I fokken love Wikus van der Merwe. If Sharlto Copley wasn’t so attached to his real name, changing it to alter ego would be so full of win. Swietie-man is also a viable option, albeit a little creepy.
In this clip from Funny or Die, Wikus tries to get another saffer, Charlize Theron, to present along him at the South African Music Awards 16. A camera crew follows him on his quest and this is the footage they captured. It’s awkward and so very funny.
Your next encounter with Sharlto should be a goodie too. He’s playing the role of loony chopper pilot Capt. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock in the upcoming movie A-Team. That should release on August 20th in South Africa.
Saul Bass was an American graphic designer best kown for his animated movie title sequences, notably working with Alfred Hitchcock on Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. Vimeo user Hexagonall pays homage to the simplicity and minimalism of Saul Bass by creating the titles sequences for “Lost” and “Tron” as if Saul Bass had done them himself. The animations are pretty cool and the accompanying music adds to the retro effect.
See the flashy title sequences below.
Lost vs. Saul Bass
Tron vs. Saul Bass
Hexagonall has also created posters to go along with these TV intros. See the set of Lost vs. Saul Bass posters here and the Tron vs. Saul Bass posters here.
Disco, Star Wars, and sea chicken. It’s an unlikely combination to the majority us, but certainly not to the Japanese, who as we know are clinically insane. In this 1978 spot for Hagoromo, the Star Wars posse do a little dance to shill what I assume to be canned tuna fish. It’s quite odd. See it below.
If there was ever one TV series I wish would be brought back, it has to be Rome. For the two short seasons it was on for, Rome was a masterpiece to watch with the most elaborate sets and costumes, bloody violence, bared breasts, and deceit around every corner. Unfortunately, extremely high production costs doomed a fantastic series that had so much history to tell.
I had flashbacks to that beloved series when I saw the trailer to the upcoming tales about a Roman gladiator who becomes the leader of a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Here’s the synopsis to Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
Betrayed by his country. Beaten into slavery. Reborn as a warrior. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is a graphic and visceral account of Rome’s most famous gladiator. When he’s separated from the love of his life, Spartacus is forced into the gruesome and bloodthirsty arena, where a grisly death is primetime entertainment. Spartacus must fight for survival, befriend his enemies and play politics in this new world of corruption, violence, sex and fame. He’ll be seduced by power and tormented by vengeance. But his passion will give him the strength to prevail over every obstacle, in this modern and uninhibited tale of death, honor and endurance.
Have a look at the rollicking trailer below and let us know what you think.
Spartacus is played by Australian actor, Andy Whitfield. Lucy Lawless (Battlestar Galactica) plays Lucretia, who along with her husband Batiatus (played by John Hannah), own the slave. Spartacus: Blood and Sand is set to premiere January 22nd, 2010 in the United States, and a second season has already been confirmed. No word if/when it will get to South Africa.
Dean Fraser is an artist with an interesting side project, where he draws all kinds of characters from TV shows and movies as if they were on the Simpsons. In his “Lost Week” series that he started back in May, Fraser drew one Simpsonized Lost character a day, for seven days. Have a look at some of them after the jump.
A bowl of pain rice. One of my most fond memories of holidaying in Thailand was the less-than-perfect translations in restaurant menus. As we travelled further from Bangkok, the translation got worse (and funnier as a result). I thought of those moments when I came across this gem of awesomeness.
With its root in the early 80s, a fansub is a version of an anime program that has been subtitled by fans, for fellow fans who do not understand Japanese. Not all translators are equal, and sometimes, when the translations go wrong, the results can be very amusing to say the least.
As you may have read on the Intertubes, South African actor and District 9 star Sharlto Copley is in final negotiations to play the role of oddball chopper pilot, Captain “Howling Mad” Murdock, in in the upcoming A-Team movie (which we blogged about earlier).
Rounding up the team will be Liam Neeson as John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, Bradley Cooper as the Faceman, and former UFC world light heavyweight champion Quinton (Rampage) Jackson as Sgt. B.A. Baracus. Jessica Biel is linked to the project where she will be trying to act herself out of a paper bag, a task which frequent commenter Macross seems to think is impossible ;-)
He also passed this most amusing mashup onto us. It’s a parody of the A-Team theme song starring the cast of Star Trek. Check it out.
Now wasn’t that just a ball of awesome? Thanks Macross!
English illusionist/mentalist/wizard Derren Brown had prepared for this moment for over a year, and on Wednesday night, he showed off his latest trick – correctly predicting Wednesday night’s UK lottery numbers!
Broadcasting from a secret location, Brown had written his predictions down on a line of ball, but for legal reasons could not show them before BBC One’s live National Lottery draw. Moments after the draw, Brown revealed his predictions, which were an exact match for the winning numbers, making him the first person ever to successfully predict the national lottery numbers live on air! See the video below or watch it in high quality at YouTube.
Since the video aired, various theories have been flying around the internet including:
Receiving insider information
Projecting the numbers onto blank balls
Switching the numbers
Mass hypnosis
Time travel
Camera tricks
YouTube user mutatedmonty posted a clip of his solution. Check it out.
In another programme tonight, Brown will talk through a number of ways he might have pulled off the trick. In the meantime discuss the theories at the Derren Brown Lottery Predictionblog.
UPDATE: The BBC reports that Brown claims he asked asked 24 people to guess the Lotto numbers and then used an average to make his prediction. A professor of pure mathematics at the University of Oxford called shenanigans, saying “Mathematically it is complete rubbish. It is a bluff on his part”. Others claim split screen trickery was used.
He may be tall, crass, and opioninated but Jeremy Clarkson keeps Top Gear as entertaining as ever.
YouTube user Swede Mason has sampled some of the odd sounds that Clarkson has made over the years and mashed them together to make a cool beatbox style track. Check out the Jezza rap!
This is for all the meat-eaters out there. In this sketch from the That Mitchell and Webb Look, a dinner guest strikes a blow against the enemy by reversing the vegetarian issue and making a fuss about being a carnivore.
