All These Openings (part 3)

Roswell

Nothing summed up teenage alienation (literally) better than Roswell. I know most people find Dido boring, but I love this song (Here With Me) in the opening titles. I don't know why, but it just makes me feel nostalgic and the theme looks so emotional. Purggrh, I don't know, but it straightaway plugs into the irrational emotional part of my brain.

Dead Like Me

Another tragically short Bryan Fuller show. The simple concept, and the contrast of the cheerful cocktail music with Reaper walking around clearly set the tone of sarcasm and dark humour. Yeh, I always knew Death walked around with us, paying useless taxes and working at a day job.

Aladdin

Far far away, in a mystical land known as Earth, there was a group called The Walt Disney Company, founded by one of the most creative spirits known to mortals - Walt Disney. This company was loved by children everywhere, for they made amazing original cartoons, lovingly hand drawn and woven together with beautiful music.

But then one day they broadcast Hannah Montana on one of their channels, and everything was shit. Now its just a large evil corporation, consuming the souls of pre-teen cretins, and churning out a stream of idiots from The Cyrus to the The Jone-Asses.

Here is a bit of good history left over from the good old days of Disney: the dark and sweeping tribute to the Arabian Nights. The voice over describing entering this magical world, and then the music creates this explosive orchestra inside. It literally makes you feel like you are stepping into something dark and mysterious.



And just to cheer you up a bit more, here is a German version of it:



If 50 years from now I will remember something out of my kiddy days, it will be this television theme (the English one, not the German). I swear to god, I used to yell out "ARAAABIAN NIGHTS" at the top of my voice and run around the house yelling whenever this show used to come on.


Please Disney, come out of Lucifer's Mouth and start producing good cartoons again. I miss you.

Postman Pat

Lets get something straight - I hate Postman Pat. Look, why is he so bloody happy? He's a postman for god's sake. Postmen are supposed to be underpaid and depressed. They stand in your doorway like lifeless gargoyles, looking aimlessly at the abyss around them. All that mail to deliver, that same routine over and over again.... they probably wish they could turn into a bat or something instead.

But this THEME is so damn CHEERFUL. The song, is so upbeat and optimistic. I mean seriously, you can't avoid it. Its like everyone loves the stupid guy:

Skins

I wasn't originally going to have the Skins theme, but I cancelled the one for Hell Girl because it wasnt as good as I remembered it, so what the heck, might as well add this one. [here you go Roza]
I liked the first two series, and I love the theme tune. Its catchy and captures the essence of the show.
So here is the theme from the first season, as I liked that one the best:

So there you go, my favourite TV themes.

A'right, thats the last of that. The Mongolian Sauce Monster is still haunting my soul. The new year is around the corner. And I couldn't care less.

Take care. Don't drink-drive back home tomorrow morning. Bla bla bla.

And here is a cool mix up of all Doctor Who theme tunes from the 60s till now. Listen to all 8 minutes of it, its beautiful. Just to trip you out:

How to...

Just find it interesting to see what other people are searching for.
So good to know that people are more interested in learning how to make money.

And then obviously everyone wants to learn how to kiss. But the money has not impressed anyone enough to kiss them, so they try to have a go trying to build a six pack instead.

But then everyone's a loony case, so they would rather learn how to draw (most likely like one of those psychopathic demon-possessed kids from a horror movie).

All These Openings (part 2)

Sorry, I was taken ill by the Mongolian Sauce Monster for 2 days (i.e. we had a Mongolian stir fry thing the other day, and me being the pathetic weakling that I am, caught a throat infection from the spices).

So today is the continuation of my list of best TV openings.

The IT Crowd

Eh, GEEKS!
Geek humour combined with random office politics, The IT Crowd is currently just something I watch to make fun of myself (*sigh* CS student).

Embracing the geekiness, the opening titles are just as entertaining.
8-bit graphics never looked better than this:





Carnivàle
I never actually got around to watching Carnivale, and somehow I can't pinpoint why. Maybe because it used to come late at night, or maybe because I was depressed after watching Nip/Tuck and just wanted to go sleep. But since it was an HBO series (oh, HBO, you GOD of television) I was thinking of getting into it.
Either way, I caught its opening titles many times and found it absolutely captivating.

The beautiful displays of the mysterious tarot cards morphing into images of the Great Depression and 1920s America perfectly merges the supernatural world with the ordinary one. Its as if the times that have already passed were fated to happen. Since I have never watched the show, I don't know what the look/feel of the show is, but (according to Wiki) it is based around the Great Depression and the spiritual struggle between good and evil; so I guess the opening titles suit the storyline perfectly.





Samurai Jack
A long long time ago, at a time when humans had souls, when elephants freely roamed the land and before Cartoon Network was shit, there was a show called Samurai Jack.

Eerie but strangely hypnotic at the same time, the spectral world of weird monsters and landscapes lurking with danger in every corner always keeps you at the edge of your seat. The animation was fantastically slick and the dialogue interjected at the prefect moment between the action. They just don't make cartoons like this anymore.

This opening theme perfectly explains the storyline and introduces us to Jack's strange new doomed world:

The X Files

I know that by today's standard of expensive edgy stuff, the opening to The X Files seems a bit low rent; but its worth a mention for its memorable haunting theme tune alone. 





Dark Angel
I still think that co-creating Dark Angel was one of the best parts of James Cameron's career (yes, even with Avatar in the bag). The dark cyberpunk feel, the rotten futuristic doomsday look, and the entire prospect of some huge hidden cooperation carrying out terrible experiments was what made this show so absorbing. Plus an awesomely powerful female lead played to perfection by Jessica Alba gave the show that extra edge (they just don't come up with such strong female characters anymore; what after Desperate Housewives...bla bla bla...even Sookie Stackhouse is a weakling).

I always loved the theme for this show, because it emphasised on the dangerous "near future" world we are about to enter, and introduces the main heroine as a powerful window-smashing protagonist.

So that's it for this post. The next post will be the third and final part of this list.

Good bye Bastards (or Lovelies; please tell me what you want me to call you).

All These Openings (part 1)

Lists lists everywhere. So I decided to create one myself. I don't know if you have noticed, but I am a bit of a tellyphile (sad, but true). So what better way to pay tribute to the telly than a list of my favourite television show opening themes. (Okay, there are other better ways to pay tribute, but this is what I can think of for now.)

I first thought I wont be able to think of any, so I should just do a top 5 list, but then the list just kept expanding and expanding, and now I have ended up with a top 10, plus 6.

I know it sounds like I just listed any telly show theme I could come up with, but I thought long and hard about this. So here, in no particular order, is the  

SHAN'S LIST OF TOP 16 TELEVISION THEMES  

*cringe at my lameness*

Charmed 

Alright Smiths fans will be pissed off, but I am choosing this theme mainly because I loved the rapid montage of Wicca images with Love Spit Love's cover of How Soon Is Now.
Plus the show invokes good childhood memories (well sort of...I think I was 11?). The opening credits are slightly different each season, so I am using the theme from the 3rd season, because that's the one I remember the most and Shannen Doherty was still in the main cast.

Nip / Tuck

I always used to find Nip/Tuck a tad bit depressing - watching all those beautiful Miami people getting plastic surgery and rubbing semen all over their faces (yes, this was actually in an episode) makes you feel a bit inadequate.
But just watching this hypnotic theme song makes you watch the show. All the mannequins lying in boxes and having surgery lines drawn on them while the music craves "make me beautiful" on top of it, makes this a mesmerising theme which introduces the entire concept of the show of looking at people obsessed with beauty.At the end, even when the mannequin transforms into a human face, its nothing more than a "perfect lie".

Wonderfalls

Bryan Fuller's quirky (but unfortunately short-lived) series about a woman who has some of the most frustrating conversations with stubborn figurines in a souvenir shop, with a theme song made eccentric by XTC's I Wonder Why The Wonderfalls on top.

Dexter

This theme conveys all that the audience needs to know about the main character (a serial killer), with the most subtle of things - the morning routine. The sharp emphasis on blood and symbolism of cutting up food gives you a head up of what is to follow.

True Blood

More blood bath, sex and religion.
The grubby lusty track Bad Things by Jace Everett over the eerie combination of decaying things (the dead animals), blind faith (the praying women, the exorcism) and coarse sex (club scenes) immediately introduces us to a world where blood-thirst roams free and the undergrowth of prejudice and hypocrisy in peoples' morals. Yet the use of people in this theme (the boy dressed in KKK attire, the riot scene, etc) makes this world something close to ours, as if the show is representing current sins and secret desires within our societies.
The transition from day to night, and the contrast between religion and death/sex/violence is what makes this theme so compelling.  And the baptism at the end is when the line between religion and violence finally blurs together, and we dissolve into the dark of the night.

The Mighty Boosh

If all that blood and serial killers is a bit off putting for you, then here is the odd/random/surrealistic theme from The Mighty Boosh. Short and quirky, it welcomes you into its strange world of crack foxes and coconut girlfriends.



If you would like to see more surrealist and mind boggling animation from this show here are some good ones:
Charlie: Bubblegum Monster
Howling Jimmy Jefferson's Voodoo Scat
The Strange Tale of Crack Fox

These are the first 6 themes for now. Its 2:00am, and I am sleepy my lovelies (or bastards, depending on what you would like to me to call you). So will post the rest of the choices in my next post.

A Very Charlie New Year

I know its a bit early, but have a good New Year guys. I know I'm not the lets-celebrate-a-new-year-even-though-its-going-to-be-exactly-the-same-as-the-last-year kind of person, but nothing wrong in wishing you guys for a good year. Plus Charlie Brooker's (MY IDOL) Screenwipe just released the Review of the Year 2009, which is all I need to say goodbye to this year.

Its mainly about the year in Brit telly, but even if you don't watch any Brit shows, this is worth a watch simply for Charlie's biting sarcasm on everything from Kanye West to the BNP.

Enjoy:







Embedding is disabled for the fourth part (ergh, why?!), so here is a link to it instead.

Eh!

I am bored.

I Wish Like This Clockwork Fish

I wish I can be on a holiday,

Far far away,

In some whimsical land,

Surrounded by flying fish and floating trees,

Yellow grasslands covered with the yellow sea,

With loud music playing,

From a awful brass band (?).

I know it sucks, but nothing else would rhyme.

I want to be somewhere away. Away from this country, but my Dad's holidays NEVER match with my schedule.
OMG, I AM GOING TO TURN INTO A HIPPIE AND JUST GO SOMEWHERE BY MYSELF, BUT I AM SCARED I WILL GET KIDNAPPED BY A RADICAL NUDIST COMMUNITY.

phew, that's all out of my system now.

p.s. Is season 3 of Blood Ties EVER going to come out??
p.p.s. I only watch it because Kyle Schmid is hot
p.p.p.s. I want Kyle Schmid
p.p.p.p.s. Why do all these vampire-bloody-bullshit TV shows have a sexy hot man playing the vampire, so that I am forced to slavishly watch these TV series, despite my obvious eye-rolling view of this new vampire craze?
p.p.p.p.p.s. I don't care what anyone says, but Count Dracula was hot too. Plus, he had a thing for Jonathan *wink wink nudge nudge*

Dress those Daisies

I really miss Pushing Daisies on TV. It was easily one of the best TV shows around, every single part of the screen was detailed with visually beautiful retro colours. It was so bright and warm, plus the actors deliver each line with perfection. It was refreshing to watch something warm and fuzzy after a long day of work (I am not a coal miner or anything, but come on...Calculus...).

It was awful how they had to hurriedly end the second season, and leave out all the background mysteries yet to be solved (Chuck's father, Ned's father...).

What I miss the most is how unique the costumes were, especially the ones worn by Anna Friel. Every episode the outfits would get more and more creative, but they were never ridiculous, just fun and cute. Here are just some photos of my favourite costumes from the 2 seasons (note: pretty long post. What can I do, every single outfit is awesome):

oranges oranges

putting up Halloween decorations in a green floral dress

peach dress and beehive

best detective ever (with a little help from the undead)

I love all of his funky suits, such a fresh change from the

usual deadpan black/blue/grey tinges

I love her coats

I WANT THIS COAT . NOW.

and this dress. Its so pretty, I think I saw a similar one in

Debenhams once, but its probably like 1 grand

hyper Snook

I wish they would make telephones like that nowadays.

They look so classy; so much more spiky in the eyes than the boring

cordless ones

LOVE this dress, seriously love it. It looks pretty ordinary, but

the way Anna Friel wears it is awesome

Eh, reminds me of an Indian kurta for some reason

oh those shoes.

I miss the piemaker :(

He's too adorable

This is so classy 60s style. Love it love it.

But I guess you need a perfect figure and light skin tone

to pull this look off.

The Piehole

Everything is so awesomely vintage and cute. Wish there was some sort of a shop where I can buy all of these. Especially Chuck's purple floral dress (13th picture down).

Here are two extensive sources for most of the costumes on the series:

That Costume Girl
Dressing Daisies

Dorkmouse

Happy happy grades.

Just a further thought: why is everyone obsessed with shopping?
I mean, its good every once in a while, but people want to shop every single week. 3 times a week.
There are only so many clothes you can wear. Or so many vases/ sofa sets/ jewelery/ candy/ [sexy] underwear you can buy.

Chill guys. Save money for any money apocalypse we might see in the future.

Melting

This is sort of like a chocolate dripped strawberry biscuit. Which talks.

The Yellow Diaries

I was watching old episodes of Blood Ties yesterday (I know, I know...bloody vampire bullshit, but its a guilty pleasure), and one episode had Lisa Ray in it. And I thought I to look up what she was up to, because I absolutely loved her in Water, and I absolutely adore her work. Sadly, it turns out she has just been diagnosed with Multiple myeloma ( a rare [incurable] cancer of the white blood cells).

It felt so weird, to see a young person with such an illness.
I really hope she survives it, and lives to make another awesome movie.
Her blog can be found here: Lisa Ray, never stop fighting
Its so good to see how even at these times she is so brave and upfront about the treatment process.

A Fool

I'm not a big follower of perfumes, but... I love this commercial:



Wish I could be as pretty as Audrey Tautou

If you like...

Another cheap paint production, thought to make something cute.

Oh dear

I hope my final grades are good.

Them Cigarette Burns

Okay, this is a poem I wrote a while ago (a few years), when I really really liked someone. Its got nothing to do with them, but it was just a random way for me to get my feelings out.

I don't really know what I think of this poem, because it sounds a bit lovey-dovey, which is something I mainly hate (with my all sarcastic-spontaneous-misanthropic personality), and it was written quite a while ago. But I thought I would just post it, to get it out of the system.

Oh and by the way, I don't smoke, but I just felt like naming the poem Cigarette Burns.


Look upon his beautiful rose filled cheeks,
Essence of ages tinged with,
The petals of red suns,
Thirty years those eyes hath seen –

Green tainted porches sublimed to youthful carelessness,
The ever careless throw of the hand,
To catch a paper or two,
Could have been in them pictures,
In a writing,
Though is it wise? – to say?
Such things only give rise,
To more sparkles in those eyes.

The ever increasing smiles,
Bludgeoned every now and then,
A look once a while,
As if what I was at the end of it all,
Was faint layers of cream-laid linen,
Coarsely sewed together,
With wooden stitches which crumble and faint.
Pale words of intellect,
Frothing spasms of wasteful prose,
That soft “shlock” sound from his lips,
Every now and then – which I yearned,
Stained with blood.

Arms that thicken with shame,
Skeletal miseries stretch across nails of flesh,
And these eyes are frissons,
These lips are blood,
These ears carefully arched to shapes,
Lines upon lines upon lines upon lines.

The shock of delight, how he stops them smiles,
Laughter splits his aged lips further apart,
Till he receives all my love.

With which I urn,
Them Cigarette Burns.

...continuing from this decade...

Sorry, just wanted to add that this advert for Sony Bravia is definitely something which is my favorite from this decade:

I just remembered how much I loved this ad while I was reading The Guardian's list of "best TV adverts of the noughties".
I know it seems a bit obsolete to suddenly mention an advert as one of the most memorable part of an entire decade (what with my rant below about each year being the same as the last), but I used to really love this advert, especially with its heart-warming nostalgic feel (thanks mainly to Jose Gonzalez's cover of The Knife's Heartbeats), and I used to try and catch it anytime it was on TV.

Here is a "making of" video, if you are interested (i.e. if you are a media-freak like me) - although there is a lot of ball related euphemism:

Oooh, its a new year

Yes, its that time of the year -  when this year is going out the door and a new one is being ushered in. Not only that, its the end of the bloody decade, which of course means that people are extra extra prepped up just to see some nice "1-0" numbers in the calender.

Like every new-year-thingy-bob-boodle, newspapers and magazines are filled to the brim with lists of every kind. From lists of the best music (which are mainly shit and awful things depending on what you read - ahem, NME), to lists of the worst dressed people (the usual suspects...Paris Hilton..bla bla bla...Kardashain...bla bla bla...usually the people you wouldn't want to go near if you walked into a restaurant).

Anyways, I can't really be bothered to come up with the "Best of the Decade" or "Worst of the Decade" lists because:
1) every bloody new year/decade/millennium is pretty much the same for me, I wake up in the morning and do the same random things, so why bother cherry-pick out random celeb-e-tuants who don't effect your life in the slightest?
2) I have too much bloody work to listen to every bloody album coming out, or every dumb movie churned out from the massive blood-hound production houses. So I simply don't feel like I have the authority or know-how to make comments on what was in and what was out in the last decade
3) Its the last bloody DECADE. 10 years is a long time and a long stream of things to remember. In the year 2000 I was just 8 years old, so how on Earth am I ever going to remember anything that was going on outside my little crayon-house?
4) Its the age of a great big tossing information over-flow, how is it possible to keep track of everything which is going on in the time span of an entire decade?

So you see why I am totally unqualified to make any judements about the past decade whatsoever.
If you want some lists, then The Guardian and Time have gone particularly list-crazy:
The Guardian: Reviews of the Decade
Time: Best & Worst Lists - The Top Ten of Everything 2009

And here some more random lists you might like:
YouTube Blog: most watched and searched for in 2009
Newsweek: The decade in seven minutes (awesome commentary, AND it reminded me what a Lord of the Rings super-geek I was - don't ask)
Pitchfork: The Decade in Music
TimesOnline: Best of the Decade (search results)

The lists goes on and on, you can find millions just by typing "best/worst of the decade" in Google.

So Happy New Year/Decade, yeh? And now in the words of the great Charlie Brooker: go away.

Another Day

Just another day on YouTube:

But you know that the world is doomed when...

Lady Gaga is under the "News & Politics" section

Robot Cog Vacuum Cleaner

This dress

This dress is going to be mine! Just Java final to go...

From: Pull & Bear (dresses and skirts)

Home and village

"College is your city, and home is your village"

Orange Light

If I were to see you,

On a broken cobbled street,

Surrounded by orange light,

Harsh orange light,

You standing there,

Waiting with your arms crossed,

Standing there like a motherly figure,

With the light all around you,

Step back twenty years or so,

When you take our hands,

Gently. and fold them together.

Then now,

When I see you on this cobbled broken street,

With all this shattered light,

Harsh orange light,

Why do I not see,

Twinkles in your eyes?

Circle Face

Yes, I am still making cheap Paint productions. But I am also getting BETTER.

Be--ep, be--eep, be-, be--- --------

My Veins Are Flowing With Coke

I know this came out a very long time ago (5 months in today's day and age is equivalent to a couple of years in the 1900s), but its such a sweet ad I just hadto post it up:

Is it just me, or are they asking us to literally inject coke into our veins?

Anyways, this also introduced me to Koop (a band which I love and adore more than I would ever love a child of my own):

How to screw your life

Dear Reader,

If you are reading this post, this means that your life must be pretty screwed up. How do I know? Well, either because:

1. You know me (which is pretty screwed up anyways)

2. You looked at the title of this post, and immediately related yourself to it

One day we will all wake up to find that we are all just a one gigantic screw up.

On a happier note, we had this Hollywood theme end of semester party. Was pretty fun, although me and my friend felt a teensy bit under-dressed (it was like being a fish out of water). But later on we looked around to see that pretty much everyone was in casuals.

Bleep Bleep!

BLEEP BLEEP! 

I am a mental cycle with wheels on my head 

and rods for arms. 

I sleep in the garage 

and make dynamos with eyes. 

My head is full of metal,

Inside which hot fumes

Send up enthusiasms of liquor and ecstasy.

Pills pills coloured pills,

Making heads out of circles,

Bleep bleep,

Here come the numbers,

An equation here, take this,

Make this edge straighter, 

You never want to bend this way and that,

Take care,

The garage is creeping, 

With them little buzzies,

Ready to bite into the thick polystyrene 

Of these fake toes. 

I am a robot, a robot, a robot,

Watch out for me,

You may see me on a moon walk,

Out in the endless space,

Singing you hymns,

Of romance in the future,

All those pretty plastic eyes,
Staring into the sky,

In my ticking metallic voice,

- made up of endless cogs,

Expressing endless sorrow,

Of my little robotic life.

Blah

I'm bored
I'm the chairman of the bored,
I'm a lengthy monologue


Oh Iggy Pop, you speak my heart's content. Bless you.

Mr. Sad Blob (with hat and tears)

Looping

do {
      brain racking thinking
      banging head on table
      begging others for help
      sitting in front of a screen like a zombie
      feeling your brain cells slowly wither away
      type random jargon which makes no sense whatsoever

   } while (javaHomework != done)

Miss Green Object: The Avengence of the Green Thing

In celebration of all the environmental stuff we have been learning this semester, I present to you Miss Green Object:

She is all environmentally friendly (color-wise only) and has leaves for eyes (and it makes her look a bit evil at the same time).

You know, I think I am getting addicted to this cheap Paint productions. Its so much less brain damaging than spending 300 hours in front of Photoshop (only to watch in horror as everything goes wrong by introducing ONE wrong layer).

Mr. Happy Object: The Return of the Happy

Here is my own version of Mr. Happy Object:

Because I am sad like that.

Mr. Happy Object

Mr. Happy Object teaches us about Java:

But by his name and display picture, he sounds like a demented serial killer.

If you believe in fairies, clap your hands

I have been wanting to watch Finding Neverland for quite a while now, but never got around to it.

So I finally did today, which made me feel quite guilty because I am SUPPOSED to work on a Java homework...

Its a very sweet movie. Like the sort of thing you would watch if you were suffering from an artist's block (similar to writer's block, but more general).

The second last scene is my absolute favourite:

It's so beautiful. Don't you just wish you could look around, and the wall of your apartment would lift up to reveal a lush green fantasy land? It always makes me so emotional whenever I watch it. Especially at the very end, when the camera zooms out, and we see (from the audiences' perspective) that it is actually just the garden, with a few props added - all the magic of Neverland was created by their collective imagination.

Another one of my most favourite scenes from the movie is in "The Play and the Flight":

I just love the music on this; and the direction is superb - the shot of the "flight", where the camera zooms across the theater, is just pure genius. It really combines with the music to become so emotionally powerful, that you immediately know what it is like to be little Peter Llewelyn Davies, sitting in that theater, knowing that his mother is on the doorstep of death.

Flap Flap

So I was looking for old Brit telly shows [because that's how I roll], and I found THIS:



What are the chances?

Contents fo far

Here are the words used most often in the blog,
in Wordle format of course

Why do I talk about "time" all the time?

The Box Girl