Film

I’m getting pretty tired of this stuff. This comment says it all.

Seriously, watch all seven parts.

Seriously, watch the whole thing.

I want this movie to be good, but even with Joan Jett as an executive producer, I have my doubts. The retarded trailer does not assuage them, especially with the obscenely hyperbolic statement at the end. Can anyone think of a music biopic that was actually good?

My favorite thing about this is actually how they did the titles.

Having never seen any of the Saw films, I thought it would be a fun experiment to start with Saw VI, the most recent installation, and see what I could piece together of the previous five films based on my familiarity with other long-running horror franchises. This idea presupposed that the Saw series had the same general lack of serialization of, say, the Friday the 13th series, whose twelve installments were really bound together only… See more →

This piece describes my distaste for Napoleon Dynamite perfectly.

This looks like it just might be refreshingly old school.

In this sixth and final Thin Man film, the party is over. None of the fun of the series’ early films remains. We could always count on Nick and Nora to gracefully navigate the mysteries that fell in their laps with wit and aplomb (and of course a healthy dose of liquor). Above all else, it was their surefootedness and levity that made them endearing. Song of the Thin Man abandons these traits, setting them… See more →

We’re seriously not past this shit yet? "Something’s wrong with the TV! It’s got these black bars up and down it! I think it’s broken, Robbie, help me!"

The first sentence is priceless.

I get the sense this idea was well-intentioned, but you know what they say about good intentions. Who would be shocked to see Hollywood arrive late to the digital age with a calculated plan to line executive pockets on the backs of scores of faceless artist drones?

Most comic book movies that make a point of being slavishly devout to their source material either fail or are working from pages that are inherently more cinematic and less intellectually dense than Watchmen is. To shoehorn Watchmen into a decent feature film would require significant restructuring, and unfortunately, this film misses the forest for the trees, offering tediously superficial reproductions of panels that were designed to be printed on paper, not celluloid. If Zack… See more →

There is a great premise here, but not quite enough plot to fill out a feature. As a result, there’s some heavy padding, mostly in the form of a superfluous love story that films of its era unfortunately weren't allowed to go without. Edmond O’Brien gives a solid performance, smoothly alternating between manic and shrewd, but the rest of the cast is easily forgotten. Genre fans ought to give it a look; others might not… See more →

Morgan Spurlock is smart. If he called the movie Why Osama Bin Laden Is Irrelevant, which he certainly knew before he began, it would have garnered a lot less interest. And then his target audience would have missed out on some good conversations he had with people at all levels of society throughout the Middle East, which reveal that the world's real problems are poverty and the codependency of extremists and corrupt governments. As filmmaking,… See more →

After his impossibly beautiful girlfriend dumps him, a slacker schlub takes a vacation in Hawaii where high jinks ensue, he somehow attracts yet another impossibly beautiful woman, and he comes to realize his amazing potential. Apatow devotees and detractors alike will find exactly what they’ve come to expect from anything bearing his name: A level of sophistication and cast of reasonably endearing characters that fall just short of saving this formulaic, broad comedy from itself.

In the Stereo

• Snoop Doggy Dogg: Doggystyle
• The Swell Season: The Swell Season

On the Silver Screen

• Let the Right One In

In the Stereo

• Cynic: Traced in Air

On the Silver Screen

• Synechdoche, New York
• My Name Is Bruce
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

On the Web

• 2008 Spooky Sock Monkeys: Kim Cornell’s annual crop of petrifying primates is already almost sold out!

In the Stereo

• Van Morrison: Moondance
• The Jackson 5: The Ultimate Collection
• Necrophagist: Epitaph
• The Supremes: The Ultimate Collection
• Ra Ra Riot: The Rhumb Line
• Stiffs, Inc.: Nix Nought Nothing

On the Silver Screen

• Quarantine
• The Godfather: Part II

In the Stereo

• Opeth: Watershed
• TV on the Radio: Dear Science
• Metallica: Death Magnetic
• Radiohead: OK Computer

On the Silver Screen

• Waltz with Bashir
• Burn After Reading

In Print

• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Thanks in large part to Rob Across America, this has been the most traveled year of my life, but it’s not over yet. Before I disappear under a pile of blankets for the winter, I have a few more North American destinations lined up for the fall. If you happen to see me in any of these places, I hope you’ll say hello.

Ottawa, September 17th–21st

For the seventh time in ten years, I’ll be… See more →

On the Web

• Dear Lulu: A downloadable book of print samples you can use to test the capabilities of print-on-demand services. Such a great idea.

In the Stereo

• Faraquet: Anthology 1997–98
• Don Caballero: Punkgasm

On the Silver Screen

• Man on Wire

In Print

• The Book of Other People edited by Zadie Smith
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A Graphic Novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nunzio DeFillippis, and Kevin Cornell
• How Life Imitates Chess by… See more →

On the Web

• Beard Revue: Rob Weychert: My beard has been rated 9.5/10.

In the Stereo

• DAT Politics: Are Oui Phony??
• Richard Hell & The Voidoids: Blank Generation
• Mission of Burma: OnOffOn
• Devo: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
• The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
• Mercyful Fate: Melissa / The Beginning
• ZZ Top: Tres Hombres

On the Silver Screen

• The Dark Knight
• Derek
• Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson… See more →

On the Web

• Camp Naked Terror 7: Photos from this year’s Summer Camp Slasher Birthday Bash.
• Touring to Alaska on Vegetable Oil!: My friend Matt and his tour mate Kyle demonstrate how they the prep the environmentally-friendly fuel that’s taking them across North America.

In the Stereo

• Bad Brains: Rock for Light
• Mose Giganticus: Commander!
• Dr. Dre: The Chronic
• Danzig: Danzig II: Lucifuge
• South: South
• Mission of Burma: Vs.
• Kanye West: The College Dropout
• The… See more →

In the Stereo

• Nine Inch Nails: The Slip

On the Silver Screen

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Iron Man

Montana and Wyoming are not unattractive states, but as the mountains flattened out to hills flattened out to farms, the scenery was getting tiresome. It rained all day, at times hard enough to completely obscure the tiresome scenery, not to mention the unlit motorists with whom we were sharing I-90. So pretty much everything about the drive made us look forward to ending it. We did so upon arriving at Gillette, Wyoming, where we chose… See more →

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Among thousands of acres of land, a private airstrip, several species of exotic wildlife, and many millions of dollars worth of imported works of art, today belonged to Hearst Castle. I’m speaking, of course, of the incredible and excessive home that newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst built for himself over the course of more than twenty years in the early-mid twentieth century. As far as I know, it is the closest thing this country has… See more →

Despite the Philadelphia International Airport’s best efforts to the contrary, my traveling companion and longtime friend Wayne Kobylinski arrived to meet me in Albuquerque today, only about three and a half hours late. This meant our drive up to Flagstaff was much darker than it was originally intended to be, which gave us a chance to learn not only that one of my headlights is out, but that Arizona is less beautiful when you can’t… See more →

When you have as many reasons to look forward to arriving in Austin as I did today, you keep a constant eye on the speedometer, and that eye is ceaselessly disappointed. It was by no means a slow drive, but reduced-speed bridges across Louisiana’s wetlands and traffic congestion around metropolitan areas like Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, and Houston made for some uneven speeds, despite the fact that I spent nearly 500 miles on one road… See more →

On the Web

• We Bleed Design: The style is a bit trendy for my taste, but the site employs some very novel and intriguing transitions using a clever combination of JavaScript, CSS, and transparent PNGs.

In the Stereo

• Pharaoh: Be Gone
• Rupa & The April Fishes: Extraordinary Rendition

On the Silver Screen

• The Last House in the Woods
• Spine Tingler!: The William Castle Story
• Fata Morgana
• Black House
• Blast of Silence
• Deadline U.S.A.
• Passion and… See more →

On the Web

• Hitchcock Classics: Vanity Fair puts contemporary stars in classic frames.
• Say What You Will (Requiem for a TV News Career): Chez Pazienza recounts the story of being dooced by CNN, and lacerates the television news industry in the process.
• Are Oscars Worth All This Fuss?: Interesting thoughts on what the Academy Awards were, are, and ought to be.
• RIP: Owning Music (1880–2008): Well-reasoned observations on the evolution of music distribution.

In the… See more →

On the Web

• Opening the Windows Vista Box: Because it seriously can’t be done without a fucking tutorial.
• Brown Tape Art: Mark Khaisman creates some stunning images with translucent brown packing tape backlit on plexiglass.
• Bobby Fischer, Chess Master, Dies at 64: He may have been an asshole, but man could he play.
• Lasagna Cat: A wonderfully bizarre collection of videos putting Jim Davis in his place.
• The Amen Break: The history of the world’s… See more →

On the Web

• The Moby Equation: A clever formula used to determine a recording artist’s sellout level.
• Untraceable: The funniest film trailer I’ve seen in awhile. Looks like The Net meets Fear Dot Com. Enticing, no?

In the Stereo

• Salter Cane: Salter Cane
• Van Halen: Fair Warning

On the Silver Screen

• Juno

On the Web

• Fray Returns: The beloved site filled with true stories is reborn as a printed quarterly volume!
• Design Doing: A nice roundup and response to recent conversations regarding the relevance of web design within the greater spectrum of design.
• Charts and Graphs of Rap Song Lyrics: The title says it all. Fall-down funny stuff.
• Curriculum Vitae: The long-awaited followup to The Story of Eh, this fantastic new book of comics from Kevin Cornell… See more →

On the Web

• Behind the Scenes of Layer Tennis: Chris Glass details his side of the Layer Tennis match he played with Naz Hamid.
• The Pothole: My first guest contribution to The Superest!
• The Superest: A wonderful new site from Kevin Cornell and Matt Sutter, determined to determine who is the superest of them all.
• Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Decoder Badges: A brief history of the decoder pins used by Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Society… See more →

On the Web

• Cassette MP3 Player: If I ever get around to installing Windows, I will so own one of these.
• My Team Vs. Your Team: Sutter Vs. Cornell Vs. Cornell in an epic, illustrated battle of superhero one-upmanship. See another match here.
• Photoshop Layer Tennis: The triumphant return of my favorite Friday afternoon design nerd diversion!
• Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8: An Onion article that is not so farfetched.
• A Brief Message: A new site dedicated… See more →

I killed my own summer. I took on more work than I should have, and hopefully I suffered the consequences more than my clients did. The summer is drawing to a close, though, and with its end, my schedule is finally becoming kind of manageable again. Today was the first day in ages that I was able to leave the house for something that didn’t resemble work.

In the early afternoon, I took in the… See more →

On the Web

• Siggi Eggertsson: Eye-popping geometric impressionism.
• Isaac Tobin: An outstanding graphic design portfolio. I’m particularly fond of his book covers.
• I Love Typography: A new blog whose title says it all.
• Everyone’s a Design Critic: Stan and I are cooking up a presentation for next year’s SXSW, and we’d love to have your vote.
• Turkey: Kevin Cornell’s submission for a comics contest in Philadelphia’s City Paper. I am of the strong opinion that you… See more →

On the Web

• Back Porch Video: An impressively varied collection of both underground and mainstream music videos from a 1980s public access show hosted by Detroit teens.
• Paper Art Gadgets: Tiny, incredibly detailed replicas of consumer electronics (including packaging) made entirely of paper.
• Vintage Vanguard: Covers and liner notes scanned from hundreds of Blue Note records. Enviable, to say the least.
• Rob Weychert from Happy Cog Studios: Design Interviews puts me under the microscope.
• Living… See more →

On the Web

• My Favorite Font: Some writers of renown reveal the typefaces they use for composition. It pleased me to see that the abundance of Courier and Times owes as much to a reverence for the art of typesetting (“Although it’s a thrill to see my words printed in such elegant fonts, I’d never actually write in them.”) as it owes to the legacy of typewriters and word processors.
• Camp Naked Terror 6 Photos… See more →

On the Web

• Thomas Allen: This photographer’s Pulp Fiction series adds an ingenious third dimension to book cover illustrations.
• The Digit: Photos of an amputee with an inspiring sense of humor.
• Fear(s) of the Dark: This French animated anthology looks very promising.
• Band to Band: Trace the musical family tree of your favorite band.
• Spinal Tap to Reunite for Live Earth Concert: Behind the scenes with Nigel, David, and Derek.
• Moustache May: You owe it… See more →

On the Web

• “The Conqueror Worm” Letterpress Print: Coudal Partners’ Swap Meat is selling (or trading) a print Stan and I did late last year. If the walls of your study are looking a bit too cheery, here’s your chance to do something about it!
• R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut: You opened my eyes in ways no other writer could. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You will be missed.
• Why the Overwhelming Numbers of Design Flops?… See more →

On the Web

• Refill 7: Fucking sick laser-engraved skate decks.
• Happy Cog Philadelphia Is Hiring: We’re looking for a standards-savvy front-end web developer that is nothing short of amazing.
• Letterhead Fonts Embraces DRM: The suggested alternative to embedding fonts in PDFs? Convert to outlines. Welcome back to the 20th century! I’m all for protecting your products from theft, but this ain’t the way to do it.
• The Super Stunt: The full story behind the biggest… See more →

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Whoever “they” are, they say you never forget your first time. And in 2005, my first SXSW was definitely unforgettable. They also say twice is nice, and as such, my second SXSW was all sugar and spice. As we all know, though, the third time is the charm, and this year’s SXSW charmed the hell out of me.

The people, panels, presentations, and parties were more plentiful than ever, but I still managed to absorb… See more →

On the Web

• Sanna Annukka: Very flat, very beautiful illustrations with a great sense of color and shape.
• Matt Hammill: Loose n’ dirty illustrations to make you smile. Don’t miss his awesome Psychedelish animation!
• Creating Inspired Design, Part 1: I Am the Walrus: Introduction to what promises to be a great series from Andy Clarke.
• The Design Disease: A handy guide to the inside of a designer’s head.
• Le Grande Content: Interesting ruminations on life… See more →

On the Web

• NRA’s Secret Graphic Novel Revealed!: Right-wing propaganda just got a serious face-lift.
• The Most Dangerous Roads in the World: Yowza! Just like the title says.

In the Stereo

• Crooked Fingers: Reservoir Songs
• Afghan Whigs: Going to Town
• The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America
• Deerhoof: +81
• Dmitri Shostakovich: The Symphonies
• Scott Walker: The Drift
• The Knife: Silent Shout
• The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield

On the Web

• A Rumsfeld Rememberance: Hilarious manipulation of Donald Rumsfeld press conference footage.
• Mr. City Men: Cute, mute CG characters seamlessly animated into handheld video footage. I defy anyone to watch Mr. Fortune without cracking a smile.
• FontBook: Now in its fourth edition, this massive tome compiles 32,000 type samples on 1,760 pages!

In the Stereo

• Philip Lynott: Solo in Soho
• Celtic Frost: Into the Pandemonium

On the Silver Screen

• The Hamiltons
• The Abandoned… See more →

On the Web

• Web Design Is 95% Typography: Hear, hear!
• When Animals Attack!: Just in time for Halloween, Posterwire unleashes a great collection of classic creature feature posters.
• Mark Gervais: Exemplary vector illustration with bold, rich colors, a polished line, and a keen design sense.
• The Origins of Letterforms: U&lc Magazine constructs hypotheses for the origins of the Roman alphabet“s letterforms, numerals, and punctuation.
• The David Zucker Albright Ad: An unused GOP propaganda video from… See more →

On the Web

• Cover Letters from Hell: Some amazing examples of how not to get a job.
• The White Stripes on “The Simpsons”: A really funny parody of Michel Gondry’s video for “The Hardest Button to Button.”
• George Washington: The true story of the first American hero.
• Peter Callesen: Extraordinary sculptures made with cut paper in two and three dimensions.
• Red, White, and Black: Roger Black’s fancy new web site.

In the Stereo

• TV on… See more →

On the Web

• The Fall Guy: An action shot of one of my several failed attempts to mount a tallbike. (Eventually, I succeeded.)
• FreeJack: All of the Flash source files from the current season of the animated Canadian series “Odd Job Jack” are being made available to the public. Wow!
• A Way to Set the Limit of Font Scaling in One Dimension: An excellent demonstration of why non-uniform type scaling is a bad idea.
• Transformers =… See more →