Watching
Twoj Vincent. A film about the life (or rather, last few days of the life) of Vincent Van Gogh, which sounds fairly mundane but wait!
Each of the film’s 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, using the same technique as Van Gogh, created by a team of over 100 painters.
I’m not entirely sure how much I actually liked it, but it’s undeniably a hugely impressive endeavour. The likeness of the actors is astounding – even more so for the fact that it’s the result of consistently producing hundreds and hundreds of paintings of each person which each on their own is a literal work of art. I was particularly impressed with the representation of Jerome Flynn who I haven’t thought about for at least 20 years but who I recognised instantly. I did also learn much more about Van Gogh than I ever knew before (which was admittedly not a lot). Interesting bloke that. Keep an eye out for him.
Listening to
The Adam Buxton podcast Ep. 83: Simon Pegg. Some solid ramblechat here. I went and rewatched a few episodes of Big Train after listening to this – I think that’s still my favourite thing that Simon Pegg has been involved with (though that’s clearly quite a claim, what with Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and Gerard Chote, but I stand by it).
Hip-hop Saved My Life Ep. 43: Tiernan Douieb. Because of my distant, very very vague association with The Last Skeptik (I did a website for him about 15 years ago), I’ve always felt a even more vague connection with Tiernan (they’re brothers). So, what I’m trying to say, is I enjoyed listening to this. He’s a funny dude, and he likes hip hop, which ticks 2 of the most important boxes for me.
Reading
About the Dyatlov Pass incident. I can’t actually remember why this came up, but wtaf. I’ll just point to the Wikipedia page for starters.
The Dyatlov Pass incident (??? ??? ???) refers to the deaths of nine skiers/hikers in the northern Ural Mountains, in the former Soviet Union, between the 1st and 2nd of February, 1959, due to unclear circumstances … During the night, something caused them to tear their way out of their tents and flee the campsite, all while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures.
One victim had a fractured skull; two others had major chest fractures. Additionally, the body of another team member was missing its tongue and eyes. The investigation concluded that an “unknown compelling force” had caused the deaths.
There are all sorts of theories about what happened but it’s still a mystery. 14 year old X-Files watching me would’ve been enthralled by something like this. Current me still finds it intriguing.
