Pixels Take Manhattan

Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Tetris and the link weren't video games. They were cautionary tales and training manuals of how to fight off the coming invasion. Patrick Jean's Pixels shows us how it's all going to end if we don't pay attention. (Link via Ampersand Arcade)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Let Your Video Game Freak Flag Fly
Space Invaders Are Real!
Rubik's Cube Last Supper

Logorama

An entire universe from buildings to people made out of corporate logos, replete with car chases, shootouts wild animals and natural disasters, Logorama is a tour de force of graphic design.

The Oscar-nominated animated short used at least two thousand logos in its creation and is more than worth the 14-minute runtime, which is saying something coming from a short attention span web junkie like myself.  (Hat tip to Neatorama)




Previously on Popped Culture...
Viral Marketing
Bad Commercials Are Good For You
And I'll Whisper, "Would You Like Fries With That?"

Old Russian Proverb: When Zombie Attack, Wise Man Get Shotgun

Alex Poutiainen is the filmmaking poster boy for the recession. For a mere $24 and six days of shooting he made a seven-minute, stop-motion zombie short called Zoo of the Dead. Twenty-four bucks! I've spent that much on popcorn at a movie. At that price he could make a full-length feature for $300. You couldn't film one second of the recently leaked X-Men Origins: Wolverine with that kind of budget.

Admittedly, it doesn't have the quirkiness of his previous work, Rise and Fall of Nazi Dinosaurs and the camera work started to make me nauseous, I can't wait to see what he does next.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Celebrities Of The Living Dead
Jane Austen Monster Mashup
Hot Chair-on-Chair Action

Rise And Fall Of The Nazi Dinosaurs

There are Nazis and dinosaurs, all in old-timey stop motion animation. What's not to love? U.S. paratroopers explore a desolate German research lab in Antarctica and discover, well, the title kind of sums it up.

Produced in five days by Alex Poutianinen for the grand total of $20. He's looking for work in the film industry but he should be looking for financial backers. If they are going to greenlight a Jane Austen zombie flick, why not a Nazi Jurassic Park?

The Cat Came Back

The National Film Board of Canada put over 700 films, clips and trailers online last week as a way to mark its 70th anniversary and, frankly, join this century.

The archive is searchable and, even better, the films can be embeded. Cool! So I immediately searched out Cordell Barker's 1998, Oscar-nominated short film, The Cat Came Back.

What a great idea. This should open up a lot of great art to a whole new audience. Bravo, NFB.

I'll Stop The World And Melt With You

Three chocolate bunnies meet their slow demise at the hands of three heat sources. Why? You'd have to ask Dutch filmmaker Sander Plug. The slightly creepy, but lilting music is Aviva Pastoral by Nathan Larson and I love the Easter pastels.

Watch it through to the final, blow-drier scene. It's like the opening of the Ark in Indiana Jones crossed with a wind tunnel.

This is from 2007, but ya know, what goes around comes around.
Via Neatorama

Hot Chair-on-Chair Action

Roof Sex is a short, stop-motion animation film that is intensely graphic, but probably not anywhere near how you might think. I went to the director's site — eatPES — looking for something else this just grabbed me. More cushion for the pushin', if you will.