A Commonplace Book

Paul Robertson, the mind and hand behind “Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006″ (caution: long load time), has returned with his latest film short and, as I had hoped, it is just as gloriously unhinged as his previous foray into 8-bit retro animation.

As with last time, “Kings of Power 4 Billion %” features side-scrolling graphics reminiscent of Double Dragon. This time, though, the adrenaline shot of cartoon violence comes loaded with even heavier anime undertones. On just one viewing its hard not to see a connection to the slipstream narrative style of Satoshi Kon, the pseudo-religious themes of Evangelion, and pretty much every gratuitous up-skirt shot from any Japanese animation ever made.

Robertson seems to be coming from the same space as other new media artists like Cory Arcangel, riffing on both the history of games and pop culture in a broader sense. Robertson, however, has a far more entertaining low-brow take on the subject. I think it explains why I like him so much more, and also why he isn’t getting featured at the MoMA or the Whitney while Arcangel is.

In case it wasn’t readily apparent, the video contains extreme cartoon violence, mild sexual innuendo, and a bizarre melange of obscure pop culture references. As such it should be considered Not Safe For Work, Not Safe For Kids, and Not Safe For Anyone Raised Before 1975.

I’m sure there will be Youtube videos popping up very shortly with “Kings of Power 4 Billion %” but for now I’d rather just link straight to Robertson’s website here where you can download the high quality version from either bittorrent or a variety of mirrors.

(Photo Credit to Paul Robertson / probertson.livejournal.com)

Newly and and not a bit obnoxiously single-named director Tarsem (née Tarsem Singh) appears finally to have crawled out of post-production/distributor hell with his second movie, The Fall, thanks to the help of David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

I still remember The Cell as a fairly conventional speculative-fiction thriller draped in absolutely beautiful set designs, and the result was far more entertaining than it had any right to be. As an aside, it is also one of only two movies I’ve seen in which I liked Jennifer Lopez.

I’m glad to see this is finally getting released, even if so many years after its festival premiere. I do, however, have a sneaking suspicion that the unremarkable plotting of The Cell is the only lifeline which kept the audience from visually drowning in a sea of red and purple silk ribbons. Now that he’s unchained from a studio script, I anticipate Tarsem has created something without even that narrative link to reality. That could be either a very good thing or a very bad thing.

As some of you may know I have a new band with ROSTAM, CHRIS and CHRIS called VAMPIRE WEEKEND (yes it has the same name as the forthcoming film). We played our second ever show last Saturday at the Columbia RELAY 4 LIFE. It was a very positive experience.

I am so in love with modern technology. It’s amazing to look back and follow the footprints that a band has left across the internet from its inception, as pasted above from lead singer Ezra’s old blog here, then through one of its earliest performances, as recorded below, and on to the charts at iTunes and Amazon.

I’m sure there are many other bands besides Vampire Weekend for which you can follow a trail of bread crumbs across the internet as it has developed, but I think this is probably the only one which took its name from something this awesome: