after seeing the screenprinted boxes and cards on saicoink, plus looking at too much japanese gothic artwork, i sent myself crosseyed over photoshop and put this together:
very simple, and possibly a future zine cover? need to scan some more clipart - perhaps creating digitally will be easier than usual scissors and a stick of glue that i’m used to.
i was really thinking about how it would be possible to add chinese elements into this style, but if you look at chinese product labels from the 40s, it was already heavily influenced by european art of the time, and japanese sensibilities. the only distinctly chinese kind of motifs are so cheesy, like “double happiness”, depictions of deities and cultural revolution propaganda. regarding the latter, it is near impossible to make it appear dark enough, instead of kitschy. because, qi lai qi lai!
one time during a lull at the front desk, we were filing dvds, and “into hell” by van damme surfaced, so i started making puns about that title. turns out we both had a crush on him when we were kids, and we both had watched practically every movie he starred in the 90s. which we both now also thought extremely terrible, but we were just following the movie watching habits of our dads.
what i really meant to say is that i don’t mind a well thought out action or thriller. which a van damme movie generally is not, and makes for a good torture method on a four hour bus trip through malaysia.
the kill point isn’t bad, but still relies heavily on the cliches of hostage drama situations, while making for a decent distraction with a few ‘forgot what i was going to do instead of watch tv’ moments. made originally for cable (spike tv), it stars the underrated john leguizamo and that guy who had an attitude problem in nkotb, donnie wahlberg. for other 90s nuts, it also has dana asbhrook in a small part, which added up, gave me enough reason to download it.
you’d think donnie was born to play cop parts, other than sing about cover girls. he’s done that in the saw franchise, as well as the tv series boomtown, another cop drama that wasn’t bad either. something about being streetwise as well as appearing trustworthy…
November 7th, 2007 ???
as much as i am a “fan” of shaun micallef, and however detrimental this is to my judgement of his associated tv programs, last night’s episode of newstopia was particularly perplexing. a lot of “and now… this” segueways in monty python fashion. also, imagine the above picture with a scary b&w film monster flashing randomly in the “holy corner” space. sort of spooked out by it so i already deleted the screen cap. i call thee the subliminal fuckery episode… (also “peter garrett is a jazz lounge singer” flashed up for less than a second).
also, has anyone else noticed how micallef is now pronouncing his surname as “mi-KAA-lef” (his father is maltese) as opposed to the past, more Australianised “mee-ca-lef”. must be the effect of sbs (”foreigners. where would the sbs be without them?”
god, that’s scary too.
i have not being watching tv much lately, distracted by bittorrent and the library’s dvd collection. so i had little inkling that shaun micallef was making a long awaited return to tv. it hasn’t been worth turning on lately, since commercial prime time seems to be one medical show after another, or some other “real life” program about police or airport customs or finding a wife/husband/freak. so perhaps the best place to put your satirical piece on the news is on a non-commercial like sbs, after the talk show attempt that channel nine couldn’t abide by, and axed after 13 episodes. also it means you can make as many jokes as you like about drug use, snorting cocaine and bongs without being reprimanded like a naughty schoolboy.
known as the multicultural broadcaster, sbs is a good source of jokes in itself, from the accents and ennunciation of reporters, to the foreign tv shows it broadcasts, as parodied tonight in a fake commercial:
not a real tv show
micallef comments in a sydney morning herald piece that comedy on australian tv of late “has been neutered a bit by having harmless bogans apparently representing that sense of humour - self-obsessed, know-nothing, harmless, dumb humour seems to have taken over”. newstopia may just be the antidote to middling sketch comedy, because it’s not sketch. it’s also been commented that micallef’s comedy is either a “get” or “don’t get” - a reference to voltaire and an imitation of christopher walken isn’t really that highbrow, but who knows?
micallef is the anchor, much like a colbert or stewart, but he’s neither playing “opposite day” or openly laughing at the events. the satire lies in a turn of phrase, ridiculous contradictions, and with no live audience, the laughs actually require the viewer to at least pay attention. which should be no problem if you’re not a bogan.
in the words of the program itself, “these are strange times people, which require strange measures, which is why we are here”.
you can watch the latest episode at http://programs.sbs.com.au/newstopia/(.)
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