Ah-mazing

From BBC News

Tens of millions of starfish-like creatures, known as brittlestars, have colonised a vast underwater mountain, south of New Zealand.
The animals are packed so tightly that scientists have dubbed the seamount "brittlestar city".
The team, from New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), says it is rare to see such an enormous array of the five-armed creatures.
The scientists recorded life at the Macquarie Ridge for the CenSeam programme, which is funded by the Census of Marine Life.

View the Video:

BRITTLESTAR CITY!!!

Sneak / The Brothers Bloom

Saw a screening of The Brothers Bloom last night--a film written and directed by Rian Johnson (of Brick semi-fame). It stars Adrian Brody, Rachel Weisz, and Mark Ruffalo and will hit theatres in October 2008. It’s a dark comedy heist film, with a Wes Anderson flair, about two brothers and their super fierce Japanese accomplice Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), who’ve learned to survive in the dog-eat-dog world by performing elaborate cons that envelope their lives and blur the lines between reality and deception. Penelope (Rachel Weisz) is supposed to be their last “mark,” but she surprises both of them with her eccentric and genuine personality (the montage sequence of her obsessions with any and all hobbies is priceless--stilt walking while juggling chain saws anyone?). Needless to say, everything goes wrong and the brothers have to change their con and their lives because of her. I liked most of the film, but the cons-upon-cons became too much at the end and I literally did not know how the movie ended. It left me with a lot of questions, but not in that profound kind of way. Hopefully before October they can iron out the convolution. It’s a fun film, though, and I think it’ll be successful. Also, if nothing else, see it for Weisz; she’s absolutely fantastic and I think I have a lezzie crush now…

Music / Jonathan Coulton - Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow

Though he has many songs and albums on his website, Jonathan Coulton (known affectionately as JoCo) is never more amusing nor catchier than on his five-dollar EP, Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow. The six songs in this collection of playfully geeky folk-pop, share oddball themes of evil overlords and potential cyborg wars. Sound strange? Tell that to his fans - growing in number by the day. Not since They Might Be Giants has an artist erupted on the nerd-rock - some might say "geek-rock"- scene with the fanfare of Coulton.

How does he do it? Coulton loves a good hook, clever lyrics, and a well thought-out melody. Take "The Future Soon" - a song from the prospective of an adolescent who can't wait until "the things that make me weak and strange/get engineered away." Coulton drops a 1980s reference to "couples skating" then faux-rhymes of "I'll probably be some kind of scientist/building inventions in my space lab/in space" to show that yes, this really is written by a 12 year old trapped inside the body of a 37 yr old ex-computer programmer.

It's this childlike innocence that is at the core of Coulton's appeal. Harnessing the pure passion of a twelve year old with the complexity and drive of thirty-something. In other words, he is an artist, an entertainer, and someone who just might awaken the twelve-year-old in you.

Download: "The Future Soon"

Buy: Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow

Music / Air Traffic - "Shooting Star"

Just heard the song, Shooting Star, from SXSWesters, Air Traffic. Their first album, Fractured Life, came out in February. They’re what Coldplay used to be before Chris Martin started naming his kids after fruit. Thundering electric guitar, big chorus buildups, tight melody lines, and hooks galore. By the way, something you’ll learn about me is I’m a hook whore. Loves it.

Watch the Video "Shooting Star"

Books / Skull Tattoos Are Cool

Zeroville - By Steve Erickson

A bald-headed loner in a sea of long-haired hippies, Vikar comes to LA the same day the Manson family commits their heinous crimes. This is Vikar’s first day in Los Angeles and the perfect introduction to the world of Zeroville-- one of beauty, artifice, grotesqueness, and brilliance. But that is Hollywood and Vikar, a man with a tattoo of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift on his head, has found his Mecca. In fact, for this Asberger protagonist, film becomes his primary language of communication. Think the brain of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night with the body of Bukowski’s lean muscled LA prose. I loved this book. And yes, I wanted to have its babies; it’s that good. As a film critic for Los Angeles Magazine, Erickson knows his stuff, but beyond an encyclopedic knowledge of film, he is a talented storyteller-- things that rarely overlap (remember Roger Ebert’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?). Erickson has a penned a love letter to Hollywood and the movies and I’m just glad he’s letting us in on the romance.

Check out this interview with Erickson about Zeroville

Happenings

Friday night a bunch of us screenwriters decided to go see our guru-yoda-sensei teacher, Hal Ackerman, in his new play called Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me. Now, b. star does not have the same equipment as the lead actor in this play and, contrary to Freud, does not simmer in hatred everyday because of it, but she can still empathize with coming down with a cancer that puts in question our basic conceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman. The play was funny, self-deprecating, sincere, and above all entertaining. I think my words should carry some weight considering I really dislike plays and I think musicals belong in the fifth circle of hell. Therefore, the fact that I didn’t need to take seven bathroom breaks or internet search the ingredients in marzipan or the benefits of double paned windows on my Blackberry shows that this play can engage even the more theatrically-challenged.

Showings: April 18-May 10

Powerhouse Theatre

Movies / Soylent Green Is Underpaid Extras

In respect to our favorite gun-wielding 70’s sci-fi actor, I popped in Soylent Green this humid morning. I never had the pleasure of seeing this 1973 cult classic before Mr. Heston’s death and thought it was pretty appropriate given our climate crisis and my need to yell from the top of my lungs, “Soylent Green is people,” in my pajamas. Did you know that Soylent Green was one of the first films about global warming and overpopulation? Eat that Al Gore. The future also seems to predict that women will only survive as live-in prostitutes called “furniture.” How fucking amazing is that? Furniture. The female perspective is pretty much absent from the film unless you consider Leigh Taylor-Young’s acting as anything other than robotic. Oh yeah, and then there’s the other pro, a wicked little Afro-chic babe who eats strawberry jam out of the bottle. Yeah, this film is pretty over the top.

TV / Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Okay, before you lose all trust in my critic abilities, let me first say that I had never even heard of this show before last week and stumbled upon it in my boredom. I actually think this is best way to determine a show’s true merit--you’re sitting there with guillotine-remote ready to cut down any unwitting show you find; you have nothing to lose--delirious from the bag of chips and four sodas you just consumed. Click. You’ve given up hope to finding anything actually good on TV and then you find yourself watching the antics of three bullheaded Valley girls (Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe Kardashian) as they vacillate between Hollywood and middle class suburbia...and you can't turn it off.

I think this show has more than meets the eye. A good portion of the plot revolves around the two stores the girls co-own, Smooch and Dash. It was really surprising to see that these girls make a living. Ever since the Middle Ages the idea of handling money and actually “working” was a plebian task, necessary but certainly not something the wealthy did. You can see this in many of the reality shows today. Nobody works. Instead the producers arrange entertaining antics for the leashed celebrities: they go shopping, they prepare for a party, they do a magazine interview, they remodel their house, they train their dogs. Now don’t get me wrong, these are probably all things the Kardashians will do or have done for the HD cameras, but there’s more substance to their narrative. What’s refreshing is I honestly believe these girls have to work beyond the show’s affected scenarios. In one episode Khloe and Kim get into a fight about the Dash website. Khloe is furious that Kim never works at the shop anymore and that she still has not completed their website. What’s more is that Kim’s absence is attributed to fame calling; she is always away doing modeling gigs, interviews, or appearances. The strain of fame is affecting their stores. We see this negotiation between reality and non-reality fame in almost every episode and it’s what makes the show ring true. I realize that “reality” is a cloudy word when it comes to TV programming and I’m sure Keeping Up with the Kardashians is edited to the hilt, but there’s something at it’s core that allows me identify, if only minutely, with these working girls.