Pacificapocalypse

A Flickr pool devoted to J.G. Ballard.

These fantastic photos are from a Flickr pool devoted to Ballardian imagery. According to the Collins English Dictionary, “Ballardian” is an adjective “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels & stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes & the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.”

Via Boing Boing

So the hype for the Watchmen movie is ramping up nicely, what with the release of the official trailer last week (and it looks amazing; please don’t fuck this up guys!) but what I really love right now is this Vargas style illo of Sally Jupiter done by James Jean.

At 1:32 into the Watchmen trailer, you can see a glimpse of an illustration I did for the movie. Alex McDowell asked me to create a Vargas-esque portrait of Sally Jupiter, played by Carla Gugino. It only appears for 1 second in the trailer, but the illustration is supposed to play a larger role in that particular scene.

click for full size goodness.

Urban Ore on Saturday; man that place is cool. How cool is it? It has it’s own set on Flickr. I wish I was craftier and or more skilled to take advantage of all the stuff they have. If you’ve never been, it’s basically a housewares recycler; doors, bathroom fixtures, furniture, old tools, just stacks and stacks of it. Found a downright awesome old industrial steel cabinet unit with drawers and shelving; cleaned it up and viola! Ammo cabinet and gunsmithing station. I’m so happy with this thing I may post a picture. GUN NERD!

Court’s been jonesing for a studio space for, well forever, so we also looked for some storage stuff for her - she picked up a massive solid oak dining table at Goodwill that will perform brilliantly as a workspace. The top is kind of beat, but what the hell, it’s going to get paint spilled on it anyway. Wrestled that into the office and it fits nicely. I’m going to get rid of my full size desk and pick up a smaller leaner unit. Think I’ve found the one I want (Ikea, of course), now just have to figure out how to get rid of my desk.
Anyway.

We Watch Movies: The Dark Knight

This is not a happy movie. In Iron Man, there was this undercurrent of, I don’t know, comic geek optimism. I can’t describe it better than that. Same thing with The Incredible Hulk. You just knew things were going to turn out ok. The little Marvel Universe tie ins and references made me squeal like a schoolgirl getting pinched. (”We’re putting a team together.” Oh fuck yes you are!)

You don’t get that with The Dark Knight. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. It’s an outstanding film. But it’s bleak. People die. In fact a lot of people die. Heath Ledger’s Joker is bat shit (yes I just did that) insane. And you believe it. You really believe that this guy is a freaking psychopath. There’s no nifty gadgets or goofy clown cars, he’s just a crazy guy in a freaky makeup and a dirty purple suit. When the cops search him in one scene, they say “Nothing in his pockets except knives and lint”.
It’s minimalist Joker. But it works and it works very well.

Bale is still awesome as Bats, but I have to admit, this time around, his “Batman voice” was starting to hurt my throat. Just sounds painful. And the Batcycle is over the top cool.
A nice touch is that he actually does some real live detective work in this one. Something that Batman Begins pretty much ignored.

Harvey Dent. Wow, Aaron Eckhart plays evil good. Did that make sense? Well he’s not really evil, just really pissed off. You would be too if you went through what he did. They way they developed the Two Face character is brilliant. Harvey wants to save Gotham and he’s willing to, eventually, do anything, including taking the law into his own hands, to save it. And they actually only say the name “Two Face” once. Barely once.

Ok enough.

Oh, and don’t get the large soda, this is a long movie.