►Opulence, I has it - Direct TV commercial

►Get a glimpse into the Opulent life. He loves his riches - gold remotes, Van Gogh paintings and of course the Swedish models. And don't forget his pygmy giraffe ;)

►Raoul Servais - Short films

►Raoul Servais: Short Films (1963-2001)

Raoul Servais (born 1 May 1928) a Belgian filmmaker. One of my favorite recent purchases is Servais' L'Intégrale des courts métrages anthology from France. In addition to the ten short films in the collection, there are also extracts from all of his remaining films (including his one feature film, Taxandria), a near feature length documentary, an interview with Servais, as well as a commentary track on Night Butterflies where he discusses his aesthetic homage to Belgian artist Paul Delvaux through his portraiture of enigmatic women wearing allusive (or elusive) masks. Stylistically evolving from avant-garde art movement inspired animation, to monochromatic, rough hewn pen and ink styled animations reminiscent of op-ed political cartoons, to his more recent films that transect the bounds of live-action and animation, Servais' films are magical, pensive, and provocative alchemy of passion, conscience, and inspired - and inspiring - creativity.

The False Note, 1963

Wryly subtitled as an "old twentieth century legend" fable set "in the days when some people still knew what it was to go hungry", The False Note is the dialogue-less tale of a down on his luck organ grinder whose out of tune portable barrel organ produces a cacophonous, errant false note at the end of an evocative, downbeat serenade that invariably sets the once attentive audience into a hostile and uncharitable mood. Wandering through the streets of a cosmopolitan city rife with images of consumerism, the doleful hero encounters first hand the melancholy of obsolescence, as the rudimentary music emanating from his hand-cranked barrel organ is rebuffed in favor of the novel technologies of an amplified jukebox and the mesmerizing, peripatetic lights of a pinball machine, until he finds a momentary kindred spirit in a carousel horse enshrouded with cobwebs at an abandoned carnival. Raoul Servais' impressive animation is something of a Pablo Picasso drawing study crossed with the silent expressiveness of Marcel Marceau, replete with a richness of imagery that not only juxtaposes the theme of the false note against iconic images of currency, but also the innate inhumanity of a rootless, disposable society.  

Chromophobia, 1966

Servais achieved international acclaim with his ground-breaking, anti-militarist fable on repression, perseverance, and the indomitability of the human spirit, Chromophobia, a compact, yet articulate parable of an aggressive, chromophobic army that marches into an idyllic kingdom and systematically terrorizes the population by erasing all traces of color within its periphery, until a little girl unexpectedly cultivates a lone, resilient red flower in her garden. Evoking the instinctual compositions of a more geometric Joan Miró, the film is particularly remarkable in Servais' illustration of resonant, iconic symbolism: a balloon that is converted into a ball and chain mirrors the town's spiritual captivity, the transformation of trees into gallows represents the corrupted interrelation between life and unnatural death in times of war, flowers emerging from the barrel of a rifle reflects a restoration of peace and gesture of renewed humanity.  

Sirène, 1968

In hindsight, Sirène can be seen as Servais' transitional composition from his early, more conventional animated art films to the rawer, more visceral works that would define his early 1970s oeuvre. A somber, surrealist tale that fuses prehistoric and modern, reality and myth, the film revisits the double entendre of The False Note in its prefigurative sound of an emergency siren that accompanies the title sequence. Opening to a curious encounter between two competing cranes as they attempt to take possession of an unloaded crate with disastrous results, this image of primitive territoriality would subsequently be repeated (with even more horrifying consequences) in a King Solomon-styled arbitration between a medical and a zoological institution after a mermaid is found on the docks of a phantom shipyard. In contrast to the cheerful caricatures of his earlier films, the dour, ghostly images of Sirène recall the gothic figurations of Edward Gorey in its cautionary fable on the myopia of humanity in the "civilized" quest for equitable justice. 

Goldframe, 1969

Goldframe is the first film to emerge in what would be Servais' more elemental period, a film that derives implicit irony in its deconstructed, monochromatic, pen and ink illustration of a bombastic, larger than life Hollywood studio executive who demands, at all cost, to be the first to have the technology for a 270mm film. Turning up in a projection room that is outfitted with an undersized (and self-aggrandizing) director's chair to watch, not the rushes of the latest film, but his own shadow cast by his hand-selected spotlight, the film culminates with Goldframe's empty, narcissistic mano a mano posturing challenge against his own shadow, and in the process, creates an acerbic commentary on egoism and the obsessive pursuit of one upsmanship.  

To Speak or Not to Speak, 1970

The Vietnam War undoubtedly fuels Servais' anti-militarist, anti-authoritarian sentiment in To Speak or Not to Speak, as a roving reporter asking the loaded question, "What's your opinion about the actual political situation?" serves as a springboard for a critical examination on social conformity, consumerism, and bohemianism... the questions answered with inarticulate disfluencies that quickly overrun the speaker's thought bubble, become entangled with such empty confusion that a spider web forms within it, or resort to tried and true mantras. Perhaps the most incisive - and prescient - episode in the film is the re-appearance of the reporter as an embedded war correspondent who plays it safe with fluff opinion pieces that skirt around the consequences of war before being confronted by its grim reality. Rather than obliquely addressing the social inertia and petty self-interest that enabled the protraction of war, Servais directly engages issues of censorship, political doublespeak, and the corruption of information in the dissemination of news as propaganda.  

Operation X-70, 1971

The specter of the Vietnam War - and particularly, the U.S. government's controversial use of chemical weapons - also casts a somber pall over Servais' next film, Operation X-70. The film opens with a slideshow projection of a clandestine scientific experiment (that stylistically evokes Chris Marker's La Jetée) presenting the laboratory results of a new, non-lethal chemical weapon that places the Asiatic subjects in a lethargic, euphoric state in order to "help them to rediscover their deep, religious nature". Immediately winning the endorsement of the country's gas-mask hooded religious leader (dressed in a not-too-subtle Klansman-like ensemble) who extols the virtues of X-70 as a clean weapon that doesn't kill and is, therefore, "in accordance with our Christian civilization", the chemical weapon is soon dispatched for bombardment of its Pacific targets, until an aircraft's malfunctioning navigational system sends its payload on an unexpected international course. Winner of the Jury Prize for Short Film at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Operation X-70 is a sobering, trenchant, and immediately relevant examination of cultural arrogance, religious fanaticism, and racism. Exposing the intrinsic inhumanity and hypocrisy of deploying "humane weapons" (such as targeted, non-civilian, collateral damage air strikes) in the waging of war, Servais boldly - and defiantly - engages the social conscience in confronting moral issues of escalating aggression, humane treatment, privilege, and righteousness.  

Pegasus, 1973

Returning to the more traditionally rooted animated art films of early works such as A False Note and Chromophobia, Servais channels the rough stroke expressionism of Vincent van Gogh to create one of his most artfully rendered films, Pegasus, the tale of an aging blacksmith who whiles away his empty days trying to swat an errant fly with a forging hammer, until the appearance of industrial farm machinery in the village leads him to create a false god in the shape of an iron horse in a desperate attempt to stop the encroachment of technology. A cautionary fable on idolatry and psychological self-imprisonment, the film also represents a counterpoint to the inhumanity of technology gone amok in Operation X-70, where resistance to change, willful ignorance, and failure to adapt to new ideas become a figurative regression into the Dark Ages of self-created imprisonment, blind worship, and obsolete rituals.  

Harpya, 1979

Although Servais has explored emotional and psychological horror within a framework of exploring social conditions and the effects of war in his previous work, his first foray into the genre is with the phantasmagoric, surreal fusion of live action and animation film, Harpya, a film that was awarded the Palm d'or for Short Film at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Subverting the damsel in distress tale, the film follows the fate of a well-intentioned passerby who comes to the aid of a woman apparently being strangled by a man in the cover of darkness - and who, in turn, turns out to be, not a woman, but a half woman, half bird of prey mythological harpy. Devouring everything inside his home, the harpy soon imprisons him to a life of resigned servility (in a gruesome act that foretells the mutilated captivity of Boxing Helena) until the lulling sound of a phonograph offers him a chance at escape. A radical departure from the humanist mythological fable of Sirène, Harpya's psychologically dark and grotesque imagery instead shares greater thematic affinity with the autonomous shadows of Goldframe and induced chemical mutations of Operation X-70 to create a disturbing cautionary tale on the perils of intervention and the implicit violation of natural order.   

Atraksion, 2001

On a parched and desolate landscape, a group of shackled prisoners walk in eternal limbo around a borderless prison yard until one day when an inmate spots a ray of light emanating from beyond the view of a steep and treacherous mountain and decides to climb towards its source in the naïve hope that liberation awaits at the end of the trail. Returning to the distilled, monochromatic palette of Goldframe and Operation X-70, Atraksion represents Servais' introduction to digital post-processing. Adapting the allegorical flight of Icarus into a modern day metaphor for self-imprisonment (a theme that also pervades the vaguely mythological  Pegasus), Servais implicitly (and incisively) embraces the virtues of new technology through the prisoners' realization of a transformative paradigm shift, to create a metaphoric, yet personal tale of re-invention, creativity, experimentation, and artistic fearlessness. 

►Pi [π] for Paranoia

►A mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission... Baseless, excessive suspicion of the motives of others... "There will be no order, only chaos."

Video/Graphic/Artworks | Mirjana Milosavljevic
http://www.wix.com/thedivineart/mirjana

Excerpts | Psychological thriller film Pi [π] 1998 written and directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Music | Clint Mansell - Pi r2 [πr²]
Narrator | Mark Margolis, theme 'Archimedes'

►Waves & Particles

►"The "Waves and Particle" paintings developed from an attempt to pull back and understand the bigger picture. I formerly had defined my work as integrating natural and man-made forms. Now, I see them as more similar than not. Now, I'm painting a universe of energy that occasionally articulates itself as form.
I believe that mark-making; painting, drawing, sculpting, et al, personifies both the wave and the particle. Energy and matter; the artists' loaded brush touching the canvas.
My paintings continue to evolve, but the name of the series, "Waves and Particles" still define what my work is about." - Howard Hersh

Artworks | Howard Hersh
Artwork series: 'Waves & Particles'
http://www.howardhersh.com

Video/Graphic | Mirjana Milosavljevic
http://www.wix.com/thedivineart/mirjana

Music/Composer | Vito Palumbo
Composition: Concerto Barocco - II tempo
http://vitopalumbo.com/

►Awaiting Metamorphosis

►There is considerable emphasis on and appreciation of wit, including visual metamorphosis, consisting of sequential motions, photos, graphic elements in which one thing evolves into another. Here, in a series of seemingly logical steps, a photography is transformed into a metamorphosis...

Photography | Nuccia Cammara
Photography series: 'Awaiting Metamorphosis'
http://www.nucciacammara.it/

Video/Graphic | Mirjana Milosavljevic
http://www.wix.com/thedivineart/mirjana

Music/Composer | Vito Palumbo
Composition: Quadro sinfonico concertante per pianoforte e orchestra - I tempo
http://vitopalumbo.com/

►Asylum 626 & Hotel 626 - The haunted houses

►And hell, yeah these are the scariest websites in the world.

Hotel 626 – http://www.hotel626.com

Before you can enter, you need to sign up for reservation, and also it is open from 6pm to 6am only, so if you want to play this game then might be good to follow their time schedule, and also for the best feel of this game you need a headset and just turn your lights off.

Strange noises echo in the distance. Your breath quickens, your heart pounds, and some animal instinct screams that you need to get out. You throw on your shirt, dash into the hallway, and then the real game begins.

The storytelling technique they used was to put the user inside of the game. To give you instructions, they gave you vague phrases that you had to interpret in order to figure out what you were supposed to do to escape. The entire thing is really just a huge Doritos plug, so if this is how Doritos is appealing to customers, they definitely picked an original way to do it.

First of all, Hotel 626 is only open at night. Why? Because it's scary at night. You're trapped in a haunted hotel and believe me, it's truly haunted. Even the entrance page sends a chill down my spine. The site plays out in first person with lots of heavy breathing. It is particularly impressive because it embraces all the latest options in website interaction by using your webcam, your microphone, and even your mobile phone. If you want to experience this site full-force, then lock your doors, draw the curtains, put your headphones on, wait until midnight, and…don't blink.

For those of you who are either too impatient or scared of the dark, you can change the time on your computer to access this site before its opening hours (just remember to change your clock back when you are finished).

This game is an amazingly innovative, beautifully-produced nightmare of a game. After "checking in" (giving the website your name, email and creating a password), you are immediately whisked away into the opening movie: your awakening, in the middle of the night, in your room at this hellish hotel.

Asylum 626 – http://www.asylum626.com

We begin with a warning: This game is not for the faint of heart or those under 18. Asylum 626 has a plot yanked straight from an R-rated horror movie, complete with the requisite blood, screaming and slashing inherent to the current scary movie style.

You awake to find yourself in some sort of operating room, strapped to a gurney with creepy doctors lurking over you. One picks up a handsaw and slowly starts towards you…

Credits:

Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Executive Creative Directors: Rick Condos, Hunter Hindman
Associate Creative Director: Marc Sobier
Copywriter: Michelle Hirschberg
Art Director: Tim Semple
Agency Producers: Maggie O’Brien, Margaret McLaughlin
Production Company: B-Reel Films, New York/Stockholm
Director: Tom Malmros
Creative Directors: Petter Westlund, Seth Weisfeld
Executive Producers: Niklas Lindstrom, Nicole Muniz

These two websites are really a cool. I was amazed and stunned by the effects and the reality of the environment. Because when you play it, you can feel that you’re somewhat there, especially when your volume turned to fullest.

Try it and see for yourself. And one more thing, be very aware, play it your own risk.

►Sylvain Chomet - French comic writer, animator and film director

Adopted by his grandmother, Madame Souza, Champion is a lonely little boy. Noticing that the lad is never happier than on a bicycle, Madame Souza puts him through a rigorous training process. Years go by and Champion becomes worthy of his name. Now...

►... Once upon a time in the mind of a poet, there was a small, dimly lit cottage. In this cottage lived a brain, two narrow eyes, a grinning mouth, and two crooked hands. The brain, the two narrow eyes, the grinning mouth, and the two crooked hands were sitting around the table for tea. While the tea was being prepared, there came a knock at the door. The crooked hands opened the door. At the opening stood a figure draped in a silk, black cloak and wearing silk, black gloves. Without saying a word, the cloaked figure walked into the room and made itself comfortable at the small wooden table. The brain began to shudder; the two narrow eyes became even narrower; the grinning mouth grimaced. The crooked hands, however, rested on the table, fingers interlaced, and waited. The cloaked figure pushed forward a small gilded chest, encrusted with ruby rose petals. On the top of the chest was inscribed the words: "Offer me your most prized possession and I shall give you a special treasure."...

Sylvain Chomet has created some of the most tragic, elegant, twisted stories in film history. Though his career has tumultuous, it would be irresponsible for any animator worth his salt to deny the sheer potency of the man’s genius. The above story seems to me a fable of talents. Is it the mind, the eyes, the mouth, or the hands that makes a man truly a master of his craft?

As far as artists go, Sylvain Chomet wasn’t any different than most students who want to make their mark on the world. He started in ordinary fashion – raised in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, near Paris, he attended a high school for the arts and published his first comic in 1986, four years after his graduation from high school. As many up-and-coming artists with an eye for the extraordinary (despite their surroundings), he moved to London to fulfill his destiny as an animator at the Richard Purdum studio.

Sylvain Chomet has been a prolific film and commercials maker for over 25 years.
His first film (1996) was : "The Old lady and the Pigeons", a animated short set in Paris which won, amongst many other awards, a BAFTA and the Annecy Grand Prize and also gave him his first Oscar nomination.
His next film, the feature length "Triplets of Belleville" (2003) continued his style of minimal or no dialogue alongside his unique animation look and take on the world. Again, many world awards followed and two Oscar nominations.
In the same year he started directing several commercials including work for United Airlines.
In 2005 he completed his live action debut directing a segment of the critically acclaimed "Paris Je T’aime", produced by Claudie Ossard  (Amelie) and including segments from Joel and Ethan Coen , Wes Craven and Gurinder Chadha amongst others.
His latest feature, "The Illusionist" based on a unfilmed script by Jacques Tati has already won the New York Critics Prize and was nominated for best animated feature at the 2011 Academy Awards.… [+]
...

The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a 2003 animated adventure film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. 

It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom. The film is Chomet's first feature film and was an international co-production between companies in France, the United Kingdom, United States, Belgium and Canada.

 

The film features the voices of Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas; there is little dialogue, the majority of the film story being told through song and pantomime, it is the almost completely unspoken story.The movie is also accompanied by an animated short that is supposedly collaboration by Salvador Dali. Great animated surreal adventure film, emotional and humorous; feature of appalling originality and scary charm. The film was highly praised for its unique, exceptional and somewhat retro style of animation.

Adopted by his grandmother, Madame Souza, Champion is a lonely little boy. Noticing that the lad is never happier than on a bicycle, Madame Souza puts him through a rigorous training process. Years go by and Champion becomes worthy of his name. 

Now he is ready to enter the world-famous cycling race the Tour de France. However during this cycling contest, two mysterious men in black kidnap Champion. Madame Souza and her faithful dog Bruno set out to rescue him. 

Their quest takes them across the ocean to a giant megalopolis called Belleville where they encounter the renowned Triplets of Belleville, three eccentric female music-hall stars from the '30s who decide to take Madame Souza and Bruno under their wing. 

Thanks to Bruno's brilliant sense of smell, the brave duo are soon on to Champion's trail. But will they succeed in beating the devilish plans of the evil French mafia?

...

The Illusionist (French: L'Illusionniste) is a 2010 animated comedic drama film directed by Sylvain Chomet. 
The film is based on an unproduced script written by French mime, director and actor Jacques Tati in 1956. Controversy surrounds Tati's motivation for the script, which was written as a personal letter to his estranged eldest daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel in collaboration with his long-term writing partner Henri Marquet, between writing for the films Mon Oncle and Playtime.

 

The main character is a version of Tati animated by Laurent Kircher. The plot revolves around a struggling illusionist who visits an isolated community and meets a young lady who is convinced that he is a real magician.

The Illusionist is an animated wonder from filmmaker Sylvain Chomet, whose Triplets of Belleville earned him two Oscar nominations.

The film was created from a script written by Jacques Tati, and the story traces a type of father/ daughter relationship between a middle-aged magician and the adolescent girl who places herself in his life.

The story begins in Paris. His flawless illusions notwithstanding, our skilled magician has an ill-fitting suit and a single poster, items that suggest his glory days are behind him. It's the late '50s, and we watch him sharing the bill with rock bands in halls that are deserted once the mop-top pop princes finish their set. He takes it all in sober stride, rarely changing his serious expression.

A cheerfully drunk Scotsman engages Monsieur Tatischeff - Jacques Tati's real surname - and gets him to travel to a pub in Scotland to put on a show.

The pub is in a remote fishing village, and there Tatischeff encounters the girl, who is employed as a cleaner. She happily washes and irons all the illusionist's shirts. He notices her terrible, tattered shoes and replaces them with a pair of beautiful red Mary Janes. Fixated on her new hero and believing him capable of real magic, the girl secretly follows him to Edinburgh.

 

There, Monsieur Tatischeff is surprised but apparently not dismayed to find he has been followed. He and the girl set up housekeeping together; he works at his magic, and she keeps house. She also shows him, in shop windows, exactly the sort of beautiful shoes and grown-up clothes she fancies. He works and budgets to buy what she wants, and we watch her slowly blossom into a sophisticated young woman.

 

The rooming house where the illusionist and the girl stay is filled with elderly and castoff personnel from the circus and the carnival; they are wonderfully brought to life by Chomet, although mostly heart-breaking in their isolation and poverty. The characters in the story are completely three-dimensional, quite a feat considering there's almost no dialogue.

And they exist in an extraordinary landscape. Chomet presents Edinburgh as a place so magical that you'll be inspired to hop on a plane and see it for yourself. Meanwhile, little girls must eventually grow up, which means that The Illusionist ends on a bittersweet note. Of course, art comes first.

For fans of Tati and students of animation, The Illusionist probably represents some kind of nirvana. For everybody else, it's a chance to enter a magical, dreamlike world created by the genius of these two artists.