Music for Mining and Crying

Are Minecraft devotees smarter than the rest of us, or does the game just inspire people to bring out their brightest gameplay? This is another stunning example, with a fellow creating what is essentially a giant 8-bit jukebox. Lay out a few songs, let the player ride a minecart past whichever they want to play, and you’ve got the first Minecraft iPod!

There’s something very appealing about seeing this mechanical engineering stuff laid out in giant, physical terms and sprinkled with confused pigs.

While we’re here, let’s talk about Lux Æterna (the song in this video) for a moment. This song was written my the awesome Clint Mansell and used during the last few minutes of Requiem for a Dream — possibly the most soul-crushing conclusion of any movie anywhere ever. I’m not even exaggerating! Look, people don’t even like to know that other people are watching it. It’s powerful, powerful stuff.

Lux Æterna is an amazing piece of music in its own right, though, so companies keep trying to use it for ads and movie trailers, and for anyone who has seen Requiem for a Dream it just doesn’t work. Like, the advertiser thinks the music will move me into wanting a new family sedan when in fact I’m just thinking about Jennifer Connelly double-dongin’ and crying on the inside.

So, um, unless you’re the Betty Ford Clinic or possibly a sex toy store you might want to lay off the Lux Æterna.

Anatomy of Movie Credits

I was kind of non-plussed when I first saw the title of this article:
The 10 Greatest Movie Title Sequences by Saul Bass
. The what of the who? (I know, I know. Philistine.)

As I was going through the list, though, I was stunned at just how familiar most of these titles are, and how much Bass’ art style has influenced subsequent works. This Anatomy of a Murder title in particular has been mimicked over and over, and I’ve never even seen the original movie!

Anyway this is a really neat bit of graphic design history, so grab that “second wind” cup of coffee this afternoon and enjoy.

(PS: The site is HORRIBLE without an ad blocker. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

“I will be the new student, Mary Sue!”

You have seven days to bid on this auction for a trip to the set and a walk-on role in season 3 of Community, a.k.a. the best sitcom currently on television.

BRB, freaking out and selling off all my earthly possessions.

Doctor Buffy Will See You Now

You got your fandom in my peanut butter! No, you got your fandom in my chocolate!

It’s two great fandoms that go even better together in this YouTube mashup of the Buffy theme and New Who. (Geek admission: I don’t watch New Who, but this video kind of makes me want to start.)

Stop The Sheen! »

Charlie Sheen: actor, woman-beater, radio show caller, and currently king of the internet. If you, like me, are at 100% Sheen capacity then try this browser add-on for Chrome and Firefox which blocks all mention of his name and any properly labeled photos of his coked out mug.

No more Charlie Sheen = Duh, winning.

Visit Link »

Goodnight, Dune.

Goodnight Sting with orange hair...

As the years go by I can’t help but feel that the internet has become a much less interesting place. Where once we had Usenet and text-based blogs, now we have Twitter and Tumblr. There’s nothing wrong with this, per se, except non-corporate websites are just as likely to be aggregations of RSS feeds and image streams as they are little handcrafted showcases of talent.

Prolixity is no different, of course. Somewhere out there someone is blogging about a blog that blogged about a blog, and I start to wonder if the internet is just Tweets all the way down.

Anyway, Goodnight Dune is a website that disproves my theory. Enjoy.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4

Switch to our mobile site