Although he had found a reasonable amount of success as a playwright and through the creation of a favorably received webcast, filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock‘s first major mainstream recognition came in 2004 with his Academy Award-nominated docu-drama Supersize Me.  Instantly spring-boarded into the public eye, Spurlock came across like a less intense, more soluble Michael Moore, starring in his own investigative pieces, and it was clear that this was more than a simple one-off documentary –there would definitely be more to see from the native-West Virginian in the future.  Building off of the Supersize Me concept, which had him eating McDonalds food for 30 days straight, Morgan later hosted, and was often the subject in, the FX program, 30 Days.  Each episode documented an individual enduring a 30-day span of time, immersed in a lifestyle that was in severe contrast to their normal everyday lives (spending time incarcerated, Christians living amongst Muslims, homophobes amongst homosexuals, etc.) to learn about themselves and the lives of others, in a manner that The Real World will never fully accomplish.  Among his other film work is Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, in which Spurlock heads to dangerous territories in the middle east, searching for the since-murdered founder of Al Qaeda, while filming the real innocent families that are trapped in a war-torn country, and POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Told, a film completely funded by product placement, in which the subject matter is all about product placement and the footage almost entirely consists of him collecting the corporate sponsors to finance the film.  His most recent film project finds him teamed with Marvel Comics legend/Spiderman creator, Stan “The Man” Lee and Josh Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly) to direct a documentary about Comicon.  This weekend Spurlock steps out of the world of film and into fine art, as he curates a group exhibit at Culver City, California‘s highly renowned contemporary art gallery, Thinkspace.
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Buenos Aires‘ Juan Pablo Zaramella has been drawing since he was a child and, by the time that he was sixteen years old, he was already a working cartoonist.  He studied to become an animation director at Instituto de Arte Cinematografico de Avellaneda and, after graduation, he began making his own films.  This independent work, in turn, brought him enough recognition to result in getting advertising animation work and in directing commercials for high profile international clients.  From the late 1990s to mid-2000s, Zaramella even held a position as an illustrator/graphist for the most widely distributed magazine in Argentina, Clarín, for which his work garnered several international awards from Society of News Design.  Still, as new positions, responsibilities, and accolades continued to roll in, he has never ceased work on his own personal projects.  In fact, Juan Pablo‘s film shorts have, arguably, become his greatest accomplishments, collectively yielding over 100 awards in their own right, worldwide.  Among these achievements, Zaramella was selected for a 2008 Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase in Cannes and, in 2010, Annecy International Animation Festival presented a special program, showcasing all of his works.  His most recent animated short, Luminaris, however, may be his most impressive yet. Read the rest of this entry →

When the Coachella 2012 lineup was announced, I couldn’t deny that I was impressed.  With such a solid collection of artists, I was even considering trying to make it down this year.  Adding a second weekend with the exact same lineup seemed confusing and, in all honesty, a stretch.  How much was that gonna cost them?  What artists are going to be willing to kick it in the general area for another week just to perform to a second crowd of people that will likely already know what to expect?  Radiohead was smart and booked a couple of Mexico City dates during the week to continue on their tour with Other Lives.  The festival did manage to reel in the big names that the kids these days seem to love and plenty of them: The Black Keys, The Shins, Bon Iver, M83, etc.  Most of those bands are or will be on tour, regardless, and the rest of them slowly popped up on the bill of various other festivals – Bon Iver, The Shins, Beirut, Santigold, Wild Flag, Childish Gambino, Beats Antique, The Head and the Heart, tUnE-yArDs, St. Vincent, and Feist will all be at the Sasquatch! Festival this year.  After the reality that I was going to stay home with my lady and my infant child became more and more of a reality and the initial hype wore off, there were only a few acts that I was really disappointed about missing by not attending Coachella; most of which weren’t getting very high billing.  Death Grips and Company flow were at the top of the acts that I personally have been wishing would make their way up here to the Pacific North West, but haven’t shown any plan to fulfill that dream.  fIREHOSE subsequently posted their full tour and already came through here last week.  Amon Tobin would appear with his ridiculously amazing and mindblowing ISAM tour, which is still going strong, and, although it’s definitely worth witnessing again, I already caught it last year.  I would have checked out the Mazzy Star and Cat Power sets, but it’s not like I’m gonna slit my throat over missing them.  The only real big name act that I was disappointed about not seeing was Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg together.  It turns out that I had good reason for such disappointment, as their set included a hologram of a resurrected and rapping Tupac Shakur; a visual effect that easily rivaled that of Tobin’s groundbreaking live show. Read the rest of this entry →

Yesterday, a Los Angeles filmmaker by the name of Nirvan Mullick posted a short film on his vimeo page and the traffic went haywire.  If you look up Mullick on imdb, the last real filmwork documented for him on the site, came nearly a decade ago.  The most recognizable -perhaps, only recognizable- project on the list is the 2003 Crispin Glover rodent-centric horror film, Willard, in which Mullick was an uncredited animation director for the opening title sequence.  His credits also show that he collected a handful of awards at independent film festivals for his animated short The Box Man (2002), which likely landed him the Willard gig, in the first place.  Otherwise, imdb only features a fairly slim 3-film-deep resume for the director/producer/animator/writer.  It’s not all that Nirvan‘s been involved with -he’s actually working on at least one other highly ambitious project that I know of- but with this new short being the only video posted and no other real activity on his vimeo account at all, it is still remarkable to consider that this new 11-minute movie has already claimed over 350,000 views in such a short period of time.  The only real factors that can truly be credited for such immediate success is the content, the quality, the subject, and the genuineness of the piece, as well as the internet’s ability to spread little independent projects like this out to people who, otherwise, wouldn’t have ever been able to see them 10 years ago. Read the rest of this entry →

Blunt Graffix - “Dead Rockstars”

Spoke Art x Blunt Graffix: “Dead Rockstars”
Curated by Matt Dye

Oakland Art Murmer
Telegraph: 2318 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94612

Opening: Friday April 6, 2012 – 6pm to 10pm
On view the month of April 30th

As human beings attempting to survive on this ridiculous and trying planet, the impending doom related to our dwindling time here is constantly looming over us.  Even if you aren’t the type to obsess over such inevitabilities, the news media will be sure to remind you and, if they fail to do so, then reality will eventually hit via the news of some passing loved one or even a distant acquaintance.  Don’t know anyone… at all?  Are you a reclusive hermit with no contact with the outside world?  Well, how’s that back doing?  How’s your hair, bones, and skin holding up?  One day it’s gonna be curtains folks and there’s not too much that can be done about it.  While we might all be in the same boat as far as our mortality is concerned, the main factors that differentiate us from each other are our perspectives and just exactly how much time we still have left in our respective hour glasses.  Throughout the progression (and/or regression) of our lives, our perspectives can change, as well as our health.  In fact, our health can have a direct and profound effect on our perspectives and vice versa.  Some people are content with just trying to survive as long as possible, catching the occasional prime-time sitcom, driving like a reckless asshole, or blowing their retail paychecks on a name brand handbag to zing a little momentary buzz through their life force.  Others focus intently on their offspring and/or world issues, hoping to leave the Earth a better place than they entered it, for the benefit of future generations.

The ways that we approach life vary as widely as our individual theories about the purpose and “meaning” behind it, but most of us seem to want to receive at least a minor level of acknowledgement, at one point or another, even if it’s just the acknowledgement that we do, in fact, exist at all.  “How much time/life do I have left in me to pull something big and noticeable off?“  “How much time do I have left to even make a simple yet longstanding impact on the realm that I’m leaving behind?“  For some people, just the idea of their conceptual existence and what that means to them can even be larger than the preservation of their physical existence.  For them, the idea of persisting through time as a powerful memory trumps the idea of simply surviving in their physical form as an unsung nobody.  Dying can make you a star, even if you’re not around to reap the benefits from it.  Some wingnut motherfuckers have even gone as far as firing off weapons in public, picking off random casualties, just so that their names could appear in print and, often times, be quickly forgotten; ironically, overshadowed by the nature of their extreme and misguided obsessions (I don’t know those Columbine kids’ names or remember their faces).  Nothing else epitomizes the live fast, die young, become immortalized on a T-Shirt scenario quite like the dead rockstar and tomorrow our friends at Spokeart will be presenting a new group art exhibit, curated by regular contributor/collaborator Matt Dye of Blunt Graffix, that will pay tribute to these icons, which have often forced us to consider our own mortality, while dreaming about ways in which our own memories might live on forever. Read the rest of this entry →

We here at Monster Fresh love the late, great Wesley Willis like a god damn milkshake.  We love him like a magic kiss.  Every day when I get up and walk into my living room, I am fortunate enough greeted with one of the typically expansive cityscape line drawings hat he created in his home town of Chicago.  A massive beast of a man, he was a force of a nature and, for anyone that crossed paths with his music, he was more than a difficult artist to forget.  For those of us that met him in person and bumped his skull, at some point during his 40 short years on this planet, it was even more evident that his like would never be witnessed again.  I’ve mentioned it before, but at the time when “Willis died of chronic myelogenous leukemia on August 21st, 2003” “it was the only time that I had ever felt a legitimate sadness and emptiness by the death of a public figure.“  Fortunately, the musician/artist left behind thousands of songs, a plethora of detailed visual works, and endless and priceless personal connections -chronicled in an impressive documentary- for us to remember and re-experience his powerful life force through. Read the rest of this entry →

THE INTRO:

For those of you who do not know who Lana Del Rey is or simply feel that they may not have the appropriate knowledge of her history in relation to this piece, we have created an additional write-up which we believe should sufficiently fill in any gaps and provide context.  That introduction can be reached through linking HERE.

It’s actually quite lengthy, in it’s own right, so if you do feel that you already have enough of a grasp on the subject and/or that it should not affect your ability to absorb the following content, we encourage to simply continue reading.  Thank you.

On March 10, Lana Del Rey gave a free concert at Easy Street Records in Seattle. The motives were clear. After a disastrous SNL performance, she would perform several brief, low-pressure sets to hone her delivery. And, with a large stable of consultants and voice coaches, Del Rey would advance to the arena circuit by next year. I anticipated swift progress. I was wrong. Read the rest of this entry →

[CLICK HERE to jump ahead to the main article, written by Adam Forman]

PLEASE NOTE…

This section is only intended to establish a reference point for those unfamiliar with Lana Del Rey and/or her background.  It was initially created as a preface for the article: “Pop Music, Social Development, and Neurology; A Scientific Exploration of Lana Del Ray’s Rise and Fall (and Rise)” by Adam Forman, which delves more immediately into the subject and reflects on where she is now.  This piece is focused more about where she came from.  If you feel that you are already adequately versed on this subject matter, please feel free to click the above link, bypassing this introduction and advancing to the primary content directly.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave under a rock, it’s likely that you’ve read any number of strikingly unoriginal, cookie cutter-articles that lead off with the phrase, “Unless you’ve been living in a cave…” or “Unless you’ve been living under a rock…” before launching into some brief update regarding breakout indie pop vocalist Lana Del Rey.  In fact, even back when I read the very first article that introduced me to the overnight sensation and vocalist behind the smash internet hit “Videogames“, I was already greeted with the implication that I had arrived embarrassingly late to the LDR party.  Of course, the exaggerated content in the post was centered around the idea of a PR team conspiring to bamboozle the taste-makers and internet world by selling them them a pop-star packaged under the guise of a self-made indie starlet. “WE’VE BEEN TRICKED!  WE’VE BEEN DUPED!  IT WAS A SETUP!” were the basic claims.  I wasn’t paying much attention. Read the rest of this entry →