Hey, I did not know that there used to be a superhero, ahem, space ranger called Rocky Jones with television show, comics, merchandizing and all. Makes me proud to be a Jones myself. :-)
Check out the squeaky clean Space Ranger Code: I pledge
to obey my parents at all times
to be kind an courteous to all
to be brave in the course of freedom, to help the weak
to obey the law at all times
to grow up clean in mind, strong in body
Children actually bought this? How times have changed.
I could have sworn I had seen another interesting take on a letter on a movie poster by a film of Shyamalan, but could not remember the title. A quick search revealed – it was the movie poster for “Signs” which I had remembered. So much for my memory – I could not remember the word, but remembered the play with typography.
On July 7 20o9 the “Internet Research Group” from the University of Vienna presented YouTube Cinema with a programme called “Fake!” at the Museumsquartier in Vienna. Everybody had ten minutes to show and talk about some favourites. It was a fun evening with some lively discussions. Here is our playlist: YouTube Kino: Fake!
Recently I have been thinking about the scene of the final showdown between Deckard (Harrison Ford) and the replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in the Blade Runner, and its poetic ending. This film had a powerful impact on me when I saw it in a cinema in New York’s Lower East Side, when it first came out in 1982 and when I watched it several times after that in the following years. Fast forward to over twenty years later, when I started reading film theory and realized that it was not only me who thought highly of the film, but that it is considered a film classic.
This scene can be found in multiple YouTube versions, however watching the brief clip online seems a bit sad and cheesy. Not at all the same experience as watching it at a time of the cold war, on a big cinema screen. Time, place and medium of distribution make a difference on the reading experience.
I really love the designs and movie credits by Saul Bass. But this is a children’s book by Saul Bass, apparantly the only one he designed: “Henri’s walk to Paris”is outof print too, but you can get to see a lot of it on this Flickr set”Henri’s walk to Paris”
Some more recent Saul Bass inspired opening sequence of movies are “Catch me if you can” and the credits of “Lemony Snicket”. I found some of the title sequences on YouTube, you really have to see them on a big screen, the mini versions don’t do them any credit. I think I enjoyed the very long five minutes of end credits of Lemony Snicket End as much as the whole film.
I like this new advert for a Sony Ericson camera phone with the old Kinks song from 1968
People take pictures of the Summer,
Just in case someone thought they had missed it,
And to prove that it really existed.
Fathers take pictures of the mothers,
And the sisters take pictures of brothers,
Just to show that they love one another.
You can’t picture love that you took from me,
When we were young and the world was free.
Pictures of things as they used to be,
Don’t show me no more, please.
People take pictures of each other,
Just to prove that they really existed,
Just to prove that they really existed.
People take pictures of each other,
And the moment to last them for ever,
Of the time when they mattered to someone.
People take pictures of the Summer,
Just in case someone thought they had missed it,
Just to prove that it really existed.
People take pictures of each other,
And the moment to last them for ever,
Of the time when they mattered to someone.
Picture of me when I was just three,
Sucking my thumb by the old oak tree.
Oh how I love things as they used to be,
Don’t show me no more, please.
It is fun to compare this with this older advert by Kodak. The meaning of “instant” certainly is different – where earlier it related to the ease of taking pictures anytime, now it relates to the ease of taking and transmitting them anywhere, to share with others.
I have posted about this already here – a slightly different model, the Kodak Instamatic 33 camera was the first camera I owned, given to me when I was a girl, just about the time when the Kinks song was made. I was pleased to see it exhibited at the London Design Museum some years ago.
Continuing the theme of vintage technology here an image of the Show’n Tell Picturesound Machine, which was fed with records and film strips. more here lileks.com
I did not get to go to the cinema often in my childhood, but one lasting impression was the animated movie Yellow Submarine (1968), an all time favourite. The Beatles, on their psychedelic journey to save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies beat Alice in Wonderland any time.
I am very pleased to say that my dissertation ‘Superheroes and Children’s Culture’ has been recognised by United Kongdom Literacy Association as an “outstanding piece of work” and the UKLA therefore decided to give the 2008 UKLA Student Research Award (Postgraduate) to me, which will be presented at the UKLA International conference dinner on Saturday July 12th in Liverpool. My husband Steve got very excited about this, and I had to remind him that this was not quite the Oscars, but nevertheless I would like to thank him for his encouragement, and David Buckingham, my supervisor for his support, and Guy Merchant and everybody else from the UKLA for awarding this price to my work, and most of all my son Lukas, for providing much of the inspiration and the fantastic data for this paper!
I made a tag cloud about the dissertation last year with the help of TagCrowd, which looks like this. Interesting, how the largest tags signifying the most frequent keyword in the paper correspond with the title of the paper.
word and image 