The Dispensable Andy Jones

What? The fuck you hippies play, UNO?

After realizing my dude Brannon’s (http://iwanttobewell.tumblr.com/) Skype avatar was that ol’ Eagle with the goofy-ass tear lookin’ at the Twin Towers blow up, I started to google ‘eagle 911,’ which led to a tatoo of that image, which prompted me to google, ‘eagle 911 tatoo,’ which led to this lovely gem. :) Thanks, Brannon!

Jus’ sayin’, dawg. Jus’ sayin’.

Digable Planets is way underrated. Sure, everyone knows and loves “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” and I’ve gotten some friends to give it up to “La Femme Fetal” for breaking ground with its candid discussion of abortion, which at the time (circa 1990) was anamolistic. But, really, they were one of the most creative, interesting rap groups about in the early 90’s, and their sound has yet to sound tired or unoriginal. Plus, their first album had one of the illest album covers in the history of contemporary music. “You down with Digable Planets, yous a hipster, shit.”

This is a short film by Władysław Starewicz, a Russian animator, which uses bugs for stop-motion animation. It is a tale of infidelity, vengeance, betrayal, and bugs, and has to be at least a half century ahead of it’s time.

Let me just say off the bat—Netflix is AWESOME.

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I know that maybe sounds a bit lame and mass-cultured, but for real, it’s awesome. I have a free trial right now and watch it with my Wii, and I don’t think I can go back to not having it. Sure, I was totally manipulated by the free trial, capitalism, blah, blah, but it’s fucking awesome.

Anyway, I discovered (I forgot entirely how) a film called “Alice” on Netflix, which was described as a “Czech surrealist re-imagining of Carroll’s story,” which was enough to intrigue me. It turns out “Alice” is a phenonemonal, beautiful, highly imaginative film, with the only downside that it was dubbed (though the dialogue is sparse and, according to Wikipedia, the dubbed translation is the only one currently available).

Here is the first scene in the film in which, both, animation is used, and the elements from Carroll’s “Alice” are used, and believe me, it is awesome. A taxidermic rabbit comes to life and grabs what appear to be the clothes of a doll, and becomes the fabled “White Rabbit.”

Here is the first film by the director of “Alice,” Jan Švankmajer, called “The Last Trick.” Basically, it’s the story of two magicians who attempt to one-up each other as tensions between them build, ultimately destroying each other as one final trick. Simple, but infused with the same type of surrealism as “Alice,” and quite satisfying. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a translated version online, but the story is simple enough to follow along—the captions just say, “Mr. Edgar’s First Trick,” and the like.