Shmowzow! Adventure Time on Cartoon Network!

I've known about this for a while, but it still excites me to no end to finally see the promos for the upcoming animated series "Adventure Time."



Keep visiting their production blog for crazy awesome stuff like storyboards, animatics, background paintings, and more!

Hall of Awesome: The Top 10 Albums of 2009

10

Bon Iver

Blood Bank EP (tie)

10

Animal Collective

Fall Be Kind EP (tie)

9

Loney, Dear

Dear John

8

Various Artists

Dark Was the Night

7

Blakroc

Blakroc

6

Neko Case

Middle Cyclone

5

M. Ward

Hold Time

4

Mos Def

The Ecstatic

3

The Flaming Lips

Embryonic

2

Grizzly Bear

Veckatimest

1

The Decemberists

The Hazards of Love

Click on the album titles to stream them, courtesy of La La.

Honorable Mentions:
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Basement Jaxx, Scars
Cursive, Mama, I'm Swollen
Discovery, LP
Helado Negro, Awe Owe
StreightAngular, After and Before
Wilco, Wilco (The Album)
Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs

Hall of Awesome: The Top 5 Music Videos of 2009

I had a hard time narrowing down my list of favorite music videos for this year to just five. Also, I decided I was sick of dealing with embedding issues with YouTube, so for this list, I turned to my new favorite video provided, Vimeo, for this playlist of clips, which are as follows:

5. Coldplay, "Life in Technicolor II" (dir. Dougal Wilson)
No stranger to the Hall of Awesome, Dougal Wilson returns with a decidedly more lighthearted video featuring an overly elaborate Coldplay puppet show, ending with one of the funnier gags I've seen in music videos this year.

4. Justice + Lenny Kravitz, "Let Love Rule" (dir. Keith Schofield)
I've already waxed poetic about the awesomeness of director Keith Schofield, but I can't stress it enough: the guy knows his shit. Not only did he put out a killer Charlotte Gainsbourg/Beck video a month ago, he made this glorious gem pairing '80s kitsch with end credits meta madness.
(UPDATE: Now available with director commentary!)

3. Bodies of Water, "Under the Pines" (dir. Andy Bruntel)
This video made an appearance in my annual Scary Music Videos list, and it reappears here for two reasons. One, the video hasn't been making a lot of lists considering it came out all the way back in January, and so most people have forgotten about it. Second, every element of this video, from production design to costumes to the aged look of the film contribute to the eerie Grimm fairytale vibe of its story. It's a story that seems utterly ridiculous on paper, but works as an effective visual companion to the propulsive song it's set to.

2. Ramona Falls, "I Say Fever" (dir. Stefan Nadelman)
Oh. My. God. Such a great video. Scary, gorgeous to watch, perfect pairing of song and visuals. So many things I could say about this clip, but it really speaks for itself.

1. U2, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (dir. David O'Reilly)
First, an explanation. I don't like this song. Musically, it's pretty mediocre, a desperate revival of U2's standard pompous stadium rock. Lyrically, it's abysmal, with Bono stumbling through lines like "Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot" as if he decided to scribble them down at the last minute and not bother asking anyone if they were good or not. Thankfully, animator and Best Short Film of 2009 shoo-in David O'Reilly was brought in to direct a video and it more than makes up for U2's lax songwriting. In fact, it almost works to the video's advantage that the song is so forgettable, because it makes the visuals that much easier to pay attention to.



Honorable Mention:
Bob Dylan, "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" (dir. Nash Edgarton)
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck, "Heaven Can Wait" (dir. Keith Schofield)
Depeche Mode, "Wrong" (dir. Patrick Daughters)
Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart" (dir. Andreas Nilsson)
Matt & Kim, "Lessons Learned" (dir. Taylor Cohen and Otto Arsenault)
N.A.S.A. feat. Sizzla, Amanda Blank and Lovefoxxx, "A Volta" (dir. Logan)
They Might Be Giants, "Meet the Elements" (dir. Feel Good Anyway)
UNKLE, "Heaven" (dir. Spike Jonze and Ty Evans)

Calvin and Hobbes Revisited

By Farel Dalrymple
Originally uploaded by davidxryan

Thanks to Yewknee for the heads up. Check out this Flickr photostream for a collection of gorgeous re-interpretations of Calvin and Hobbes by some very talented artists.

Hall of Awesome: The 2009 Mixtape

Every year, I compile a top ten list of my favorite albums of the year. However, there are a ton of individual songs that deserve some props as well, even if their respective albums didn't impress me enough to make my best-of list. So, without further ado, enjoy these 19 tracks that epitomize the best music 2009 has to offer. As with last year, there's a La La playlist at the bottom of this list (and in the sidebar) featuring all of these tracks, which you can stream in full.

1. How I Became the Bomb, "Action Lady"
A highlight from a solid series of EPs from lovely Tennessee rockers How I Became the Bomb.
2. Imogen Heap, "First Train Home"
3. Girls, "Lust for Life"
4. Andrew Bird, "Anonanimal"
5. Death Cab for Cutie, "Little Bribes"
Further proof that Death Cab can still deliver catchy little pop songs like no one else.
6. Animal Collective, "Bluish"
7. Basement Jaxx, "Raindrops"
My pick for dance anthem of 2009.
8. Camera Obscura, "The Sweetest Thing"
9. Dirty Projectors, "Stillness is the Move"
10. Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart"
11. Discovery, "I Want You Back"
It doesn't matter how many "tributes" people will be making to Michael Jackson in the coming years. They won't be half as awesome as this cover from Vampire Weekend/Ra Ra Riot side-project Discovery.
12. The Mountain Goats, "Drug Life"
The best track from the Merge covers compilation, with John Darnielle returning to his trademark, bare-bones, voice-and-guitar sound.
13. Helado Negro, "Dahum"
14. Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind"
15. They Might Be Giants, "Meet the Elements"
They Might Be Giants are no strangers to making educational pop songs, but this is one that can be loved by children and adults alike.
16. Yo La Tengo, "Periodically Double or Triple"
17. The Avett Brothers, "I and Love and You"
18. Mastodon, "The Last Baron"
Naturally, this playlist can't end without thirteen minutes of ear-bleeding metal.
19. Bon Iver, "Woods"
With "Woods" and the Jaxx's "Raindrops," we proved Jay-Z wrong about the death of Autotune.

The Hall of Awesome 2009 Mixta...

Hall of Awesome: Five More Best Music Videos of the Decade

I thought I would kick off this year's Hall of Awesome with my favorite music videos of the decade, but Pitchfork pretty much beat me to it with their Top 50 Music Videos of the 2000s, a list so well-conceived and compiled that all I can do is simply present to you five more music videos I thought should have made their list. As usual, all the videos are compiled in a single YouTube playlist, viewable at the bottom of this post.

Supergrass, “Low C” (dir. Garth Jennings/Nick Goldsmith; 2005)
This decade, the documentary music video became a go-to style for bands wanting to stand out from the crowd. Most recently, the genre has been picked up by Massive Attack, whose video for "Paradise Circus" features an elderly woman reminiscing about her days as a porn star, intercut with definitely-NSFW scenes from one of her films. This 2005 effort from Supergrass finds the band reteaming with "Pumping On Your Stereo" directors Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (a.k.a. Hammer & Tongs) for a nostalgic visit to Weeki Wachee, where a group of women are trying to keep their mermaid-themed tourist attraction from going under. It's a rare chance to see the usually SFX-heavy directors deliver a simple story with a minimum amount of style, but with a lot of heart.

Wintergreen, “Can't Sit Still" (dir. Keith Schofield; 2007)
When television stopped being the preferred delivery method for music videos, bands soon realized that in order to get people watching, they were gonna have to come up with something that fell into one of three categories: bizarre, hilarious, or controversial. And by the end of the decade, no one was doing it better than Keith Schofield. Every video of his falls into one of the three categories, and oftentimes he covers all three in one clip. Case in point is "Can't Sit Still" by Wintergreen, an elaborate little video that he posted on YouTube with the sure-to-score-a-ton-of-hits title "How to Make Meth". While the video didn't go batshit viral, it did ruffle the feathers of some people who were afraid kids would actually try to make the harmless concoctions the band ingests in the clip, and Keith eventually had to admit the thing was satire after YouTube threatened to pull it from their site. As usual, this video has embedding disabled, so click on the link above to watch it. As a consolation prize, I've included in the playlist below Keith and the band's less controversial (but equally informative) video for "When I Wake Up".

Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood” (dir. Jamie Hewlett/Pete Candeland; 2001)
This decade proved that a band can not only sell an image, the band can become the image. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett long-shot concept of an animated rock band turned out to be a worldwide success. And while the songs are top-notch, they wouldn't be half as good without their accompanying videos, animated by Hewlett and his team at Zombie Flesh Eaters.

The Strokes, “Last Nite” (dir. Roman Coppola; 2001)
I can't really explain what I thought of The Strokes' and their video for "Last Nite" when I first came across it one night on MTV (surprisingly, MTV was still showing videos back in 2001). The video's concept is almost insultingly simple: The Strokes, on a soundstage, performing the song live, under a sheen of '70s gloss provided by director Roman Coppola. The video is fun because of its sheer "fuck it" attitude, as Julian Casablancas throws his mic stand offstage like a javelin, and Fab Moretti's drum mics keep falling down. As a result, the version of "Last Nite" they perform is unique from the version that actually appeared on Is This It.

Aphex Twin, “Rubber Johnny” (dir. Chris Cunningham; 2005)
Technically, this is not a music video for Aphex Twin (although the song is taken from his 2001 record Drukqs). It's a short film by music video extraordinaire Chris Cuningham, one of only two videos he made this decade (not counting his commercial work). It's a disturbing and darkly humorous experiment, where Cunningham himself plays the titular character, who has the ability to morph into increasingly erratic shapes as the music of Aphex Twin pumps out of the speakers. It pretty much encompasses the definition of "WTF?" and is a fitting calling card for one of the least prolific, but certainly most watched, music videos directors of this decade.

My Cucalorus 5 (in 5 words or less)

Here are my picks for this year's Cucalorus Film Festival and why they're must-see films, in five words or less.

#1: The Square. Arson, murder, adultery. Australian Fargo.
(11/12, 7:45 PM, Lumina)

#2: Big Fan. Patton Oswalt goes nuts.
(11/12, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#3: The House of the Devil. Satanists terrify innocent '80s babysitter.
(11/13, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#4: Americatown. America, abridged. With crazy legs.
(11/13, 4:30 PM, City Stage)

#5: Calvin Marshall. Funny, great soundtrack. Plus baseball.
(11/14, 7:15 PM or 11/15, 10:30 AM, Lumina)

For your consideration, here's all the trailers:

New Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves"

People who've already gone out and purchased Sufjan Stevens' new movie/soundtrack, The BQE, have probably already stumbled across a couple hidden tracks shortly following the film, a noisy instrumental and this plaintive choral piece featuring Stevens back on vocal duties:

Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves" (MP3)

According to this interview from The Quietus, Stevens had originally intended "The Sleeping Red Wolves" to be included in The BQE, but "there just wasn't enough time, so I just threw it in at the end."

The BQE is out now on Asthmatic Kitty, in a myriad of formats.

Scary Music Videos 4: The Reckoning

It's that time of year again, and this time, I've taken the liberty of compiling all fifteen of my original scary music video picks into one, easy-to-use video playlist. Unfortunately, some of the videos have embedding disabled, so you'll need to visit my playlist page on YouTube for the full list. I've also added three new videos to the mix:

Liars, "Plaster Casts of Everything" (dir. Patrick Daughters)
It's official: Patrick Daughters has made my list of Best Music Video Directors of the 2000s, thanks to his eye-catching videos for Feist, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Grizzly Bear. In this clip, he teams the back-projection used in The White Stripes' "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" with a concept straight out of a David Lynch film. The end result is most unsettling.

Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart" (dir. Andreas Nilsson)
Karin Dreijer of Scandanavian electronic group The Knife is no stranger to scary music videos, having appeared on last year's list in her collaboration with Röyksopp for the song "What Else is There?" Now, for her solo effort, she hired Andreas Nilsson, who has been behind most of the videos for The Knife, to pull out all the stops on the express train to Creepy Town.

Bodies of Water, "Under the Pines" (dir. Andy Bruntel)
In addition to being an exceptional animator (see: Rilo Kiley's "It's a Hit" and his Roman Coppola collaboration "Red"), Andy Bruntel has made a fair share of kickass music videos for the likes of No Age, The Mountain Goats, and Best Music Video of 2007 nominee Bat for Lashes. In this clip, a hunter is cursed with bad luck after he steals a diamond from inside a dead dog's stomach. What follows is a Grimm fairytale with a twisted sense of humor.

Don't forget to check out the other three entries in the Scary Music Video series.

Update

I just realized I haven't posted a single thing on this site since June. This marks the first time I ever skipped an entire month without posting anything. I apologize for my lack of updates, but here's a brief overview of what's been happening in the world of DiMattiaFilms.

The big news is my crew and I just returned from a week-long trip in New York City and Boston for Firewall of Sound. I spoke with record store owners, venue managers, bloggers, and tons of musicians. I hope to start editing this footage in the next couple of weeks, and will post a new trailer for the film when time permits. In the meantime, keep checking the official website for the film for further details and updates.

The Japanese have built themselves a giant robot to play with!

boy meets gundam
Originally uploaded by nuetaipoo

Economic crisis? What economic crisis? In Japan, they've built a (totally for-reals) life size gundam!! Now, it can't really move (other than it's head), but it looks totally badass during the day, and even more badass at night. If this (as well as the dismal reviews of Transformers 2) are to be believed, Americans still have a ways to go before we catch up to the Japanese in the field of robot badassery.

Signs of Decline: The NYT Homicide Map

How's this for a morale booster? A nationwide depression epidemic + awesome Internet technology = The New York Times Homicide Map. Keep track of all the places in the five boroughs where a murder has been comitted, complete with age and ethnicity of both killer and victim, the murder weapon, and motive. It's like a GPS system, only them dots ain't movin' no more.

Only $50 away from achieving our goal!!

As many of you know, I've been hard at work on a feature-length version of my documentary project, Firewall of Sound, focusing on the independent music industry and its relation to the Internet. In order to help raise funds for the project, I've created a page on Kickstarter.com, asking people to donate toward us completing the film, and as of right now, we are only $50 away from achieving our goal of raising $1,000!!

But, the rule is if we don't reach our goal by July 10, WE WILL GET NOTHING, so we need people to come to the rescue and get us over that mark! IF ONLY TEN PEOPLE DONATE $5 EACH, THAT WILL BE ENOUGH TO MEET OUR GOAL, so as you can see, every little bit helps! Thanks for taking the time out to read this, and I sincerely appreciate all your support.

The Trailer Editor for In the Loop Needs a Three-Picture Deal

A lot of movies are released every year in this country, most of which range from mediocre to terrible. But not only does the new political comedy In the Loop look fantastic, the trailer itself is a beautiful cut-and-paste collage of clever references, well-timed critic blurbs, intentional ambiguity, and hey is that the Clockwork Orange music I'm listening to?



Once again, Hollywood has proven that movie trailer + soundtrack from a Kubrick film = better movie trailer. But, unlike 2012, this one might actually deliver the goods.

Thanks to Screengrab.

Interview on Destroy Before Reading

In case you haven't been following my other blog about my documentary Firewall of Sound, I was recently interviewed by Andy Maddison of Destroy Before Reading. Check it out.

Get Unbunny's Black Strawberries Reprinted!

Ryan Catbird has been working hard to get people to pledge money to his project on Kickstarter, which involves getting the long out-of-print release Black Strawberries by indie stalwarts Unbunny reissued on 180-gram vinyl. Take a listen:

Unbunny - "In a Way" (MP3)

It's a wonderful example of fans directly financing the release of music. $5 or more gets you a high-quality download of the album, $20 or more gets you the LP, and $40 or more gets you the Deluxe Version LP, which promises to feature "special extras, additional artwork and/or customization, hand-numbered and signed by Jarid Del Deo [leader of Unbunny]."

He hasn't reached the $3,500 goal yet, and there's only 53 days left, so if you haven't chipped in, please consider it. Oh, and just so you know, all donors will have their name listed in the liner notes!

Swine Flu Adverts

If only we'd listened to ourselves from the '70s!



Thanks to Amelie and John.

Firewall of Sound website, new and improved!

I've revamped the official website for Firewall of Sound, and while it doesn't really have anything new to report (just synopsis, trailer, etc.), it will soon be a haven for all things related to my feature documentary. We've got some interesting interview subjects and my crew and I will soon be making trips down to Athens, GA, and possibly up to Chicago. In the meantime, check out the new and improved firewallofsound.com and subscribe to the RSS feed to be kept in the loop!

News You Already Knew: Beatles Catalogue Remastered!

Before today, 9/9/09 was just the day The Beatles: Rock Band was gonna be released (which is still pretty cool-sounding). Now, it's gonna be the day that the good people at Apple Corps Ltd. finally get off their ass and remaster the entire Beatles discography. Thank God they waited until the CD format became almost completely obsolete! Anyhoo, each album will come with new liner notes, packaging, and making-of documentaries included on each disc:


I'll be the first to admit I have most of the Beatles albums on burned CD-R (sorry, $25 for the unmastered White Album is borderline criminal), so I'm extremely happy to learn that my lazy spending habits are finally paying off. There have been many efforts to rejuvenate the dying music market, but this is the first one in a long time that might actually bear fruit. Let's hope people still have disposable income by the time September rolls around. Also, for those wondering if this means the Beatles are finally coming to iTunes, "Discussions regarding the digital distribution of the catalogue will continue. There is no further information available at this time." Well, as they say, ob-la-di, ob-la-da.

Please Say Something now online!

My early pick for best short film of 2009 is now available for free to watch on Vimeo. Make sure to turn HD on and view full-screen:


Please Say Something - Full Length from David OReilly on Vimeo.

UPDATE: The short's now on YouTube. Check it out (in HD of course) and vote the shit out of it!