A couple of ads for Frame On Wheels made the rounds last week, but this one’s been curiously overlooked:
Advertising Agency: Zubi Advertising USA
VP Creative Director: Andres Ordoñez
Creative Director: Ivan Calle
Associate Creative Director: Armando Garcia
Associate Creative Director: Rosamaria Mussfeldt
Photographer: Mauricio Candela
Published: June 2010
As a fundraiser, I love Kickstarter. It’s a great way for artists and small orgs to launch projects that might not otherwise get off the ground. Put A Egg On It raised dough for its last issue via Kickstarter, and my friend Amanda used it to fund her first professional fashion show. Both worthy endeavors.
I am less sure about Morgan Tepsic’s art project, but I am almost 100% certain that he will be fully funded because he is cute and funny and wants to get naked, and many people enjoy watching cute, funny people get naked. (Are you listening, Jason Sudeikis?)
Anyway, from Morgan’s Kickstarter page:
How this came about: Ever since I graduated high school in 2008, I’ve been traveling throughout Asia…when times got tough, I had to move back to my hometown of Oklahoma City, OK. When I was there, I made the most out of situation by working with what I had…there isn’t too much happening in Oklahoma, so I decided to add some life to it by getting naked and jumping. Being free and exploring every way possible.
What I want to do: I want to travel the world and get naked. I want to bridge the gap between art and exhibitionism, show people parts of the world they’ve never seen before, and fulfill a life-long dream of mine…having my own exhibition.
What the money is for: If my project is funded 100%, the money will be used towards traveling expenses, retractable pants, hostels, printing, mounting and framing my prints that will be shown at the exhibition. No luxury hotels, no first-class…we’re talking couch-surfing, sleeping in a hut in Laos, sweaty buses in India and walking around the Great Wall of China.
And yes, there’s video, which is not especially safe for work because there is nakedness and loud music, too :
Fish, meet barrel.
So, I finally got around to seeing Inception.
I know: day late, dollar short, right? I’m sure most of you have already seen it, and you’ve already articulated your own responses to the film, but what’s one more perspective? (NB: mild spoilers ahead.)
On the plus side: Ellen Page and erstwhile boy-kisser Tom Hardy are both great to watch. (Joseph Gordon-Levitt is easy on the eyes, but he’s not given much to do other than ride the galloping exposition pony.)
Also on the plus side: The thought of being able to spend two lifetimes with your beloved is beautiful. Infinity would’ve been too easy and also ridiculous; two seems nice and sensible and fair. It’s enough to make anyone who’s ever known love a little sad and jealous.
That’s about it for the plusses.
In the minus column: The score is terrible. In fact, it’s so bad, so sloppy, that it kinda ruined the whole movie.
About 3/4 of the way through the film, when DiCaprio & Co. entered the third level of the dream, a laborious action sequence kicked off, and with it, an endless assault of crescendos. It sounded like what John Williams’ talentless, half-wit cousin might compose if he were really high and listened to a lot of Philip Glass. By the time that Joseph Gordon-Levitt began wrapping people in ethernet cable (seriously), I noticed that the score had been building for at least ten minutes. I covered my ears, tried to ignore the music and focus on the visuals, and when I did, I realized that without the relentless beat, the story was nearly empty. If you haven’t seen the movie, you can hear a little of what I’m talking about in this trailer:
It’s like a poorly endowed, middle-aged man tooling down the road in a Ferrari convertible: someone’s compensating for shortcomings.
Also in negative territory: there were far too many people in the cast, and they had far too little to do. By now we’ve seen enough Matrixes and Aliens and Event Horizons and whatever to know how the team scenario works: teams exist to give focus. Members of the group get picked off, leaving us with one or two survivors and a nice story arc. In Inception, everyone lives happily ever goddamn after, proving what we already knew: that the stakes were too low and the characters too poorly drawn for us to care about any of them in the first place.
But here’s the worst of all: like most sci-fi, Inception takes itself way too seriously. You can spot bad science fiction from a mile away because it’s so busy trying to establish the rules of its universe (usually with clunky expository monologues) that it can’t be bothered to make jokes. “If people laugh, they won’t take this world seriously”, or so the thinking goes.
But it’s humor and humanity that make us care about characters and the films they inhabit. Look at Dr. Who: the universe its creators have built is utterly ludicrous, but we don’t give a shit. We forgive the plot gaps because the writers and directors and actors are so good at drawing us in, making the characters engaging, and telling a damned good story. Technically, Inception‘s storyline is fine, but there aren’t any likable, interesting characters to see it through. As a result, Inception works far better in theory than in practice.
I have this thing about stock photography.
Lots of it is, of course, right on. Need a horizontal shot of a generically attractive model lounging by a pool? A generically hot dude on skis? A roasted turkey pooping out stuffing? These are useful images that many designers need on a daily basis.
Other stuff? Well, you just have to wonder what the photogs were thinking. “These shots of fat people playing tiddlywinks are going to make me rich, I tell you! RICH!” This is the kind of stuff psychology classes should focus on, because such people are criz-zazy and delusional and roam the streets unfettered.
Given my work, I don’t have much reason to use stock video, but if I did, I’m happy to see that I would be just as amused/perplexed/terrified.
I don’t remember where I got this — somewhere on Twitter, maybe Choire (actually, definitely Choire) — but I love it. Even though I never really loved Lucy.
“I’d love to do it, Andy, I really would, but you must understand that for all those people out there I’m still Ethel Mertz, Lucy’s next-door neighbor and the nicest woman in America, and that’s why I can still go into any dinner theater in the country and get paid $20,000 a week, because all my nice fans in their mink stoles want to see Ethel Mertz be nice. I hate being nice and I hate my fans and I hate their mink stoles. But I love making $20,000 a week anytime I want.”
— actress Vivian Vance to Andy Warhol and Bob Colacello over dinner at La Caravelle in New York in 1976, on why she couldn’t star in Warhol’s movie Bad. (Warhol Stars via World of Wonder)
I know. Could you imagine?
Just to be clear: yes, I write, and yes, I get paid to do so, but no, I don’t consider myself a journalist. Journalists are obsessive and fact-checky and inquisitive and smart. I look at Wikipedia a couple of times and, if the coffee’s strong enough, I’ll Google something.
I have the luxury of being so breezy because I write mostly about fluffy stuff, while the others on staff prefer picking apart the minutiae of breaking news. (I might enjoy that, too, if I had more time, but what ‘cha gonna do?)
As examples of said fluffy stuff, behold two video clips I endured yesterday — each featuring Tila Tequila, her new Lambo Gallardo, and pumps to match. She allegedly bought both with the advance from her upcoming porn film. I had no idea that Vivid was coughing up that kind of dough these days. Clearly, I was born with the wrong skill set. And reproductive organs.
Best nipple ever:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Steven Slater said he had always wanted to chew out rude passengers.
[NYTimes]
How, exactly, do you incorrectly report that? And how is that the fault of an “editing error”?
One more from Jon: Cary Grant in a very Photoshopped image (note the chiffon-y right sweater sleeve) from Suzy by Moonlight:
Courtesy of my friend, Jon [NSWF link]:
How do you cram “Yowza!” and the sound of fireworks into one measly interjection? Please let me know.
There’s more where that came from on Jon’s Tumblog, Morphodite [I repeat: NSFW]
sturtle [dot] com 