Meme Huffer

Warning: May contain scenes of drug use

'Feel Good Hit of Summer' is one of the defining songs from Queens of the Stone Age, and now some clever chap has given it the video it deserves.

Drugs aren't smart or clever, but this is:

Darth Vader and the Holy Grail

Here's one for Mr Jones -two of your favourite things ever, together at last:

Kiwi triple feature

A week or two back, I had the honour of attending the UK premiere of 'The Devil Dared Me To' (that sounds quite flash, whereas it actually took place in the back-room of Filthy McNasties pub in Angel...), a f*cking hilarious and really rather good film from these chaps .

The world premiere was at SXSW, where it got a standing ovation. It also got a cracking review on Ain't It Cool. We'll let you know release dates etc (AT, drop me a line, huh?) but meanwhile here's the trailer:

Earlier today I watched the trailer for 'Eagle vs Shark' -the wonderfully awkward (& Miramax-funded) debut from Oscar-nominated director/actor/comedian/Wellingtonian Taika Waititi:

And then we have Mr Jonathan King's ovine schlock-horror fest, 'Black Sheep', featuring special effects from Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop:

Good work, fellas!.

Subtext is everything

Yep, 'Top Gun' is a recruitment movie... just not for the US Navy, as QT points out in this clip from otherwise execrable mid-90s relationship movie 'Sleep With Me':

Time-lapse Picasso

Just stumbled across this -a fascinating insight into Picasso's process.

It was filmed by Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1955, and is part of his (uncredited) film 'The Mystery of Picasso'. There are more segments on YouTube, here, here and here.

(Speaking of Clouzot, if you've never seen 'The Wages of Fear', I highly recommend it -one of the most coolly tense films ever committed to celluloid).

asocial media

Last Sunday's Observer featured an interview with John Cameron Mitchell, the director of Shortbus. Among musings on Republican America, the acceptability of the three-hour S&M-athon that is 'The Passion of the Christ', the condemnation of Janet Jackson's nipple, and how the portrayal of honest, real, on-screen sexual intimacy differs from pornography, Mitchell touches on 'social media', and the effects it can have:

'The internet and all this new technology, these opportunities for connection, are at the same time opportunities to be bombarded into numbness... the YouTube, MySpace phenomenon is an example of people reaching out, desperate for intimacy.'

The dangers of those connections, he suggests, are that they offer 'a palliative, a sugar high' and create an addiction to constant newness. 'Kids are afraid now of the lag in between checking their email. You lose sight of the fact that you have to get down to get up, that you have to have boredom in a relationship in order to get to the next step.'

What all that suggests, he believes, and what his film makes clear, is that 'it's a natural human requirement actually to look into someone's eyes at close quarters, open yourself up. You don't get that from looking at a computer screen. Our reactions to that, anomie, alienation, depression, are symptoms of the mind telling us we have to change.'

I understand his point, but I can also see the clear benefits of social media and online interaction -it allows people to be part of a community, irrespective of their location. For young people, and those with niche interests, this is a godsend. MySpace satisfies a fundamental need for human connection, and its success is testament to the ubiquity and power of that need.

People need to have friends as well as 'friends'. Because, really, 'Second Life' is no substitute for real life.

photo credit: SkyShaper at flickr.com