Mad Art VIII

A couple creative uses of the pedestrian crossing sign in Madison, WI:

Red bull gives you wiiiiiiings!

'Drunk Student Crossing' at Ian's Pizza (arguably the best pizza place... ever)

listed in: art, ian's pizza, madison, red bull | Comments (1)

Sufjan Stevens at The Majestic in Madison, WI

Last night I had the privilege of seeing Sufjan Stevens at a sold out concert of 600 people at The Majestic in Madison, WI. I knew it was going to be a great show the moment he stepped on stage in a blue "WISCONSIN" t-shirt, camouflage hat, and said: "Sup 'yall, I'm Suff-jan Stevens", making fun of a common mispronunciation of his name, and went right into playing my favorite song, Seven Swans.

[More]

listed in: madison, music, sufjan stevens | ∞

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009: Saturday

Mixed day for movies today:

Shorts: Animations

I don't know what happened this year, but experimental nonsense movies seem to have crept their way into the Animations category this year. I had a difficult time staying awake during this first session of my day. Of the ones that didn't suck, were:

• Chicken of God: Funny little skit about a lucky chicken.
• The Beast That Swallows Its Young: A music video made from snippets of this student's real-life debt collection messages
• Sebastian's Voodoo: By far the best one in this series (pictured). The director managed to get me emotionally involved with a non-human character in less than 30 seconds
• Yard Work is Hard Work: Another music video about falling in love and living together, animated using parts of magazines. You could tell a very large amount of work was put into making it

Lake Tahoe (¿Te acuerdas de Lake Tahoe?)

A movie about a boy trying to fix his car that he crashed into a pole after learning that his father died. It was an alright movie... it's been growing on me the more I reflect upon it. Kinda Napoleon Dynamite-ish. Not in the sense of the humor, but the style of the storytelling. Not the typical story structure. It was a fun movie, but could have been edited a bit tighter.

Vogelfrei

Four different directors made short stories surrounding the four different definitions of 'Vogelfrel', all using the same character. A bland boring character that they never built up enough for me to care about. I also fell asleep near the end.

Ghajini (गजनी) - 2008 Version

Wow, wow, wow. What a film. I loved it. Ghajini comes from India's "Bollywood" (or whatever today's politically correct term is; as an Indian professor of mine pointed out that this word was offensive) I don't know how else to describe this except, "Action Musical". Like, imagine James Bond blowing up a building, kicking ass, taking names, then breaking into a musical number in a bright neon colored shirt. Yeah, that's now this went.

And I do have to applaud this movie, because it's the first action movie that I've seen in a long time that I've given any care to the characters whatsoever. (Unlike, for example: Transporter) Granted, they were fortunate enough to have 3 hours to do it in... which would never fly with an American action flick. (Transporter is just around 90 minutes) And those 3 hours flew by. There were no slow spots throughout the movie, and I'd totally watch it again, despite its over-the-top music and cinematography. And I mean, over-the-top.

(Also: Apparently this is mostly copied, and without credit, from Memento, which I never saw. I'm curious, though, if seeing it will change my opinion of this)

[Film's Website]

listed in: animation, madison, movies, wisconsin film festival | ∞

Wisconsin Film Festival 2009: Friday

Saw two great films at the Wisconsin Film Festival last night:

Tokyo Sonata (トウキョウンナタ)

The movie starts out with a typical Japanese family of four... a business man, stay-at-home mom, elementary-aged child, and college aged son. Things start to unravel when Ryuhei (the father) loses his job and decides not to tell the rest of his family. As the movie unfolds, we find out that he isn't the only family member with a secret they're not sharing.

It started out a lighter comedy, and I thought it turned darker pretty quick. My more cultured friends called it an in-your-face social commentary on the modern Japanese family, although I didn't pick up on that. Minus some over-the-top emotions near the end, I really enjoyed the movie. The beginning is pretty hilarious, and while the second half looks bleak, the director was nice enough to give you a glimmer of hope at the end.

[Movie Website]

Food, Inc.

This was a pretty typical hippie anti-corporation documentary, like I've seen every year, but I really enjoyed it. First off, I want to say the title sequence (where they show the beginning credits) was extremely creative and very well done, featuring food labels with the production staff's names.

The movie's biggest points were this: The food industry is run by a very small handful of large corporations, and, Monsanto (I think mentioned negatively in every single anti-corporation documentary I've seen) runs the FDA, and this is all really really really really bad.

The only organization or company to be portrayed positively was Wal-Mart, interestingly enough, for their willingness to buy more and more free-range and organic food. (Although, not as much for ethical reasons as for the profit from consumers now demanding food produced more healthy)

It's definitely worth the watch, as long as you're willing to accept your food isn't made by 'Joe the Farmer' like the packaging leds you to believe.

[Movie Website]

listed in: food, japan, madison, movies, wisconsin film festival | ∞

Breaking: Giant Showball Fight outside Sellery Hall, UW-Madison

Police have responded. Dayton from Park to Lake has been closed. Lots of kids getting wet :)

Updated 1:55am: The snowball fight had broken up by the time I got this entry posted. It was hard to get a photo that conveyed the scale of this thing. I need a professional camera.

Update 10/10/08: Sounds like it was even bigger last night! I can't believe I missed it! [Daily Cardinal] [Badger Herald]
I'd like to point out that I beat the campus papers to this :)

listed in: madison, snow, uw-madison | Comments (1)

University Square

They recently posted a directory of the services that will be in the UW half of University Square, if anyone is curious about more specifics:

It looks like UHS will be dominating most of the tower.

listed in: madison, uw-madison | ∞

Election Day in Madison

I've heard all over that lines at the voting locations weren't bad. I voted at 8:30am and the line was only 20 minutes long. For the post part it was very quiet (probably because everyone had just woke up) except for an intense discussion about the separation of Church and State prompted by the fact that our voting location was a Catholic Elementary School and they were selling cookies.

Supporters from both parties are out and about, and both were having difficulty keeping their signs upright with the occasional gusts of wind on an otherwise beautiful day.

If you haven't voted and don't know where, Google Can Help.

Added 2:00pm: My friend Kennis posted a photo of an Obama ad projected on the side of Memorial Library last night.

listed in: election, madison, politics | ∞