SOAK WASH RINSE SPIN

Another great design book I dug out of the Attic while home in Canada was SOAK WASH RINSE SPIN by Tolleson Design, a design company based in San Fran. I highly recommend it, especially if you are an educator of design.

I obsess endlessly over design books and there's actually very few that I highly recommend. This book is a rare exception. Not only is it well designed, but it explains projects step by step in a concise manner with the concept in mind, not just the style.

The book thoroughly covers many aspects of graphic design like symbol application, interactive design, branding and signage just to name a few. You really get a good glimpse of a unique group of talented individuals that produce cool work without trying to be trendy and self-indulgent.

This book doesn't read as a promotional book at all, but an indispensable handbook that any graphic designer would gain insight from that contains more images and information than most design annuals. I've read some people complaining that the text is too hard to read but I have no problem with it so get some fucking glasses... In short, this book fucking rocks, so get it!

ATTIK Noise 3

As I mentioned below in another post, I finally got THE BOOK that I've been chasing after for the last 10 years, now the best design book in my collection I think. My friend and former creative director, Olaf Strassner gave it to me as a wedding present.

It's in pretty awesome shape, but a few of the pages are falling out near the front of the book. It' still got the metal case, which has a few scratches and it also got a few little dents when it was in transit during my honeymoon. But other than that, it's in great condition. It's amazing how so many ideas and creativity could go into one book. I will cherish this one for a long time to come. Thanks Olaf...

The images I posted here are from Attik's site, I wasn't going to bother scanning in pages because I want to keep it good condition. Like I said above, some of the pages are falling out so I don't want any more to fall out.

It's perfect bound but It's a shame it wasn't bound a little better. That's also a problem with Noise 2, you have to be careful when opening it. Noise 3. 5 was just saddle-stitched (stapled) so there was no problem. They finally got it right with Noise 4 which has very sturdy perfect binding. Anyway, I may try to get it fixed at a professional book binder sometime in the future.

FROGS (1972)

OVERLOOKED HORROR FILMS PART 8

I almost forgot to add this movie to the list until I was in PEI during my honeymoon and had a visit with my old college instructor who had this DVD on his shelf. I'm actually bugging him to burn a copy for me, because it's not easy to find in Japan. It's been 4 or 5 years since the last time I saw it. It was directed by George McGowan, who also directed the old TV series, Fantasy Island. I didn't know this until I was doing a bit of research on Internet Movie Database and saw his credits.

This is considered by so many people to be a horrible film, and yeah, it's definitely got the extra cheese but I think its awesome. In this day and age of politically correct horror movies, it's refreshing to go back to this movie every once in awhile, crack open a few beers and just sit back and enjoy it.

The story: An old rich millionaire bastard who doesn't like frogs, but lives on an island estate in the middle of a huge Southern swamp full of frogs and other various reptiles, decides to throw a big birthday party at his mansion. Actually, his whole family hates frogs, so much that they always spray pesticides all over the island, which pisses the frogs off something awful.

There's scene after scene of frogs hopping (and worse yet, CROAKING!!!!) which isn't so menacing, but pretty hilarious. But pretty soon, the other reptiles of the swamp like snakes, turtles and crocodiles join in the fight against the humans. Little by little, family members go into the swamp but don't come back. The frogs keep moving closer and closer to the house.

The acting is pretty much what you'd expect from a cheesy 70's B-flick, from horrible to mediocre performances. The special effects are the same.

Anyway, don't expect much from this extra cheesy pizza. It's a incoherent and sloppy film but it still deserves a view. There's some really funny stuff. Dead bodies that are still breathing, a few actors that look like they're about to break out laughing at any moment, animals that are not native to swamps. It's really ORIGINAL how the film emphasizes the threatening nature of the animals by zooming in on their faces with the camera.

One of the most famous scenes is near the end of the film where they're taking over the house and one of them is spinning around and around on the record player.

So what are waiting for? Get off your ass you lazy bastard and go rent FROGS!!! Better yet, BUY IT!!! You can get used from Amazon for a buck!!! FFFRRROOOGGGSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KWAIDAN (1964)

Overlooked Horror Films Part 7

This is an amazing film from 1964 directed by Masaki Kobayashi which was a departure for him as a director. These traditional ghost stories and this movie may be well known in Japan, but there's still quite a few people in the west who have yet to discover this classic masterpiece of Japanese horror cinema.

The original stories that the the 4 shorts are based on were actually written by Lafcadio Hearn, a folklorist of Greek/Irish ancestry who lived in the US, then moved to Japan and eventually became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1895 and changed his name to Yakumo Koizumi. What's amazing is that you'd never know the stories weren't written by a Japanese person because it's hard to tell that Kwaidan's source of inspiration was in any way western.

First of all, I'll give you a quick rundown on each of the 4 stories and their plots.

The first story is THE BLACK HAIR, about a samurai who's fed up with being poor, so he leaves his wife and marries another woman of prominence who's family is stinking rich. But soon he longs for the old life and quickly discovers his new wife is a callous heartless bitch. So he returns, and she's still the same as she was when he left. Hmmmmmm. I won't spoil the rest.

The 2nd story is my favorite, YUKI ONNA, the woman of the snow. This one is about a poor woodcutter who lives in a forbidden frozen forest who gets lost in a blizzard with his companion, so they find shelter for the night in an old nearby shack. During the night he awakes to find a mysterious ghostly but extremely beautiful woman who proceeds to blow an icy breath on his companion, freezing him to death. She almost kills him too, but spares him out of pity, but warns him to never tell about what happened to anyone. Later, he meets a woman and gets married and has 3 kids with her. But everyone is wondering why she can have 3 kids and never seem to age and stay beautiful. Is she really who she seems?

Probably the most well-known and popular of these stories is the 3rd one titled HOICHI THE EARLESS. Hoichi is a blind musician who lives in a monastery who loves picking away on his Shamisen and singing about the Heike and Genji clan wars, whose burial ground is very near the monastery. Too close, in fact, that the ghosts demand he do a late night performance for them. He's cool with it, but the head monk starts to notice his late night departures and his failing health and warns him that if he continues, the ghosts will rip him to shreds, so he paints Hoichi's entire body with prayer to ward off any evil spirits. Unfortunately, he forgets to paint Hoichi's ears. OOPS! You can probably figure out the rest.

The last episode IN A CUP OF TEA, a writer keeps seeing the reflection of another person when he looks into his cup of tea. Soon he confronts the writer in physical form, then soon the spirit is joined by a trio of others. Each time the end results of these duels are futile. I won't tell you anymore.

This is probably the most BEAUTIFUL horror film ever made, with everything shot in the studio. The sets were way ahead of their time and still amaze audiences today. Kobayashi went to great lengths to adapt different aspects of Kabuki theatre and Bunraku puppet theatre in his techniques used in this film.

The atmosphere created in this film from the use of color works extremely well especially in THE BLACK HAIR and YUKI ONNA with all the blue hues. All I can say is that Japanese horror has so much more of a different aesthetic than western horror films, and in many cases they are way more effective in scarring your psychological senses and your emotional psyche. The images and sounds haunt you long afterwards.

Speaking of the music, famous Japanese film composer Toru Takemitsu provided the brilliantly eerie soundscapes that compliment this film so perfectly. He not only did the music, but did a lot of the foley too. I am a huge fan of Takemitsu's work, especially his film works. There's a 7 CD boxset of his filmworks that should be obtained if at all possible. But as far as I know it's only available in Japan.

Anyway, if you're looking for a different kind of horror movie that's not the typical modern Hollywood "I know what you did last summer" crapola, you should give this a view. I'll be reviewing some other Japanese horror films in the near future...

Back in Kan"fuckin"sai

Well, my wife and I just got back from touring Canada for 2 weeks. We finally had our wedding ceremony and reception in Vancouver on July 15th, then we got up the next day and flew to Toronto airport, took a shuttle bus to Niagara Falls and stayed there for 2 nights. Then we headed to PEI for a couple days, then my hometown New Brunswick, then Banff for a couple of days, which was the highlight of the trip for me.

The ceremony and reception went pretty well I think, set aside a few minor snags. We only had a day in Vancouver before the wedding day, so we were pretty pooped. It would have been nice to spend at least another few days in Vancouver to hang out with my friends, but... By the way, what the fuck is up with all those painted bears in Vancouver? Who's idea was that? It's really tasteless.

Even though I'm going to personally email all of you who attended, I just want to thank everyone for coming and making it such a great day. Also, thanks for the present money, gifts, etc. It was awesome to see you all and I'm sorry I couldn't have spent more time there to hang out and catch up. Hopefully I'll make another trip this winter. Special thanks to Ben Wilson who helped coordinate the speeches and the music, etc. And BIG thanks to Olaf Strainer for passing down the Attik Noise 3 book to me. I've been bugging the shit out of him for the last 10 years to sell it to me, now he finally just gives it to me.

I'll post some more wedding pictures when I get them. The photographer is still organizing all of them on DVD. I also took well over 1000 pictures on the trip. Lotsa good shots, some of which will either end up somewhere on the blog or my next photo page.

The best shots I got were in Banff. It was my first time there, and all I can say is that it doesn't matter where you point your camera or if you're a shitty photographer, you can't really take a bad shot. From every angle is just awesome scenery. I enjoyed being home too, and PEI was great (but really humid) but I didn't dig Niagara Falls very much. It's just one big tourist trap after another. Everything is overly expensive, there are too many stupid American tourists, it's noisy as hell, and it's almost impossible to get a damn taxi unless you're getting from the hotel. The best part of Niagara Falls was the famous MAID OF THE MIST ride where you get really close to the falls and get soaked.

We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel and the last night we stayed, I was just pounding back a few beers, and suddenly I heard some stupid old Japanese woman pounding on one of the other doors outside for about 20 minutes yelling to let her in. Why didn't she get the hint after a minute that nobody was in the room. Next door, another family was staying there with these little bratty loud kids, so I didn't sleep much that night.

Even though Banff itself rocked, one MAJOR disappointment was Banff Springs Hotel and their shitty service. For a 5 star major hotel, they sucked. As soon as we got to the hotel, the bellboy just took our fucking bags, didn't give us a tag, so I had to go back to where they keep the bags and identify them. Then, we got room keys that didn't work, and we waited almost an hour for them to bring us new keys, and by that time it was already 9:00 o'clock, we were all tired and just wanted to go out and eat. Great looking hotel though and an awesome view.

Anyway, we covered a lot of ground in 2 weeks, too much actually. But like i said, it was fun, we had out moments of tension and arguing, but it went pretty well for the most part. I'll post more pictures later...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ME!!!!!

Well, I fucking turned 33 today. That's half of 66. Add another 6 and that's 666, and you know what that means don't you? Doom, motherfuckers. Doom. Damn, I got grey hairs and bad teeth, I guess it's all downhill from here. Happy Birthday to my asshole.

The only thing I got for my birthday was a pair of elephant underwear from my wife's sister. You can conveniently put your dick through the elephant's trunk when you get a boner, so I guess that's pretty cool. If you don't have a boner, you can still put it in, but you probably won't be able to get the head to come out the trunk.

My dick will now take on another life and speak through the elephant's trunk, kind of like Quaid speaking through that other guy in TOTAL RECALL. I was going to take a picture of me wearing the underwear with boner sticking out, but maybe that's illegal on here, and I don't think many of you would want to see my shwang anyway, so I'll save it for another time...

Anyways, this'll be my last blog for a few weeks cause I'm going to Canada for a few weeks to have a wedding ceremony and honeymoon. Love love love...

Portfolio update & some news

There's a couple new pieces I added to the portfolio section, so have a look. Everyone keeps asking me when I'm going to do some more movies. Well, I don't really know, they take me so long to produce. I'd really like to start playing with after-effects or some other video programs soon and see what I can produce. My computer just doesn't have the juice.

I also want to add another photo page in the near future. I've been getting used to the new camera, the Coolpix S6. Although I'm not totally happy with it, it takes better pictures than the last camera I was using. I'd like to buy another camera with a fast shutter speed that is ideal for dark lighting and night shots. The Coolpix is not so great in that area.

Also, working on a new CD of electronic ambient stuff. I still haven't released "A forwarding notion...", it will be released at some point, I just don't know when. I have 3 new tracks almost completed, I'm going to hammer out some more stuff soon. I'm pretty happy with it so far, it feels good to be tinkering with music and sound after such a long break not doing much.

Also, I just copies of the current issue of LAYERS magazine with my submission in the gallery section. I'm quite disappointed because that magazine is not printed at a high enough resolution to hold very small details. The piece I submitted was shrunk down so much that you can't really see the detail, it looks all blurry. Anyway, it's better than a dagger to the kneecap I guess, hopefully I'll get a few hits to the site from it.

So stay tuned, there will be some new stuff on the site by summer's end. Just going away on holidays very soon and having a wedding ceremony in Canada, so I'll be getting back into design and music when I return. Cheers!

CHUD (1984)

OVERLOOKED HORROR FILMS PART 6

I don't know why I like this film so much but I do. My wife thinks I'm absolutely fucked for thinking this so good. I know it's not a great film or a completely original idea or anything, it's just a fun film to watch, it's pretty short and I really like Daniel Stern's character "AJ Shepard", one of his best roles ever. Without such a strong cast, this film could've easily been a stinker.

C.H.U.D. is one of those toxic waste crazy monster movies but it's updated to the early 1980's concept of fearing nuclear waste. The film is not really gory or scary, it's actually more like a science fiction suspense film with a lot of memorable characters and a pretty decent plot.

The film is set in the scummy streets of New York City. George Cooper (John Heard), plays a big shot fashion photographer who wants to work on a new editorial shoot concerning the homeless, and he starts hearing things about missing people. He starts to get concerned because some of the vanishing are people he has taken pictures of and interviewed recently, so he decides to start investigating the disappearances. Then we have a city cop named Bosch (played brilliantly by Christopher Curry), whose own wife disappeared without a trace some a little while before, so he starts assembling reports on sudden disappearances. The people he works with could care less because most of the people involved are mostly street trash. He decides to pay a visit to A.J. Shepard (Daniel Stern), known on the street as "The Reverend," a man who runs a soup kitchen to feed the poor.

So eventually they form kind of a team to discover C.H.U.D. and what it means after threatening this guy named Wilson, who's head of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency that they will go to the papers with their story. Wilson reluctantly reveals that the C.H.U.D. are Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Wilson claims a small amount of nuclear waste leaked into the sewers of New York and turned a few vagrants into these zombie flesh eating creatures. At first, they try to flush them with flamethrowers but fail miserably, so it's up to our three heroes to do the job themselves. The C.H.U.D. aren't about to take any attempts to eradicate them lying down, and eventually move aboveground to wreak mayhem on the innocent residents of the city. More painful truths come out when Shepard and Cooper discover that Wilson lied about the toxic waste leak, a truth that is much worse and one that paints the bureaucrat in an extremely unfavorable light.

The music is typical 80's crappy cheese synth and drum machine stuff. The effects are pretty decent there ARE some pretty good gore scenes, although they are used sparingly. This movie definitely one of my faves. Check it out!

THE NEST (1988)

OVERLOOKED HORROR FILMS PART 5

I saw this "cockroach classic" from infamous producer Roger Corman, directed by Terence H. Winkless for the first time a long time ago when I was watching satellite TV at my fiends' house after we'd had a few cold ones. That particular day, that channel was showing a slew of horror films with "bug" themes. I remember I also saw "The Swarm" the same night, that's the famous bee horror movie (no pun intended) directed by Irwin Allen (which, by the way is currently in line to be re-made by the cretins of Hollywood by 2008)

Anyway, back to THE NEST. This is just an enjoyable film that scared the piss out of me back then so bad that I had trouble sleeping for about a week. I genuinely hate cockroaches, and most bugs and creepy crawly things in general, so if you're like me and you freak out at the sight of one, I suggest you put this one back on the shelf.

The movie has a reasonable script and OK acting, so the film's already got that for it. There's a fair amount of suspense, quite a fewscenes that will really make you squirm, and some surprisingly good special effects that you would typically expect from a Roger Corman flick during the final act, and you have a pretty effective horror film. Believe me, it's not actually not as cheesy as the cover shown above.

The story takes place in a small bumfuck US town that could very well be Maine or somewhere like that. Anyway, doesn't matter, really. A corrupt corporation is in battle with The Mayor because they have fucked around with nature and as a result the town is overrun by cockroaches. But they're not just regular roaches, they devour people, cats, dogs etc. in a matter of seconds, they have been specially bred to withstand just about any conditions, no matter how harsh they may be.

The sheriff, the mayor's daughter, who's just come back from a 4-year stint in LA, and the town hobo & exterminator are on the job to get rid of the roaches. This is pretty routine until the end, when the roaches mutate into the shape of whatever they happen to eat. So we get this cat/roach hybrid thingee that eventually eats the mayor. I won't spoil the ending and how they get solve the roach problem, or even IF they do.

Anyway, it's not a masterpiece or anything and doesn't belong beside ROSEMARY'S BABY but it's definitely worth watching a few times. I don't think there is a decent version of this on DVD, you're just as well off to find a cheap used VHS copy, I've seen the DVD and it looks like it was just burned onto DVD with no clean-up.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981)

OVERLOOKED HORROR MOVIES PART 4

This is a made for TV movie directed by Frank DeFelitta that started airing in 1981. I remember seeing this a few times when I was a kid and some of the scenes stuck in my head for years. I forgot the title of the movie for a long time but the images never left my head. This is an exceptionally creepy film with a great story which richly deserves a proper DVD release, but that may never be possible because the TV network that owns the rights to it doesn't look like they'll give it up any time soon. That's what I heard amyway.

This is a story about a mentally retarded man named Bubba played by Larry Drake, who does an outstanding job in my opinion. Anyway, Bubba becomes the best friend of a young girl (played by Tonya Crowe) in a small country town, but a local group of rednecks (headed by Charles Durning who plays the local mail carrier) don't like the idea of them together and decide from then, they'll find any excuse to use him as a convenient scapegoat.

The one day, Bubba and the girl are playing, and she sneaks into someone's yard through the fence. and a dog attacks her until she's unconscious, but Bubba thinks he's killed her, so of course the rumors start flying pretty quickly. After Bubba is mistakenly accused of murdering her, Durning and crew get together then hunt down and kill him in cold blood as he tries to hide by pretending to be a scarecrow, only to then find out that not only did he not kill her but she's alive and he saved her life. They are taken to trial but manage to get their charges dropped by a biased judge, despite the fact that they shot him 21 times. But soon find that "there is other justice besides the law" as quoted by Bubba's mother, and begin to meet their fates one at a time.

From here on in, creepy shit starts happening. The same scarecrow that Bubba tried to hide in starts popping up in the fields of the killers and offing them one by one. There are some pretty original death scenes. One of the men gets chewed into hamburger by his own woodchipper, another gets trapped in a silo then gets buried alive by grain falling in on him. I won't spoil the last gruesome scene for those of you who haven't seen it. Let's just say that the ending was great. Movies like this usually fall apart before the end, but this one doesn't.

Durning does a great acting job and keeps the atmosphere dark and tense. Throughout the film you just hate him more and more and by the end of the film, you can't wait for him to get it. It's pretty funny at times to see the insane expressions on his face.

Anyway, like I said, I don't think they'll be a legit DVD issue of this anytime soon, so if you want to see it, your best bet is to keep checking Ebay. There are countless bootleg DVD-rom versions of it out there but I can't say how good the quality is, cause I never bought one. I'd recommend trying to find a used copy of the video from Ebay or try to find a torrent of it.

DEADLY FRIEND (1986)

OVERLOOKED HORROR MOVIES PART 3

Deadly Friend is based on Diana Henstell novel of the same title, then was made into a movie by Wes Craven in 1986. Haven't read the book, so I don't know how closely it follows the book.

This is considered by many critics and fans alike to be Wes Craven's worst movie ever. Couldn't disagree more. How could anyone say that after seeing Scream or Scream 2? C'mon guys. I know it's not his best and yeah, it's fuckin' cheesy as hell, but it's great fun so it shouldn't be taken so seriously. Accompanied by a 6-pack and a few good friends, you'll get into it so give it chance. Horror movies are supposed to be dumb sometimes. The CHEESE has to be understood and appreciated. Has to be.

All that aside, this is a very enjoyable movie to me with plenty of scares, a good dose of gore thrown in where it's needed and a pretty good story that's paced pretty well.

The plot? Teenage genius geek, Paul is obsessed with science and artificial intelligence. He even received a college scholarship thanks to the robot he build called BeeBee. But a bit later after he goes off to college he gets a boner for the blond next door. Then the blond and BeeBee are both killed and Paul secretly uses a chip from the ronot, BeeBee's brain to bring the blond back to life which proves to be a shitty idea.

Kristy Swanson plays the girl that Sam resurrects into a zombie and she's pretty hot but she can't act her way out of paper bag but it doesn't matter. She kills people, causes trouble, she blows the neighbor's head off with a basketball! Heads explode, faces get burned off. The basics for a classic Horror movie. Even though this lacks the focus of films like NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, it's still worth looking at and it has more gore than any of the aforementioned films. Pretty weak plot, but horror fans will still find something in the film I think. Check it out.

PRISON (1988)

OVERLOOKED HORROR MOVIES PART 2

This is second in the "overlooked horror movies." Today I'm going to review a very worthy but underated film called Prison from 1988, the 4th film directed by finnish director Renny Harlin who's best known for films like CLIFFHANGER, CUTTHROAT ISLAND, DEEP BLUE SEA and more recently EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING.

Let me begin by saying that this isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's an interesting horror film with plenty of gore and genuine scares. Considering the somewhat boom period of 80's horror movies at the time, this stands miles above most of the horror films of that period. It was kind of a new take on the "haunted house" theme.

The film has a great cast including some people who've gone on to do much bigger and better things, most notably Viggo Mortensen who, as most of you know, is most famous for his role in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. You will notice many familiar faces, maybe you won't remember their names, and neither do I, but it's interesting to see some of these people so young.

The film takes place in an old prison that hasn't been used in years, reopened to accommodate the overflow of criminals from other prisons. Warden Sharpe (Lane Smith) plays the prison warden, just the worst prick you can imagine. If you know Lane Smith, then you know that he's perfect for these kind of parts. The hero of the plot is Burke (Viggo Mortensen), a mysterious, cool character who doesn't get bothered too easily, who starts to piss Sharpe off very quickly. Weird shit starts to happen when the warden orders an old execution chamber to be reopened, and before long, the prisoners are getting picked off like flies. Obviously, tension in the prison rises, and it gradually becomes clear that an evil force is taking over the prison with one dreadful purpose in mind... to get back at Sharpe.

I haven't seen many of this director's other films, but I know he's a pretty capable director if nothing else. I've seen CLIFFHANGER and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4 and they weren't too bad. The only problem I can really see with this movie is the pace. Although there is a pretty good amount of action, the plot tends to drag. There are few too many 'filler' scenes, but those points are minor. Although some scenes may seem to focus too much on characters that aren't really that important, you really get to know each character pretty well.

Now for the gore. No gore fan should be disappointed. Most of the killings are standard, but others are pretty inventive. The most notable is the scene where one of the prison guards gets wrapped in barbed wire, that's pictured on some versions of the DVD. Another awesome scene is when one of the prisoners escapes and gets impaled on all sides by "possessed" pipes, then the next day while people in the mess hall are eating, his remains spill through the ceiling all over the mess hall. There's another good scene where a prisoner just burns alive from the intense heat that the ghost of the prison is inflicting. Great stuff.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie, if nothing else, just to see Viggo!