Public information films have come a long way since Alvin Stardust pounced on kids crossing roads in the 1970s. The new wave of ads are better than TV. You thought the ‘Talk To Frank’ ads were a bummer? Wait till you see ‘Suicide Bombing is Bad’ infomercial that has come out in Lebanon…
Archive for August, 2006
London - Public information films
Nottingham - Point&Shoot
THE END OF BUYING
Downloading video, music and other media is a pain in the ass and by the time MASK (or a movie that’s still in theaters like Talladega Nights) is finally fully loaded on to your computer you have about 3k left to play it. What someone needs to invent is an independent, external hard drive that can download everything you could possibly think of and do it without bothering you until it’s ready. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Well, it has been done on earth as it is in heaven.
And it is awesome.
New York - Analog Saddies
The internet may be a treasure trove of sadsacks, but it’s not without it faults. For every amazing juggalo advice columnist you dredge up, you can basically be assured that it’s already run through the blog-mill and been photoshopped a thousand times with Moshzilla and those brown Japanese whatevers, which kills all the funny. It’s sort of like when you’re seeing a “cult” movie and there’s those four people who laugh really loudly at fucking everything that happens just so that you get that they “get it.” And even if the saturation doesn’t put you off, you’ve still got to read through the astoundingly unhilarious “barbs” put up by places like losers.org and Blue States Lose and that haircut thing to get to the real meat.
Dear Vice - The Worst Shirt of All Time
I spotted this on the sale rack at some vintage $60-80s-rock-shirt place on Main in Vancouver. It is quite possibly the single worst shirt in the whole history of fucking humanity. Only problem is, I can’t figure out how exactly to classify it: Post-ironic-skeeze-out? Meta-dirtbag?
Yours,
CHRISTOPHER OLSON
New Zealand - The Mint Chicks
Quite often we get CDs for review JUST after an issue has been sent off to the printers, which obviously means that they miss being in that particular issue. Then by the time the next issue is in the works it’s usually old news and nobody likes old news.
However, in saying that, we thought that this new Mint Chicks album, Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!, is pretty choice (just as choice, if not choicerer then "Fuck The Golden Youth") and deserved a review of some sort at least…so here it is.
New York - Canada Night!
This Saturday night the guy who does TV Carnage (Canadian) and the guy who does the DOs & DON’Ts (Canadian) will be DJing at B-Side (B between 12th & 13th) from 11pm to 3am. 100% of the music will be Canadian. That means, “American Woman,” Plume LaTraverse, Rush, Death From Above 1979, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” DOA, BTO, Forgotten Rebels, The Guess Who, “I Wanna go to New York City,” The Band, Neil Young, Stompin’ Tom and a bunch of French Canadian, 60s girl groups we dug up.
Movies will also be played so expect Fubar, Trailer Park Boys, SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Strange Brew, plenty of TV Carnage and of course Margot Kidder’s first film The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar.
NEW YORK - Beers and Bikes
If you’re in NYC this weekend, your Saturday pre-game is set. We stuck a little guide about riding bikes in the city in with the Stories issue in the US, and tomorrow from 7-11pm we’re gonna follow it up with a little bikes and beers party in Greenpoint. Ride your bike out and drink with us. We’ll have special edition book-bound copies of the guide, DJs, BBQ, and all that kind of stuff.
SAVE THE INTERNET
The freedom of the internet is under attack! Our friend Leslie Hall has made this video illustrating just what’s going on.
Video: We Are the Web
The problem with this issue is that not many people give a shit about it right now because it’s too techie and too boring a debate to feel strongly about. But nobody gives a shit about anything anymore, have you noticed? Everyone is too busy with their Myspace, YouTube, BitTorrents and porn. Which is weird because those popular websites owe something to the freedoms at stake right now in the US Congress…
PHOTO ISSUE PODCAST
Want to become a famous photographer? Tune in to our Audio commentary now (it’s over there to your right - you can download an MP3 and listen to it on the couch with the photo issue in your lap or you can have it play directly from your computer which is what most people do though we’re not sure why) and listen to Patrick O’Dell explain the issue page by page and explain who made the cuts and why. Make sure you have the new photo issue handy. This is not a commentary where we troll through the website describing each link. This a thing where we describe each page and then play a "doo dee lee doo doo" ring tone when it’s time to turn the page just like Mrs. Thomspon did with the Jungle Book in grade four (or fourth grade depending on what side of the border you’re on).
Anyway, it’s long as hell but after your ears digest it you will know if you are a good photographer or not and that is very, very, very, very important.
NEW YORK - Deer Vice,
Dear Vice,
Your posts have been sucking lately so I thought I’d let you in on a this interesting theory I’ve been working on. It is this: the animal kingdom has a way wider spectrum of happiness than we do. At one end of the spectrum there are animals like deer and pygmy shrew that live in a level of hell only the bible can describe and at the other end there’s animals (mostly birds) that live a life of pure euphoria. All of our experience (all 6 billion of us) have lives that fall well within the confines of these two extremes. None of us have lives that are as shitty as a pygmy shrew (not even close) and none of us, no matter how high we get, will never comprehend the joy a turkey vulture has. This subject is considered taboo by most animal folks because they think it will lead to less animal rights for the losers.
