The Prestidigitator

= awesomeness.

This BSG video set to the Beastie Boys track, Sabotage has already gone viral. But to really appreciate its brilliance, you need to compare the original Spike Jonze video and the mashup.

Genius.

This is the kind of Christmas music I can get behind.

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

I really don’t want to contribute to the hyperbole that this debate has already created but I can safely say that this is the finest one hour of debate, one-sided as it is, I’ve seen in a very long time. Two amazingly articulate intellectuals take on Catholicism and religious hypocrisy. To be fair, I do wish that the two proponents of the Catholic church would have been a little more, I don’t know, Christlike instead of pretending that (institutional) child abuse and homophobia are urban myths.

Stephen Fry makes an especially brilliant case against the so called ‘force for good’. Nod along or throw stuff at your computer but this is what good television is all about.

Go watch. Now.

Wonderful little video/track by Oren Lavie. 

Tip of the hat to The Mute Oracle.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror: F W Murnau (1922)

German Expressionism, it is said, rose not because of an artistic revival but because German film makers found it hard to compete with the extravagance of their Hollywood counterparts; so they resorted to symbolism and darker subtexts. F W Murnau’s Nosferatu was one of the earlier expressionist forays into film making and is widely considered a masterpiece. It is not the plot per se that strikes one, but the imagery; beautifully shot in black and white (well, they didn’t really have a choice there) and a genuinely creepy performance by Max Shreck as Count Orlock.

One of the primary reasons I watched the film was thanks to 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire, where Willem Dafoe plays a fictionalized version of Max Shreck. At 78 minutes, the film is quite easy to sit through and for a 1922 silent era film, quite entertaining too.

Say Anything: Cameron Crowe (1989)

If there’s one genre that’s well and truly dead, it’s the romantic comedy genre. What passes off as romance these days is mostly crammed with fart jokes and gratuitous sex. What happened to the days when the hero was an upright, optimistic and by and large ethical gentleman? Say Anything, Cameron Crowe’s (Jerry Maguire) 1989 directorial debut is a surprisingly smart, adequately mushy and thoroughly quotable gem. John Cusack plays (a younger version of a role he would play in High Fidelity) an extremely average, kickboxing enthusiast of a 19 year old grappling with career choices et al when he falls hook, line and sinker for the over achieving Ione Skye. I could say that it’s devoid of cliches but the fact is most later films in the genre have lifted something or the other from this one.

Cameron Crowe’s films have all had amazing soundtracks and this one’s no exception. Add to that a very likable couple, a great scene involving a boom box and some very memorable lines; almost as good as High Fidelity. Almost.

Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
No. You just described every great success story.

Links:

• Scene from Shadow of the Vampire
• Nosferatu: Entire film

If there’s one breed of vermin that deserves zero respect/sympathy/empathy, it’s the one that comments without abandon on sites like YouTube and Redditt. Going through some of the comments on YouTube (as entertaining as some of them are) is pretty much all the proof we need for dysgenics. For the average internet junkie, sitting in the confines of his/her room is all the empowerment he/she needs to air his/her retarded views onto an unsuspecting world. Most of the time they end up being just plain ridiculous and sometimes marginally offensive.

(Click to view)

There is a comment that shows up beneath an article on Wired,

I want to destroy young generation of India Delhi is the best place to do bomb blast in SouthDelhi mainly in Mohammad Pur, Nehru place buildings, Vasant vihar flats, RK Puram Lodhi Road, Sarojani Nagar are the best place to do the bomb blast and do lot of casualties. Lot of Colleges are are also the best place to do bomb blast if anyone will do bomb blast here then there are maximum casuilties done and ISI will become happy. I want to Tell that if anyone want to carry bomb laptop leather bag is very good for this.
Put the bomb in the leather bag.

Include punctuations where necessary to make sense of what you just read. How exactly do you react to something like this?

Additional Links:

• An interesting read by Andrew Chen
• What You Tube comments really mean

I can’t contain myself. I’m giggling like a 10 year old. I haven’t been this excited in a while.

For a handful of us back in college, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle was a defining moment in our four years at that godforsaken place. It sort of gained a cult status back then and a few lines from the film gradually went on to be part of our daily diatribe.

Kumar in many ways was the smart and funny slacker we all wanted to be. Add a socially awkward Korean, raunchy jokes, girls, Neil Patric Harris, weed, burgers, bullies and not so subtle social commentary and you had an amazingly funny comedy.

The sequel comes out next year…watch the hilarious trailer here!

I take risks; sometimes patients die. But not taking risks causes more patients to die, so I guess my biggest problem is I’ve been cursed with the ability to do the math.

Dr Gregory House is arguably one of the coolest people on TV (along with the likes of Alan Shore from Boston Legal and Dr Cox from Scrubs). What is it about this cynical, sexist, wisecracking, pill popping, mad genius of a misanthrope that makes him so appealing?

This astonishingly well edited video showcases the man at his finest moments!

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Bh7vnIVPv4]

A brilliantly directed short film. Of course, I could use without the Catholic overtones, but it’s still a very interesting morality tale.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=QrKnhOJ-R80]

Apparently, this is part of a project created by Lucas Crandles and Hayden James Weston, two Australians who make short films and one day hope to direct a feature film.

http://www.darkheartproductions.com/