Wednesday 27 October 2010

Isabella Rossellini Discombobulates a Duck's Phallus

  • (originally posted on myspace here) 

     

    That's what SHE said. Ha! Oh.

     

     
    This is research by the way, for the sci-fi sitcom I am now literally writing for a read-through in Mid-November. And working on the floor of the London Dungeons has turned out to be a surprisingly fertile writing location: you're physically active, you're uninhibitedly improvising, and it's dark. Your mind is absolutely primed, it's perfect, except there's just nothing to write with. Here I realised that extra-terrestrial life's attitude towards sex would probably resemble "green porno" a lot more than the icy butlers and headmistresses we're normally shown. Ah, it's so good to see she's still making these.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

American English Class Projects based on Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5"...

(originally posted on myspace here)

... are the second best - I suppose because the book's so much better known than Cat's Cradle, and it's been foisted upon so many more students who just couldn't give a monkey's or just plain haven't read it. (Anti-war movies! You might as well make an anti-glacier movie, amirite?) Casting my net wider for school-produced Vonnegut gems has therefore proved a bit of a trawl. I don't know, are these gems?



Well, aging make-up always looks fake. So, excellent work. "And why would he laugh?" - It's interesting seeing which lines each project picks up on. I really love the pan upwards to the abducting craft, a nice simple cheat. Likewise I love the abduction effects on this next film, and the typewriter/Meerschaum combo (it would be easier to "Forget Donnie Darko" though if they hadn't played "Mad World" over most of it. But this is a niggle. You put a pan on a kid in a cart on some rails. You get an A...)


 
It had to be a failure since it was written by a pillar of salt". And in what follows I'm pretty sure we see what it actually feels like to get shot at more accurately than anything heretofore managed on the screen. I know. I've been paint-balling.  


The dog joining in! Was that on purpose? The sudden change in aspect ratio before the shot! was that on purpose? Because it WORKS! Yet it's the following film that has to take the prize. (There is no prize). It may boast neither the commitment nor the ingenuity we've seen elsewhere, but it was this film that set me upon the whole kids-do-Vonnegut quest-ette, so enjoy...


"You're going to Dresden! Come on! Now! Get going!" Is it scripted? Isn't it scripted? Too many questions.
In other news, Diary of a Nobody tickets are selling fast. (Looks like I'm keeping the beard.)
And Money closes on November 25th...

Tuesday 5 October 2010

American English Projects based on Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat Cradle"...

(originally posted on myspace here)

... are the best! Consider the evidence:



Which brings us neatly to the end of the world, or would have neatly if this post had anything to do with that, which it does not but was meant to. I saw "Collapse" last night and had just watched Milligan interviewed back in '67 before that, but! Then somebody in the pub this evening, maybe me, said "Love is not a duty but it is a discipline..." which I thought worth recording and got side-tracked looking for something to prove this, or at least pad it out, and I typed "love" and "discipline" into youtube, and was presented with Robert Palmer in Japan, and fled, and ended up here among these brilliant little school projects instead. There is no lasting happiness of any kind without discipline, probably. But let these treats serve for this evening. (Keeps has just texted me. It's been a year. Here's to plastifungus and a happy and habitable planet then. Here's to us! And OweMGee, youtube is also a hundred years old I've just realised! Here's to it!


See how easy it is to get distracted? Oh but have I mentioned the read-through for John Finnemore's new panto that took place yesterday? No. So see how focused I am. Okay, here's your homework.)