Donald Caron: Illustrator

Jovanka Vuckovic (@JovankaVuckovic on Twitter) posted an image of a new painting she had in her home - a grand Phantom of the Opera that had my jaw dropped to the floor.

The artist is Donald Caron and he's an instant, new favorite of mine. His work is fantastic and the subject matter is RIGHT down my alley!  

You can view his work here: http://donaldcaron.daportfolio.com/

And, he has a Facebook presence as well with more work: 
https://www.facebook.com/carondonald

He has a great way with light and motion that really makes his work pop. He also has an eye for a great composition and adding layers of detail that help to lock in a lot of depth and atmosphere.

I think it's the light that really strikes me, however. One example is in the illustration "Premature Birth" (Frankenstein) below.

His characters are fun as well. His detail and lighting work can be seen in "SPASM 2009" (Ax). The light play in the folds of the clothing, hands and hair is grand and knowledge of human anatomy help to make the figure look "realistic", yet keeping a fun, illustrated style.

 Much of his work has a cool, kinetic feel to it that really makes the subject matter come alive.

Ok, ok....I'll stop gushing about this guy's work already! :)

Needless to say, I'm going to be doing some research to see if he has some "Father of four affordable" prints for sale! Check him out and support this amazing artist!

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The Bay

Well, I can see why The Bay might have missed the mark with a few folks at the box office. It's not 28 Days Later-like as the trailer kinda leans towards. It's more of an eco-horror film about the "what ifs" involved in pollution in a local area. And, I loved it.

Firstly, Barry Levinson Directed it. Barry "The Natural, Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man, and more" Levinson. The man is fan-frucking-tastic!

The film is a found footage film, but it's done properly. They've used various video sources, but they do it in such a way where the framing isn't perfect and the aspect ratio of the visual changes based on the device. As someone who is constantly rolling his eyes as perfectly framed found footage, this aspect helped to keep me firmly locked in the reality the film was trying to present to the audience.


Which brings me to another aspect of this film that I loved - the story. Barry Levinson and Michael Wallach (with just The Bay under his belt currently) present a scenario that I found to be believable and frucking frightening. Thought a series of political, economic and tragic events, a bay in Maryland - Levinson's birth place - is polluted and some of the small creatures that live in it's waters are not so small anymore. They have also managed to get into the town's drinking and use water...which can't be a good thing. The body horror in this film had me squirming. It's not "slasher fear", it's grotesque and nasty business that was made very real.

I really enjoyed this film. The pace and flow of it was grand. We're introduced to characters enjoying 4th of July festivities who we are told are going to be dead by the evening and it brings a rather dark tone to the whole of the film. And, an intense feeling of dread. We know things are going to get very bad very quickly and we are not given a chance to warn anyone - it's already over. And, the fact that there are very few recognizable faces in the film makes things more believable as well. Kristen "Cabin in the Woods" Connolly actually wrecked this for me. When I saw her, I thought, "Oh...it's her," and it took me out of the film a bit.

This is far from an action film. It's not a zombie film, infected film or anything of the sort, either. It's a monster film if anything. Very tiny, nasty little monsters.

Like a slow burn, plot based gross out with a very real feel to it? You'll love The Bay.


METACRITIC gives it 65 out of 100. I'd go 80 easy.

Poltergeist videos

Ok....now...I've spent my fair share of time on YouTube looking for cool ghost videos. There are some neat one's on there for sure, but most look fake. There are some cool exceptions to that rule, of course.

Like this fun nugget - the infamous PANTRY GHOST - http://youtu.be/H8f5vdFOEh4

MELLOWBIRD has some rather cool videos up, however. If they are fake, they are REALLY well done. I've spent some time trying to figure out how the "magic" could be done if they are fake, but several of the videos are just logistically impossible to target. Strings and things could make things fly around, but the positioning on several of the objects that move would make the task of faking their movement really difficult.

So...the jury isn't out on these. What do YOU think?
http://www.youtube.com/user/mellowb1rd

CLICK TO GO TO YOUTUBE

CLICK TO GO TO YOUTUBE

It seems like he has some backlash and that people are out to prove these are fake. If they are fakes, he's done a great job with them. 

The Anti-Mellobird folks can be found here: 

http://www.disclose.tv/forum/mellowb1rd-s-fake-poltergeist-videos-t22436.html

It seems like their biggest issue with him is the fact that he's making money off of ads, but the videos are fake. Is this any worse than people making money off of clicks gained when they use a picture of a cute girl in a bikini as their thumbnail, but she doesn't actually appear in the video?

I find the MELLOWBIRD videos to be highly entertaining - fake or not. 

(Though, I do hope they are real!)

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