Fantastic Mr. Fox Review

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop motion animation comedy film made in 2009 based on the book of the same name by Roald Dahl the author of such things as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and The Witches among other classics. Great author of childrens books I loved them when I was a kid and they make great family films. This one can be seen as a kids movie but this more is more of an adult movie in my opinion. It was directed by Wes Anderson and I read that it was his first animated film and first film adaptation. It stars George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, and Owen Wilson. 

So I think this film is very avant garde indeed. The animation with the humanoid bodies and the animal heads has been done before but the art is very "indie culture" and I think that kind of urban millenial artist type aesthetic is protrayed excellently in this film. Its intellectual its very adult in its humour like you see alot in 90s media but relatively safe for kids to watch. It pokes fun at things like having family members staying at your place and the kid gets jealous, midlife crisis where you buy extravagant things to make your ego satisfied the realty business stuff like that. Things adults willl understand that kids wont but kids can still find things they like about the film too.

The plot of the story is about the self proclaimed "Fantastic Mr. Fox" who was a thieving fox played by George Clooney who you may know from the oceans 11, 12, 13 etc thief movies. He has a girlfriend whos eggo goes preggo so she tells him to settle down and stop being a thief and so he starts a family and everything then moves to a new place and gets the urge to start stealing again and the whole thing goes by the actions of his last thief job and the consequences therein. All the characters are lovable they all have something unique and interesting about their character. The voice acting may seem a bit strange at first but the more you watch it the more you can see it was planned that was and is actually very good and very smart in how the actors read their lines in conjuction with the animation it all melds for a soup of lovable dorky characters. They took the original story but they definitely made it new and creative and its own kind of thing not like most other film adaptations. You will either love the creativity and artistic drive in this films making or you'll think its like an indie comedy disguised as fantastic mr fox and won't like it so much. This is one of those movies that creates its own slang terms and in my experience any media like that is always going to be cherished by certain dorky people who like to use dry humour to make their friends laugh in a dorky way and this gives you fuel to do that. I won't spoil it for you you'll just have to see. 

All around this movie is unique and artistic and a joy to behold. Yoou have to pay attention to get the little jokes though you can't half watch it half check your smartphone or you'll miss all the little jokes that make this a gem of a film. The animation is interesting you can tell its cheap stop motion right away but they made that a quality about the film to be enjoyed. The choppy parts of the animation they make use of that in a creative way which is very avant garde you don't really see creative uses of a smaller budget stop animation film like this movie has. 

And thats my review I think everyone should see this movie at least once and if you liked it you should go out and buy it because its a fun artistic movie with lots of quality humour and there is some pretty good music in it too.

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Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Review

I love this movie to bits. As you can imagine from the title "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" it's a science fiction comedy film and its definitely one of the best if not the best of the genre. Its based off the book of the same name written by douglas adams which is part of a whole series the books are: "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", "Life, The Universe and Everything", "So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish" and "Mostly Harmless". This Movie makes use of bits of all the books but focuses on the main story from the book of the same name. I imagine they didn't get a contract to make all the books into seperate films so to do it any justice they had to make due and do the best they could. You have to give them credit for that. If you have never read the books and like scifi comedy you will definitely like this one if you read all the books you'll get all the little things they put in the movie but might be a tad disappointed they didn't do more.

The film came out in 2005 its "British-American" directed by Garth Jennings and stars Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def and the lovely Zooey Deschanel. The story is about Arthur Dent a human whos planet gets destroyed by aliens but is rescued by this journalist for this repository of knowledge the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and his adventures in space and on other planets that have shocking parallels with things he experienced while on earth. Throughout the film you get snippets of entries in the guide which was fun to watch when you see the guidebook you know theres going to be some silly story going on to describe an alien race or how to react to an event. The whole thing has a fun whimsical attitude about it. Its intellectual humour any geek can appreciate.

I do have to say the beginning may confuse some. It starts out with the video resolution being small like a home video on a bad digital camera then the screen gets bigger to the normal widescreen or full screen version we are used to seeing. The pan out shows you that they made it small on porpoise but you might not enjoy the beginning bit for that reason. The rest of the movie is engaging and interesting. Theres always a new creative gag happening which makes this movie such a treat to watch all throughout. The slower parts you may find boring but those are few. There is action, adventure, romance, comedy all things that make a movie easy to watch for either gender. I really like this movie alot its an instant cult classic for scifi just like the fifth element is and if you like scifi comedy like I do this is a must have for your collection. I'll even go as far as to say it can even help you cheer up on a bad day.

That is my review have at it give it a try go buy it on amazon do the things.

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Obscure Genres : Seapunk

Seapunk is sooooo bizarre. Its a strange subculture that started on the internet as a joke by some people who had a case of 90s internet culture nostalgia but the label stuck and it started this little subculture. Most people will say its not even the seapunk music thats that important its more about the fashion and the art which I think is true. The music isn't really that great you can tell it was meant as a joke and the art too but the art has weird horribly rendered 3d graphics in neon colors it just makes you go wtf am I even looking at right now O.o and it draws your attention and you forget all about the seapunk music that goes with it lol. I have to admit I actually really like the creativity put into the art and fashion of seapunk sure its all teal and seafoam green and hot pink or pastel colors but its kind of interesting and it looks kinda good if slightly bizarre. Most people don't know don't care and can't even comprehend what seapunkers are even doing its so different than mainstream culture its not even funny. like seriously.

A journalist once said seapunk music was "a style of music that incorporates bits of 90s house, the past 15 years or so of pop and R&B, and the latest in southern trap rap—all overlaid with a twinkly, narcotic energy that recalls new-age music and chopped and screwed hip-hop mix tapes in roughly equal measure."

If you listen to the music you will notice its got like a faster break beat or hip hop beat and like chiptune or trancey riffs and oftimes the weirdest vocal samples to make it random and a tad comical. There are a couple influences not every ones going to be the same but you definitely hear alot of those 2 things the faster breakbeat drums and chiptunes. Top Sea Punk Artists are Azealia Banks, Blank Banshee, Kreayshawn, Fire For Effect, Merman, Zombelle, Slava, Unicorn Kid, Baby Tap, Ideal Corpus and Splash Club 7

Being that this subculture is so underground and pretty much only on the internet thats where you are going to find the clothes and the media. KnowYourMeme which is a good database of good knowledge on internet culture has a page about seapunk [here] that has some good information and videos on it and [this] is the Tumblr Tag where most of the whole movement of seapunk takes place.

The seapunk clothing retailers are few most of them are home made and sold on etsy

 http://www.incontrolclothing.com/
 http://www.mainframe.im/
 http://ninjacosmico.com/shop/

Some honorable etsy mentions:

Psychic Trash

Forever Strange

Space Trash

Home Cooked Karma

Bionic Unicorn

Some fun parody videos on how to seapunk:






Some of my favorite seapunk digital art images:

Obscure Genres : Psytrance

Psy Trance. Some people can't stand it and some people really have a strong connection to it. Psychedelic Music has always been a bit weird and has a bad rap with the mainstream crowd. "Only druggies listen to that stuff" you know. While it is psychedelic in nature and i'm sure people on drugs like that type of music that doesn't mean you should dismiss it as only for druggies or to be heard on drugs. This music has its own subculture just like most subgenres do. It has its own art style, fashion, sound and community. Psy Trance is said "by the psytrance ravers" to be the last true subculture left. Usually only psytrance ravers know about psytrance raves that go on and keep it close knit because they don't need bad vibes or narks crowding around them. These are the still happening forest raves and illegal warehouse raves and psy trance rave promoters put on the best theatrics out of any other style rave in the scene. Its psytrance and its colorful and theres lots of lights and lasers and pretty pictures and good art.

Psy Trance started out in Goa, India in the 90s. It was meant to bring more spirituality to dance music. The music has a steady progressive rhythm with a fruity kick and fast bassline with seemingly random outer space inspired acid squelches and trance synths. It can seem kinda weird and it might be kinda weird but it does work and when you listen to it you can see what the initial idea was for the music. The put an image in your mind of what the music is like to me is its like a dance party right normal 4 on the floor beat but its deep and kinda strange its fast yet still a calm steady rhythm and you are flying through outer space and see the occasional shooting star or meteor and less frequent but still see nebulas and you know space dust and what not lol. Its like flying through space in my mind. Its all very outer spacey to me. All the basslines sound pretty similar with a trancey riff and some space samples. An hour long mix can go by like that. That kind of the point of the trance thing though.

Ancient Shamans and even Shamans today use a 4-7 beats per second rhythm a fast rhythm to induce a trance state so they can go visit the spirit world and this music recreates that atmosphere while giving you uplifting progressive melodies to heighten your experience with it. You can lose your self very easy listening to psytrance. I could easily dance 10 hours straight and not even realize its been 10 hours if its psy trance i'm not even kidding. Non stop dancing all through the night no problem. Its a good genre to rave to and to study or work to imo because of the trance state it can put you in. Its a very special and unique type of electronic and it deserves its praise. My father first got me into psytrance with artists like GMS and IM so its always going to have a special place in my heart. The Ravers are really nice sometimes theyre tripped out space cadets on drugs but alot of the time they are kind of new agey nice people who are partial to dance music.


Here are the Top Artists to get you into Psy Trance:
Growling Mad Scientists
Infected Mushroom
Astral Projection
1200 Micrograms
Shpongle
Hallucinogen
Astrix
Vibasphere

I think to listen and download these you have to make an account on the website which is a drag but I promise it is worth it these mixes are bomb!

Mothership by Alecsey
Star Burst by Outrunner
General Psy Trance search on House-Mixes

Obscure Genres : Dungeon

"The Dungeon Sound" is a subgenre of dubstep which is a subgenre of electronic music. Dubstep started in the 90s it's a mix of hip hop style beats  (the step) and deep often wobbly basslines  (the dub). Now the dungeon sound or dungeon sound dubstep or dungeon dubstep or just dungeon is defined as deep dark dubstep very very low bass with dark gritty soundscape and morbid vocals. It's really slow and most of it sounds like just that with deep wobbles mixed in with a deep bass and a slow minimal dubstep beat.

I've been listening to this since soon after I got into dubstep from an indie blog of a London underground dj who invited a guest to make a mix for his blog and then another person also made a mix and these two mixes were dungeon sound and I really liked it so I started researching and got into it and I even have my own 2 hour long dungeon mixtape:

Black Widow by Catapilla on Mixcloud

Last.fm doesn't have a listing for top dungeon artists but dubstep forum does so here it is artists like: Kryptic Minds, SP:MC, LX One, J:Kenzo, DJ Madd, Lurka, TMSV, Benton, Icicle, Ben Verse, Sleeper, District, V.I.V.E.K., Antics, Subreachers, Thelem, Triky. This is the forum thread dedicated to this style music right [here]. The original mix I heard the author took it down maybe I can reload it later somewhere but the 2nd mix I heard is [here].