It is very easy to poke fun at Nicholas Cage, but I am not one to sway from such a practice.
I saw Kick Ass yesterday – and when I say yesterday, I mean around Saturday but I have been distracted from writing about it by other more unimportant things. Kick Ass is a perfectly good film to accompany a Friday night of gorging on popcorn, which was main our goal of the evening. Cage, generally known for wearing the same expression in such films as Lord of War and many others (that I have not seen but many claim to have done), appears at one point. I leapt in my seat. Glee, thought I, it’s Cage! I will be able to write a review – a hilarious anecdote explaining why Nicholas Cage is rubbish, and how even I would make a better and no doubt far superior actor.
He plays a thin faced beige-wearing father with an eagerly acting daughter, a bit in the realm of Leon‘s Natalie Portman but with a higher neckline. It’s a strange film from the production company behind Layar Cake that borders on Fox Searchlight’s version of not-particularly awkward indie (say 500 Days of Summer) and in the same sort of way there’s lots of faux awkward scenes that aren’t at all so.
Undoubtedly the worst parts were the painful advertising swipes of Pepsi cans and Pepsi-filled phrases hitting the screen. We collectively shuddered.
The mystery is that Nicholas Cage is in no way irritating. It’s all really quite pleasant once you get used to it, and for some reason they’ve also stuck in some South Park-style Jewish accents throughout the cast – which may in fact be typical New York – which makes it all quite snigger worthy. As intended, it’s a jolly, and escapist feel-good film with no risks attached to watching it and in this way I feel barely warrants a review because it is as good as you’d expect. It’s is appropriately accompanied with a good music-filled ending as the genre dictates and unlike Bruce Almighty’s “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” they’ve also pulled off the one take-away quote: “With no power comes no responsibility” now popping up on a mass of social networks.
The biggest downside? There was a 2.0 joke which I laughed at. It was shameful but I reveled in it.
I like this photo because the man at the front amuses me.
I do a lot of seeding at work. So I feel a lot of dismay that in this post I’m going to have to mention the Vauxhall Free Money Stunt. I don’t want to particularly because it’s not that interesting.
A post today reminded me of a film Ringo Star was in and I saw when I was about 9 on a slow-TV Sunday. As a change from Carry On films, I was pleased. I don’t know if I actually liked it, or whether I decided that satire was a nifty thing I wanted to get in on, like some sort of childhood scenester. A little bit like why I like Catcher in the Rye perhaps.
My Mother didn’t believe me when I said the Beatles had made a film about rich people swimming shit for money.
Today I’ve finally been reunited with the film since yes yes, Vauxhall made a car with £2000 worth of coins stuck to it to cleverly reminding people that’s how much a trade-in discount is worth (yes, the source of this info points out that it’s an effective way of getting a point across, but it doesn’t make me like it). And it was likened to a ‘clean version of Magic Christian’ which I was far more interested in. Here is a clip, it’s sexy:
Trade-in is a nice idea, although my parents leapt on the ‘splash out we’re near retirement’ bandwagon and bought up two replacement cars. The downside is that when you choose to buy the car you’ve always procrastinated over which has limited production, the trade-in time frame means you’re forced to get whatever colour is being produced in the time frame. Which in my Mother’s case is a lime green Beetle. I think that’s another of those things that becomes acceptable when you’re old perhaps.
Thanks to: cakeheadlovesevil where you can see more photos of people grabbing at the car if you’re so inclined.
A blog in which I make obvious my like of the word hyperbole.
At some point a few weeks ago (can be ratified) Central St Martin’s college of the illustrious University of the Arts London held a design show (University of the Arts; a place my father frowned at and said in a very father-like voice that it was not somewhere he had heard of) . I went because design shows I figure are better than reading prospectuses, and I’m quite interested in the digital design course.
Ground floor was art which I chiefly ignored and took a few photos of bright things and of some knitted food.
Digital media was downstairs. It was very nice, but didn’t hold attention and I was mildly disappointed. There were some nice uses of technology; A video with hanging strips of blue and red in front of it which produced a slightly different video depending on where you stood. It might have stretched the suggestion that each video gave a different viewpoint when they were really quite similar, but It got the audience to jump around between screens which was nice to play with. There was also a podium which displayed different ‘layers of lives’ (video fragments) which played depending on which sensor hand hovered over. Someone had a play making an augmented reality shopping assistant which was good for a wave around.
Upstairs, after some nicely rickety wooden staircase was photography. A guy [Fen Yu Jen] had done some photo adventuring around the UK taking photos of people who serve tourists as their job. I liked the photos. Using a button trigger, the photos are nice; really serene in a simple sort of way.
I found some illustration work by Kelly Joy Sandall. Blurb:
“Anxious by the passing of time compounded by a personal sense of loss and absence, I set out to capture illusive moments. The personal became a vehicle in which to express this loss. The balloon can be used to celebrate, mask, burst of reveal. It can hide a moment, it can create a fleeting moment, it can be erased completely in an attempt to peel back time.”
Sure I like pictures of balloons. I wondered if in finding a dissertations theme whether this just creates philosophical hyperbole. Work should impress first and be supported by words – and if there’s art and philosophy behind it that then wonderful, lovely. But when it seems as thought short paragraph of art hyperbole is what drives it then the product seems to take a dive. I overheard a girl telling her mother how a friend had made an awesome book where as you turned the pages, the overlapping of pages moved from predominantly light to predominantly dark, not only representing the light changes during a single day, but also through a year. Very clever, thought I, viewing the book in a new light.
Maybe that’s my problem. I want to see digital design that uses new technology, makes sense and is interesting, and doesn’t set out a hyperbole alarm off.
This was my afternoon. It may be star wars lego which everyone’s seen but I don’t think I’ve seen better. Apparently the guy has a thing for lighting, which might explain why. My next thrilling plans involve continuing the argument with my yahoo log-in details (it’s a short fight that lasts about 10 minutes. I inevitably loose). From balakov on flickr.
