A great opening

Watched a really interesting movie on the weekend - JCVD, starring Jean Claude Van Damme. I can't recall ever watching any of his movies. But this is a great performance. He plays himself, a 48 year-old washed up actor who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a real life robbery. It's a really raw, honest performance. He can really act.

This is the french trailer. What I also loved was the opening credit with the boy and the balloon. It's brilliant. It's just a little thing - but I always think it's a great sign of what's to follow if they've put time and effort into a creative opening.

The joy of sharing

More great stuff from T-Mobile and Saatchi & Saatchi. Awesome what can come from bringing people together and giving them something to do.

First they send out an intriguing invite via YouTube. The result, 13,500+ people turn up at Trafalgar Square. They hand out 2,000 microphones so people can join in, and away they go - kicking it off with a rousing version of Hey Jude. The final video is wonderful. They clearly thought it through, numbering all the microphones so they could capture and isolate those individual "solo" performances.

Double Happiness

Beautiful images from the Cherry Blossom season in Tokyo (that opening image is something special). It just seems so wonderful that they have such a visual symbol of a passing moment in time - and even better that they stop, celebrate and appreciate it. Wish I was there.

Found over at Alexandre Gervais, via @Alexgervais

Sakura in Tokyo from James T. Kirk on Vimeo

Mountain voices

Wow - just discovered this group via Twitter (thanks @craftapalooza). They're called First Aid Kit. I love the little look they give each other at the end.

chalkboard inspiration

School was never this inspiring. Beautiful music and amazing video for the song Autumn Story by Firekites.


Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

Back to being a shepherd

Sad to see the end of season 2 for the Flight of the Conchords. But they went out in style - making music back on the farm in New Zealand. Love Murray on the tractor.

NASA TV rocks

I spent a bit of the weekend watching NASA TV and the amazing coverage of STS-119 - the current space shuttle mission to the International Space Station. To be honest, I haven't really been paying much attention to any of the recent Space Shuttle launches. But after following @nasa on twitter, I found myself totally absorbed yesterday by stunning live images of the spacewalk (EVA). The two astronauts (Steve Swanson and Joseph Acaba) were out there for 6 1/2 hours. It's quite a thing to watch these two tiny figures clinging to the massive Space Station, with Earth as the backdrop - all happening in the moment.



While on the space theme, I was totally blown away by this footage of Jupiter slipping behind the sun - you can even see the moons orbiting Jupiter. Thanks to Bad Astronomy for posting this link (an awesome blog by the way)



This is an older link that I found on another great post over at Bad Astronomy. The moon, which to our eyes is so immense, looks so small in comparison to the mighty sun.