brahman

Brahman is a 1995 formed Japanese alternative punk band. Although I only like few of their songs, I appreciate and admire them for their hard work and for having inspired an entire generation in Japan. Below I share the MV for "Silent Day". Did I mention that I have a soft spot for Japanese longhaired stringstummers?

the birthday

Below I am sharing a video featuring Japanese band "The Birthday" performing live "Piano". I love Yusuke Chiba's husky voice, whatever band he's in, it's strong. Very Strong.

One of my favourite songs comes still from the good ol' Thee Michelle Gun Elephant days: "Gypsy Sunday".

puma reinventing the shoe box

Puma has partnered with The Fuse Project to completely redesign the packaging for their shoes. They came to the solution of foregoing a box altogether, and instead used a special bag and a foldable cardboard sheet. This is quite innovative and has several advantages:

• the packaging uses 65% less cardboard than the standard shoe box, has no laminated printing, no tissue paper
• the special bag is made of non-woven polyester consisting of recycled PET, and eventually is also recyclable.
• the special bag has a handle and can also be used to carry the shoes, hence replacing the traditional plastic shopping bag
• this type of "box" takes up less space and weighs less in shipping, which means that a larger amount of "boxes" can be transported at once (economical). It also means that they can be stacked and stored more convenient in the shops who order them.

Puma claims that this new design will save about 8,500 tons of paper, 20 million Mega joules of electricity, 1 million litres of fuel oil, 1 million litres of water and 500,000 litres of diesel.

via PSFK

the white ribbon - review

***may contain spoilers***

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" was an unexpected find, like a breath of fresh air in a landscape of both mainstream movies and art films that have all forgotten what it's like to be subtle . "They don't make movies like this very often", my friend said. No, they don't.

The movie's strong points are: Incredibly authentic rendition of time, space and characters, wonderful framing and camera work, crushingly magnificent and intimidating dialogues, excellent performances and actor choices.

I did however feel, there were some inconsistencies in the plot (Why did Sigi never tell on the ones that harmed him, once he recovered? Why did the midwife never come back and where did the doctor's family dissapear to?).

But all in all, I believe that it might have been the director's intention to confuse, in order to help the viewer identify with the perspective of the school teacher, who was himself far from beeing the omniscient narrator, we have all been used to lately. Haneke's movie was not going to tell us "who" or "why", it's not about blame or motivation behind actions. It's simply about telling a story of a series of strange and violent events happening in a small rural village in the north of pre-WW I Germany.

And now, this might be my own personal opinion, but I strongly disagree with the idea that Haneke's village is to be seen as a microcosmos to reflect Germany as a whole and that his movie is about the depiction of the generation of children who would grow up into the fascist youth of WW II (you see, that would not be subtle at all). I believe that it stands for how, on a global level, a context of sexual and emotional repression, dogmatic religiosity, familial abuse, mistreatment and oppression of women, strong patriarchal values and social hierarchies can breed evil forces that will eventually exteriorize themselves.

I have found a user comment on imdb that I find quite appropriate:

"A powerful film, sharing so much information without any answers; it takes our mind into overdrive, trying so hard to find a reason for it all. But sometimes there are none; sometimes bad things just happen."

poster source. previously featured trailer. read an interview with Haneke here.

alice in wonderland - review

I've recently seen Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D and I have to say that I am deeply dissapointed.

There is little doubt nowadays that the 3D visuals are an enriching experience to any fantasy film. And even though I am both a huge Tim Burton and Alice fan, I was immensely let down by this film. The narrative was poor, the visuals mediocre (although a quite good character and set design) and all in all, I think that whoever knows and loves Lewis Carroll's "Alice" would have a hard time finding that character in Tim Burton's adaptation.

Although this movie was not mainly intended for a very young audience, throughout the time while I was watching it, my thoughts kept sending me back to Wolfgang Petersen's "Neverending Story". I kept wondering when they would make a 3D release of that fantastic tale. On second thought, you know what? Forget about the 3D. Somehow, movies back then had a whole lot more heart:

poster source

t(h)ree

T(h)ree (http://www.myspace.com/projectothree) is a wonderful musical project that brings together, for the very first time, musicians from Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau. The sales of the album will be entirely donated to Unicef Hong Kong. In Macau the sales will be donated to: Anima (http://www.anima.org.mo/now/) and Na Terra (http://www.naterra.org/).

If you want to buy the album, you can contact Bloom Creative Network at www.bloomland.cn/antonio@bloomland.cn

Listen to the show by Hugo Pinto on Próximo Oriente (http://proximo-oriente.blogspot.com/) featuring the music made in Portugal, Macau & Hong Kong, as well as an interview (in Portuguese) with the man behind this adventure, David Valentim:

Próximo Oriente - Edição 17.04.2010 by Hugo Pinto on Mixcloud

I have blogged about Hugo's show before, make sure you follow his mixtapes!

interactive billboard against aggression

This video speaks for itself:

music: album intro The XX

via dosomething studio