ATL/ALT » video

Banned Film – Lydia

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:23:25 +0000

Included here is a film made by a buddy of mine from over in Malawi. He and a group of students made this for the Malawi International Film Festival and it was subsequently banned in the country the day after its premiere. Western audiences will not likely note anything particularly racy or objectionable about the film, but it depicts a homosexual transvestite in a sympathetic light. Homosexuality, as you may have heard, isn’t very popular or viable in many parts of Africa right now, so shutting down screenings of this film down is just another, and relatively milder, example of the type of restriction, censorship, and in some cases, violence that is currently being cultivated in many parts of Africa against homosexuals.

All the best to my friend and his now fractured crew. Interesting to note that in this work of fiction, the protagonist, Lydia, is played by a straight Malawian male, which seems culturally a rather brave move on his part. Have a watch. Enjoy. Happy Holidays.

Cinema FREE Portland Inaugural Double Feature

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:37:00 +0000

FRIDAY DECEMBER 12th @ St. Lawrence Arts

Two films on the human struggle to exist in an increasingly inhumane society. A double feature to kick of an ongoing series of free movie screenings at St. Lawrence.

7:00pm
PLAY TIME
Jaques Tati 1967
French 124min
A madcap visual satire of modern society. Tati plunged himself into massive debt to construct the enormous set for the film so that every angle and action could be minutely choreographed. Brimming with anarchic wit and humor in throughout, this is a masterpiece.

9:30pm
NETWORK
Sydney Lumet 1976
USA 121min
One of the most prescient critiques of media culture ever offered up by media culture. Network remains as fresh and scathing today as it was over three decades ago. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the script breaks nearly every rule of good screenwriting, and remains one of the smartest and most complex ever to be produced by Hollywood. Directed by Sydney Lumet, a master of the fiery monologue.

THE Cinema FREE MANIFESTO:
It is my belief that a culture and history of film must be cultivated, re-socialized, and shared. This history encompasses cinema in all it’s forms and facets. This history is our history as well. We should seek to develop a coherent context of great (and singular) film. Cinema should be raucous. Cinema should be percussive. An end to dispassionately sitting in front of vacant screens, with none of yourself exposed to the vulnerability of the cinema.

I am not a film historian. I am not even a student of cinema in any formal sense. If you are either of these things (or more) share our cinema with us. If you are none of these things, share our cinema with us. We should comb our collective past in pursuit of sights unseen, and stories untold. Cinema has the power to take us to these places. It is our aim and joy to expose and explore them.

All CINEMA FREE screenings will be FREE. These stories belong to all of us. This is our culture, and our community. The structure will entail the irregular exploration of a different theme each month. An effort will be made on my part to offer a diverse selection of films, on a diverse selection of subjects. Some films will be widely known, some barely exist. Each film will be BRIEFLY introduced, and discussion afterward will be encouraged. This is NOT a lecture series, and every effort will be made to cultivate an atmosphere of acceptance, participation, and excitement. So all that being said, come out and watch some damn movies.

Cinema FREE

Spiral Jetty

admin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Here is the last of these cheap shot one-off videos of me doing nothing. It’s a spiral! Yowza! SpriralDraw.pydoes, again, exactly what you think it does. I’d like to think I’m onto bigger and better things, but maybe I’m still just running around in circles too.

Inky Spots

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:13:00 +0000

Another in the series of stupid programs that do nothing. This time: inky.py which again behaves in a predictable manner.

Hip Priest: The Game!

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:30:00 +0000

I walked through, hand held, a whole PyGame tutorial last night. It was actually quite educational, and can be found here via: Learning Python. Anyway, what I’ve created is almost exactly what this tutorial has you spit out, I just changed some values and made my own sprites. Now instead of a python gobbling pellets, it’s a maniac (perhaps Mark E. Smith) making Hip Priests disappear. Not exactly hours (or even minutes) of entertainments, but it suggests a lot: moving sprites, background images, a scoring system, collision detection, we’re close to having all the tools we need to actually make something … I was going to say cool, but I digress, to make something, we’ll just say that.

In the "i" of a Blink

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:48:00 +0000

Another brain melting video of Python Prowess here. This one of the blink.py program, which, aptly, flashes (or blinks) a dot rapidly around the screen. Notice that the Earth is still unshattered.

In (slightly) more advanced news, I finally got builds of PyGame and PyObjC configured on my machine. So hopefully I will soon be building some slightly more advanced programs.

Rapid Ball Expansion

admin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:51:00 +0000

No, it’s not cancer, just another dopey block of code that I am overly proud(ish) of. Here’s the video and the source.

Random Balls

admin — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:24:00 +0000

I recently got a screen grab app so I now have the ability to make delightful little movies of my degenerate python programs. Starting today with randball.py a little belch that moves balls (orbs? circles?) around the screen in semi-random ways. I like the organic movement. I’m not yet clever enough to keep it going indefinitely with some direction reversals, but you’d better believe it’s comin!

I’ll keep posting these little buggers for the rest of the week. If you are unimpressed, just hang on, cause they don’t get much better.

Complaints Choir at the MCA

admin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:16:00 +0000

This is from the Chicago Complaints Choir performance last month at the MCA

0.15 SECONDS OF FAME

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 20:34:00 +0000

Here, finally is a clip from two summers ago that appeared on the History Channel’s Weird Weapons of WWII. It was part of a segment with Mark Pauline from SRL demonstrating the “shockwave cannon” on myself and two of my good friends. It’s a powerful column of air that hits you with a fair amount of force, and while it doesn’t do much damage to humans, it was demonstrated to be a serious threat to panes of glass, trees, and trash cans. It’s actually quite a fascinating technology that the Nazi’s tried to implement in WWII. It never really quite worked, but the concept is interesting.