Watch all the Academy Award winners in the category of “Best Visual Effects” from 1927 to 2014 in one video:
Amazing how some of what is considered today’s best special effects actually seem outdated compared to the practical effects of such legendary pictures as Jurassic Park and the like. I think so anyway. Most CGI heavy movies today are just, awful.
I recently happened upon this man’s wonderful body of work. Lovely photos from the past, of a 1950s Hong Kong as seen through the eyes of a young Ho Fan (78), who is today a celebrated Chinese photographer. Within each image permeates a quality of depth and atmosphere which is of such a richness, I find them altogether inspiring, and a little melancholy.
Simply gorgeous pictures. I tried but couldn’t bring myself to minimize them into a gallery view. I am aware this could change, but this one would have to be my favourite:
These stunning photographs of Hong Kong in the 1950s are captured beautifully by a teenager, Ho Fan who arrived from Shanghai in 1949. The streets, filled with vendors, coolies and rickshaw drivers, fascinated Ho. Taking pictures in a studio was the norm then, but Ho was more interested in random, candid shots of real people going about their day. His subjects did not always smile into the lens of his Rolleiflex, which all the more added to his great street photography and a peek into daily life in Hong Kong at that time. The photography is part of his book “A Hong Kong Memoir”
What a sight it would have been to behold at the time; a man flying in the air. Naturally his exploits drew a lot of attention, and as mentioned in the video below, plenty of photographs had been taken from every angle of Otto Lilienthal’s experimental flights.
Lilienthal, dubbed the “Glider King”, was the first man to fly in the 1890s. The aviator made his own wings and frequently tested his inventions in Berlin, Germany. His flight attempt at Lichterfelde, Berlin was regularly visited by crowds and well-documented.
Dutch filmmaker Johannes Hogebrink made this unique animation using 145 original photographs of Otto Lilienthal’s historic flights (between 1893 and 1896):
“I quickly gathered all the photographs that I could find and cut them out,” says Hogebrink in his video. “I realized that if you put them in the right sequence, and then take a picture, they would become a movie.”
This kid got some serious air. In-game, in traffic, 5-foot-5 junior guard Melvin Lee of Riverside Marshall dunks over two Morse Marshall defenders, and the crowd goes wild:
“HOW’D HE DO THAT?!” MaxPreps shares this video of high school basketball player Melvin Lee, who is supposedly only 5’5″ tall. Melvin literally shut a game down, at least for a moment, when he leapt practically his height to posterize two defenders.
What a leap. I think this kid discovered a wonder from the 90s — Pump up & Air out:
Either that, or Melvin has just got game.
Make Westeros Great Again. Donald Trump in Westeros actually makes a disturbing amount of sense — see for yourself:
Armed with a Valyrian steel sword named Deal-Maker, Donald Trump embarks on a quest through Westeros to take care its border policies.
Ooo that smirk at the end is rather telling, no, and I also heard a rumor that he has a moon door in one of his buildings. Donald Trump has had a meteoric rise to be the clear cut leader for GOP presidential candidacy. He has done so by making some controversial statements. Some would go so far as to say that Trump’s ideologies are out of this world. However, it turns out that Trump’s rhetoric fits perfect in the Seven Kingdoms of Game of Thrones — returning April 24. It will not feature Donald Trump.
The surface of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota is a frozen ice sheet but the water underneath still flows, faster than it freezes, creating this phenomenal effect with sheets of ice cracking and stacking along the shore:
“The seemingly endless ice sheets broke into large plates and stacked on shore, sounding much like breaking glass. The ice thickness ranged from about 1/4″ to about 3″ thick. The sights and sounds were incredible! As the water became exposed, the sea smoke was whisked across the surface by the breeze. The sparkles visible in some segments were from the sun gilding the frost flowers that had formed on top of the new ice overnight — icing on the cake!”
Holy Moses! This man is excavating a large nest of invasive German Wasps (Vespula germanica) somewhere in New Zealand, and it looks terrifying:
[…] for my research on biological control wasps at Landcare Research in NZ. I’m not removing the nest to kill it. I need to keep the nest alive for my survey for parasites (like mites, fungus, etc.). Some nests will be re-housed into nest boxes for use in behaviour assays. I have many years of experience and use specialized equipment to do this and still get the odd sting, so please don’t try to dig an active nest yourself! As you can see from the copious amount of venom on the camera lens, these wasps meant business.
…Nope.
I’m no exterminator, but honestly speaking here, if wasps grow any bigger (and somehow learn to breath fire?), yo, we humans are done for man!, as this prophetic and highly-underrated *cough cough* movie trailer shows:
Written by fast-becoming genre connoisseur Mark Atkins (Sand Sharks), the film stars Corin Nemec (Stargate SG-1; Smallville; Supernatural), Dominika Juillet (Dark Angel), Benjamin Easterday (Stargate SG1; Fast & Furious 5) and Nikolette Noel who’s set to star in the 2012 Summer Blockbuster “The Expendables 2”.
In their PAC-12 meet against the University of Utah, UCLA gymnast Sophina DeJesus competed floor and pumped up her fellow teammates and their home crowd with her trendy floor routine, where in between her flips she pulled off sensational dance moves like the nae nae, the Quan and the dab:
DeJesus scored a 9.925 and She truly captivated the crowd, helping lead UCLA to a win over Utah 197.1 to 197.075. Her floor routine went viral on Facebook after the meet.
I can do that. Hold my beer.
OK Go, in association with Russia’s S7 Airlines, have released an impressive music video set aboard a zero gravity airplane. Parabolic flights are used to train astronauts in zero-g maneuvers, giving about 25 seconds of weightlessness out of 65 seconds of flight in each parabola. So expect to see the usual meticulous choreography, but delight in the level of genuine fun they are obviously having throughout their experience:
How is OK Go ever going to one-up themselves now? The group have continually made music videos that follow the trend of their original six treadmills one-take wonder, “Here It Goes Again”, and because it doesn’t really cost anything to mention said videos; here:
There is a good interview with OK Go band members Damian Kulash and Tim Nordwind about how they shot the video for “Upside Down & Inside Out” over @ Nerdist.com >>http://nerdist.com/ok-gos-frontman-explains-their-anti-gravity-video/<<
Continue reading ‘OK Go — “Upside Down & Inside Out” [music video]’
*according to one, Celia Gómez.
The Simpsons’ tribute to Film industry — Another reason why old skool episodes of The Simpsons are superior to whatever the hell, damn, fart it is today. Here are 27 side-by-side comparisons that show just how much detail went into these homages:
Music: Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing) — The Benny Goodman Orchestra.
| Films that appear: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) [S5 E5] A Clockwork Orange (1971) [S3 E19] Pulp Fiction (1994) [S7 E21] Requiem for a dream (2000) [S14 E12] The Gold Rush (1925) [S5 E21] Full Metal Jacket (1987) [S19 E5] The Fugitive (1993) [S6 E2] Terminator 2 (1991) [S5 E16] Reservoir Dogs (1992) [S8 E13] The Birds (1963) [S4 E2] Risky Business (1983) [S4 E3] Citizen Kane (1941) [S5 E4] Psycho (1960) [S2 E9] |
The silence of the lambs (1991) [S4 E12] Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) [S3 E23] Basic Instinct (1992) [S6 E1] An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) [S1 E9] One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (1975) 2001: A space Odyssey (1968) [S3 E24] Trainspotting (1996) [S15 E4] Thelma and Louise (1991) [S5 E6] The Godfather (1972) [S4 E9] Taxi Driver (1976) [S5 E18] The Shining (1980) [S6 E6] Spiderman (2002) [S15 E19] ET the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) [S06 E18] Dr. Strange Love (1964) [S5 E11] |
Cool video, but 27 is honestly not nearly comprehensive enough an homage to the show’s original writers and animators who brought them to life and to audiences around the world. Love the enthusiasm Celia, but you totes missed some of the best (sorry I am being such a comic book guy right now). Classic Simpsons is not only hilarious but filled with many overlooked gems, like so:
Kia ora! Hola! Bonjour! سلام! こんにちは! नमस्ते Namastē! مرحبا! 您好！Hallå! Hallo! Selamat Datang! Welcome! ⭐(★´♡‿♡`+)⭐ You have found ditb
🎭 