Day: August 8, 2009

The great Roger Ridley, Playing for Change

Roger Ridley, a great performer, performs Bring It On Home, a great song,  as well as anyone. Take a listen….

There are many mediocre performers in the world who get far too much attention. And there are great performers like Roger Ridley, performers who, when you hear them, you think: man, more people ought to hear this person! That’s what I thought when I heard him. I hope you feel the same way.

Thanks to Playing for Change for bringing Roger to our attention. You should check them out, too.

Iran: The Rooftop Project

Iran: The Rooftop Project from MightierThan.com is

meant to be the most complete possible collection of recordings of nighttime protest in Iran since the beginning of the uprising. Its goal is to locate and profile at least one video for each night primarily focusing on the nightly chanting of Allah-o-Akbar from the rooftops whenever that footage is available.

It is haunting to hear the nightly cries of Iranians protesting what has become of their country. We should listen.

More great animation: The League of Super Evil


I am fortunate to have kids for alot of reasons. But one is that I get to watch animated TV like The League of Super Evil!

The League is a wonderful send-up of superheroes and supervillians, all told with wonderful wackiness and superb animation (especially considering it is a TV show, not a big budget film). Plus great characters: I mean, look at these guys! 🙂 (I love the name “Red Menace” as an evildoer name, and “Voltar” and “Dr. Frogg” are laughably ridiculous “villians”.)

There is nothing super about them of course, and at there worst they are mildly annoying, not evil. (In one episode they try to prevent a pizza delivery from arriving on time so that they can get free pizza.) They drive around in a scooter and are regularly thwarted by the 6 year olds in the neighborhood. And they are very funny.

You can get some appreciation of it from the web site, but watching a 15 minute episode is better. It really is screwball comedy, and that takes some time to build up. If you have YTV.com, find an excuse to watch it.

Why you should watch The Iron Giant

Last night over dinner I was talking about animated films and how some of them are pure entertainment for children and a rare few are something much more. Those rare few include the Pixar films such as The Incredibles, as well as The Iron Giant. It turns out, The Iron Giant is 10 years old this year. It didn’t do well financially, but it won critical acclaim, and its creator, Brad Bird, went on the create other great films for Pixar.

I wrote about how films by Brad Bird should be watched the same way you watch films by Scorsese or Welles or Hitchcock. If you have enjoyed Ratatouille or The Incredibles, then you owe it to yourself to watch The Iron Giant. You will gain a new appreciate for those films, and you will have a great time in the process. For more on why this film is great, see this post: A Decade Later, The Iron Giant’s Weaponized Soul Still Stirs | Underwire | Wired.com

P.S. Found via kottke.org. BTW, I was going to post the trailer for the film, but to see it, you might think: oh, kid’s film. It is a film about a boy that would appeal to kids, but there is nothing childish about it.In fact, it is very sophisticated.

P.S.S. Here is a clip from the film. It shows a theme common to Bird’s films, namely how those who are great  (in this case, the Iron Giant) are misunderstood and attacked by the others.

Nice animation, too. More in line with typical WB animation than the later Pixar films, which benefit from more advanced technology. But that fits in nicely with the Cold War / 1950s era it is portraying.