I must say I’m pretty reserved about the new Ridley Scott Alien prequel, Prometheus. I have the same hunch about it as I correctly had about Avatar: way too much fuss about something that in the end is going to majorly disappoint. That TED viral, by the way, was totally ridiculous.
That said, I definitely like this viral though. Very 2001-y, Kraftwerk-y, AI-y atmosphere, with the always great Michael Fassbender. They’re of course foreshadowing the creepy Bishop character of the Alien movies. Enjoy, this is well done:
This trailer for David Cronenberg’s (Videodrome, The Fly, eXistenZ, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method) new movie looks pretty awesome. Like a kind of near-distant dystopia featuring Occupy-style protesters and slick Wall Street traders. It seems to revolve around a 24-hour trek through Manhattan, and looks pretty old-school Cronenberg.
New York City, not-too-distant-future: Eric Packer, a 28 year-old finance golden boy dreaming of living in a civilization ahead of this one, watches a dark shadow cast over the firmament of the Wall Street galaxy, of which he is the uncontested king. As he is chauffeured across midtown Manhattan to get a haircut at his father’s old barber, his anxious eyes are glued to the yuan’s exchange rate: it is mounting against all expectations, destroying Eric’s bet against it. Eric Packer is losing his empire with every tick of the clock. Meanwhile, an eruption of wild activity unfolds in the city’s streets. Petrified as the threats of the real world infringe upon his cloud of virtual convictions, his paranoia intensifies during the course of his 24-hour cross-town odyssey. Packer starts to piece together clues that lead him to a most terrifying secret: his imminent assassination.
Cronenberg revisits subjects that fascinate him: how the organic and the psychological are inextricably intertwined, society’s anxieties and phobias, and letting repressed impulses and paranoia run wild. COSMOPOLIS is a culmination of his masterpieces that addresses the alarming global financial crisis of today’s world.
Now here’s something different! It’s been a while since I digged a track from the very first second I heard it. John Maus (a guy who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in political philosophy in Switzerland) is an old friend of that other hero, Ariel Pink, and while he has the same kind of experimental lo-fi messiness, this sounds totally different.
More like Arcade Fire meets Falco meets a synthesizer church organ meets, I don’t know. Prepare to be blown away:
Here’s the video:
- Edit: Right, ok, this person is my new hero. Everything he makes is like a combination of Joy Division, Ariel Pink, sci fi movie soundtracks, Kraftwerk, Händel and Bach. Check out Cop Killer, Keep Pushing On, Hey Moon and Quantum Leap. The videos are pretty wicked too. Read the album We must become the pitiless censors of ourselves(2011) reviews on The Guardian, Pitchfork and the BBC. His live performances seem to attract the same kind of audience hostility as Ariel Pink does.
It is one of the coolest aspects of Star Trek: The Next Generation (and of science fiction in general): the sound of the ship engines. The ambient humming of a humongous machine floating in deep space.
In the series, you’ll notice it everytime in a scene on board of the Enterprise, and it contributes much to the atmosphere. So here’s something to help you get asleep: a 24-hour loop of Enterprise ambient engine noise! Yes. Very relaxing, and good for imagining you’re in deep space.
Check out this cool teaser trailer for the upcoming animation film Soul Man by Guillaume Ivernel. Like Sly Stone meets Battlestar Galactica, or something.
Here at LSD we’ve been following the Iron Sky project for a while. This is a crowd/social media-funded movie created by independent movie makers from Finland, about Nazis from outer space. Yeah that’s right: the story is that after World War II, some Nazis fled from their Antarctic base to the dark side of the Moon, and in 2018 they’re returning to reconquer Earth. Complete with all the aesthetics that entails. Pretty campy huh?
The footage that’s being released looks increasingly cool, and here’s the third teaser trailer:
For more teasers, click here (especially that one) and here. More conceptual art here.
Check out this unbelievable, epic, absolutely mindblowing dystopian conceptual short movie by directors Mischa Rozem and Si Scott from PostPanic.
Seriously: this is like Aphex Twin/Chris Cunningham, Children of Men, 1984 and Half-Life 2 combined, in a palette of dystopian imagery that is too cool to be described. Go watch it, it’s got everything.
The movie serves as the main titles for the digital culture festival OFFF that is this year held in Barcelona.
Written by Mischa Rozema and British graphic designer, Si Scott, the opening titles reflect their dark thoughts on a possible future. Directed by Mischa and shot on location in Prague, the film guides the viewer through a grim scenario embedded with the names of artists appearing at this year’s OFFF festival. The live action was brought back to Amsterdam for post, primarily carried out by PostPanic’s in-house team of artists but also with the additional help of freelancers and partner companies that we have enjoyed strong creative relationships with over the years. It’s really fair to say that this was a labour of love by a passionate crew of people.
Mischa Rozema, Director, says: “We knew we wanted to make something that would unsettle and menace the audience. It was always going to be dark but also highly aesthetic. This project has filled our spare hours for the past 6 months and it is incredibly satisfying to work on something that we were given complete creative freedom on – that’s a rare luxury these days.”
College Humor is usually not very funny. But when they spoof movies they sometimes touch the right chord. Tron Lebowski was nicely done and so was Stormtroopers’ 9/11. This week they have another good one. It’s an alternate ending to Back to the Future (it’s only funny if you’ve watched the original and remember the storyline):
An extremely detailed map of the entire history of the science fiction genre… from its origins in the Enlightenment to Wall-E, and everything, books and movies, in between. What a piece. Drawn by Ward Shelley for a contest, rightfully won the first prize. Click for enlargement.
Today, the Space Shuttle Discovery has departed from the International Space Station (ISS), heading home on her final mission. The Atlantis and Endeavour will retire later this year, and with that, after 30 years, the Space Shuttle program comes to an end…
Really sad, as it basically means the end to the era of manned spaceflight that started in the early 1960s. There are no real successors to the Space Shuttles, and Obama apparently thinks that the discovery of space is not very important. The ISS will be decommissioned too soon enough, and it is questionable to which extent commercial spaceflight will be a replacement. So that was that. No more manned spaceflight, in the 21st century.
This video, although really cool, therefore makes me pretty sad. It’s the voice of Captain James T. Kirk, set to the final launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Won second place in NASA’s public song contest, and was the wakeup call for the astronauts on Day 12 of the mission.
I love synthesizers. In that respect, I have an ambiguous feeling towards the whole hipster infatuation with synth, because I liked synth (in Joy Division, New Order, Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, etc.) ever since I started listening to music seriously, and now everyone seems to love synth these days. But anyway. In addition to synth, I also like science fiction, in particular old science fiction movies. And these two happen to have a good relationship: the often eerie sounds of old synthesizers resonate perfectly with (retro-) futuristic images of sci fi. The most blatantly perfect example of this is of course the incredible opening scene of Blade Runner(1982), with Vangelis’ piercing synths, but a more peaceful example is Brian Eno’s fantastic 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, which is a synth-heavy atmospheric soundtrack to a documentary about the moon landings.
A long introduction to the Irish group Solar Bears, who on their 2010 album She Was Coloured Inre-create the soundscapes of old science fiction movies. With a lot of synth, of course. The video clips are often taken from classics of Stanley Kubrick, Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris(1972), Stalker(1979)) and more obscure movies, and go very naturally with the retro-futuristic ambient synthesizer sound of Solar Bears. Although I have to say it’s not always very original – it’s like a direct appropriation of these old sounds, rather than a new take on it – I’m not gonna complain. Because this combines two of the greatest things in life: synthesizers and old science fiction!
So here’s a couple of the best clips, and more after the jump. Enjoy!
Solarization (set to Tarkovsky’s Solaris):
Perpetual Meadow (set to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain (1973)):
Ok, this blew me away. A science fiction short movie from Russia, that seems to be partly inspired by Half-Life 2 (as well as I, Robot). I’ve watched it with my mouth hanging open pretty much all the time. Absolutely stunning visuals; great imagery of a snowy Moscow; and well-crafted sound effects as well. Watch this!
Everybody knows the happy ending to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, in which the Death Star merrily explodes. The Endor Holocaust theory, however, casts a dark light on this event. Because what would happen when a moon-sized object explodes above the surface of a planet?
Well, this:
Also check this video of Stormtroopers reminiscing where they were when the Death Star exploded.
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