Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

All the vids! I kind of put this off because most of my vids are just available at Youtube, but that's not 100% true anymore. So here we are!

( Behind the cut... )

Title: Magic
Song: Magic by B.O.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo)
Source: Georges Méliès
Length: 2:06

Meet the first wizard of cinema


Vimeo password: wizard

Download the 58MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save file as...")

Notes: George Méliès was a pioneer in the realm of movie magic, operating from the earliest days of cinema in 1896 until 1913. He started his career in stage magic and many of his earliest shorts were filmed and shown at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin where he was the director.

Most of Méliès’ cinematic work dealt with, at one level or another, movie magic. His favorite trick was stopping the camera, removing or replacing a prop or person, then restarting the camera, giving the illusion of a transformation. He also did a lot of work in overlaying separate filmed sequences into one shot. While many of his films can be distilled down to the genre of “trick” film, his interest in narrative grew over the course of his career. His most famous work is certainly A Trip to the Moon (1902) with its famous shot of a spaceship hitting the face of the moon in the eye.

As for myself, I’ve owned a box set of most of Méliès’ surviving films for quite some time and never thought to crack it open. I’ve been struggling lately with a shortage of my ADHD medication and I thought that, given that the majority of the Méliès oeuvre runs under five minutes, it might be a good distraction, especially before work. I was absolutely charmed and a vid idea started to form. So that’s this. Enjoy!

Thanks for se42 and thirdblindmouse for encouragement.

This account is mostly used for posting vids now and I post vids about once a year.

Things are going well. We moved into a townhouse back in November and I have my own office space now. No more sharing with the bedroom.

I'm running D&D about once a month for settiai and other friends.

I'm slowly backfilling my old Vimeo-exclusive vids onto Youtube to give them a wider audience. I'm surprised by how many views they're racking up in just a day or two. Alas, some vids like David Cronenberg are not suitable for the platform (but that one doesn't need the help, probably, as it's my most kudos'd work on AO3).

One bummer is that the ADHD med shortage has been hitting me on and off for the last year. I'm currently three weeks without meds and my pharmacy still has them on backorder. I'm annoyed because this shortage is entirely artificially manufactured by the federal government. It would take one pen stroke (and some time) to resolve.

It can now be told! I made two treats this year:

Weapon of Choice (Busby Berkeley movies) for fairestcat 
Hold On (Floor is Lava) for thingswithwings 

I know, I know... TWO vids in a calendar year? Wild.

Title: Let's Hear It for the Boy
Song: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Deniece Williams
Source: Project Runway
Length: 1:23
Warnings: The dog is too cute.

Summary: Project Runway has one job and that is to show me the dog.



Vimeo password: swatchwatch



Download 11.7MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save link as...")

Notes: I'm a huge Project Runway fan. I only picked up the show during the first Christian Siriano seasons, but I've spent an inordinate amount of time and money backfilling my PR experience. Everybody knows the best part of Project Runway is Swatch, the dog who shows up 2-4 times a season when they're at Mood. His appearances last about a second. Imagine making a vid out of that. I really plumbed the depths of what was available. You're seeing clips here from the mothership as well as All Stars and Junior, plus some supplementary videos from various sources. I had to resort to some truly janky video acquisition methods for some of this.

I'm still retired (lol), but I'm also apparently determined to make a vid every calendar year. So here you go.

I'm losing track of a lot of things. I finally just gave up on bullet journaling. I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep up with this feature. I don't really check Dreamwidth anymore, so maybe it's time to just let this go.

I watched exactly one movie in the last two weeks:

Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (2021)

I saw this documentary at the Laemmle NoHo 7. I was the second-youngest person there. Not a lot in terms of new information, but nice to spend 100 minutes engulfed in classic horror information again.

Last week was crazy busy at work, so I didn't have the spoons to post. So here we are with a double feature! I'm feeling kind of down right now, so no life updates or commentary.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Creep (2014)
Free Guy (2021)
Jakob's Wife (2021)

Rifftrax: Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare
Best in Show (2000)
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

Oops. Let's not do that again.

I had a miserable week last week when I was off my ADHD meds for five days due to an ever-cascading series of f**kups, mostly not mine. I ended up taking two non-consecutive days off of work, which I'm sure didn't look weird at all.

I've been playing a lot of LEGO DC Super Villains which is cute as most LEGO games are.

This week I'm in Des Moines to see family, so there may not be any movies to post about.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Fear Street: 1994 (2021)
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Annette (2021)
Aquaman (2018)

sol_se and I are back on our Godzilla bullsh**t, working through the Millennium series. Godzilla 2000 is a perfectly serviceable entry with no great highs or lows.

I really liked Fear Street: 1994 and look forward to completing the trilogy eventually.

The Suicide Squad is a ton of fun. I'm really glad that Warner is committed to doing hybrid releases through the end of the year, because it's nice to watch these new movies at home sometimes. Margot Robbie is a delight as Harley Quinn as usual. King Shark is deadly and adorable. Be warned, this movie earns its R rating.

Annette. Where to start with Annette. I just felt like Sparks (the musicians who wrote the story and the music) were just screwing with me the whole time. It's a musical where everyone just states what they are feeling and doing in the most banal terms possible. There's some other strangeness that I won't spoil, but yeah. I was never bored, but I think I'm angry at the movie? I hope there's some artistic conceit I'm missing and the movie is secretly brilliant.

Aquaman is stupid fun and there's not much more to say about it.

Finished playing through The Outer Worlds. Poked at a couple other games before settling on Dragon Age: Inquisition again. I think. The Hinterlands are trying my patience a little.

Went to the comic book shop and swapped opinions about Black Widow and Loki. It's nice to get out and be social in limited quantities.

Here's the movie list:

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
Rifftrax: Pressure Point

Gunpowder Milkshake is delightful and fun and somewhat inventive.

Pressure Point is from a low budget film production company in Delaware of all places. It's very bad and is basically the same plot as Radical Jack, another Rifftraxed movie from the same people.

I think I've petered out on Mass Effect. While I still have a couple of different playthroughs I can do, I've been playing these games for a month straight. I've switched to Outer Worlds as a breather game, especially as there is DLC I haven't played.

Finally socialized for the first time in over a year, going over to airawyn's place for a small gathering. It was a lot of fun and I didn't forget how to talk to people! I think.

Here's the very short movie list:

Fate of the Furious (2017)

I'm all caught up on Fast and Furious movies that are out on digital disc. I still need to see F9, though.