Last night I attended the 6th Tom Stathes’ Cartoon Carnival, a periodic cartoon festival with a 1930s theme and a penchant for naughty old animation. Skipping the god awful commute to Queens (I wrote out all the directions for the M train but stupidly decided to take the 7 instead and got lost) the location, Attic Studios, was gorgeous. A vast white loft with two full walls of windows showing a view of the bridge (ONE of them anyway) and the Manhattan skyline. Many white plastic chairs and a big screen for the 16mm film projector. And a small roped off area where you can buy drinks, get free popcorn, and flirt with the cigarette girls who offer raffle tickets, ciggs for $1 and candy ciggs for a $1. Continue reading ‘Travelaffs!’
I was wondering how to review this movie and I thought, well why not wait till the last minute? Gird your loins everyone, Scott Pilgrim vs the World comes out in half an hour!
The minute the opening credits started, I thought about what I was dealing with. Was this a return to scratch film animation, or was this some how closely reproduced in a computer, with some heartfelt scratches and paint added in some new way. Did that matter? Then the movie started. What is up with Canada, I thought? It seemed like The Discrete Charm of the Hipster Bourgeoisie. But that quickly passed when the music animation began. Ghostly blended comic book stars and stripes representing one medium in another. The basic shapes were an interesting change from the usual abstract Apple visualizer or hippie trance that one often sees as “music art.”
And then came the first evil ex-boyfriend. What an effin awesome adventure. I haven’t read the books I had no idea what was going to happen. Poor guy doesn’t know how to read emails, crashes at his gay best friends bachelor pad, and gets stalked by a Catholic Asian school girl who looks like she walked straight of your nearest EGL web comic.
Each increasingly awesome battle was separated by the introduction of the characters who dain to orbit about Micahel Cera and his Punk chic girlfriend. Like *SPOILER* the crazy goth lesbian, the angry girl drummer, and my favorite, Aubrey Plaza from “Parks & Recreations.” Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a computer game, with a nod to ATARIs.
Nothing like a 3 day geek convention to introduce me to the West coast. Armed with my nerdy t-shirts, camera, sketchbook, and magical Super Mario 3 baseball cap, I tried to absorb as much info as possible. I apologize in advance for the random panels I attended.
3 things you need to know: 1) One fan stabbed his friend in the eye with a pen for a seat for “Cowboys & Aliens” 2) Stan Lee made out with two chicks simultaneously in the Marriot hotel lobby on Saturday night, and 3) this will all be in documentary by Morgan Spurlock
I was all psyched to see Inception on Thursday morning, and then review it here as soon as the clock struck midnight on Friday, but I fell asleep, so. C’est la vie.
Any movie where you find out the name of the lead female is Ariadne is bound to be good. “Inception” is an action packed and beautiful blend of psychological and physics experiments. Brush up on your Einstein elevator experiments, Mobius strips, Escher drawings, infinity complexes, and more. I wish I took more than Pysch 101 in college because I’m sure there were references I missed. The movie is rife with important nouns: totem, architect, forger, chemist, labyrinth, inception, and limbo. Joseph Campbell probably has a boner in his grave.
The special effects stream flawlessly into the movie, and the story practically flows around them. The casual destruction of a cafe, Fred Astaire inspired anti-grav battles, and creation through infinite mirrors are just a few examples. “Inception” confidently gives the audience a lavish feast of the ideas of it’s own universe. Whether or not you really understand or agree with all the rules is up to you. An old gentlemen sitting next to me was confused about whether or not you die in real life if you die in their dreams and I told him “It depends if they are on drugs or not.” He replied: “Oh, well you can never understand people on drugs.”
The heart of the movie lies in Cobb’s (Leo d Caprio) tortured past. The concept is so romantic, original, and basic that you wish Nolan had actually developed it more. However, I get that this is an action movie and at 2.5 hours there might not be time for a Dostoievski-an look at the implications of a pair of lovers in… well you’ll see. This movie probably requires multiple viewings (altho in this economy I’ll wait till Netflix, or till someone asks me out). You will definitely have a lot to ruminate on and argue with other geeks. Bottom line: Go see this movie if you are a NY Geek. And stay to the end of the credits.
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of having the year 2050 mapped out for me by Smithsonian Magazine, in their “The Next 40 Years” issue, complete with a positive message from Obama. Will our future look like this?
Well hello everyone, my name is Trist, and I am one of NY Geekcast’s new bloggers. I thought I would start off my geeky writing career with some gender confused anime.
I originally started to watch Naruto because my usual sitcoms were on summer hiatus, and I was looking for a new anime to watch. I remembered that an annoying kid in my high-school classical mythology class was obsessed with it, to the point of wearing the ninja head band and maybe buying one of those dagger things. (After I graduated, I heard that this kid might have had Asperger’s, and a few opening episodes of Naruto totally explained his obsession.) Anyway, I quickly learned that ninjas were awesome people to be feared, and that Naruto himself was an annoying blonde boy.
Enter Haku, the pseudo-gay ninja. Here I am, kicking back with a beer and Hulu after a hard day’s work standing around at the ballet (just go with it) and this androgynous guy in a mysterious ninja-girl outfit appears to throw me a major plot-shuriken. I would like to say off the top that some Google-research shows that his sexuality and gender is a huge otaku debate, which will not take place here, but personally I believe him to be a nice gay man. He likes to walk around in comfy kimonos, possibly taking delight in his gender confusion, and experiments with gothic outfits at the age of 9. And has a wicked cool ninja attack with ice mirrors.
The New York Geekcast is hosted by Nelson Diaz and David Pagano. These two self-proclaimed nerds (along with their friends) cover anything and everything dorky -- movies, music, comics, video games, television -- while bringing a unique New York sensibility to it all.
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