Christopher LantzPretty skulls.
Christopher LantzShared for the Call Me Maybe notes
Here it is: a look back at your favorite notes of 2012, from heartbroken kids to self-righteous vegans and everywhere in between. (Just click on any of the notes to see the original post, with context.)
But first — drumroll please — our two leading candidates vying for the title of 2012 douchecanoe of the year!
Of course, you could also vote for a third party candidate. Which write-ins are missing from the race? Cast your votes in the comments!
![Mom, Dad I love you but you can't cut my hair if you do I will never forgive you I love my hair and guess you don't love me enough to do what I want for a change [drawings: "my heart," "buckets of my tears"]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/6607548191_7515f1a65c.jpg "Mom, Dad I love you but you can't cut my hair if you do I will never forgive you I love my hair and guess you don't love me enough to do what I want for a change [drawings: \"my heart,\" \"buckets of my tears\"]")
related: The Most Popular Notes of 2011, including 2011′s Douchecanoe of the Year
Welcome to the Didney Worl, a magical place on the Internet where your favorite Disney characters derp the herp.
Come on Google, why can’t you just read my mind?
The latest Symphony of Science music video celebrates this year’s discovery of the Higgs boson particle by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Christopher LantzShared for Alison Brie as Cap America
Which superhero does Christopher Nolan think is harder to adapt, Superman or Batman? How does Bane relate to Wreck-It Ralph? Want to see a video about building the world of Dredd? What are 10 really dumb ways superheroes have died? Is there a corolation between Alison Brie and Captain America? Read about all that, and wish Stan Lee a happy 90th birthday, in today’s Superhero Bits.
Happy birthday Stan Lee! He turns 90 today!
Christopher Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter creating the world of Superman was more difficult than Batman:
In my honest appraisal, taking on Superman and creating that world is far more difficult than creating the world of the Dark Knight. He has a lot of finishing to do on the movie — it has a very long postproduction schedule because, unlike Batman, Superman flies. I actually feel guilty talking about it because I’m sitting here having nothing to do to it. I try to be as supportive as I can, and I’m just amazed by what he is doing. It’s not something I would know how to do.
Over on Etsy, you can buy these amazing Batman bookshelves. Thanks to Neatorama.
Badass Digest talks about the controversial Amazing Spider-Man #700.
I may have posted this Superman vs. Lex Luthor Lego stop motion video before, but it’s still excellent.
Not sure what the impetus behind this photoshop of Alison Brie as Captain America is, but I don’t care either.
Superheroes die all the time. Here are 10 dumb ways via Io9.
Due to the amount of graphics and images included in Superhero Bits, we have to split this post over TWO pages. Click the link above to continue to the second page of Superhero Bits.
The Alamo Drafthouse brand is beloved among moviegoers for their plush theaters, but it’s revered for their impeccable taste in movies. Whether programming a film festival or picking up indies for distribution, they’ve demonstrated an eye for films that aren’t just good, but unique.
With 2012 on its way out, the company has just released its list of their ten favorite movies from the year. Some of the titles were as successful at the box office as they were with critics, while others are more off the beaten track, but all are well worth checking out. Read their picks after the jump.
The Drafthouse compiled their list based on surveys of employees from every theater location, Badass Digest, Fantastic Fest, Mondo, Fons PR, and Drafthouse Films. Eligible titles had to be released theatrically in 2012, and could not be distributed by Drafthouse Films. Even with those caveats, however, they had plenty of highlights to choose from.
10. Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner
“The thing that makes this the one of the best movies of the year and the thing that makes it one of the best entries in Steven Spielberg’s prolific filmography have a lot to do with each other. The former is due to Daniel Day-Lewis’ spiritual-like channeling of our 16th president and the latter is Spielberg getting out of the way of that performance. No over-the-top camerawork, forceful mise-en-scène or overbearing narrative cues; the focus is here is on the power of words in storytelling, politics and especially its delivery.” – Roger Tinch, Online and Digital Media
9. Kill List, directed by Ben Wheatley, written by Wheatley and Amy Jump
“Unnerving. Shocking. Perversely funny. Refreshingly disciplined. Fascinating characters. Naked old people. Everything a great ‘70s-era horror film dripped in paranoia should be, translated to a modern time of uncertainty. ‘Cogs in the wheel’ is all we are – in both the world at large and in Ben Wheatley’s masterfully woven tale.” – Ryan Fons, Fons PR
8. Cloud Atlas, directed and written by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski
“Overwhelming, heart-pummeling, astonishing cinema. That one of the most technically ambitious films I’ve ever seen should knock the wind out of me with its sheer emotional force is a marvel unto itself – that the film should be wildly entertaining, too, is miraculous. Three hours lapsed as if mere moments, and when that gorgeous score played out over the end credits, I knew I had seen my favorite film of the year.” – Meredith Borders, Managing Editor
7. The Cabin in the Woods, directed by Drew Goddard, written by Goddard and Joss Whedon
“A meta-horror film that manages to entertain while raising questions about genre conventions and the audience’s fascination with onscreen violence.” – Rodney Perkins, Fantastic Fest Programmer
6. Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by Mark Boal
“You never once feel manipulated or emotionally pushed in Bigelow’s wonderful docudrama.” – James Emanuel Shapiro, Drafthouse Films Chief Operating Officer
“There’s controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty, and that’s a good thing. Kathryn Bigelow’s film plunges us into the moral grey area of the War on Terror and it never offers us easy answers or trite homilies. What it gives us is the cold thrill of professionals doing the best work of their lives, the intellectual thrill of the sweep of history and the personal thrill of Jessica Chastain creating a rich, badass character out of smoke. Zero Dark Thirty is a Rorschach test that will force you to examine your own ideas about right and wrong, evil and justice. And it’s damn exciting as it does that.” – Devin Faraci, Badass Digest Editor-in-Chief
5. Looper, directed and written by Rian Johnson
“It isn’t a perfect time travel movie, because no such thing can ever exist (and if it did some scientist would use it to actually invent time travel, and then we’d all be fucked). But Looper had me incredibly invested in the action at a farmhouse, something that The Walking Dead Season Two made me think was impossible, and the questions it asked within the confines of a strong narrative made it the only movie of the year that sent me to a nearby coffee shop so I could have an active conversation about the topics raised, the story, the characters – everything about the film. A win on pretty much every level.” – Henri Mazza, Alamo Entertainment Executive Director
4. Moonrise Kingdom, directed by Wes Anderson, written by Anderson and Roman Coppola
“This might end up being one of my favorite films, period. It’s certainly among my favorite romances ever. I could watch Moonrise Kingdom over and over again, and I doubt it would ever stop charming me. This is the most emotionally involved I became with a film this year. And as much as I like Looper, this contains the year’s exemplary Bruce Willis performance.” – Evan Saathoff, Badass Digest News Editor
3. Holy Motors, directed and written by Leos Carax
“Holy Motors is a film filled with so many sheer pleasures, countless charming, wonderful and titillating surprises, that to describe it in linear, descriptive terms would be to spoil the experience altogether. It is that rare breed of film, an art house title lauded by critics, adorned with festival awards and embraced by film programmers. Its beauty, sincerity and utterly playful unpredictability casts any false notion of foreign film pretentiousness aside. Holy Motors is in many ways the perfect fit for the Alamo Drafthouse – a brand new, smart, lovely film that audiences are drawn to magnetically. It amazes me that we were and, as of 12/22, still are, the only theater showing this film in Austin.” – Sam Prime, Drafthouse Programmer
2. The Master, directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Master manipulates, hypnotizes, and rattles around your brain long after watching the film. PTA is a rarity in the modern age of cinema – a true artist whose vision doesn’t crumble under the golden fist of studio power. Much like There Will Be Blood, this masterpiece will be embraced more as time passes by.” – Corey Wilson, Sponsorship Director
1. Django Unchained, directed and written by Quentin Tarantino
“Over the last twenty years Quentin Tarantino has developed into one of the greatest living filmmakers of his generation. He’s fine-tuned his writing, his sense of tension and pace and his ability to assemble truly impressive casts, and he’s consistently produced great film after great film. With Django Unchained, Tarantino’s take on the spaghetti western, the director has produced his most entertaining movie yet – without numbing his penchant for rabblerousing. Django is funny, endearing, provocative and a loving tribute to why Tarantino fell in love with cinema in the first place.” Robert Saucedo, Houston Market Programmer
Since the list was voted on by a large group, it’s not quite as idiosyncratic as some of the other top-10s I’ve seen this year. But the choices seem like a great expression of Alamo Drafthouse’s devotion to creative, ambitious cinema. Here’s looking forward to another year of wonderful Drafthouse programming.
Discuss: What selections are you surprised and/or offended to see on the list?
Deco Dems, the “Burlesque Beauties of Bedding.”
Former hedge fund trader Jake Katz and fashion designer Ryan Rock are behind Vice Merchants, a brand that has created a line of fine bedding that is printed with risqué patterns.
Inspired by the beauty of the human form, the brand has quickly made a mark by breaking through cultural taboos.
Their “Cowpokes” bedding line is geared specifically to gay men.
via Lost at E Minor
Compilariz has created a funny supercut video that shows kids eating sour Warheads candies for the first time.
Christopher LantzThis latest one gets weird early and hard.
Jason Steele presents Charlie the Unicorn 4, the latest installment in the neverending Charlie the Unicorn saga.
Here are the first 3 episodes if you need to catch up on how Charlie the Unicorn’s epic adventures got us to this point:
via The Daily What
You can stop it at 2m in, when "Why is this important?" appears on-screen.
Geordi, man, you got to corral those players. They’re not even staying in character! I know you’ve got pages and pages of notes on this setting already, but try to start with the key concepts maybe.
But, yes, seriously, what is with that comet in the opening title sequence of Deep Space Nine? Why is the first thing we see a comet about which nothing is, as far as I can recall, ever said? It’s not a plot comet or anything; it’s just a random bit of stellar flotsam, the sort of minor phenomena that Enterprise or Voyager or Enterprise Bakula Edition might chase down and scan but which DS9 would at best grab some long distance pix of if it was a slow day in the astrometrics lab.
Maybe it’s a metaphor? Like for the way Deep Space Nine embraces a degree of momentum, of continuing arc, which contrasts with the more episodic structure of the preceding Next Generation? Not that a comet drifting in a straight line is really a good non-trivial example of an arc. Plodding along in a dull straightforward path is kind of an unflattering self-assessment.
But then, oh, there could be gravity wells? Suns, planets, spatial anomalies? The perturbation of its path by stellar masses seen and unseen? I suppose that’s a good example of how an arc can come from nowhere, a twist in the road, an unintended shift in one’s path so that one ends up treading into strange territory even as one tries to presses ever forward and onward? Is this metaphor shaping up? I feel like we’re reaching here. Feeling like the ol’ grasp is being exceeded.
Another thing that I suspect: somewhere on a datapad (yes, yes, they’re called PADDs in the Star Trek universe, shut up), Geordi has written down lyrics to a song about Deep Space Nine. Maybe those’ll slip out at some point. Maybe just.
Christopher LantzYSOSRS?
Christopher LantzWelcome to the heart of chaos!
Submitted by: Unknown (via Ammnontet)
Tagged: scream , heavy metal , Video , Music FAILS , g rated Share on FacebookNew Jersey teen McKenna Pope shot a video of her little brother Gavyn “cooking cookies” as a way to petition Hasbro to make an Easy-Bake Oven that is advertised to both girls and boys. The campaign worked: Hasbro met with Pope recently and will soon sell a gender-neutral silver and black Easy-Bake Oven and will market it to both boys and girls.
“I am thrilled that Hasbro has agreed to make a gender neutral Easy-Bake Oven after my campaign on Change.org. I am so thankful to everyone who supported this campaign. With their new product Hasbro is affirming that everyone can cook and I cant wait to share this gift with my little brother Gavyn”.
via Huffington Post
Photo by Mike Vickers
In the Boing Boing Flickr pool, Melissa Li shares some wonderful photo documentation of a cool costume she developed in multiple editions, over a period of years. Above, "Cyberpunk 2.0," the 2012 build:Costume is an original design inspired by the 'cyberpunk'/fantasy genre work of artists including Masumune Shirow, Eric Canete, Joe Benitez, and various modern gaming concept art. The process was a lot of fun and took approximately 3 months of on-and-off planning and building. The assembly is made from over 60 parts designed in Solidworks and sewn/cut/glued/laser-cut/heat-formed using various techniques.The costume includes color changing LEDs on the spine and front that are controlled by an Arduino microcontroller and onboard RGB controllers (respectively), and is powered by 16 AA batteries, 1 LiPo rechargeable battery, two 2032 coin cells, and one 9-volt battery. In total there's more than 70 LED's on the entire costume and over 60 parts.
And below, the 1.0 version she created for DragonCon 2011:
Design was based on actual spinal transverse sections and lit with ~40 LED's. Design and assembly of smaller accessory pieces for shoulders, chest, and arm were found pieces or designed in Solidworks. In total, ~46 pieces put together over a period of ~2 months.
Photo by Anna Fisher
Christopher LantzIt was a good summer for Sci-Fi.
This television report from 1982 gives a sneak preview of the upcoming (and quite impressive) summer sci-fi movie lineup. Movies from that year include Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Thing, Tron, and more.
video uploaded by ALurkingGrue
via Accordion Guy
This holiday season, let Andy Richter and George Takei help you ease your parents into the idea of you being gay!
Tagged: coming out of the closet , andy richter , conan , george takei , dating fails Share on Facebook
All of Time and Space, a beautiful Doctor Who themed illustration by New York artist and designer Alice X. Zhang, shows a “cluster of stars in the sky” to represent the TARDIS spacecraft and time machine. Prints, apparel, iPhone cases and more are available to purchase on Threadless, Society6 and deviantART.
I designed this a few weeks ago, trying to capture the essence of travelling with the Doctor… it’s a Tardis but not a Tardis. Just a cluster of stars in the sky in the end…
image via Alice X. Zhang
Christopher LantzJibJab, you so funny.
JibJab Year in Review 2012: The End is Here! is a Mayan-themed animated musical year in review by JibJab. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made.
Hurricanes! The fiscal cliff! Honey Boo Boo Child! The bizarre events of 2012 look a lot like omens of the apocalypse! JibJab takes inspiration from the Mayan calendar in an animated musical extravaganza looking back at possibly the last year we’ll ever have to review. It’s 2012, the end is here!
“1991. Nirvana releases Nevermind…”
Music history in gifs is a Tumblr blog of animated GIFs with musical interest by Joshua Carrafa of the band Old Monk.
8-bit love.
music love.
“Cape penguins and an aquarium keeper…at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama…”
photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
In Focus on The Atlantic recently ran a photo essay titled “Christmas Time Around The World” which features first-rate images of “many different Christmas celebrations” around the globe.
“Adriana Leiss and her daughters Gabriella and Amelia replace burned out light bulbs on their 1965 Chevy pick-up truck…” photo by Richard Vogel/AP Photo
Christopher LantzNice!
Credited to Lisa Rogers on Facebook.
