More Mew?

Ok, now I'm totally hooked on the Mew CD I bought last weekend. The guy has such an incredible voice. Great music to listen to when there's fog in the air and leaves falling around you. Here's their video for 'The Zookeeper's Boy'

Kasabian and Mew

I went to see Kasabian a couple of nights back at the Commodore. Their new album, Empire, is great. It has the kinds of songs that lend themselves to being sung with arms outstretched, backlit by spotlights and dry ice. They put on a really good show to a very enthusiastic crowd with lots of 'na-na-naaa' sing-alongs and shout-outs to the great city of 'Vancoovah'. They have a great video for their new single 'Shoot the Runner' on their website here.



One of the opening bands, Mew from Denmark, was also very good. They reminded me a little of Sigur Ros - very atmospheric and glacial. Singer looked a little like a blonde Tom Hulce in Amadeus. I ended up buying their CD after their set at the show. It's called 'And the Glass Handed Kites'. How's THAT for pretentious? Or maybe something was lost in translation.

What about Bob?

Saw Bob Dylan last night with my Dad, my sister and her friend. Very good show, considering it can be kind of hit and miss with the guy when you see him live. His band was incredible, breathing new life into songs nearly 40 or more (!) years old. It's always a nice change of pace to go to a concert and see 'real musicians' sometimes. Songs like 'Tangled Up in Blue' and 'Like a Rolling Stone' will be around for ever. I'm glad he played 'All Along the Watchtower' for the encore; it has to be one of my favorites. As every year goes by, it makes more and more sense.
I must admit that, growing up as a teenager, I didn't really appreciate his stuff. Dad loved him, buying every album that he put out, while I was listening to, oh I don't know, stuff like Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Power Station. Kind of embarrassing really - maybe I just wasn't ready for good music yet.

Now that's a nice set of conkers

The beautiful Fall weather continues in Vancouver (thank-you global warming). The Fall always makes me nostalgic, particularly when I happen across the many horse-chestnuts littered around the West-End. They remind me of when I was a kid in England, playing conkers with other pasty-white boys with names like Gareth, Nigel or Gavin.
By the way, did you know that ex-Python Michael Palin was disqualified from the 1993 World Conker Championships for baking his conker and boiling it in vinegar? Well, now you do.
More about conkers here.

Some record-breaking sex and violence

Now why didn't anyone think of this before? This is a funny, gory motion piece using classic album covers. Directed by Ugly Pictures and animated by Man vs. Magnet. It takes a little time to download, but it's well worth the wait. You can view it here.

Found on motionographer.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolverine

Saw a couple of movies recently. Completely different, but both very good.
Firstly, there was Hard Candy, an incredibly well-acted movie about a 14 year-old girl who meets a sexual predator in an internet chatroom. Back at his place, she turns the tables on him and gets revenge in the MOST squirm-inducing way. Let's just say that if you're a guy, double ouch. Ellen Page as the Hayley was incredible, going from vulnerable to menacing in the blink of an eye. It's one of those movies, like American Psycho, that I enjoyed but find hard to recommend. People ask if you liked it and you go "Yeah, but..."
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it really seems like films seem to be obsessed with the idea of torture as entertainment, perhaps tapping into the American psyche of today. From horror movies like Saw and Hostel to TV shows like Lost and 24 (starring everyone's post-911 superhero Jack Bauer) we just can't get enough of seeing people held captive and abused in horrific ways. Even shows like Jackass and Fear Factor involve cringeworthy tests of human endurance. And of course, American Idol is a different kind of torture altogether.



The second movie I rented (coincidentally also starring Ellen Page) was X-Men: The Last Stand. I think the X-Men series is definitely one of the better comic book interpretations done recently and this one was no exception. There's always a lot more emotion and subtext than you expect. Plus you get see lots of stuff getting smashed and blown-up. The special effects were incredible. I particularly liked how they managed to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look twenty years younger in the prologue. Really impressive stuff. The only downside was that they seemed to rush things, trying to wrap up way too many loose ends to complete the series. I imagine there'll probably be an extended directors cut in the near future. There usually is.

A word or two

I've always been a bit of a word geek. I'm addicted to cryptic crosswords, I love a bad pun or spoonerism, and I subscribe to Word-A-Day. I think it all started with my dad reading strange random words from the dictionary and telling us the definitions when I was a kid. For instance, next time you call someone a 'cretin' be aware that the specific meaning is 'deformed idiot of a kind found esp. in Alpine valleys'. So, be sure you're in an Alpine valley next time you use that one.
In any case, Polly M. Law, an artist in New York, has taken a handful of obscure words and made some quirky illustrations out of them. You can check them out here.

GUY movie

Just saw Crank the other night. This is a GUY MOVIE in capital letters. If you want violence, drugs, nudity and fast cars, well that all happens within the first five minutes. Jason Statham plays a hitman who has been injected with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops too much. Very fast, very violent and often very funny - kind of like a video game of a movie. Makes The Transporter look like Driving Miss Daisy. The kind of movie where:

1) If a guy falls off a tall building, he will land directly on top of the only car within in a five block radius

2) If a guy is attacked by a huge group of thugs, they will only fight him one or two at time, while the others stand around and watch

3) A guy can drive a car through stoplights, into a mall, and up an escalator while having a conversation on a cellphone.

Plus it made great use of Loverboy's 'Turn Me Loose' during a kitchen/back alley hatchet versus gun fight scene. So yeah, it was morally bankrupt, exploitive and stupid, but I still enjoyed it. Because I'm a guy.

Some food for thought

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
- Jimmy Carter

Feric

This guy's work is incredible. His name is Eric Feng, A.K.A. Feric, and he has a really interesting illustrative style; very delicate, very precise, yet wonderfully natural and organic. You can check out more of his work at www.feric.com.

Some ad designs

Here's a series of ads I recently designed for channel m. I'm pretty happy with the way that they turned out. I wanted to design a look that was versatile enough for several types of shows, yet consistent in layout and design. Once I had the '24' design established, it was fairly easy to have the others fall into the same type of template. The bulk of the work was in choosing the right kinds of images and cropping out the characters in Photoshop.

Casino Royale (James Blond?)

The new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, looks like its going to be good. Pierce Brosnan is gone, and replaced by Daniel Craig who was great in Layer Cake. It looks like they're going for a more grittier, and realistic (for a Bond movie anyway) kind of action movie. More of a Bourne Identity kind of feel. Pierce Brosnan was good, but in the last couple of movies, the gadgets and sets were getting kinda ridiculous. I mean, an invisible car and a castle made out of ice? Come on...
I think it's a shame that they always try to rope these actors into a two or three movie deal. They should just mix it up all the time - have a different actor play Bond for each movie just to keep it fresh. Get someone like Clive Owen or Sean Bean.
In any case, you can view a great trailer for the movie here. The official website is here.

Imagine all the people...

There are days for conspiracy theories, finger-pointing and cynicism - but today is not one of those days.
Have a peaceful day everyone.

Naaaa naa-naa na-na-na-naaaa

Beautiful day today (as opposed to the miserable rainy one we had yesterday) so I went for a walk along the seawall. I usually go for a walk just about every other day, but haven't done so in nearly 3-4 weeks since I screwed up my back. I'm feeling the effects of it now, but it was definitely worth it. Was listening to my iPod and 'Hey Jude' came on by The Beatles. Just about the perfect song to listen to when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing in from the sea.
Above is a design I recently started in Illustrator. I hope to add more elements and textures and maybe play around with the colors more in Photoshop, but I'm happy with the way it's starting out. I've always loved The Beatles - as a kid I always had some form of Beatles poster pinned to my wall. They're kind of my aural equivalent of comfort food. I always feel better when I'm listening to them.

Sunshine on a cloudy day

This is why I love movies. After an extremely crappy day at work, I went to see Little Miss Sunshine, and for two hours I completely forgot what I was feeling crappy about. I don't think I've seen such a funny film about such depressing characters since About Schmidt. All of the characters were just about perfect, from Steve Carrell's gay suicidal Uncle Frank to Paul Dano's Nietchze-reading non-speaking angst-ridden Dwayne. I'm a big fan of Steve Carrell; for such a funny guy, I think he definitely has it in him to take on more dramatic roles. That said, he is REALLY funny when he runs! In fact, all of the actors were great - especially Abigail Breslin as the little girl Olive. It's a nice to see a road-trip movie that doesn't have horndog teens as the main characters for a change. So, if you're feeling like crap, this is a movie that is will make you feel crap-free for at least a couple of hours.

Sigmund says...

In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.
- Sigmund Freud

Dad must be SO proud

A comment about cellphone etiquette. I'm sorry, but if you're talking loudly on your cellphone and I don't have my iPod on me, I AM going to listen to your conversation. Today at Starbucks, I swear to god I heard the following words from a guy on his cellphone: "Yeah, I was kinda dancin' and dry-humpin' the brides mom and then I backed into the wedding cake. Anyway man, I really should go - I'm here with my dad."
Cartoon courtesy of Too Much Coffee Man.

Oh crikey...

Had to mention the passing of Steve Irwin AKA The Crocodile Hunter today. Very sad story of course, but honestly, was anyone really surprised?

Oryx and Crake (It's the end of the world as we know it...)

During my time off from work, I recently finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It was definitely not the kind of book that I expected from her, which just goes to show what a talented author she is. It's a bleak story narrated by Snowman, the main protagonist, telling us of a post apocalyptic world in the not-so-far-future and how it came to be that way. It touches a lot on modern day science and our reliance on pharmaceuticals and genetically modified organisms. In particular, I liked the part about 'pigoons' which are essentially genetically modified pigs used to grow human-tissue organs for transplants. Pretty disgusting but not really that far-fetched. More and more so, technology seems to be in equal parts both a blessing and a curse. If pharmaceutical companies can create cures to new diseases, what's to stop them from creating new diseases to cure in order to make more money? After reading this book, it doesn't seem too outlandish - less science-fiction and more science-fact.

The Illusionist

Went to see The Illusionist a couple of nights back. A great movie - extremely lush and beautiful to look at with a good old-fashioned story. Try not to read the reviews or watch the trailers too closely - I find that they give just far too much away. It's set in turn of the century Vienna and the filmmakers do a wonderful job of capturing the feel of that time with sepia tones and, on some occasions, very subtle blurry vignette-type borders to the screen. I'd love to visit Vienna someday. The filmmakers also got a hold of the most expressive eyes in acting today - Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell. Of course, Jessica Biel is pretty nice to look at too. Last time I saw her, she was being chased by a guy with a chainsaw.