A half a dozen years after Swiss surrealist HR Giger designed the cover art for Emerson Lake & Palmer’s 1973 prog rock opus, Brain Salad Surgery, he increased his profile greatly with a little gig designing the title creatures for a sci-fi flick called Alien. Now, the chest-burster Aliens from that film’s pivotal early scene meet delicious pastry in the form of the HR Giger-inspired Wedding Cake. The picture above really says it all: a brilliant creation, and it’s probably delicious as well!
This is unbelievable, and surely would never have been possible had the category not been expanded to include ten films, but District 9 – my favorite movie of 2009 – has been rewarded for its awesomeness with a nomination for Best Picture of the Year! Woo! The other Best Picture nominees are Avatar (duh), An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man (not to be confused with A Single Man), Up in the Air (not to be confused with Up, which is also nominated) and The Blindside. Of course, there is no way in hell that the Oscar will go to anything that is not Avatar(d) and maybe possibly The Hurt Locker. But it’s so cool that District 9 was even nominated. Now, if only the Academy could have seen their way to nominate Anvil! The Story of Anvil! We would be really rockin’! Congratulations and good luck to all of the nominees!
Hey what’s up? How is your Saturday going? I just got in from a pass through Trader Joe’s (milk chocolate covered peanut butter crackers, mmm) that I made on my way home from seeing the amazing new film, Moon. All I knew about this film going in was that David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones is the director, and it stars Sam Rockwell (who was so excellent in Choke). If you don’t know much about Moon, I would recommend not reading any reviews, because the element of surprise that you get from the film as its plot unfolds is so worth it. Moonfeatures some familiar themes of advanced future technology and life on an isolated space station that we saw in classic sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running. But I was really not expecting the twists and turns that Jones throws at you in this truly original story. Rockwell’s portrayal of Sam Bell, an astronaut who wonders if he is going insane as his three-year mission on the space station comes to a close, is top notch and finely nuanced, and Kevin Spacey is fun as the voice of the ship’s computer, Gerty. Clint Mansell (Pop Will Eat Itself), who does the soundtrack music for all of Darren Aronofsky’s films, wrote the score. Moon is a very beautiful, eerie and touching film that I am giving two thumbs up!
