Even in the UK, there are many people who are blissfully
unaware that the small(ish) country to the left of England has its own
language, culture, identity and – of course – national anthem. If you have ever been to a rugby match to see
Wales compete, then you will have heard the song belted out by (what appears to
be) a thousand choirs all singing in unison.
Yet what does the National Anthem
- Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ((Old) Land of My Fathers) mean when
translated?
Step forward Ellis Lloyd Jones (above, in Pontypridd), TikTok star, drag queen and
now anthem-explainer.Lloyd Jones says a
little Welsh, translates it into English, says a little Welsh – you get the
idea.Although you might not be much the
wiser by the end of this short video, you will probably have enjoyed the
experience!What I found quite amusing
is the way that he doesn’t quite remember some of the translations of the words
into English.Even though most Welsh
speakers are fluent in English, there are many moments like this when the English
word just doesn’t quite arrive on time!
As a by the by, did you know that none of the national
anthems of the UK are official? Although God Save the King is treated as
the national anthem by convention, it has never been established in law, and
the same is true for the anthems used by the individual nations. Instead, each
has evolved through custom and long-standing public use, becoming “official”
only in the sense that people, institutions and events have collectively agreed
to use them. This uniquely British reliance on tradition over legislation means
the UK’s anthems occupy a curious space: universally recognised, yet never
formally declared.Funny old world,
innit!
If you are thinking out loud, your answer may have been “Too
late – they already know about us” and I would be in agreement. We’ve been broadcasting into space for
decades – and although I don’t want to get too Galaxy Quest on you, the
chances are that any aliens who have seen our transmissions are giving planet
Earth a wide berth. After all, given our
history, our predilection for violence and our propensity to relentlessly multiply
– not to mention Love Island - why would any alien in its right mind want to
let us know that there are other habitable planets out there?
This entertaining animated short, realised by the BBC in
conjunction with The Royal Society, attempts to answer this question in under
five minutes.A few things are omitted –
and I am assuming that this is because this caters for a young audience.The most prominent omission is “The Great
Filter” – the idea that intelligent life often develops technology faster than
wisdom, leading to self-annihilation through war, ecological collapse, runaway
AI, resource exhaustion, or other self-inflicted catastrophes.If other civilisations share even a hint of
our tendencies, that’s where I’d wager the odds lie.
Watch the animation below and ponder… the truth is out
there, but intelligent life might not be.
I honestly hesitated before featuring Offerlam, the animated
short written and directed by Tova Persson. Why?
Certainly not because of the striking animation. Certainly not because of the enigmatic and
powerful voiceover by Arril Johnson. And certainly not because of the stirring
music by Loren Ma. It’s probably because
I’m not sure I quite understood it – but, then again, I am not sure I was
supposed to. However, it has placed
itself firmly in my head for the entire day, so much so that I have rewatched
it a number of times.
If you want a starting point, Offerlamm tells the story of a
sheep, separated from its family, destined for a ritual.The sheep has decided to send a letter to his
sister to let her know what has happened to him since his separation.I will leave you to interpret the rest according
to your own imagination!
Offerlamm has been making waves on the international
festival circuit, earning selections at events across the UK, Sweden, Ukraine
and the USA. The film has also impressed the Royal Television Society, taking
home Best Animation in the South West of England Student category, alongside
craft awards for both writing and production design. Its success continued at
the RTS Student National Awards in London, where it collected a further craft
award for writing. Today, Offerlamm also sits in the BFI archive as part of
their collection on Contemporary British Animation.
Finally. A RoboCop
statue was first mooted for Detroit over a decade ago. Back in 2011 there was an exchange on Twitter
between a user and the then Mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing. When Bing admitted
that there were no plans for a statue of RoboCop in his home town, a Kickstarter
campaign raised the funds. And the rest,
you would think, was history.
Not so.Although the
statue was completed in 2017 a number of things stood in its way, including difficulties
in finding an appropriate site, not to mention legal issues with MGM, which
owns the rights to RoboCop’s likeness. RoboCop has, however, finally found a home,
standing outside 3434 Russell Street, just south of Mack Avenue in Detroit's
Eastern Market. The statue was installed there just a few days ago.I think he looks
magnificent - here he is in all his glory. Thanks to Neatorama for the heads up on this!
I’m not entirely sure if Scrubby is a marsupial or a young
creature who just enjoys the warmth of his mother’s fur – I like to think it is
a combination of the two. However,
things aren’t right in Scrubby’s world.
One morning he wakes up, warm still in his mother’s fur, but when he
ventures outside he realises that it is all that remains of her. As any child would, Scrubby goes on a hunt
for his mother. Yet, what he discovers
will lead to a test of his character.
Scrubby sprang to life under the direction of Paul Vollet,
brought to the screen with the technical wizardry of Paul Golter and Lukas
Kapp, and given its sonic heartbeat by sound designers Niklas Menschik and
Jonathan Rösch. Its vivid world was animated by a talented crew - Müge Bulazar,
Deborah Callenberg, Harald Dieterichs, Lilli-Luisa Heckmann, Christian
Kaufmann, Marius Magracia, Stella Raith, Felicitas Schmelz, Vanessa Schneider,
and Elias Weber - each adding their own spark of imagination. Created during
their time at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, this student project bursts
with the energy and creativity you’d expect from a team on the rise.
It is less than half the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and lacks its ornate and flamboyant beauty. Yet this leaning tower, located in the tiny North German hamlet of Suurhusen is in the Guinness Book of Records. It is officially the building with the biggest unintentional lean in the world. Image Credit Flickr User homo_sapiens
The church was originally built in the middle ages and the land then was very swampy. To ensure that the church tower stayed erect it was built on a foundation of oak tree logs which ensured it stayed upright for a number of centuries. Unfortunately the land around the church was drained in the eighteenth century and the tower began its inexorable lean towards the ground.
Inspired by and features the anti-war anthem Happy Xmas (War
Is Over) by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, the film below won the Oscar for Best
Animated Short Film in 2024. Set in a
World War I scenario (perhaps an alternative reality!) the film shows two
soldiers on opposing sides who somehow manage to train a pigeon to carry their
chess moves across the battlefield so that they can compete against each other.
Of course, the true reality of war inevitably sinks in.
This beautiful and profound animated short was written by Sean Ono Lennon and Dave
Mullins. If you saw the 2024 Oscars then
you will no doubt remember Sean Ono Lennon’s emotional shout out to his mother,
Yoko, when he accepted the award. Ono
Lennon is also using the animated short to help raise funds for the charity War
Child.
One of the YouTube commenters (@philipparks6811) said "This production is a remarkable blend of precision, collaboration, and emotional brilliance, capturing the essence of humanity with a message that is both simple and deeply moving. Congratulations on the well-deserved Oscar for creating what is arguably a timeless masterpiece that beautifully unites the enduring spirit of John and Yoko’s iconic tour de force with the true power of film. Bravo!" Indeed. Couldn't have put it better myself.
It’s the 1st of December – and if you haven’t
already had All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey inflicted on you,
then you are one of the lucky few. It’s
inevitable really, the annual invasion of our ears by Ms Carey’s tones (dulcet
or demonic - that is purely a matter of opinion). Here, mashup king Fabrice Mathieu brings
together a number of Hollywood films, (listed below the video), showing the world’s
TV screens suddenly taken over by that song and the resulting (and
varying) reactions it gets. This is
quite possibly the best visual metaphor for the annual agony we have to endure
as we try to go about our daily lives in the run-up to Christmas. Well done Fabrice!
One of the commentators has said of this video: “Having
worked in retail for many years, I absolutely dread hearing this song every
festive season. Over, and over, and over, and over again. You managed to
capture my living horror perfectly.”That says it all, really – apart from, perhaps
this from another commenter – “The most dastardly thing about this video is
that you got me to listen to the entire song.”
Watch the video below (at least if you can retain your
sanity while doing so).
Clips in this mashup are from: Back to the Future 2, The Big Lebowski, Brazil, The Burbs, The Cable Guy, Captain America Civil War, Clockwork Orange, The Conjuring 2, The Core, Dark Shadows, Fargo, Forrest Gump, The Game
Greenland, Grumpy Old Men, Iron Man, Joker, Kamikaze, The King of Comedy, Knowing Logan, Mars Attacks!, Matilda, Nightcrawler, The Nutty Professor, Ocean 13, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Poltergeist, Raising Arizona, Requiem for a Dream, The Ring, Scary Movie 3, The Shining, Signs, Spaceballs, Taxi Driver, V for Vendetta, Videodrome, The Wall.
Dogs like nothing better than when something a little out of the ordinary happens. So, when the world has turned white one morning and the water has gone hard and slippery, you can’t blame a dog for getting a little excited, can you? After all, when the going gets cold, the dog gets going. Our sibling site, the Ark in Space has a great collection of dogs on ice pictures for you today…
Recently, a young Japanese boy has been popping up in my
various feeds, singing his little heart out on what looks like a TV talent
show. His voice is crystal clear – almost perfect – and the judges are soon
brought to tears (with, perhaps, a little over-acting on their part) by the beauty of his voice. The song seems wistful, almost melancholic –
its sheer gentle clarity won me over immediately, despite the fact I did not having the
first clue what he was singing about. The
song itself seemed vaguely familiar – I wondered if I had heard it before,
maybe in my occasional foray into Studio Ghibli movies. So, who is he? And what,
lyrically, does the song convey?
From my own cultural perspective (Welsh), what hit me
immediately about the song (without having a translation) was the overwhelming sense of hiraeth it created in
me.A sloppy translation would call it
homesickness but it runs deeper than that.It’s more of a longing – one for a place, a time, a person (all three together,
even) that cannot be returned to – it is gone.I wanted to discover a little more about the singer and, of course,
whether or not the lyrics matched the feelings the music provoked.I did this with a little trepidation – some people
are so talented that, if they so wish, they could transform you into a weepy blob on the carpet simply by singing their
shopping list.
First, though, watch the boy perform and make your own mind
up.
So, question time: who is the Japanese boy singer?His name is 川合結人- Kawai Yuto -and he
comes from the Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo.He will be 14 in December, so I guess we have
to enjoy the voice while the going is good. One can only hope his voice may well mature into something equally as extraordinary.
Very little is known about Kawai – his parents are very
protective of his privacy. He is
apparently enjoying middle-school and tries to balance a “normal” life with his
TV and singing commitments. He has an older brother – there is a 13 year gap
between the two of them. Kawai has yet to record his debut album (surely that
must be imminent?).
Young Kawai is not a new sensation – at least not in Japan
(and also Korea, where he has received a lot of recent exposure on the 日韓
Top Ten Show).In his home country of
Japan, his earliest public appearances were on local talent shows and smaller
singing contests in 2021.He then gained wider recognition on 現役歌王
(Current Singer-King JAPAN), which started broadcasting in 2023, where
he was introduced as the “少年歌唱王” (boy singing king).
The clip above is from July of this year (2025).The show in which Kawai sang this particular song
was a “Special project commemorating the 60th anniversary of Japan–South
Korea diplomatic relations” and as we will see, perhaps the song was well
chosen for an event such as this.This special
show as called Japan–Korea Singer King Battle. Ultimately, ParkSeo‑jin defeated Takenaka Yudai
(Japan’s “No.1”) in the
final showdown, giving the Korean side the overall win.Oh well - at least Kawai has many more years
to enter competitions and come out the winner.
As for the song, my first suspicion turned out to be
correct.It is indeed from a Studio Ghibli
film, Kiki’s Delivery Service which I had seen at the cinema around 1990.The song is called Meguru Kisetsu (めぐる季節) which
translates as “The Turning Seasons” or “Seasons That Go Around”.Although we can’t reproduce them here for
copyright reasons – the lyrics reflect growth, change, and the passage of time.It is sung by the protagonist Kiki, a young
witch in-training and echoes her journey from childhood into independence.Yes, of course, I have had to watch the movie
once again.It’s still lovely.
Here's the original version from the film. You can even read the lyrics and try and sing along with it (if that takes your fancy - I tried and failed fairly miserably).
As part of her witch training - a rite of passage for young
witches in the Studio Ghibli universe - Kiki is sent to live independently for
a year in a new town. There, she launches a delivery service, flying on her
broom to transport goods and make a living. The story follows her journey of
personal growth, self-confidence, and resilience as she faces the challenges of
living alone and discovers her own identity. This emotional arc is beautifully
underscored by songs like Meguru Kisetsu, whose gentle, wistful melody
mirrors Kiki’s nostalgia, quiet determination, and the bittersweet passage of
time.It ends on an optimistic note –
that she will “ cross over to the dreams that are coming into view".
As such, it was quite fitting that a TV show dedicated to 60 years of diplomacy between two countries which have history, included a song that expresses such hope for the future.
So, final question.Was
the song meant to engender a feeling close to hiraeth? Yesbut no. The wistful melody of Meguru
Kisetsu evokes a feeling remarkably close to that deep, bittersweet longing
for the past or for a home that may no longer exist that the Welsh know as hiraeth.
Certainly, in the context of Kiki’s
Delivery Service, the song mirrors Kiki’s own nostalgia and quiet yearning
as she leaves her familiar village to live alone in a new town. Yet while
hiraeth often carries a sense of irrecoverable loss, Meguru Kisetsu
balances this melancholy with gentle hope, reflecting Kiki’s growth and her
gradual acceptance of change. The result is a musical expression that resonates
with longing, memory, and the tender courage required to move forward. It beautifully captures the emotional complexity of both the character and the passing
seasons.
Just as Kiki set out on her journey of self-discovery and we
all got to watch it, that is equally true of Kawai Yuto.I can only hope that like Kiki in the movie,
young Kawai continues to grow in hope, independence and resilience until he
gets to his own happy ending. Who knows – it certainly looks like this
remarkable young man has already begun that journey.
Postcript
Kawai Yuto teamed up with Yada Keiki, a Japanese singer known for his powerful and emotive performances, again on Current Singer-King JAPAN to perform the emotional classic “Love is Over.” If you already have the hankies out, don't put them away just yet...
Card games in the Philippines are not just games — they are social glue. Families bond over them, friends compete through them, and generations pass down both rules and superstitions surrounding gameplay. Tongits, in particular, holds a special place in Filipino culture — a game of tension, psychology, and skill.
But as time has evolved, so has the game. Tongits Plus represents a new chapter — familiar yet renewed, nostalgic yet modern, and casual yet deeply challenging for strategic minds. This version of Tongits encourages quicker thinking, more adaptive play styles, and smarter tactical decisions.
Understanding Tongits Plus — A Faster, Sharper Evolution of the Classic
Tongits Plus keeps the core of the original game:
Build valid sets
Create sequential runs
Aim for a low total card value
Monitor opponent moves
Yet the enhanced gameplay adds exciting elements:
Real-time digital speed
Automated assistance to prevent score errors
Enhanced fairness with anti-exploit mechanisms
Intuitive controls that streamline actions
Multiple modes catering to different personalities
A more energetic rhythm that keeps players alert
Tongits Plus compresses reaction time — where the slow thinkers adapt or lag, and quick decision-making becomes crucial. You’re playing not just with cards, but with memory, instincts, and psychological prowess.
You’re walking around, letting your thoughts wander, when, all of a sudden, you stumble upon a structure that makes you think you’re dreaming.
It looks like it shouldn’t exist, like a tower that leans so far it seems like a strong gust of wind could finish it. Or maybe it’s one of those bridges with the glass bottoms that make your brain scream “Nope!” even though you know it’s engineered within an inch of its life.
Your eyes fight with your logic, and logic usually loses first. No matter how many times you step back and tilt your head, that thing still looks like the worst idea ever. But wait, things can get even weirder because once you learn about how structures like this work, you see that they’re backed by the smartest engineering on the planet.
Meanwhile, the square little houses you walk past every day without thinking twice are riddled with issues.
Every time you see a structure that looks weird, remember that what you’re reacting to is the shape, not the science. And builders don’t really rely on vibes (luckily!), they rely on predictable load paths, supports that are hidden, and weight that’s balanced in ways your eyes can’t figure out.
And that’s exactly the point.
For example, a cantilever might look like it’s magic, but it’s really just physics doing its job. Fallingwater is another excellent example of this because it looks like it’s resting above the waterfall, but the house is actually locked into place with reinforced concrete arms and anchored stone.
Robert Bruno’s steel house in Texas takes this even further. It hangs over a canyon in a way that freaks most people out when, in fact, the steel frame and deep anchoring move the weight into the slope.
The Balancing Barn in the UK stretches halfway into empty space, but the steel spine inside it acts as a counterweight and keeps the whole thing steady.
These shapes exist because of computer models, wind tunnel tests, and seismic simulations that let engineers test every possible stress before the concrete is even mixed, let alone poured.
This is why builders are totally fine with designs that seem ridiculous when you first look at them; they have data at their disposal that shows exactly how the forces move through the structure, no matter how unsafe it looks to you.
You’d think that structures like these are the reason for all thosescaffolding accident claims in Chicago, equipment malfunction incidents in New York, or wherever there’s construction, but that’s not necessarily the case.
The real story is always in the engineering you can’t see, and even if you were to ask attorneys, like Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, they’d tell you that the structure itself (and how strange it seems) doesn’t have to be the reason for incidents, during or after construction.
But actually, the thing that looks wrong to you is just your perception not being able to interpret shapes it wasn’t designed to comprehend.
Optical Illusions Created by Angles and Perspective
The angle you’re looking from is what causes a lot of the uneasiness.
Even a tiny tilt or curve can make a building look like it’s about to give out. Look at the Crooked House in Sopot, with the warped façade that makes it look like it’s going to collapse. It’s just the angle because the building itself is structurally pretty basic.
Structural Elements You Can’t See
You can’t see the parts that hold these structures together.
Marina Bay Sands looks like it’s balancing a giant surfboard on three pillars, but there are deep steel trusses hidden inside the towers that support the SkyPark.
The CCTV Headquarters in Beijing looks like it breaks every rule of gravity, and yet, its load moves through a continuous looped frame.
Materials That Look Weak (but Aren’t)
Engineers know there are different types of damage (e.g., tensile forces, compressive forces, heat, impact, flexibility, corrosion, shear, fatigue, etc.) and each material resists damage in a different way.
For example, you’d expect glass to be weak because of how easily it shatters. Glass is actually VERY strong in compression, but once it sustains microcracks from an impact, the damage spreads quickly, causing sudden failure. But if you laminate the glass or temper it, it’ll resist impact forces better.
Concrete, you’d probably think, is extremely strong, but it’s only strong in compression (how well it handles load). But when it comes to tension strength (e.g., when you pull it from both sides), concrete is VERY weak. That’s why concrete is reinforced with steel to make up for its natural weakness.
Wood has great flexural strength, but it is weak in shear. Aluminum resists corrosion much better than steel, but it can develop cracks from fatigue much faster than steel can.
Conclusion
These weird structures actually aren’t weird at all; they look strange.
They’re playing a game your eyes are terrible at, and that’s it. The architects and engineers know exactly what they’re doing, and they won’t design something just because of the wow factor, because, if they do, the only wow factor they’ll get is from how shocked everyone will be when the project collapses on itself. Modern architecture likes to surprise you, so enjoy the weirdness, don’t try to figure it out.
And if you’re afraid of heights, maybe don’t step on the glass bridge. It’s not worth the heart attack.
Theo gets bored easily and so like most young(ish) people,
takes to home entertainment to alleviate the monotony of everyday life.One day he comes across a cartoon – Unlucky Leo
– a tale of woe centered around the eponymous hapless character.Nomatter what Leo does, it always seems to end in disaster.Yet somehow, the tables get turned and it is
now Theo’s turn to become the unlucky one.Combining animation with live action, A Cartoon’s Revenge was created by
Ted Heemskerk when he was
studying at the University of the Arts Utrecht (in the Netherlands).
This all gets pretty meta fairly quickly, so I am trying to
avoid overthinking about whether it is Leo’s or Theo’s reality that is…
real.That is especially true when you
factor in yourself – you’re watching a short about someone watching a short and
then…I’m now wondering about that
coffee spill, that trip up the stairs, the not-so-gently skid on the ice last
week.
Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy A Cartoon’s Revenge…
again.
In this curious but hugely enjoyable animation from
Tumblehead, God is a single parent of two boys (they are always, always
fighting). If that wasn’t enough to try
and cope with, he is also trying to test Multiverse Beta 2.0 (of course God is a programmer, hadn’t you
worked that one out already). Of course,
if you’re a parent (single, double, triple, whatever) you also know that
everything takes second place to the kids, especially at moments of crisis.
Yet when you have a Multiverse to look after too, that means
that things can get out of control down there rather quickly.The antics of this strange new world and its dippy creator (ie the animation) was directed by Magnus
Møller, Mette Tange and Peter Smith with support from The Animation Workshop at
Vancouver University and a host of others in supporting roles.
Beginning in the seventeenth century, Christian missionaries
set forth across Canada in order to bring their religion – impose perhaps is
abetter word, on the indigenous peoples
of the country.As time progressed and
it appeared that “the locals” were not converting quickly enough residential
schools were set up in order to strip children of their language and cultural
heritage in order to “civilise” then.
Written and directed by Ryan Ward, In the Beginning was
Water and Sky tells the story of two First Nations children whose lives were irrevocably
impacted by the coming of European settlers to their lands.
The boy possibly refers to Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old
Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 after fleeing a residential school in Canada.
Attempting to walk more than 600 kilometres home, he succumbed to starvation
and exposure near a railway line.The
girl’s story seems to be set centuries before but the two are connected by
shared experiences.
I think many people are brought up on the old tale if The
Boy Who Cried Wolf and its dire outcome and certainly as a cautionary take it
has withstood the test of time.But what
happens when an entire town decides to cry wolf?The main idea behind this animated short, created
by Chris Hendricks, is that when fear is used to spur people into action it can
have untold consequences which reverberate across both culture and society.
Nine miles outside the small northern Lithuanian city of Siauliai, the countryside is suddenly interrupted by something quite astonishing. Thousands upon thousands of crosses have been placed upon this low rise of land.
As well as symbolizing the deep Christian devotion of many Lithuanians they are also a testament to the Baltic nation’s struggle against oppression.
It is thought that crosses first began to appear at this spot in the thirteenth century, shortly after the city was founded. Since then there have been varying numbers of crosses at the site. It was in the 1831 uprising against Russia that the Hill of Crosses became political as well as purely religious. Crosses were placed here to commemorate the dead and missing rebels of this period and by the beginning of the twentieth century there were 150 crosses. By 1940 there were 400. Today there are over 100,000.
Sometimes, you don’t realise that you needed something until
you have experienced it. That encapsulates
my thoughts on Metamorphosis: The Musical. Yes, as you may
have guessed, Kafka’s 1915 novella about the fate of poor Gregor Samsa has been
given a fresh take by a pair of self-confessed “sock-wranglers”, Christian and
Eric of Sockz Studio. Yes, it's a musical. Yes, it is acted by socks.
And yes, it may not be quite what Kafka had in mind - but people have argued about Metamorphosis and how its meaning should be decipheredfor over a century. I personally prefer the Nabokovian interpretation of the
original. Rather than a deliberation on the psychological impact of a father
complex, I see Metamorphosis as a metaphor for the artist's fight to survive in
a society full of narrow-minded people who gradually undermine him.And if you are a Kafka purist, you may well
see The Musical as the final nail in that particular coffin.And then some.
However, if you don’t mind the classics being tampered with
(or in this case, mauled, tickled, twisted and generally socked about) and you
like a story told through song, then this is for you.Personally, I place this right up there with
A Muppet Christmas Carol.It’s fun,
frivolous, fabulous and it doesn’t mess with the source material to the extent
of giving it a happy ending... Ah, well, maybe it does do that.Yet still, however, nevertheless, don't you think it is about time that poor
old Gregor Samsa had a little fun?
We all know what happened to Voyager in the far future when
it returned to Earth as V'ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. So, can we imagine Spirit, the Mars robotic
rover which was active between 2004 and 2010 having a similar fate? Unlikely as
it became stuck in soft Martian soil and has been static since then. So, Spirit
is going nowhere. However, this animation
by Craft Short Films, interspersed with commentary by Steve Squyres, the chief
investigator of Spirit’s Martian mishap, gives us a much cosier future for this
particular permanently parked planetary peregrinator.
Crafty delivers snack-sized narrative and nonfiction stories with heart, releasing a new short film every Wednesday.
What’s a princess to do these days? There is no end of suitors,
but one can wait a long time till the right man comes along. Princess Lucette
has a plan, and an ally in her dragon, Joe, who takes his job very
seriously. However, we all know what
happens when we get what we want.
Written and directed by a group of students at Gobelins, this
entertaining short film gives us a fresh take on the genre while gleefully subverting
it (and one or two others into the bargain).
A great job done all round – and let’s hope that all the
young cretaives involved in this project go on to bigger and better
things.APGtFL (yeah, lazy, I know) was
written and directed by Violette Avouac, Ramya Hegde, Tshegofatso Tracy
Pitseng, Kelvin Shani, Polina Saratova, and Ashil Shaji. The music was composed
by Nelson Lam, with sound design by Laurent Jimenez, who also handled the mix.
The city of Lucca in Tuscany, Italy, is famous for its medieval architecture and intact city walls. Yet among all of its exquisite buildings one stands out. The Torre Guinigi or Guinigi Tower in English towers over the city.
At the top of the 44.5 meter high tower is something of a surprise – a garden containing, of all things, oak trees.
High above the city this small wood has provided a haven of peace for centuries.
The tower was built in the fourteenth century when there were over 250 in the city. Although that number has, over the centuries, dramatically decreased, this one has survived. It was built by the Guinigi, then the most powerful and influential family in the city. The tower represented the prestige of the family and was the largest in the city even when the economic boom of the late fourteenth century meant that towers were springing up all over Lucca.
Fabrice Mathieu is best known for his movie mashups, many of
which we have featured on Kuriositas before – try his Skywalker vs Starkiller
or Raiders of the Lost Dark to name just a few.However, he is currently delving into the rather murkier realm of AI driven
escapades.Now before you move on to the
next post without pressing “Play”, give this one a chance. Where it rises above
the mass of AI generated drivel that is currently plaguing YouTube and other
platforms, is due to Mathieu’s well-known ability to keep his tongue firmly in his
cheek with many a nod to the more knowing film buffs out there.
I think my favorite moment was the zombified remains of Robert
Downey Jr and Charlie Chaplin coming across each other (knowing wink).The others, I will leave up to you to discover.
The scenario (which was covered in an earlier video by
Mathieu, hence this being 2.0) is that zombies have taken over Hollywood.Like any of his previous works, you do have to
suspend your disbelief – absolutely – from the outset and just roll with it.Yes, of course all the famous Hollywood
movies are being made at the same time the meteor hits the Hollywood sign!Of course the surviving actors, who fight
back against the horde, have been using real ammunition on set all the time
(have suspected that for a while).And
of course, there is the lack of any real resolution – but for those of you who
sat through A House of Dynamite recently, this little short doesn’t ask
you to sacrifice two hours of your life while it gets there.
What we have, though, is (finally) some clever use of AI,
both in the way it is put together and the multiple vignettes we get along the
way.It may not persuade a lot of you
that AI is the way forward (because the problem with artificial intelligence is
that it lacks artifice, therefore intelligence and) but a great deal of cheeky
humour has gone into creating this and that comes to the fore here. You may also have a lot of fun naming the star-studded cast as they appear and even taking a lazy guess about which of their movies these versions of themselves have been lifted.
Owlets get hungry.And this owlet isn’t going to let a simple thing like undeveloped flight
muscles get in his way!With a little
ingenuity, he finds that he can go out and hunt for his own snacks while his
mum is away.Where there is a will,
there is “The Way”. But has he bitten off more than he can chew?Yes, owlets get hungry but rats get ravenous…
This very neat animated short comes to us courtesy of ARTFX
in France.The students responsible for
this mini-masterpiece are Loris Duchoud, Bastien Legrand, Hugo Leroy, Sidonie
Marquant, Colombe Portelette, and Paul Vigier.It’s quite amazing that this is a student film – it’s technically
complex and must have been quite a challenge. Plus it looks like it cost a
million dollars – and I would bet money on that not being the case!
I have no idea how authentically medieval this is, but frankly
I don’t really care. Take three young nice
looking young French fellas, throw in a beat and take on Aha’s Take on Me. I can’t see Courseval's version being used in any movie which
aims for historical accuracy but the simple joie de vivre of the trio’s
performance wins the day.
If you are, like me, intrigued by the location used for this
video, then have a read of our feature article, The Lucky Old Mill of Vernonand its Less Fortunate Bridges.Situated
just 75 kilometres from Paris, the mill is a great survivor – unlike the bridge
that originally was built there, then destroyed, then rebuilt then destroyed
(and so on)!
Watch the video below...
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