Iron Sky needs you!

Crowdfunded Moon Nazi film “Iron Sky” is looking for skilled Lightwave artists to join the VFX team. More details can be found here. Iron Sky is a science fiction comedy being produced by Blind Spot Pictures and Energia Productions in Finland, and co-produced by 27 Films in Germany and New Holland Pictures in Australia. Iron [...]

American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art

It’s the first day of 2011. In 2009, my inaugural Mannamaker blog post was a few paragraphs on the slowly vanishing Lambe-Lambe of Sao Paolo, and the efforts made to revive it. But you needn’t go all the way to Brazil to see poster art as quirky, colourful and culturally significant. In the 60′s American rock [...]

Dogs In Space

Don’t think less of me for quoting Nietzsche: “The advantage of having a bad memory is that you can enjoy the same good things for the first time several times.” As such, I’m looking forward to the next chance I have to see Richard Lowenstein’s 1986 movie, ‘Dogs in Space’. The rare-as-hen’s-teeth soundtrack is even [...]

Bliss – The 8 year love letter

“Harry Joy was to die three times, but it was his first death which was to have the greatest effect on him…” There was some excellent cinema in the 80′s, sadly lost in a sea of lamentable tosh.  I’ll attempt to extricate the silver from the sludge with more wordy stuff on my favourite movies [...]

Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue) 1988.

Those who have seen the film often differ on the symbolism of the ending. In 1988, to my insufferably romantic 19 year old mind, it was clearly an enactment of Mayol’s trancendence to another state of being. The dolphin represented an emissary from a mystical world, or non-human consciousness, escorting him onward to bliss. *fin* [...]

Dark Star

Working in a video store during the late ’80s, I discovered this comedy sci-fi classic in a pile of returns. Later, settled in front of the telly with some booze, I wondered why I’d never heard of John Carpenter’s Dark Star before. By that time the film was already over 13 years old, having first [...]

Françoiz Breut

I’m in a decidedly Gallic mood again today – would be rude not to share it with you. Françoiz Breut is the stage name of Françoise Breut, whose enchanting, moody pop encapsulates all that I have to come to love about France. If you are not already a Francophile, and “si tu disais” fails to [...]

Douleurs sans Frontières – ARRETONS LA DOULEUR!

“ARRETONS LA DOULEUR!” (“STOP THE PAIN!) –   This short video made for Douleurs sans Frontières captures the never-ending cycle of war and the suffering it causes. Relevant to the conflict in Palestine wouldn’t you say? Douleurs sans Frontières (Pain without Borders) is a French NGO founded in 1996  that works in the poorest countries. [...]

Creation (aka Nature)

2009: The Darwin bicentenary is upon us (12th February, 1809). 200 hundred years have passed since the birth of one of the world’s greatest thinkers. The man who radically changed our view of the planet and our place in it with his On the Origin of Species I imagine he’d be terribly disappointed, if he were alive today, [...]

Watchmen

One of the most anticipated (for us nerds anyway) movies of 2009 is the screen adaption of the 1986/87 DC Comics classic, Watchmen. Originally a 12 part comic series created by English writer Alan Moore (also famous for V for Vendetta), and artist John Gibbons, the live-action film is due for US theatrical release in [...]