Saturday, August 30, 2008

Superheroes on the square



This is a cartoon I do not believe is on other video sites, and I happen to like the chapter access and higher image quality this site offers. This hopefully goes a way to pacifying the lack of cartoons in the recent posts.

This show (The Mighty Heroes) is by Ralph Bakshi and seems both a regular superhero show and parody of it at the same time. Yet somehow it seems lovely made, rather than out of spite or maliciousness. Loving the ideas of superheroes , but recognizing the warts, so to speak.




Friday, August 22, 2008

An interesting interjection

Since he has never been seen before on this site I would like to insert a page of Dan Steven's fine work. Enjoy.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Rockman Promotional (by Hidek Ishikawa)

From the "Capcom Art Works" book. I've always found Megaman (Rockman in Japan) a fascinating character, aesthetically and in the context on the games. This picture seems to capture it best, although the work of Megaman 2, 3 and X, sum it up quite nicely. Let's hope the forthcoming part 9 lives up to the quality.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Zombies, stop-motion Joes, and the Thing


Zombie Zomibe:Driving Clip Simon Gesrel Xavier Ehretsmann (6:25)


Continuing the music and animation theme:

Zombie Zombie is a band influenced by Goblin (a band headed by horror great Dario Argento, who score a great deal of his films) and the early electric score of director John Carpenter. They also pay tribute to his best film--and one of the best films ever-- The Thing by recreating it with G.I. Joes and scoring it themselves. I think it's one of the best remakes/reimagining of a superb film, which in itself is one of the best remakes/reimagining of all time. Well done.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Spider Tunes




67's Spiderman Bizarre Background Music Podcast!










WFMU's :

"The second and third season music tracks come from the KPM music library in England, they still exist, and they sound great. The podcast also features some reminiscence from the man who provided Spiderman's voice in the series (as well as "Hermie" in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer), Paul Soles.

Perhaps the most revelatory piece of information that the discovery of these KPM masters unearthed is the name of the tracks themselves. Since the music was recorded for generic purposes to be used by anybody for any project or production, the sounds do not possess Spiderman related titles. However, if you've ever had the frightening experience of watching the notorious episode Revolt in the Fifth Dimension, you likely felt that it was a psychedelic cartoon made by animators high on acid. Turns out that the title of the crazy music in that episode was, indeed, titled LSD!"


My thoughts:

Although it is not cartoony is the slightest(and often verges on the abominable human style of Filmation) the Spiderman Series was often quite fun and(once Ralph Bakshi took over) very bizzare--but artistic; it's easy to seen prototypes of the work seen in Frtiz the cat and Wizards--. Once such way to note as such is the unusual background music played in the film itself.* I guess it does show that tone and intention can change even the drabbest material. As Ebert was fond of saying" Movies are not what they are about , but how they they are about ". Bakshi proved it only too well.

*Another thing to consider: how often the great music in Bakshi's films compliment his techniques. What would the fantastical mystique of Wizards be without Andrew Belling's great synthesizer score, or the instant retro felling of Hey Good Lookin" sans John Madara and Ric Sandler's great and authentic sounding 50's tunes? Even proponents of the aforementioned movies (such as Weirdo, who is otherwise very complete in his love for Hey Good Lookin') overlook what the full wonder of the medium of film/animation produces.

By the way, check out my previous post on Bakshi (including Revolt in the Fifth Dimension) here.

Also, I'm posting a lot of these at night and and setting for at a later time,as my work has been very consuming lately. Sorry if some incompressible ideas or misapplied words happen.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Awesome indeed

This is a test.

The animated show and the toys were never as cool as this.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

When monsters collide

[Enlarge Here]

While not the best Gojira film, it is certainly one of the most enjoyable. Just short of Godzilla vs. Mothra (its successor).

Saturday, August 2, 2008

The Oscar (LP art)

Enlarge Here

There's something to be said for this 1966 anti-masterpiece, but until I figure the exact words I'll leave you with this beautiful drawing, capturing all the moods of the characters in the movie.
Artist Unknown.

Note: Not to be confused with the french comedy, Oscar, which was later remade in 1991 by John Landis with Sylvester Stallone.