Marina’s Top Halloween movies

 

  H A L L O W E E N !  

Well its Autumn and the streets are filled with orange and yellow leaves ankle deep and the air is cold and crisp. I got thinking about Halloween costumes and ideas and my thoughts eventually turned to good movies for Halloween, so I thought that I would make a list to share with everyone. I am not one for too long of intense suspense and gory scenes of chainsaws and human dismemberment and films leaving your imagination terrorizing you in the middle of the night while walking to the washroom.

Here are some of my favorites (summaries are unfortunatly not my own, I got some help.) The movies are in no particular order or color scheme for that matter.

The Shining (1980) -A man, his son and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of the hotel’s past using a telepathic gift known as “The Shining”. The father, Jack Torrance, is underway in a writing project when he slowly slips into insanity as a result of cabin fever and former guests of the hotels ghost’s. After being convinced by a waiter’s ghost to “correct” the family, Jack goes completely insane. The only thing that can save Danny and his mother is “The Shining”.

Van Helsing -During the late 19th century, legendary vampire hunter Gabriel Van Helsing is a man cursed with a past he cannot recall and driven by a mission he cannot deny. Van Helsing finds a land still mired in past, where legendary creatures of darkness come to life. A place ruled over by the evil, seductive and unbeatable vampire, Count Dracula. It is Dracula that Van Helsing has been sent to terminate. Anna Valerious is one of the last of a powerful royal family, now nearly annihilated by Dracula. A fearless hunter in her own right, Anna is bent on avenging her ancestors and ending an ancient curse by killing the vampire. Joined by a common foe, Van Helsing and Anna set out to destroy Dracula along with his empire of fear. But in challenging an enemy who never dies, Van Helsing uncovers a secret he never imagined and comes face-to-face with the unresolved mysteries of his own enshrouded past.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Brace yourself for some nonstop zombie action and laughs with the delightful horror-comedy “Shaun of the Dead.”
Armed with a cricket bat, razor-sharp wit, and an attitude, Shaun (Simon Pegg) is perhaps the last guy that you’d want to save the world from the legions of the living dead that have suddenly begun to storm the London neighborhood where he lives. It could be stated, as this is a running gag here, that we’re all dying slow deaths, so it’s no surprise that when zombies begin to eat the flesh of the living, Shaun couldn’t be any more oblivious to the chaos that has gripped most of London. Shaun is having many problems in life. His long-time girlfriend has dumped him due to their almost-daily expedition to Shaun’s favorite pub, the Winchester. His temporary management job isn’t going well at Foree Electronics, with his subordinates not even giving him the time of day. His deadbeat flatmates, Pete and Ed, are at each others’ throats. And, oh yeah, London is overrun with multitudes of zombies. In the midst of this, he must save himself, Ed, his ex, his mom, and his precious record collection. There is a time when a hero must rise…from his couch. 

Young Frankenstein (1974)-The grandson of Victor Frankenstein is a teaching surgeon who has spent his life living down the legend of his grandfather, even changing the pronunciation of his name. When the diary of his grandfather is brought to him, he takes a leave of absence to examine the family castle. Then things get a little silly. Due to a switch, he implants an abnormal brain in his creation which causes problems, but things really get out of hand when the young Frankenstein’s bride to be shows up at the castle. The whole film is shot in Black and white to simulate the old monster movie feeling.

Nosferatu (1922)(1979 remake: Nosferatu the Vampyre)-Apparently one of the most creepiest Vampire films ever to be made in silent film(1922 version). AKA-Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror or Nosferatu) is a German Expressionist vampire horror film , directed by F.W.Murnau.There is also a high-definition transfer of the film. This double-disc collection presents the film with the original German intertitles as well as with newly-translated English intertitles.  Count Orlok’s move to Wisburg (Obviously the real “Wismar”) brings the plague traceable to his dealings with the Realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count’s obsession with Hutter’s wife, Ellen the only one with the power to end the evil.

 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) -The first remake of the paranoid infiltration classic moves the setting for the invasion from a small town to the city of San Fransisco and starts as Matthew Bennell notices that several of his friends are complaining that their close relatives are in some way different. When questioned later they themselves seem changed as they deny everything or make lame excuses. As the invaders increase in number they become more open and Bennell, who has by now witnessed an attempted “replacement” realises that he and his friends must escape or suffer the same fate. But who can he trust to help him and who has already been snatched?

The Village (2004)-In a quiet, isolated village in olde Pennsylvania, there lies a pact between the people of the village and the creatures who reside in the surrounding woods: the townspeople do not enter the woods, and the creatures do not enter the village. The pact stays true for many years, but when Lucius Hunt seeks medical supplies from the towns beyond the wood, the pact is challenged. Animal carcasses, devoid of fur, begin to appear around the village, causing the council of elders to fear for the safety of the village, the pact, and so much more.

House of Wax (1953)-A sculptor of wax figures(Vincent Price) for a museum is horrified when his partner proposes setting fire to the unpopular museum in order to collect the insurance money. As the wax figures melt amid the blaze, the two men have a fight. The sculptor is knocked out in the scuffle and left to “perish” among the flames. He resurfaces many years later for the launch of his own wax museum. The opening coincides with the sudden disappearance of some dead bodies from the city morgue. His assistant begins to suspect his boss of foul play, especially after the deranged wizard of wax begins eyeing his assistant’s lovely girlfriend’s friend as a model for a waxed figure of Marie Antoinette.

The Crucible-A small group of teen girls in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts caught in an innocent conjuring of love potions to catch young men are forced to tell lies that Satan had invaded them and forced them to participate in the rites and are then forced to name those involved. Thrown into the mix are greedy preachers and other major landowners trying to steal others’ land and one young woman (Ryder) infatuated with a married man (Day-Lewis) and determined to get rid of his innocent wife (Allen). Arthur Miller wrote the events and the subsequent trials where those who demanded their innocence were executed, those who would not name names were incarcerated and tortured, and those who admitted their guilt were immediately freed as a parable of the Congressional Communist witch hunts led by Senator Joe McCarthy in 1950’s America.

A childhood memory and an old classic… It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (1966) - This short animated film has been the must see Halloween movie for many families for forty years. While its not shown on tv with the same frequency as it used to be, you can still catch the Peanuts gang on DVD and video. With its traditional Peanuts soundtrack and wry humor, his simple Halloween movie is as much fun for adults as for children. In the words of Linus - ”I’ve learned there are three things you don’t discuss with people. Politics, religion, and the Great Pumpkin.”

Hocus Pocus (1993)- More than 300 years ago, 3 witches (The Sanderson Sisters) were sentenced to die in Salem, Massachusetts and a boy was turned into a cat (a black cat, naturally). Now it’s Halloween, and the witches (who fly on [I kid you not] vacuum cleaners) are back. This time, they’ve got their eyes on immortal life and have turned their wrath on trick-or-treaters and it’s up to the 300-year-old cat to save the day.

Also, If you happen to be a MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 3000) fan… There are some great Halloween ones out there especially from Seasons 8, 9 & 10! Check out the episode lists here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mystery_Science_Theater_3000_episodes

^V^  ENJOY!  ^V^

New Projects in the making…

Hello all,

well its been a while and I have a bunch of new projects in the making. I will tell you a bit about them in a short blurb and possibly some sketches and/or photos and then as I finish them I will post the final product.

Project #1: Redesigning a Cello. Description of idea: When playing a musical instrument the melody, instrument and person all become intertwined, creating harmony and a new living entity together. One not being able to survive without the other. I am drawing up prototype designs for an eurgonomical Cello designed to fit to the body to create the iead of person and instrument as one. It will be designed with less ridgity, more like a grasp or a hug, reducing space between Cello and body. The Cello then becomes more of an extension of the person.                                                                                                               (I will be getting some of my drawings scanned to post to show you some of my prototype ideas hopefully by the end of this week.) I will be making 2-3 small prototypes (about the size for Barbie) and one larger scale portion of one to show detail, who knows, I just might make a full size version of one of my prototypes that I like best.

Project #2: Hypermedia poem. We were to choose a poem from a given list in class then and then create an interactive poem with the use of text and images. I used the poem “Frog” by Umar Bin Hassan.  I am currently working on some minor bugs and it will soon be finished-I just want it to be perfect for you

New Project #3: Flash animated collage. I am to choose and subject in this weeks new (week of Oct. 27th-Nov. 3) and create a Flash animated collage.

Mothers Day

Well it is May and that means flowers, sunshine and mothers day!

I’d like to wish my wonderful and suportive mother a happy mothers day, and to all of those mothers out there.. if you don’t have kids, then pets and boyfriends are pretty much the same.

enjoy the day with this wonderful little video.

NeoGraf – Virtual Graffiti

On Friday, March 7th I went to see NeoGraf put on by the New Forms Festival in Vancouver . NeoGraf is a projection of graffiti onto a building being written live with the use of a laser pen, computers and projectors. The non-destructive art form uses new open-source software called laser tagging. It allows artists to create real-time designs with light instead of Jiffy markers and spray cans.

I went to the midnight viewing which was at 66 Water St. in Downtown Vancouver BC. They projected onto the building just above the Sonar Cabaret.

About the Graffiti research lab, also know as the GRL.

More about L.A.S.E.R. tag with the GRL.

About half way into viewing, a woman comes wondering down the street, she stopped and watched the laser tagging for a bit then wandered over my way. She started asking me what the heck this was all about and what the whole point was because it seemed to be incredibly pointless to her. She told me that this wasn’t art, its not clean, its stupid. She was also passionate enough about it to throw a couple of F-bombs into her little rant before folding her warms and slowly wondering off to the next group of spectators to give them a little piece of her mind.

 Here is a quick, low quality documentation of my time observing. They were letting a bunch of people both directly involved as well as spectators have a go at it. I was very suprised how well it worked considering how bright it was in that area, as you can see in the video there were some bright lights around.

 Downton to be painted with digital light! Aparently the same group will be doing this again but on a much larger scale for the  Cultural Olympiad. Here is some more information I found in the Vancouver Sun.

“Confession” a short film and a work in progress

This is a project that I created for my Digital Visual Arts class. (DIVA 200) Our assignment was to create a short film, something to do with the theme of confession/confessional. Here is my take. The first video is the one I presented in class.

This second one is basically the same but with a different soundtrack. I hope to continuing working on it. I would also like to redo the spoken audio portion as well as adding in some additional video clips.

I would love, incourage and appreciate any feedback to improove this piece. Like I said before, it is a work in progress.

 

Chris Jordan (a Seattle based artist):

Chris Jordan started studying and working with color analysis. He took a photo, after sneaking into a garbage/recycling center, of an enormous stacked tower of crushed and cubed garbage and recycling. When hung on his wall, people were impressed and awed in some way.
They loved it. Unfortunately they saw something much different than what he did. He enjoyed the random bits of color while others saw something that we don’t normally get to see, the “macabre” of our culture and society brought to the light. This idea changed his life.Jordan was a corporate lawyer and the son of a well known photographer. Having already been introduced to the world of photography Jordan set out to find and photograph more of this unique subject. He never enjoyed being a lawyer and after a few years quit to pursuit his art. He became so enthralled in his artwork and promoting the idea of sustainability and environmental awareness that he forced himself to retire from being a lawyer. By retiring, it meant that he could never fall back on this if his plan of becoming an artist fell through.

                     

Chris Jordan sends out an unspoken message in all of his pieces. He amazes us with photos of things in each one of our daily lives that we rarely if ever think about once we get rid of it. We are all guilty of this, and as Chris Jordan says, “We are part of this insanity.” He puts the numbers and statistics of human waste into picture form, something that people tend to respond to more than just the numbers themselves. The numbers he works with are most often too large for us to comprehend, making his images so thought provoking, incredible, and jaw dropping. Despite the heavy message, Chris Jordan’s works all seem to have a sense of eerie beauty to them.

                   

Some of Jordan’s works include endless seas of used cell phones, a beautiful spiral of thousands of Vicodin pills, and a single compilation of commercial jet liners that flew over his location in Seattle during a very short period of time.

One day, Jordan took photos of every passing commercial jet liner flying over Seattle WA. He planned on taking pictures over a 24 hour period. He then later, with a clear blue sky as a back drop, took all of the photos of the planes and their jet streams digitally compiling them into one large photo. He started to notice that there were going to be too many planes and vapor trails that the screen would end up being completely white. He later changed his idea from a 24 hour time period to one of just 6 hours. This piece was by far one of the most intriguing to me; it was one piece that I kept going back to again and again.

I personally really enjoyed the Chris Jordan show and the works he displayed at the Windsor Gallery. It was an eye opener as well as an inspiration. I have similar beliefs and views about environmental issues and commend his dedication to his artwork and commitment to spreading his messages.

All is Quiet

 I have put together an animated storyboard (even though I am missing 2 frames) that I created for my design for motion class. I chose to re-do the opening title sequence for the 1930’s film, All Quiet on the Western Front. The original film didn’t have much of an opening title secquence so I thought that it was easier to work from scratch rather than  working with a film with a current opening title sequence to pursuade my ideas. 

…I am not sure of the best way to explain that, but I hope you sort of understand where I’m going with it.

If you have never seen the movie, or have just not seen it in a long time…

About the film: 

This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about “the enemy” and the “rights and wrongs” of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

After the title sequence…

It opens on a man and a woman cleaning a foyer of a school house, the man opens the door to reveal a German street full of cheering civilians and soldiers marching down the street. It then goes to one of the classrooms with a teacher basically rallying up the young all boys class and convincing them to join the army and fight for their motherland

 Concept:

I was trying to go for a very lonely feeling having the setting take place in the remnants of a WWI battlefield; dark, muddy, quiet, baron and ripped apart.

The look is black and white high contrast scenes with silhouettes and barbed wire. Scenes of destruction (helmet with bullet hole, barbed wire, muddy trenches, explosions) juxtaposed with a fleeting, tiny, delicate butterfly. Though this seems cliche it corresponds directly to the end of the actual film.

In my sequence, the butterfly represents beauty, happiness, childhood, loss, freedom, the boy(s) when they were young and at home uncorrupted by war. Having it coupled with the grungy war scenes it makes the absurdity and pointlessness of war, the unhappiness, and the loss of their (the boy’s) childhood by going through this hell stand out.

You can either choose to look at this as what is actually going on while these school boys are at school being preached to by their teacher or as a stand alone title sequence to set the mood and theme with the music as a bit of an overture.

(again for the people who have not seen the film or just haven’t seen it in a long time).

Digital Game: The Adventures of Marina and Paige

Game:brief introduction/main concept:

Our project focuses mainly on the past, present, and future of a coffee cup. Starting with a small sapling and gradually moving larger and larger until reaching a massive tree, players are able to experience the beauty of growth. Afterwards, the game focuses on destruction, enabling players to see and experience the process behind an everyday item and the impact it has on our environment.

THE GAME>>>

how to play:

Select two teams, and a captain for each. The captain will be responsible to keep track of the other teams progress. This person will be receiving the images from the other team and sending text messages back to tell them the following assignment.

Two teams set out on a race to complete a specified order of tasks including the following, where each step requires the team to send an image of each event to the captain, where they then wait for a response (via text) giving them the instructions to find the next object.

team Paige:

1. sapling or very small tree (under your own height)

2. slightly larger tree (only a few feet taller than your own height)

3. meduim tree that you are able to give a hug

4. large tree that you are able to climb into.

5. some form of denatured wood such as sawdust, planks, or manufactuered board.

team Marina:

1. select an individual either posing to buy, or actually buying a coffee, using a disposable cup.

2. find someone sitting, drinking their coffee

3. record the individual disposing of the cup

4. find a disposed cup which has been thrown into some sort of bin (the cup must not be new anymore)

5. find a coffe cup at the end of its life, wherever you can find it.

At the end:

Each team has a collection of images telling a story, and when both teams collaborate their pictures, they find it gives a much larger context behind the life cycle of the coffee cup. The losing team buys the winning team a round of coffee where they experience the guilt behind throwing something away after seeing the damage it does on our environment, perhaps wishing they had a thermos they could reuse instead.

The art of Mr. McQueen

Lately I have had my eye on some fashion designers, one in-particular is a man named Alexander McQueen. His “works” are amazing.  Alexander McQueen had been called everything from the English John Paul Gaultier to a Picasso in Cloth. He is a fashion pioneer and likes pushing things to the edge. He questions the accepted concept of fashion and beauty, and his runway shows reflect that.

Some see his techniques as shock inspired, some just call them radical ideas. In one of his couture shows, he used clear mannequins lit from the inside to show the clothes instead of using runway models. The mannequins were mounted on movable floors and their appearance on the stage was choreographed, giving a feeling of movement.

McQueen also uses the runway for political statements, such as his “Highland Rape” show that scandalized London in 1995.

He describes himself as the “pink sheep of the family” and is rumored to have written obscenities in the Prince of Wales’ jacket lining while an apprentice at Anderson & Sheppard.

I would love to see McQueen to work with a movie director or something, I would love to see some of his works in the movies.  He is quite inspiring. These shows were quite intriguing…

Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 1999 Collection: #13 (above)
Creating something tender and organic from industrial machinery was the awesome task underpinning this memorable, balletic collections show. Inspired by the artist Rebecca Horn’s kinetic sprayers ‘Les Amants’, car sprayers were sourced for the finale, where model Shalom Harlow was sprayed with yellow and black ink by what were seemingly robots brought to life. In spite of the technical complexity of the programming involved, an appearance of total simplicity was key to complimenting the designs. This minimal elegance is manifest in the stark staging, right down to the unvarnished wood turntable on which Harlow gracefully rotates.

Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2001 Collection: Voss(above)
To explore the perennial McQueen theme of the beauty within, a colossal padded cell constructed from two-way mirrors was erected, echoing the collection’s engagement with the aesthetics of asylums and prisons. Using a Director of Photography sourced from the film industry, lighting was designed to fluctuate from making the walls seem opaque -forcing the audience to react to their own reflections- to revealing the shocking tableaux inside, an homage to photographer Joel Peter Witkin’s famous odalisque.

This is the opening for the fashion show(Below).

Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2008
Using the motif of a Bird of Prey as a starting point, the concept of McQueen’s S/S 08 show was to interpret the bird into a light sculpture, bringing it to life and creating a backdrop to the collection.

McQueen collaborated with Directors Warren Du Prez and Nick Thorton-Jones, to create an animated film of light, bringing the vast metal wing sculpture to life. As the film developed throughout the show, the winged Pegasus like creature transformed into a colourful butterfly, forming an array of colours behind the models.

The show and collection were a dedication to Isabella Blow.


Alexander McQueen Spring Summer 2007 (above)
Taking Handel’s Sarabande (dance) in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lindon’ as the inspiration for the show and the setting of an old Circus Space. McQueen’s presentation became a collaboration of music and fashion, staged in the round, with a dusty, decadent chandelier as the central point of the deserted set.

As the grand chandelier rose to start the show, illuminating the wooden floor with dappled light, the chamber orchestra started with a harpsichord solo, and the first model entered the catwalk. The orchestra played throughout the catwalk presentation, a series of sarabande’s specifically composed for the show.

My Google Map

Link to my Google map... 

 Well here is a personal little Google map of mine that I made. They are destinations, routes, and points in the lower mainland that I have either flown to or over. I flew in a Cessna 172 with my boyfriend, David, as my private pilot.