Coincidence?

Welly welly well well. Aren’t we original. This should be illegal, it’s artistic plagiarism. The one on top is a Niki Caro film that isn’t out yet, the one below is from Lars Von Trier and came out 2 years ago. This cannot be coincidence. It reminds me of how the Shop Girl trailer is so similar to the Lost in Translation trailer, and how the About Schmidt trailer used the music from American Beauty, but this almost seems even more sick than that. Whoever you are that designed this North Country poster, even if you are the same guy who designed the Dogville one, shame on you... Shame on you.

Such amazing form.

Last night I was thinking about hanging up a portrait of George W. Bush in my house. I really admire the shape of his face, the subtle curve of his nostrils, the beautiful lines running from the sides of his nose to his supple mouth. The color balance between the peachy skin and his silver hair is breathtaking. There is so much emotion in the lines around his eyes, so much tension and beauty.

Really, take a look at some of the works of that crank Leonardo da Vinci for example. Mona Lisa, monacrapola, I really believe, that George Bush's face, is as beautiful as the Mona Lisa's.

Do yourself a favor, try to remove yourself from pre-conceived notions of fame and proper art. Look at the Mona Lisa without knowing it's famous, look at it as lines, it's shadows, how light plays with it's surface, and decide if it really is more beautiful than the portrait of George Bush, or than a broken refrigerator, or a dead pigeon on the side of the road. I'm starting to realize it's all the same... aesthetically speaking. If I include how I feel about Bush, the intent of Leonardo da Vinci, the recognition and fame and glory of the most valuable painting in the world, then I'm not judging it because of how it looks, but on how it makes me feel due to society, control and knowledge.

Shoestring Student Films

This is the first of a series of posters I'm working on for my senior design project. It revolves around the idea of a student film advertising campaign. I'm designed a mark for a company I'm calling "Shoestring Student Films"... notice logo. These are to be printed on the clean side of brown grocery bags (thus enforcing the budget idea) others are to include: Guy smashing toy cars together and the text "SPECIAL EFFECTS", one with a girl and a six pack of beer and the text "PAYCHECK" one of a homeless person with a pirate hat on and an eye patch with a handle of cheap booze in his hand and the text "EXTRA"... although my "mentor" told me this idea was offensive... whatever.

Can I take your order?

Guy - Hmmm... Let's see...

Naked Brain News Restaurant - Do you speak english in what?

Guy - What?

NBNR - English mother fucker, do you speak it? Can I take your order?

Guy - Ehhh... OK. I'll have the Sean Bean burrito meal.

NBNR - Do you want that with There's Something About Mary's special sauce?

Guy - What's that?

NBNR - Sour Cream and hot sauce.

Guy - Yeah, sure.

NBNR - And do you want Mr. Orange cheddar cheese, or Mr. White monterey jack?

Guy - Orange.

NBNR - What?

Guy - Mr. Orange.

NBNR - And to drink?

Guy - Get me a Halley Barry Shake.

NBNR - You want that in C-cup or Double D?

Guy - Double D.

NBNR - Do you want to Marlon Brando or Orson Welles size your meal?

Guy - Which ones bigger?

NBNR - Brando.

Guy - I'll Orson Welles size it.

NBNR - I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. Your total today comes to $6.66.

Up, here's your order. Now don't just stare at it. Eat it!

Mein Fuhrer I can walk?

While I was watching some extra features on the Eyes Wide Shut DVD I couldn't help but notice Tom Cruise's striking resemblance to mein Fuhrer. So I thought I’d put two and two together. I couldn’t locate the perfect picture, but you get the drift… I mean, picture him in Nazi garb and a mustache… it would be uncanny. I’m not saying Tom Cruise wants to execute Jews (only people on Prozac), but wouldn't he just make a great Hitler. Maybe instead of the current administration, Cruise could be our next dictator? Cruise '08 anyone?

We consume music.

So why don't CD's have expiration dates? I'm talking to you Mr. Metallica Truck Driver Hat Wearin' Man. A Twinkie has a shelf-life of 20 years, right? So do The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the old Stones stuff. Seriously though, if you're still listening to Bush's Glycerin, waving your lighter in the air, as if it was still 1994, or Collective Soul for that matter... or rap, it's as if you're eating stale bread, or like moldy pizza or something. It just isn't fresh anymore. Let's ask an expert on freshness in the music world.

Naked Brain News - What do you think about all this Will Smith, since you were formerly the Prince of Freshness... of Bel Air.

Big Willy Style - Ya, ya'll know I'm just gettin' Jiggy with it. That's it! Na na na na na na na.

NBN - Thank you Mr. Smith, for that educated and poignant answer. Next time I'll just ask Bill Cosby.

Lord of the Rings the Lost Chapter.

So I found this lost chapter while I was rooting around in Robert DeNiro's chin, apparently he's still alive, I really had no idea... I thought he actually died at the end of Heat. Anyway, here's an excerpt from it.

Treebeard - Baroom! Baroom! Hail Gimli, Dwarf of Erebor!

Gimli - Hail Treebeard, Ent of Fangorn Forest, how are thee.

Treebeard - Baroom! Diddle diddle. None too good my dwarfen friend. The Ent-wives have left us, and none remain to give us blow jobs.

Gimli - Blow jobs? Don't you just have twigs down there?

Treebeard - ...and berries. Plus, our semen is Odwalla Superfood.

Gimli - Really? I love Odwalla.

Treebeard - Baroom! Baroom!

Father McGruder kicks ass for the lord!

So I was thinking about my favorite PJ flick, Dead Alive, and the priest in Dead Alive is awesome, because before turning into a zombie himself, he helps fight them. After a breath-taking front-flip into a church graveyard infested by zombies, Father McGruder quoths “I kick ass for the lord”.

I’ve always thought it would make a great T-shirt. So I designed one and submitted it to Threadless (http://www.threadless.com). It staggers me that some people don’t know what important contributions Peter Jackson made to film before creating The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Somepeople – Hi! Look at me! My favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings! Actually, it’s a trilogy! Isn’t that swell. It was directed by Peter Jackson! He’s going to make King-Kong! I love kitties.

Naked Brain News – That sure is swell Somepeople. What are even sweller are the movies PJ made before LOTR.

Someone – What? You mean he’s made other movies? Gee golly, I didn’t even know.

NBN – Indeed he has. PJ lives in a magical place called New Zealand, where he made fucked up zombie movies from 1987-1992, and they are magical. Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Braindead, which in America is known as Dead Alive. In fact at one point in Dead Alive a zombie nurse and a zombie priest have sex, zombie style. Also an elderly lady zombie eats a dog and then gets it pulled back out of her throat by her tail (this triggered my gag reflex) oh, they put a baby in a blender too, just for good measure. In Meet the Feebles a cat muppet gives a walrus muppet a bj. I guess the academy gave him the award for ROTK to make up for neglecting his more academic films.

Someone – You’re sick man! Peter Jackson would never put a baby in a blender. Hobbits are good people with happy feelings all of the time. The Lord of the Rings is beautiful, not disgusting… and you’re stupid to think that Gimli would give Treebeard a blow job… I mean, who would want twigs stuck in their teeth anyway?

NBN – What about Gandalf?

Someone – What? Gimli give Gandalf a bj?

NBN – Actually, other way arou… nevermind. If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, make sure not to miss the great Peter Jackson classics, with special effects headed by Richard Taylor, supervisor of the WETA workshop!

All bow to the glory of Kurosawa.

Samurais. Duh. Let me be all pompous like and edumaticulate some of you on the way of the Samurai... movies that is. Now I know, some of you know this already, but really it's interesting, and as I was talking about it with my roommate last night, after watching Inagaki's Samurai trilogy. I thought I should pass the information along to some of you.

A history of sorts: Akira Kurosawa made some 32 films in his lifetime, most of them masterpieces, some better than others. His 15th film was The Seven Samurai, probably his most famous, and rightfully so. It's totally awesome, and for those of you who haven't seen it, you should. I've heard in documentaries that Kurosawa was influenced by the concept of the western when he made The Seven Samurai, but he entirely stylized and re-invented it and put it in a Japanese samurai context. The Magnificent Seven, the famous western, was a remake of The Seven Samurai, only in English and with guns instead of swords. The Hidden Fortress was made a few films after The Seven Samurai, and oddly it is seldom known, that Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, is a remake of The Hidden Fortress. Even psycho hard-core Star Wars fan boys usually don't know that. George Lucas even gives an interview talking about it's influence on The Hidden Fortress DVD, I mean, the princess, the hero, the fortress is the Death Star, two bickering characters, one short, one tall are 3P0 and R2. It's just silly how similar it is.

Even sillier than the resemblance of Star Wars to The Hidden Fortress however, is the connection between Yojimbo, Kurosawa's Man With No Name samurai anti-hero film and Sergio Leone's Man With No Name gunslinger trilogy (remember Quentin Tarintino bleeping out the Bride's name in the first Kill Bill movie?). The plot of Yojimbo (which means bodygaurd in English... and not I'm not talking Kevin Costner here), and the plot of the first film in Leone's trilogy, A Fist Full of Dollars, no joke, is exactly the same. The character Eastwood plays, and Toshiro Mifune's character is exactly the same, only Mifune is better at it, believe it or not. Kill Bill, you might of heard, is strongly influenced by Leone's spaghetti westerns, with the close ups of the eyes, the music, and the style. So it's a funny thing I think, how Kurasowa, influenced by the western makes a samurai movie that influences Leone to make a western that will influence Tarintino to make a samurai movie. I think I just went cross-eyed.

"My parents are huge cat people."

Last year, when I was in Spain, walking around with Brett, a good friend of mine, I was justifiably shocked to hear that her parents were "huge cat people." I think the conversation went something like this.

Me - Yeah, I don't know, I'm not too fond of animals. My mom sure buys a lot of dogs though, so I have to deal with them all the time anyway.

Brett - I love animals. My parents are huge cat people.

Literally I was floored. I thought that it sounded like some weird transformation that could only be possible in science fiction novels. I thought this must be some sick joke, it soon became apparent that it most definitely was not. Brett's parents are actually huge cat people.

It must be hard, especially for a human person, to grow up in a family of cats. Just the thought of the litter boxes alone makes me want to vomit, or the hair balls for that matter, and would they give you cat baths. I don't think I'd want my parents licking me clean, I like human baths, and showers and stuff. I can't imagine how sick she must be of eating mice for dinner either. I've definitely seen my parents get a little frisky after a few drinks, but luckily catnip doesn't affect human people. Sometimes my dad pees outside, on a tree or on the side of the road or something, but never on the couch or on the laundry basket. Really, I can't even imagine.

I tried to get Brett to talk more about her "huge cat" parents, but Brett wouldn't say another word, and just said I was being stupid. I really can't blame her though, I wouldn't be eager to talk about my parents either if they were huge dog people or kangaroo people or something. Sometimes when I sit around thinking about my petty problems, like wishing I had another BMW or could afford to eat lobster and steak more than only 3 times a week, I say to myself, Kevin, don't worry, it could always be a whole lot worse.

Paris Metro Bombed By Anarchists

Dreaming is a funny thing... and very few of the weird things I dream come true, if any. Last night though I had some very realistic, recurring dreams. Keep in mind that I had taken two Dayquil tablets earlier that evening.

I was watching the news on TV, CNN or something, and it was early in the morning and I was watching the aftermath of an apparent terrorist attack on Paris's Metro system. They were saying something like 144,000 dead, and they had already decided who the terrorists were, young French anarchists. The anarchist symbol was everywhere, and they did it by pouring gun powder above the railway system. I was thinking that now all the students and people who sport an anarchist patch on their backpacks or hats are going to be in trouble.

So I woke up, thought "weird", went back to sleep. Then in my dream my parents called me, I was in my bedroom, picked up my cell phone and we had a conversation about the terrorist attack in Paris. I woke up and fell asleep maybe four times that night, and every time I dreamt it was about this anarchist terror attack on Paris's Metro. Hope nothing happens, it was a dream after all, but still, I usually don't dream that way. Usually I dream about surreal things, like swimming in a black lake at night and having black horses leaping enormous distances out from the water in front of me as I swim, not about reality or news broadcasts.

The Constant Consumer.

So I just saw the Constant Gardner. The film is excellent, great acting, great cimetagraphy, plot, directing, blah blah blah. The film is about a global conspiracy in Africa dealing with Pharmaceuticals.

This is all a moot point however, and the real conspiracy is this. If you look at the poster for The Constant Gardner you may notice the white silhouette of Ralph Phiennes, pointing a pistol towards the left side of the poster. Pretty exciting though isn't it... a movie with a gun and all sorts of promised action and bang-bang and whatnot. Problem is there isn't any single instance in the movie where Ralph Phiennes actually points the gun or acts as if he's going to use it. Actually a pretty important point in the movie comes at the end when he takes the cartridge out of the gun and tosses it on the ground.

So why then would a poster for a movie show a man pointing a gun when it never happens in the movie? I guess the answer is fairly obvious. Still though, where do we draw the line? What if the poster had zombies on it, but was really a teen romance story? Would we not be outraged? Would we not act as zombies anyway and devour the flesh of those sitting next to us to compensate for such an atrocity? I know I would.

I've been doing some major reading.

LISTEN UP MAGGOTS. I DON'T GIVE A GODDAM SHIT WHAT THE HELL YOU'VE BEEN READING PRIVATE CHILDREN!!! NOW GET ON THE GROUND AND READ ME 20 PAGES.

YES SIR MAJOR READING SIR!

I came up with a great idea this morning. In an effort to revive aromas of the Reading Rainbow, we can make a conservative Christian TV program to encourage children to read garbage. Set in the bunkers and sand dunes of Iraq, Major Reading will be forcing and belittling your children into reading books that will teach them strong moral values. Tuesday night Major Reading will be dictating the children a highly recommended short story titled "Fucking Faggots Are Fucking Disgusting". Wednesday is "If You Don't Believe In Christ You Hate Your Country", Thursday is a companion piece to "Fucking Faggots Are Fucking Disgusting", a little novella titled "Aborting Babies Is For Atheists, Commies, and Faggots". The all important Sunday morning spot however, will always be dedicated to the killing terrorists and/or Iraqis, and of course Christian science.

Wait... hold the phone. Did I just say Christian Science? Science? Christian... Science? Yes. Let's take a ride in doctor Peabody's way-way back machine.

Some conservative Christian #1 - I wish there was a way we could legitimize our claims and present them as fact like science does. Whimper.

Some conservative Christian #2 - Yeah. Science sure is smart sometimes.

Some conservative Christian #1 - That's it. Hallelujah! Let's just call ourselves Christian Scientists, that way it seems like we're legitimate.

Some conservative Christian #2 - But isn't science based on facts? I don't know if people are dumb enough to believe in this ploy.

Some conservative Christian #1 - If you don't, you must be an Atheist, a Commie, and an Anti-patriotic Faggot. Oh yeah, and Jesus will hate you.

Some conservative Christian #2 - Hallelujah! I'm a believer. I too am now a Christian scientist. What's that Kevin? You don't believe in the bible? Have you even read it yet? If not how could you judge it? Why do you hate us?

Kevin - True, I've never read it. Though I have heard my share of bible stories. I did see the previews though. Didn't look too good. Michael Bay sucks. I don't hate you for believing in whatever it is you believe, but I don't like those of you who support the politics that try to strip people of their freedoms. Like gay rights, or abortion, or supporting a war like the one that's being fought right now, or calling those who don't support it un-patriotic. People who don't make a distinction between being Christian and being Republican.