The day job is depressing me. The world economy is continuing its death spiral, a a dead man's past is being attacked and idiots are leaving their toodlers in cars to go gamble. But these video-game cupcakes are making me happy and hungry.
(Link via Toxel's 21 Unusual and Creative Cupcake Designs)
Previously on Popped Culture...
Lost Cake Flashes Before Your Eyes
Invaders! Possibly From Space!
These References Are Making Me Thirsty
I got 99 Seinfeld References and a Bro is one of them. Artist Kiersten Essenpreis has piled up a giant heap of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer ephemera and provided a reference key for those, like me, who give up too easily. (Link via Neatorama)Previously on Popped Culture...
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
TV's Greatest Icons
Rihanna's 15 Minutes Of Unwanted Fame
Is it a statement about violence against women? Some sort of odd homage?"I thought the bruises in the police photo were interesting shapes to draw," artist Sham told E! Online, about his Andy Warhol-esque painting of Rihanna's now infamous police photo. "And it was cool to color them pink and blue. Those are two of my favorite colors. There is no message to any of my art," he says of his work, Disturbia. "It's meant to look cool hanging on your wall and that's it! I'm not into deep meanings."
It seems unlikely that an artist would be so flippantly uncaring about using such a controversial image and perhaps wants people to make their own interpretations.
Said one commentator: "In four quick panels he condemns Chris Brown and all his enablers * particularly the entertainment media * for the free pass Brown gets. And Sham indicates (through mass production) that we shall certainly see this crime again...and again...and again."
I'd like to hope so.
Previously on Popped Culture...
You're A Bad Man, Chris Brown
Pop Art
Through The Remixed Looking Glass
Pogo, of Last.fm remixed the music and images from Disney's 1951 film Alice In Wonderland to create a piece of electronic music that takes 90% of its sound from the film and yet creates something altogether unique.
It gorgeous and I can imagine Feist singing it as an electronic version of skat. I'm not doing it justice — just watch and see. It also tells me that the Disney animators were very edgy for the '50s.
(Link via Unreality's Eight Disney Remixes To Blow Your Mind)
Previously on Popped Culture...
Dwarfed Punk
Archie vs. Common People
Run For the Covers
Birthday Of The Dragon
Aw, poor sad dragon. Wishless, from Threadless designer Julia Sonmi Heglund.Previously on Popped Culture...
Ghost Busters Catch Gozer... Um, Jesus
World's Toughest T-Shirt
I Spoil Your Movie
South Park Last Supper... You Bastards!
The only surprising thing about a South Park Last Supper parody is that it has taken them so long to do one. This scene is from Margaritaville, which as of this writing, has yet to air here in Canada, but played in the U.S. earlier this week. Kyle, the Jew, as Jesus with Cartman as his Judas? It's a perfect match, and trust me, I've seen a whole lot of versions of the Last Supper - here are 50 of them.From Wikipedia: Kyle and his friends go out for pizza at Whistlin’ Willy’s and laments that he feels they won't be able to get together like this anymore because he thinks he is going to be killed. He says he worries that one of his friends will betray him. All of them act shocked while Cartman stands up and says that whoever betrays Kyle "is a dick" and "it's not cool!" Kyle admits to his friends while glaring accusingly at Cartman that he knows what he has to do to save everyone.
Previously on Popped Culture...
Watchmen Last Supper
Suddenly Last Supper
Periodic Table of Typefaces
Periodic tables perplex me. I could never get through this chart in chemistry and even when you turn it into a table of fonts like above or video games or cartoon characters, I still feel a little lost. But I am a lapsed font junkie at heart from my days as a layout editor and this one really appealed to me.From the designer, Cam: "As with traditional periodic tables, this table presents the subject matter grouped categorically. The Table of Typefaces groups by families and classes of typefaces: sans-serif, serif, script, blackletter, glyphic, display, grotesque, realist, didone, garalde, geometric, humanist, slab-serif and mixed."There have been a lot of those floating around recently, with Geekologie posting so many that I thought of making my own out of Simpson characters. Then that looked like way too much work, so I was going to compile them all into one post, but the fabulous Miss Cellania beat me to it on mental_floss with 8 Alternative Periodic Tables. Yeesh, is it any wonder I had trouble memorizing the elements in high school?
Wow, with the Math Clock and this I've covered all my academic phobias today. Now I'll probably have to go to music class or play a team sport. Shudder.
Previously on Popped Culture...
Elements of Awesome
A Way With Words
So What's The Time?
Actually, with this Math Clock, I couldn't really say for sure what time it is. It would probably make time speed up for me in the same way it did during Grade 12 math tests, where I would stare anxiously at the page hoping the answers would appear until all of a sudden time was up and I hadn't written a thing.Better to go with the Whatever Clock. It's got the right attitude.
(Link via Odee's 10 Coolest Clocks )Previously on Popped Culture...
Pillow Talk: 25 Strange Throw Pillows
They Roared Their Terrible Roars...
The first trailer for Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is out — with Arcade Fire's Wake Up as the backing track — and it looks great, if a little creepy. Of course that could just be me. The book always scared me a little.
Previously on Popped Culture...
Where The Wild Things Are poster
Disney's Lord of the Rings
I wonder if they have to destroy the ring in Magic Mountain? It's Merlin as Gandalf, Pinocchio as Frodo, Peter Pan as Legolas and Grumpy as Gimlee, from artist AJ interpretation of Lord of the Rings as drawn by Walt Disney. (Link via Super Punch)Previously on Popped Culture...
Ginocchio And Winnie the Pope
Dwarfed Punk
Nuke The Fridge
I know I'm hardly breaking any new ground here, but coming across this remixed trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I reminded of how really terrible that film was. Yes, 10 months later I still have a visceral reaction to a film that makes The Matrix Revolutions seem like a pretty good idea.
It's all about the fridge. Sure, there was a lot of no action and most people despise the aliens, but it was that damn fridge that did it for me. Outside of a cartoon, you just don't survive a nuclear blast hiding in a fridge, especially a blast that disintegrated the house the fridge it was in. Or emerge unharmed and smirking from said fridge, after it flew through the air landing with a thud in the desert. It was there that I realized I was watching a terrible parody, as did Jason Cooley, the maker of the above trailer.
The phrase Nuke the Fridge quickly entered the popular lexicon as a movie version of Jump the Shark. It really was that bad. (Image via New York Times)
But I hardly have suffered the worst of it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were so scarred by what they saw they could only relive it though South Park, in one of the most disturbing and hilariously wrong scenes I've ever seen on TV:
Boldly Go Where No Bunny Has Gone Before
What the 30-second bunnies lack in timeliness they more than make up for in floppy-eared fun. Set phasers to furry for you 30-second mission to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, re-enacted by bunnies.Previously on Popped Culture...
No Country For Old Bunnies
Bunnies on a Plane
Kill Bunny
Bunny. James Bunny.
Bad Commercials Are Good For You
"Commercials make TV programs more enjoyable to watch. Even bad commercials,” says Leif Nelson, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-author of Don’t Touch That Dial! Watching Commercials Leads to Greater Enjoyment of TV Programs.The psych prof showed an episode of Taxi to students with ads and another group saw it without. The group who watched the show with the commercials rated the show much more favourably, even while stating they didn't like the ads.
We adapt quickly to pleasurable experiences, says Dr. Nelson, and our enjoyment quickly tapers off. "Each successive minute is slightly less enjoyable than the previous one," he says. So a break - even it involves a strange man hawking a yellow cloth - makes the experience novel again.
This, of course, means two things. I should periodically hit my hand with a hammer just to make everything else I am doing seem that much more pleasurable. Secondly, Dr. Nelson is Agent Smith and the Matrix is upon us.
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be... happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program, entire crops were lost.Of course some ads can be quite enjoyable, like this Bud Lite spot that bizarrely compares its customers to porn addicts. (Link via Listicles)
Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I belive, that as a species, human beings define their reality though suffering and misery.
Related(ish) story: Nine corporate attempts at 'edgy' that failed
Previously on Popped Culture...
Insipid Woodland Pleasantries
Love & Sockets
Sex, Latex and Videotape
Time For A Commercial Break
Extreme Movie Makeovers
The clever film students who created Forrest Gump in a minute video have cut down the four-hour Kill Bill Vol. I & II down to 60 seconds and it still makes perfect sense. (Link via Topless Robot)
Pop Culture artist Justin Reed paints scenes from movies that didn't happen, distilling films down to their essence, such as the above scene from Pulp Fiction. (Link via JazzJazz)And keeping with the Tarantino theme, we have six machinima movie scenes, including the Mexican standoff from Reservoir Dogs, remade using Grand Theft Auto IV. (Link from Unreality)
Previously on Popped Culture...
William Shakespeare's Pulp Fiction
Pulp Muppets
Kill Bunny
Can You Picture That
There's No Such Thing As Too Much Coffee
Of course, some would disagree...
Which reminded me of a comic I haven't read in some time, but that I will always have an affinity for: Too Much Coffee Man.
I am so going to get a coffee.
Previously on Popped Culture...
Coffee is an elements on the Periodic Table of Awesoments
Which reminded me of a comic I haven't read in some time, but that I will always have an affinity for: Too Much Coffee Man.
I am so going to get a coffee.Previously on Popped Culture...
Coffee is an elements on the Periodic Table of Awesoments
Baking Disasters: Burn Baby Burn
This is what it's like when I cook — even the Pillsbury Doughboy would Scream like Edvard Munch. From artist skorch0matik via Listicles amusing 10 Moments in the Pillsbury Doughboy’s Life.And, in a related(ish) video, you really don't want to know why your Cheetos are so dangerously cheesy:
Previously on Popped Culture...
Sideshow Bob: The Perfect Side Dish... For Revenge!
Patrick Duffy Talking To A Crab
You'd think that headline would covering the peculiar randomness that is the above video, but it just scratches the surface. Why is Patrick Duffy (of Dallas fame) talking to a crab? I have no idea.
(Link via YouTube Reviewed)
The Seven Jack Nicholsons & The Enchanted Mental Hospital
Pop culture artist Dave MacDowell is a happy new find for me. MacDowell paints in the "Lowbrow/Pop Surrealism movement... focusing on Contemporary Cultural Nightmares," which thrills me to no end.My favourite out of the dozens and dozens of his painting is The Enchanted Mental Hospital, featuring Jack Nicholson as the Seven Dwarfs. You get Jack from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Jack from The Shining, Jack from Batman and I'm not sure about the rest. I figure Jack from Five Easy Pieces and maybe Jack from Chinatown.
Anyway, I love the details: the bottle of Red Rum, the Grady girls from The Shining as twin Tinkerbells and a rat with Mickey Mouse ears.
See more at his studio, on his Flickr page and on his blog.
Ok, one more for good measure: The Samuel Jackson 5
(Link via SuperPunch, who shows me the coolest things.)Previously on Popped Culture...
Robocop on a unicorn
Angelina Jolie as Our Lady of Celebrity Worship
Do Shepherds Dream of LED Sheep?
A group of shepherds from Wales outfitted their flock with LED covered vests and head out to hills with their border collies to create some art and play a game of pong. Sweet, Extreme Shepherding! It goes to show that I'm not the only one skillful time-wasting abilities.
These shepherds have also managed to update their profession, which really hasn't had much representation in pop culture. Recently we've had the gay cowboy shepherds of Brokeback Mountain and The Good Shepherd, which was neither good nor had anything to do with shepherds. Here are three of the best shepherd moments:
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex: The Sheep
Looney Tunes: A Sheep in the Deep
The Muppet Show: Rama Lama Ding Dong
(Video via Geekologie)
Where The Wild Things Are
So they really are making a movie of Maurice Sendak's classic kid lit book, Where The Wild Things Are? Seems so.Will it terrify little children? I would have thought so, but we read this to Tristan all the time and he's 2 1/2 and has no qualms about it. I suppose if nobody has ever told you monsters are scary, you have nothing to fear.
The film is being directed by Spike Jonze and adapted by Dave Eggers, so the material is in good hands, but I never thought we'd see this on the big screen, let alone a live action version.
Here's a bit of leaked footage:
(Poster via ComingSoon)
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