Blood

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of something tearing. I had no idea what it was, and I felt something wet dripping onto me. I listened very carefully, and while I lived in the dorms, everything was very quite, except for a very faint, sickening ripping noise. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light coming in through the window. I could see dark patches on the bottom of the bunk above me, and that dark something was dripping from the mattress. I moved slowly to see it better, and the noise stopped. I immediately stopped moving. I knew, as if someone were telling me, that if I made any noise, if I moved a centimeter, I would be next.

The sound became louder, there were faint, pained grunts. I dared not move, but I felt needed to help whoever was up there. I was convinced it was someone I knew. Suddenly, a large object was shifted, and an arm swung over the side of the bed. It was covered in blood, with large gashes along it, stitched back together with thick, black string. I shrunk further into my bed, and wanted to scream, but I could not. It would come for me next.

There was more tearing. At that moment I knew that it was my friend up there. My friends sliced arm. I also knew there was someone else up on that bunk, someone besides the monster. I knew that it was cutting them open. Removing parts. Sewing them back together.

I couldn’t move.

Again, something shifted. There was more cutting. A body was pushed to the edge, his arms and head flopped over the side. Eyes rolled back into his head, mouth wide open in a scream of terror. Stiff.

I screamed.

Stop Motion: BEFORE it was cool

Norman McLaren, is a genius. I was introduced to him through this:

From what I have seen, most of his work is not live action. Many of his pieces are made up of, or include, images drawn directly onto the 35mm film. He uses computer-like sounds for music, which were actually created by being scratched or painted on to the soundtrack area of the film.

His body of work is so diverse, too. His student animations drawn onto film (Boogie Doodle, Fiddle Dee Dee, etc.), mixes of live action and stop-motion (Neighbors, A Chairy Tale), even lightboard displays in NYC, amoung many other things. He seems to draw a lot of inspiration from music and ballet (Pas de Deux Pt. I & Pt. II). There is far too many to choose from to share it all on here, so I will post one more, a surreal animation, and then you should go look him up on your own on YouTube.

Now, I really don’t know a whole lot about him, but I find him incredibly interesting, and I want to learn more about him. I really want to see more of his work, too. He has a couple collections of shorts on dvd, and a lot of his work is on YouTube. I’ll tell you more, when I know more.

(unrelated to anything important)

I just thought I’d let you know, this quarter fucking rocks. There have been some stressful moments, but over all, it’s kicking ass. I finally have a Japanese class that I don’t dread, I might be getting a job that doesn’t require me to wake up at 5 in the morning on weekends (and is also at a video production house), I am taking film classes all of the time, IT’S SUNNY, my bicycle is fast, I’m getting ready to go to Japan, I am able to be naked more, and more frequently, and I am applying for a really cool job for next year. Also, “Rotting Christ” is an awesome band.

*ROCKS OUT*

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

People frequently ask me what my favorite movie is, well, I think it’s actually just a pretty common question. I, like most other people, usually have a hard time with that, saying “I don’t know, there are so many.” Or, I would just give the names of some movies I like, such as “Children of Men,” or “Juno.”

I finally figured it out, though. I love movies by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Many people probably haven’t heard of him, but he directed and wrote “Amelie.” When I was much younger my dad introduced me to “Amelie” and “Delicatessen.” I always thought they were good, but hadn’t thought much more than that. When I got an assignment in my editing class to reverse engineer a scene, I chose “The City of Lost Children,” I became completely enthralled, and ended up reverse engineering half of the film.

The worlds he creates are so amazing, and beautiful. The set designs and colors he uses create an incredibly surreal feel. He uses wide angle lenses, which distort people. He even chooses actors which have strange faces, such as Dominique Pinon (who stars in most if not all Jeunet’s films), to create an even stranger world. His stories are also very peculiar, and the characters that he creates through image, sound, and writing are very unique.

“Delicatessen” is about a group of people living in a building together, that, due to hard times, have had to resort to cannibalism. The protagonist is a strange little fellow, who used to be in a circus, and misses his monkey. He comes to the community, looking for odd jobs. He is granted one, and stays there for quite a while, completely oblivious to what’s going on around him.

“The City of Lost Children” is even stranger. Involving dream theft, clones, and a talking brain. It all seems quite reasonable, given the context.

The relationships in his films are also very interesting, awkward, and usually incredibly cute. “The City of Lost Children” has a childish strong man and a very mature little girl that grow very close. The relationship in “Delicatessen” between the protagonist and the butcher’s daughter is very sad at first, but adorable as well. “Amelie” is all about an awkward girl, and how she falls in love. Jeunet really knows how to make the audience feel for a character, and be really interested and involved in what happens to them.

I am really excited to learn more about French New Wave Cinema in my Postwar Global Cinema class. Since I hear that a lot of Jeunet’s surrealist tendencies are derived from it. I am very happy that I finally get to take film theory classes. They are amazingly enjoyable.

So yeah, I’ve finally decided, my favorite movie is “Delicatessen.” If you haven’t seen it, you should. I’ll let you borrow it.

Miguel Branco

I am back from Europe, and it was hella awesome. I fully intend to write more about my adventures at some point, but at the moment, I should be sleeping… Instead, I am going to give you a link to a fantastic artist I saw at the Mudam in Luxembourg. His name is Miguel Branco, and he makes some crazy shit. It’s all itty-bitty, and his sculptures are incredibly freaky lookin’. Some of them looked like the could come alive.

There were things like headless horses, and extremely skinny and elongated dogs. The creepiest was this really pretty bird thing with a human head. You could see into it’s mouth, and it looked bloody and sharp. Mind you it was about 5 inches tall, but it still kind of gave me the willies.

Have a look at some poor images: Here.