sundance

Palin poetry

How can you not love William Shatner? He was dashing, and kitsch, as Captain Kirk. His Denny Crane was a brilliant reinvention. And I actually watch his Priceline commercials. And who watches commercials these days? No one. Exactly. In his 70s now, Shatner’s career has gone up and down. But this week he returned to his spoken-word [...]

Asia Extreme: Thirteen Cool Movies for a Hot August

Scene from TRIAD ELECTION

Just in time for the dog days of summer, Sundance Channel is gearing up to launch the sixth season of Asia Extreme, which features thirteen incredibly cool films to dive into beginning August 1 free on demand. Just as past seasons brought an eclectic mix of cutting edge Asian cinema from visionary directors breathing new life into (and in some cases subverting) such genres as horror (ONE MISSED CALL), thriller (A BITTERSWEET LIFE), action (SAVE THE GREEN PLANET), or science-fiction (NATURAL CITY), so too does the new lineup offer fresh takes on familiar forms.

Tim Burton at MoMA

This November MoMA will house a major retrospective of Tim Burton’s work. The show, Tim Burton, will showcase his career as a  ”director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer and illustrator.” It will feature his drawings from early childhood through his most current [...]

SUNfiltered music videos

1. Some big headed pint size kids spit lyrical fire in the music video for “Where You At” by Australian hip hop group Astronomy Class and featuring Vida-Sunshyne & Kween G (KillaQueenz).

Astronomy Class – Where You At? Featuring Vida-Sunshyne & Kween G from Elefanttraks on Vimeo.

Report: Energy Efficiency Could Halve U.S. Greenhouse Gases by 2050

Energy efficiency investments can provide up to half the greenhouse gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050 to avert the worst effects of climate change, finds a new report from the nonprofit and independent American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, ACEEE.

One Billion People Go Hungry – Food, Funds in Short Supply

A billion people around the world are going hungry every day, but the world’s response to their urgent need for food is flagging, so critical food assistance is already being cut, the head of the world’s largest humanitarian organization is warning.

The Ancient Book of Sex and Science

When you, as an adult, spend the majority of your time creating adorable G-rated worlds for kids, that hidden sexual side of you is bound to come out — and probably, shall we say, enthusiastically. (Anyone remember the movie S.O.B. in which squeaky clean Julie “Mary Poppins” Andrews rips her top off and exposes her boobies? No? Good. It’s scarring.) Well, in their spare time, four Pixar animators have been working on a series of cool art books, the second and most recent of which is “The Ancient Book of Sex and Science” (the first was the now sold-out “Ancient Book of War and Myth“).

Green tech finds (7/30/09)

From Spain to Toledo, green tech stories are popping up everywhere. Here’s your round-up for the week.

• Electric vehicles are winners on CO2 emissions: DVICE crunches the numbers, and finds that, even when electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, EVs produce less CO2 than gas-powered cars. (via AutoBlog Green)
  
  
• Solar Mudhens: Rust-belt poster child Toledo, OH, is on its way to reinventing itself as a hub of solar manufacturing.
  
  

Equinox wants you to pump up the jams

When you pay $180 a month to work out a gym you expect more than just some clean towels and a working sauna. Thankfully, Equinox knows this and is doing some pretty interesting things to keep their patrons pumped up and energized. This Fall Equinox has partnered with an eclectic mix of musical artists-Dave Navarro, Michael Buble, [...]

Building a full size lego house

Popular UK auto show TOP GEAR (and admittedly one of my favorite shows as well) presenter James May has more than three million Lego bricks and is asking for the public’s help this Saturday, August 1 in building a full size two-story house made entirely of Legos for his BBC series TOY STORIES. As marketing [...]

Most useless iPhone app ever claims to rate your sex life

Maybe we’re just jealous because we’re still trying to come up with an iPhone application that will make us millions while we sleep (why oh why did we not come up with iFart first?), but we think that the new Passion iPhone app that scores your boinks has about as much to do with good sex as a fart joke.

Malcolm Sutherland, THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM

The Astronomer’s Dream (2009) from Animalcolm on Vimeo. Malcolm Sutherland’s latest animated short, THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM is a trippy whimsical space odyssey with a unique art style. When a hungry astronomer falls asleep while working on a problem, he discovers a solution not in outer space, but in the surreal food-chain of his subconscious mind. [...]

The original bromance … John Hamburg’s SAFE MEN

On the eve of a new Paul Giamatti comedy, COLD SOULS (opens 8/7), and with Sam Rockwell’s MOON in theatres now, I decided to return to an early comedy for these talented actors. It’s SAFE MEN (1998), the first film from writer-director John Hamburg, and it’s … well, it’s the Father of Bromance.

Okay, I should say the Father of Modern Bromance. A simple google search got me to the history of the bromance, wherein references to Han and Chewie and Felix and Oscar (bromance amongst all bromances) set me straight. (See IGN.com’s top ten bromance couples here.) Although – side note – they clearly understand bromance as synonomous to The Buddy Film; I understand it more as The Buddy Comedy. And Modern Bromance? 90s-inspired, Apatow-flavored man-love? The general public may think the Apatow craze spawned movies this summer like (Hamburg’s) I LOVE YOU, MAN and HUMP DAY, but I contend it all started with SAFE MEN.

Love and sex with robots: a vision from the 1920s

David Levy’s Love and Sex with Robots may have hit the shelves just a few years ago, but the idea of love and sex with robots is hardly a new one. Even as far back as the 1920′s, people were envisioning a future in which robots–or “automatic men”–would be available to tend to the needs [...]

Cool green colleges: Princeton Review releases its “Green Honor Roll”

Arizona State University’s solar-powered parking structure

Many universities and colleges are implementing innovative and comprehensive sustainability initiatives on campus. Which ones are making the grade, though, in terms of both lowering their ecological footprint, and training students to “think green” as they move into the next phases of their lives?

Not Quite Hollywood

A scene from THE ABC OF LOVE AND SEX When Australian cinema was finally allowed to release films with R-rated content in 1971, the conservative and often repressive movies being released at the time were almost immediately replaced with “free-wheeling sex romps, blood soaked terror tales and high-octane action extravaganzas.” NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD pays homage to [...]

The Saudi Arabia of cliches

A view of one of the Saudi Arabias of wind — Texas The US’ discussion over our energy future hasn’t just produced many innovative ideas for harnessing cleaner and renewable sources of power; it’s also given rise to its own collection of cliches.  Arguably, the most prevalent among these is “_______ (a location) is the [...]

Madonna as a Warholian prototype

Madonna was friends with Andy Warhol. He and Keith Haring gave her a collaborative painting for her wedding to Sean Penn in 1985. But, due most likely to Warhol’s untimely death, the pop princess was never one of his portrait subjects. Until now. In an homage to Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, and her own iconic status [...]

Why We Need a Bold New Vision for Preserving Our Nation’s Wilderness

I have welcomed several promising signs coming out of the Obama Administration, from the president’s push for clean energy to Interior Secretary Salazar’s efforts to block oil and gas leasing near some of Utah’s most stunning landscapes. But there is still something I am waiting to see: a bold new vision for preserving America’s wilderness. [...]

Knitting’s for the birds

Many days of the week as I walk through SoHo to get a cup of coffee I often stop and stare through the window of Purl, the fabulous knitting shop. And while the women, yes, they’re almost always women in there, shop for yarns and quilting fabrics I cannot help but become envious of their ability [...]

Environmentally unfriendly monoliths

New Zealand artist Peter Robinson’s latest sculptures in his series “Polymer Monoliths” currently on display at the Institute of Modern Art plays with polystyrene. A non-biodegradable thermo-plastic, it cushions our electronic goods in transit and pollutes our foreshores. In Robinson’s work, it is also a sculptural material of infinite possibility—lightweight yet massive, able to fill [...]

Through the eye of a needle

Getting perspective: One of Wigan’s sculptures next to a fly

Willard Wigan is a microsculptor, meaning his sculptures are so small they can only be seen through a microscope. To get a sense of what this actually means, look at a needle. It’s hard enough for most people to thread one, let alone use it as the site for art. To get faithful representations of his subjects (which, in the past, have included Bart and Homer Simpson, Marilyn Monroe, and Henry XIII flanked by all his wives, each of whom have enough room to do jumping jacks) to fit in the eye of a needle, Wigan usually works at night when there are fewer distractions so he can enter a state in which he can lower his heart rate enough to work between pulses.

The world needs more male nudes

photo by E.M. for the Examiner.com

Renaissance artists knew which side their bread was buttered. To them, the male nude offered ample opportunity for sensual expression. Take Michelangelo’s David: that beautifully sculpted white marble has gone down in history as the perfect butt. Canvas after canvas shows naked men flexing their muscles and writhing in agony or ecstasy, each taut calf, each quivering bicep, each sweaty brow oozing sexual tension.

Fruit shaped sticky notes

A clever and well thought out fruity twist on sticky notes from Japanese design studio D-Bros. Give some flavor to the passive aggressive notes you may leave around the office or apartment. [Via]

Green meets gay: Seattle’s OUT for Sustainability

From Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Bruno, the portrayal of gay men and other members of the LGBT community in popular culture almost always include a healthy dose of materialism/consumerism. Seattle’s OUT for Sustainability doesn’t necessarily exist to challenge those stereotypes, but its mission of “[bringing] the LGBT community together with social and environmental sustainability” could have that effect.