C. Hannibal cinema culture, cultural history, digital media

Drinking More Tron-Aid

Okay. I’ll admit it, my stanism for Tron:Legacy is right out of the 3rd grade. But it’ll probably subside when I get around to the proper IMAX treatment. Besides, most movies I see more than once never hold up to the second viewing. And I can’t stop listening to this soundtrack. I don’t belong to the Daft Punk cult or anything like that, I just think this is a really clean score (listen to it, along with the extras in one long stream below) and the techno bits really lend well to the overall futuraristic light speed essence of it all.

I swear I don’t work for Disney.

Mickey photo via greatwhiteshark.com

C. Hannibal cinema culture, cultural history

Colombiana

For a lot of guys (and women), I’m sure it’s a great thing that the fetish object that is the Latina has a new popular mainstream U.S. embodiment in TV star Sofia Vergara. Type her name into google and you can find all the boob pics you want and see all the awful *cough SOUL PLANE cough* movies she had to work on until she scored a winner. Of course her character is the same carbon copy of other feisty Latin immigrant spouses that goes back decades. I’m just here to celebrate that after Shakira’s worn out her welcome, Hollywood is finally catching on to the fact that Colombian women are hot.

Vergara is up for a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as a Golden Globe. Let’s hope she wins it so that we don’t just think of hips and drug mules when we want to celebrate Colombians in the U.S. entertainment spotlight.

 

 

Photo via.

C. Hannibal cultural history, music

Missing Lauryn’s Newark State of Mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4it9RUXsA4

“It’s all economics…” Lauryn Hill goes in on Jeru @ 4:15 in the video above.

When the news hit that Lauryn Hill is going on a 17 city tour, I met it with a big “so tf what?”. I’m tired of all this anticipation for her, man. She’s from my geographic area on the map, and next to Redman, she was like the only other person we could claim as our own, our super, mega best. Really all she did was make people question my part of New Jersey. Yeah, more Jersey jokes.

That crazy woman had the whole industry in the palm of her hand. She did the cool thing by rejecting it, but then all that diva-ish behavior and then no solid comeback? Squalid, man. Squalid career. She left a lot of people impoverished, her music fed a lot of souls. A vitamin if you were down. A soothing tonic if you had some relationship troubles. I won’t tell you which songs, because if you look at her catalog, there’s only so few to choose from.

The thing though that really gets me is that she didn’t represent. Here you have Rah Digga, who even though no one buys her records, she’s still grinding. STILL.

Lauryn marries into a musical legacy and hops off the planet. Now, I’ve seen her perform in these “secret” shows and other false Fugees reunions that she’ll do for a corporate buck, but it all lacks.  I think she tries to explain in this recent interview what made her a recluse, again.

But back to my main point. She didn’t represent like she was supposed to. See, she was repping South Orange, which is basically (greater) Newark, depending on your degree of boughy-ness. As stated in

Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide: Volume 1: East Coast and West Coast:

“Whether you’re representing Newark (aka Brick City), Irvington (aka Hooterville), or East Orange (aka Illtown), you still represent Newark”

As for Mrs. Hill, I wouldn’t hold my breath for any comeback or new songs, maybe in another 20 years when she’s older. For now, here are the classics, like warm butter on some syrupy pancakes:

 

Continue reading “Missing Lauryn’s Newark State of Mind” →

C. Hannibal cinema culture, cultural history

The Trejo Machine

PacificCoastNews.com

 

He’s a “Hollywood Machine“. Orale.

Danny Trejo at the Hollywood Christmas parade last month.

Few outside Hollywood know it, but Danny Trejo has much more clout in the movie industry than most would think a career bad guy would have. Here’s a Q&A that talks about his indie film roots. Earlier this year, the LA Times wrote:

A quarter of a century later, the actor has starred in seemingly every third Hollywood action movie, including “Heat,” “Con Air” and numerous Robert Rodriguez films (in which his character is almost always named for a weapon). Trejo averages – averages – between 10 and 13 movies per year, often showing up on set for a few days, plying his villainous trade and leaving.

I like his blue collar view of working on multi-million dollar movies:

“Acting for me is like being a contractor or a plumber or a house painter. I don’t distinguish what house I’m gonna paint. Just ‘cuz I’m not getting as much money for this house, I still have to do a good job,” he said in slightly accented English, describing his attitude toward his earlier character parts.

Continue reading “The Trejo Machine” →

C. Hannibal cultural history, mexican culture

Navidad Retro I

This is special Christmas beer that’s available in Mexico from around November until about February. It’s called Noche Buena, good stuff.

Unlike here in Gringolandia, most people in Latina America celebrated the traditional Christmas last night. Any NYCers hit up a posada?You can get a nice breakdown right here. With that in mind gimme a late pass for this post, it’s for those Americanized Latinos who are putting more into their Dec. 25th celebrations. This post over at NPR had the same thing in mind.

Continue reading “Navidad Retro I” →

C. Hannibal cultural history, radio

Old School Radio Christmas

Back in the day, I’m told people didn’t watch cable TV or search the Web for their media consumption. All they had was that thing you listen to in your car, a radio. One time I remember my mom trying to sit me down to get into a radio program when I was like 5. It was NPR?! I remember buying into it, only because it was the Star Wars radio drama that ran from around 1981 to about 1986.

That’s Lionel Barrymore, Drew’s granduncle, up top. On Christmas Eve of 1939 he played Scrooge for Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of the Air.  If you’re hanging with your grandparents or some other really old relatives, ask them if they want to listen to the ’39 radio recording of “A Christmas Carol” on this new fandangled thing they call the Internets. They might trip.

And if you do get their attention, ask them what they think about this classic Christmas radio special from 1948 featuring Abbott and Costello

Here’s another one, a suspenseful-type Twas the Night Before Christmas from 1951:

And an undated episode of The Shadow called “Joey’s Christmas

All tracks merrily jacked from Elsmar Cove Web Site.

P.S. I’m really cool on the Amos and Andy radio show X-mas episodes they have on their site.

C. Hannibal digital media, mexican culture, visually speaking

Chirrete y Stinkfish

Shortly after I got to Mexico City, just two years ago, besides hip-hop heads I was looking to connect with Colombians. Not for that. But just to connect with some good folk on the transnational paisano tip. For reasons artistic, political, economic and illegal there are lots of Colombians living in Mexico.

It wasn’t before long that  I was invited to a cruddy apartment on the edges of the usually fancy La Condesa neighborhood. Inside the apartment was the toxic smell of fresh spray paint. It was the home of graffiti crew APC (ANIMAL POWER CREW), a bunch of Colombians and several Mexicans who travelled around doing art, street art. Above, an animated short by one of the crew members I got to know best, Chirrete Golden. The piece is called “Sin pérdida” (without loss). Pure poetry, in words and visually. On his blog he details how he made it using Final Cut Pro and After Effects.  Check out this video of APC at an art show they did over the summer in D.F. The turnout, as I remember was bananas.

One of the more recognized members of the crew, because of praises he’s won on hipster  blogs and magazines is another Colombiano called stinkfish. Here’s his blog. Below, cuts from his flickr stream.