I want to talk a little bit about Simon Amstell. I don't know what it is about him, but he just makes me love his comedy stuff so much. I mean, he gave Marilyn Manson a toaster as a wedding gift in 2004 on Popworld. He made Britney admit she thinks of herself as a 6 or 7 out of 10 on a beauty scale. He made Preston walk off Buzzcocks, and got Dappy from N-Dubz to spank him. You have to be mentally brilliant in order to achieve all of these things before you're 30. And now he's got a new show, something about grannies, I haven't seen it yet but I need to check it out.
B.R.I.L.L.I.A.N.T
I highly recommend. It's got suspense, super-heroes gone wrong and so many other things.
But on top of that, there are other amazing things about it too. The music!!! Every single episode features at least one song that I just love. I mean the opening is "Echoes" by the Rapture! And they've had Klaxons, the Prodigy, Kraftwerk, the Horrors, Blur, Justice (my favorite Boys Noize remix of Phantom Pt II!!), Aphex Twin, the Cribs, the Cure, the Velvet Underground, and so on. If only this list doesn't make you wanna watch this show, you're retarded or deaf.
And how about cinematography?? Those scenes shot at the club, one of my favorite episodes is when Curtis changes back time many many times over so he can undo some of the things he's guilty about. In the club the music and the dancing all synched so well with the repetition of the same shots with different outcomes.... And the mood? Everything is grey, moody, about to rain cloudy kind of light and feeling. Their orange suits break up the dreary landscape so well. And of course, the intro deserves a special round of applause too. That animation together with the little symbols here and there! Somehow the scenes with blood and gross stuff are not shocking like horror movies, but not stupid like cheap wanna-be horror movies or shows.
I could go on and on about it, but I think I will stop here.
I guess this is why I am slightly addicted to British TV and cannot stand American TV in any shape or form (unless it's Twin Peaks or Nash Bridges). They make TV episodes as good as actual movies. They pay attention to everything from camera angles to realistic portrayal of skin, bodies, hair, etc to lighting and follow-up of every plot line. I don't know, it's just pretty cool like that.
I guess I should talk about something else now. This semester is coming to an end and what have I done this semester? One thing for sure - I made a TON of art. Like, literally so much art. Partly because I dropped one of my classes, partly because I am taking it more seriously now and got out of my art rut I guess. And partly because I just wanted to and I've been in a good happy mood all semester, feeling active, responsible, daring, caring, bla bla.
Realistically, I made about 11 paintings. 2 tiny ones, two middle-sized ones, three on the border line of being too big to be middle-sized, two big ones, and two enormous paintings that I didn't stretch but pinned to the wall. They take up all the space of the wall. I am very proud of one of them. I am proud of a lot of the artwork I made. I also made so many prints! I kind of love and hate printmaking now. I like it because if done properly and if it's a success, the prints can look very beautiful. For some things, there is no better media than print. I hate it because it takes a lot of time and patience and I am very impatient. On the other hand, I like that it makes you do everything carefully and slowly because it's a nice counter-balance to my painting which is very quick, sporadic, bursting with energy and color. Sometimes when I paint I put on "Katya's shitty dance music" and sort of dance around while I paint. In print I made 8 books, 6 of which are filled with stuff. I made 4 different kinds of plates all related to sea-life and sea monsters, I made one failed plate that I never actually printed except for proofs. I made two metal dry-point plates the same size, with the motif about lions. And finally, for the class exchange I made a third metal plate as a response to the film "The Fall".
I've also made a film, Honey Dreams, a music video "Cathouse presents: witchhouse", an art video thing from footage from London called "Colored Motion" and filmed three bands perform one night and made individual videos of that and edited them altogether as well. Here are the links:
Honey Dreams
Cathouse presents: witchhouse
Colored Motion
Negative Spaces performing
Hastas performing
Clash of new sounds
I think it has been a very very productive semester.
I'm really liking the somewhat new show The Misfits. After British Skins were done, I had nothing to watch while eating morning cereal. The Misfits are amazingly brilliant. The actors are spot-on with their characters, accents, mannerisms and dress-code, but also their emotions, appropriate age groups and relationships with each other. I'm amazed that I haven't heard of this show before. I am slightly in love with every single character, maybe just not feeling the runner guy so much, he's a bit predictable. But everyone else is just amazing. I'm a huge fan, it might actually have just pushed Skins to the 2nd place in my top TV stuff and took that first place with the very first episode.
B.R.I.L.L.I.A.N.T
I highly recommend. It's got suspense, super-heroes gone wrong and so many other things.
But on top of that, there are other amazing things about it too. The music!!! Every single episode features at least one song that I just love. I mean the opening is "Echoes" by the Rapture! And they've had Klaxons, the Prodigy, Kraftwerk, the Horrors, Blur, Justice (my favorite Boys Noize remix of Phantom Pt II!!), Aphex Twin, the Cribs, the Cure, the Velvet Underground, and so on. If only this list doesn't make you wanna watch this show, you're retarded or deaf.
And how about cinematography?? Those scenes shot at the club, one of my favorite episodes is when Curtis changes back time many many times over so he can undo some of the things he's guilty about. In the club the music and the dancing all synched so well with the repetition of the same shots with different outcomes.... And the mood? Everything is grey, moody, about to rain cloudy kind of light and feeling. Their orange suits break up the dreary landscape so well. And of course, the intro deserves a special round of applause too. That animation together with the little symbols here and there! Somehow the scenes with blood and gross stuff are not shocking like horror movies, but not stupid like cheap wanna-be horror movies or shows.
I could go on and on about it, but I think I will stop here.
I guess this is why I am slightly addicted to British TV and cannot stand American TV in any shape or form (unless it's Twin Peaks or Nash Bridges). They make TV episodes as good as actual movies. They pay attention to everything from camera angles to realistic portrayal of skin, bodies, hair, etc to lighting and follow-up of every plot line. I don't know, it's just pretty cool like that.
I guess I should talk about something else now. This semester is coming to an end and what have I done this semester? One thing for sure - I made a TON of art. Like, literally so much art. Partly because I dropped one of my classes, partly because I am taking it more seriously now and got out of my art rut I guess. And partly because I just wanted to and I've been in a good happy mood all semester, feeling active, responsible, daring, caring, bla bla.
Realistically, I made about 11 paintings. 2 tiny ones, two middle-sized ones, three on the border line of being too big to be middle-sized, two big ones, and two enormous paintings that I didn't stretch but pinned to the wall. They take up all the space of the wall. I am very proud of one of them. I am proud of a lot of the artwork I made. I also made so many prints! I kind of love and hate printmaking now. I like it because if done properly and if it's a success, the prints can look very beautiful. For some things, there is no better media than print. I hate it because it takes a lot of time and patience and I am very impatient. On the other hand, I like that it makes you do everything carefully and slowly because it's a nice counter-balance to my painting which is very quick, sporadic, bursting with energy and color. Sometimes when I paint I put on "Katya's shitty dance music" and sort of dance around while I paint. In print I made 8 books, 6 of which are filled with stuff. I made 4 different kinds of plates all related to sea-life and sea monsters, I made one failed plate that I never actually printed except for proofs. I made two metal dry-point plates the same size, with the motif about lions. And finally, for the class exchange I made a third metal plate as a response to the film "The Fall".
I've also made a film, Honey Dreams, a music video "Cathouse presents: witchhouse", an art video thing from footage from London called "Colored Motion" and filmed three bands perform one night and made individual videos of that and edited them altogether as well. Here are the links:
Honey Dreams
Cathouse presents: witchhouse
Colored Motion
Negative Spaces performing
Hastas performing
Clash of new sounds
I think it has been a very very productive semester.
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