electric Cinema, to watch Puppetology. This was screenings of short films that uses an array of different kinds of puppets. We were thanked upon arrival that no children had come as some of the films contained 'adult content'. Below is details of all the screenings:
LISA LI-LUND: BLOODFACE (Dir: Ben Lister) This was a hauntingly beautiful music video to Lisa Li-Lund's equally beautifully eerie song Bloodface. This dark fairy tale follows a puppet girls travels into despair. This film reminded me of the 80s fantasy film using puppets The Dark Crystal.
HANG IN THERE (Dir: Leslie Supnet) A divinely cute paper animation about two children being chased by bees that look like bear. Illustrated in a superbly cute hand drawn manner, this film reminds me a little on Winnie The Pooh. I was unable to find the film upon youtube but here are a few of her delightful illustrations that I found upon her website. Here is an illustration I found upon her website that best depicts the HANG IN THERE animation:
ROUND (Dir: Kirk Hendry) This is a music video created by using hand shadow puppets. This simple technique was executed to a professional manner creating a world by layering hand shadow puppets. Kirk Hendry created the wilderness along with wild animals to accompany the hunting song.
THE TALE OF THE LITTLE PUPPET BOY (Dir: Johannes Nyholm) This is probably my favourite screening from Puppetology. The title pretty much explains what the film is about, and is presented in a 4 part episodes and explains the tale of when Puppet Boy's lady friend comes over to his flat, which turns out to be a right drama, hence running over to 4 episodes. This is definitely the film which contains the 'adult humour'. I wont go on and bore you just watch the first episode below and see for yourself. (I had difficulty in finding the other parts to the story so if anyone finds them please do shout the link to me thank you's)
DARK ISLAND (Dir: Jons Mellgren) This film was quite a bit longer than the others running for 10 mins. This was a story about a boy who comes to live with his grandparents. His granddad is terminally ill and dies part way through the film. The boy makes friends with a girl who lives near by in the village but suffers taunts from the loutish local older boys whom even sexually taunt the young girl to provoke him. This is quite a bizarre tale and not really to my fancy. Although I liked the simple nature the film was made in with paper puppets on wire, and the pop up scenery. Here is a link to the film and Jons Mellgren's website.
MOUNT SHASTA (Dir: Oliver Husain) This was a super bizarre film which I totally didn't understand what the meaning to it was supposed to be. The film started with a babble of text which confused me lots, then the film started with the puppeteers wearing white jump suits to make themselves 'invisible' parading around with puppets while a man sings at a keyboard. This film came across pretentious, trying to be 'avant garde' when it really wasn't anything of the sort. Well that's my opinion. Here's a still from the film:
DOG IN THE BURNING BUILDING (Dir: Fran and Will Krause) This was an entertaining music video for Miles Kurosky "Dog in the Burning Building. There's puppetry and animation in all different drawing styles, ranging from child like scribbles, to cartoon drawings, with Muppet style puppets and sleeker animation elements accompanied to a catchy tune, this is a catchy engaging video.
PIVOT: IN THE BLOOD (Dir: Alex Smith) This film seemed to merge the puppet used in the first screening (Lisi Li-Lund) with the technique of 'invisible puppeteers' dressed in black jump suits. Although this film was executed well I didn't like the plot, which is based upon a shark attack. It was too gory for my liking.
DREAMS FROM THE WOODS (Dir: Johannes Nyholm) The second screening of Nyholms work, though in complete contrast to The Little Puppet Boy, this story is so quaint and is produced beautifully. Dreams In The Woods is created by using shadow puppet theatre with paper puppets on wire and layered fabric backdrop which moves in the breeze creating an eerie essence. Below is only half of the story, not sure why its not all there or why the music's different but you get to see and understand the essence of the story.
A STYLE CALLED (CRYING CHIC) (Dir: George Wu) I completely forgot about this film until I youtubed it again for this. Although I did forget about it, I do quite like it! A simplistic music video made from flat paper props. Awesome catchy song and great somehow nineties feel video. Love it!
MR WOBBLE'S NIGHTMARE (Dir: Joel Trussell) A bizarre music esque video about zombie fruit. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I'm scared of zombies so this naturally isn't really to my taste. The animation is quite simple but it works well for the essence of the film. The animators used rotting fruit for the zombies which obviously works well for la living dead fruit. Technoy electronic music (I think, I'm not good with music labels, I'm not a fan whatever music it is). It's humorous to a point, drags on a bit though.
RAMONA FALLS: I SAY FEVER (Dir: Stefan Nadelman) The last film of Puppetology ended in the music video of Ramona Falls 'I Say Fever'. A echoing song accompanied by a collage 2D video set in the 1800s Wild West where a mysterious carriage arrives in town, and the people seem to have animal heads under their human faces which appear to be masks hiding their true faces. Definitely worth a watch.
Later on was 'A Plasticine Party' in which I had high hopes but was sadly disappointed. The night started well with fine wine, jazz music and an extremely interesting plasticine film CAS'L by Bruce Bickford. It was so intriguing I couldn't take my eyes off it as there was so much going on. But it lasted a whole 45 mins so became annoying after a while, as it was repetitive. Here's a small snippet of the film.
There was plasticine available to play with and make anything you desire. I was feeling a little of a misery guts and didn't make anything. But here's some pictures I took the following day of all the plasticine models people made:
After Bruce Bickford's film this weird ass band came on and started to perform this bizarre act. I didn't get it or like it. They were a three piece act, an elderly dude in the middle playing keyboard and two men either side dressed in white boiler suits. Their 'performance' as I shall put it consisted of the men making monkey noices to techno music. They, I presume where attempting to be 'avant garde' but came across as impeccably lame and pathetic. So not cool.
Sunday 28th March
Sunday is the last day of the Flatpack Festival and started with Puppetoons, alike yesterday's Puppetology this was again about puppets although aimed at a younger audience. This was the third of my 4 for £20 package. Today again at the Electric Cinema started with a charming film called TILL THE DAWN (Dir: Neri Ishida) about an owl who cannot eat nor sleep and meets some friends who try and help him. I cannot find the animation but here is a picture off the animation and here are links to Neri Ishida's university page and website.
The following puppetoons are made by George Pal, a famous puppetoon creator in the 30s and 40s. Pal was considered controversial due to his said to be 'prejudice' manner.
THE SHIP OF THE ETHER (1934)
PHILIPS CAVALCADE (1934)
MR. STRAUSS TAKES A WALK (1942)
JASPER'S IN A JAM (1946)
JOHN HENRY AND THE INKY POO (1946)
TUBBY THE TUBA (1947)
PHILIPS BROADCAST OF 1938 (1938)
TULIPS SHALL GROW (1942)
Then whilst waiting for the next exhibition to start we popped into Eastside art gallery to view a free exhibition there. Not too sure what it was all about but here are a few pictures I took there:
Then when it was all set and ready to view it was onto Vivid for Modulate a free event which we couldn't stay and watch all of it as it over lapped the next screening which we paid for. This was about the relation of electronic music to abstract art. As I only saw about half an hours worth I cant fully judge this event, although what I did see I wasn't all impressed with. Maybe it's just my taste I'm not sure. I expected it to be more interactive or just less projection on wall. It seems very techy and geeky computer jazz to me which so isn't my personality at all. Here's the link to their website. And below are youtube videos of them, I didn't see any of this but I guess I missed it and it happened when I left.
And finally last but by no means least THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR T a feature film written by Theodor Geisel also known as Dr. Seuss. This was described as a 'hyper-coloured fantasy musical' alike 'The Wizard of Oz if Salvador Dali had designed it'. The story being a young boy called Bart is being forced to take piano lessons by his mother because his father has recently died and she wants to give him some stability. Bart doesn't like his eccentric piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker (Dr. T) and when he falls asleep he enters a strange surreal world where Dr. T is ruler and forcing 500 young boys, equalling 5000 fingers, to play in his piano symphony, and the film follows Bart's journey to escape Dr. T. I guess this is the boys version of Wizard of Oz. Its less fanciful and feminine and more about the bonding of a father and son. Definitely worth watching if you like fantasy films and musicals. Below is the trailer.
And here is the end of a very very long blog. I need to rest my fingers and sleep lots! Sorry to bore you all. Actually no I'm not.
Then whilst waiting for the next exhibition to start we popped into Eastside art gallery to view a free exhibition there. Not too sure what it was all about but here are a few pictures I took there:
Then when it was all set and ready to view it was onto Vivid for Modulate a free event which we couldn't stay and watch all of it as it over lapped the next screening which we paid for. This was about the relation of electronic music to abstract art. As I only saw about half an hours worth I cant fully judge this event, although what I did see I wasn't all impressed with. Maybe it's just my taste I'm not sure. I expected it to be more interactive or just less projection on wall. It seems very techy and geeky computer jazz to me which so isn't my personality at all. Here's the link to their website. And below are youtube videos of them, I didn't see any of this but I guess I missed it and it happened when I left.
And finally last but by no means least THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR T a feature film written by Theodor Geisel also known as Dr. Seuss. This was described as a 'hyper-coloured fantasy musical' alike 'The Wizard of Oz if Salvador Dali had designed it'. The story being a young boy called Bart is being forced to take piano lessons by his mother because his father has recently died and she wants to give him some stability. Bart doesn't like his eccentric piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker (Dr. T) and when he falls asleep he enters a strange surreal world where Dr. T is ruler and forcing 500 young boys, equalling 5000 fingers, to play in his piano symphony, and the film follows Bart's journey to escape Dr. T. I guess this is the boys version of Wizard of Oz. Its less fanciful and feminine and more about the bonding of a father and son. Definitely worth watching if you like fantasy films and musicals. Below is the trailer.
And here is the end of a very very long blog. I need to rest my fingers and sleep lots! Sorry to bore you all. Actually no I'm not.
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