Film in the blanks

Film the blanks takes modern movie posters and reduces them to their basic elements. A bit of competition brews as people try to identify the films. Some are easier than others.

Bollywood posters in Bangalore

Matt Lee takes photos of the film posters around Bangalore. A friend of mine and I were just talking about how he'd love to get one of the hand-painted Bollywood posters from the 70s to frame and hang in his apartment.

Rivers flow like blood

Last week the NYTimes Lens blog posted some photos taken by NASA astronauts from space. Included in the slideshow is the above, a 1984 shot of the red sediment from teh Betsiboka River in Madagascar.

Baby you invade my car

THC hasn't quite fully announced this Space Invaders Mini Cooper, but I couldn't wait to link to it (scroll down to see a Pac-Man Mini as well).

Wayne Liu, photographer

ICP colleague Wayne Liu has a new website, including some impressionistic black and white photography from China.

Agaetis Byrjun at 10

It was 10 years ago that Sigur Ros released their breakthrough album. In celebration of Agaetis Byrjun, they've released this live performance from the original launch party, when no one outside of Reykjavik knew who they were.

Skies after Thai

This evening after dinner the clouds over Queens took on shapes I had only seen in pictures.

Michael Jackson

I can't tell you how many times I've watched this from the time it first aired until now.

Coke is it!

What with the recent retro packaging revivals (hello, General Mills), here's some photos of actual vintage Coke cans.

Land of the lost (color) regained

Will has posted a few sets of photochromosomes (set one, set two) culled from the LOC photochrome archive and the NY Public Library's postcard archive. They're lovely and surreal, at times feeling like collage, at others like some new stereoscopic process.

Swimming away

Disney is set to release the new Hayao Miyazaki film Ponyo (dubbed, rather unfortunately. I ended up not watching the trailer; partially so that I may see the film knowing nothing, partially because I can't stand the dubbing). Miyazaki's Spirited Away is one of my favorite films of all time.

A screaming comes across the sky . . .

I recently finished reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow . I've been wanting to read it for some time now; I finally bought the paperback partially because of the Frank Miller cover. I read it without the help of a companion volume; I'm reading the companion volume soon to figure out what happened.

Zak Smith was so moved by the book that he made an illustration for every page of the book. Smith's book can be found here.

William Eggleston's Democratic Camera

My brother just sent me a link to this NPR story about William Eggleston on the eve of his retrospective exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The show had previously been exhibited at the Whitney in NYC.

Fly me to the moon

Nothing brings back the past like a vintage video game. And it's been a while since I posted a game, so here's Lunar Lander!

Art of Up

Color script by Lou Romano

Illustrator Lou Romano has posted some of the development and production work he did on Up, spanning the years 2005-2008: The art of Up. He did the work to help inspire the look of the film, a job he also did for The Incredibles. The photos of the actual tepui in Venezuela as inspiration are illuminating, as are the initial lighting animation studies.

Circle and square

Initial sketches of Kevin, Disney/Pixar

The NYTimes has a short feature on the character design for the Disney/Pixar film Up. Director Pete Doctor and production designer Ricky Nierva speak. A related article can be found here: Well-rounded boy, meet old square.