It's Not For Lack Of Trying Boss

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

On Hellboy 2...

I watched Hellboy 2 the other night. I was going in with pretty high expectations. It got pretty high marks on Rotten Tomatoes and a newspaper review called it 'dark'. The movie was shitouse.

Amazing effects and costume design, some interesting parts like how Prince Nuada lives in the sewer and the ancient tooth fairy monsters and how the trolls still live under bridges, but a major fail in terms of storytelling and character development. Really really bad acting. Really really horrible to watch. I would go so far as to say it was as cheesy and bad as the Batman and Robin movie.

Everyone's timing seemed to be way off in this, which can possibly be blamed on maybe not having more than one take? Luke Goss from Bros is alright but pretty much plays Nomak Damaskinos again which can almost be considered a cross-over between Marvel and Dark Horse. I don't know how this movie got such good reviews - it is like everyone is kissing Guillermo Del Toro's ass since Pan's Labyrinth and since they couldn't give it more than five stars, some stars overflowed onto Hellboy 2.

If Hellboy 1 was like bad pilot episode of a failed TV-Series then Hellboy 2 is like a two-hour long montage of fan-favourite scenes from that series hosted by Bob Saget.

I dont' want to be all like 'the comic-book was better' but they made the movie-version Hellboy the dumbest most unlikable character ever, and he is meant to be the main character, he is a total dick! They also made Abe Sapien a moron. Not to mention the BPRD were the most unprofessional secret government agency ever - where bad guys could just 'rock up' to the secret compound and staff could just steal jets and destroy shit - wtf? I've been to freakin public libraries with more security than that.

There is so much potential to the Hellboy material - which is what makes this movie franchise so disappointing - Guillermo Del Toro pulled a total Joel "I Want A Car, Chicks Dig The Car" Schumacher.

I can't believe I managed to rant so much about this. I haven't been this disappointed since Ang Lee's Hulk fuck-up.

...Better To Stew In Discontent Than To Admit We're Wrong

Coffee + No Dinner + The Gossip + Pretty Girls Make Graves = Skull Bonanza

These are some graphics I've been working on for my Extra Cheeese Phase Two submission. There are a whole lot of roses and cobras as well. I think the skull I bought in New York to use as reference is anatomically incorrect - or at least it doesn't look very bad-ass - but it was only twenty dollars so I can't complain. Also - I just noticed that the last skull I drew is a total sub-conscious Brian Ewing rip-off [R.E.S.P.E.C.T].

I was so in the zone tonight I forgot to apply for the Street Art Festival, but I still managed to spend a whole lot of money at Topman. My priorities are all out of whack.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Kingpins

I went by Incu tonight to visit a friend who works there and found that Sydney art collective and COFA graduates The Kingpins had broken into the world of fashion with a new label called Birthday Suit, a range of costume/performance inspired clothes (for girls). There is a giant window display in the Incu storefront at The Galeries Victoria (same hip building where Post Mortem was).

From what I gather - they had also outfitted The Gossip on their recent tour, and now those pieces are for sale in limited editions at Incu. Things like custom tights, jackets, huge t-shirts, and HEADDRESSES. Random note, the drummer for The Gossip is Jordan Blilie's twin sister, Jordan Blilie was one of the two lead singers of The Blood Brothers aka BEST BAND EVAR.

Back to The Kingpins, I grabbed the catalogue and there is a nice breakdown of the themes in their performace work at the end - which is a wonderful marriage of art and fashion - which is really refreshing because most times when people try and combine art and fashion it involves just printed t-shirts sold at a market stall but these guys are actually making garments etc. Not to mention I find the concepts behind The Kingpins' work eg The Undead, Mythology, Crazy Art really interesting.

Another thing that I really dug was their collaboration with Indian cinema-poster-painters to create surreal paintings of Azaria Chamberlain as a half-dingo-half-human the Queen of the Outback - AMAZING. Kind of reminiscent of the paintings that Miguel Calderón got Mexican cinema-poster-painters to make of him and his buddies shirtless wearing animal masks, Wes Anderson owns a few and they are hanging in Eli Cash's living in a scene in the Royal Tenenbaums.

The whole thing has re-ignited my ambition to make custom leather jackets based on the ones my characters wear(a major endeavour). And also to start sewing the Lucha Mask series I have had planned since like Honours (2006).

I have an overwhelming list of projects to accomplish. I wish I had more time to just sit down and finish them all. A lot of them are overdue by years. It would be great to finish everything so I would have nothing to do and go on hiatus for a while and stop thinking, maybe then I could finally get some sleep or do my tax return.

The Post Mortem opening was a great success! Unfortunately the week afterward my brain got scrambled by a virus caught from the Channel Warehouse party(which was great, even the cop raid was great). It has taken a while to recover from it. The fever gave me very strange moods and ideas - I made some sweeping resolutions about my life, my artmaking, etc. only to realise they were a bit fatalistic and probably bad ideas. Now I am partially back on the horse kind of.Every now and then I want to stop doing art and go away somewhere but I know I would just end up bored and miserable and it wouldn't end up being much of a relief at all. Also I would have no money.

I'm scouting galleries at the moment in order to have a solo show soon. I was going to have another group show at a bigger location with more artists but after organising the whole Post Mortem thing I've realised that it'll be a lot less stress to just have a solo show next instead.

Right now I'm working on something for the Extra Cheeese Group Show coming up in October. I'm painting a found object and it is taking a while because first off - it is in three dimensions - and secondly it is the first time I have drawn on something directly in a while. I've been using a computer all year and it has been quite productive but also kind of depressing. The show is going to be awesome! All the regulars will be there - I love our little art community - often I wish I could dedicate more time to making art but my lavish standard of living means I will have to juggle art with a day job for a while yet.

I am planning a huge website update. I thought that I may as well considering I am changing webhosts over to an American server very soon. Web-design has only ever been something I've dabbled in every couple of months when I feel like giving my website a complete overhaul - I am mostly shit at it so we will see what happens. It'd be great to take a couple of days of work so I can get it knocked out but I have to leave it till the wee hours - which is a killer on productivity because when you get home after a long day at work you pretty much can't be fucked with anything - especially HTML and coding and all that shit - so wish me luck!

I have photos of the past couple of weeks of frenzied screenprinting and the exhibition opening. I will probbaly post them.

I still haven't done much more oil painting.