Archive for July, 2013
“Juan de los muertos” on YouTube
For the last couple days, I’ve been living above FiNNCON2013 at the Cable Factory in Helsinki. I searched through their program and discovered a few interesting things, amongst them the movie I watched last night on YouTube – “Juan de los muertos” (Juan of the Dead). There are now several zombie movies that I like and all of them for their socio-political commentary or perhaps more accurately – overtly political satire and comedy:
“Zombie Strippers,” “Shuan of the Dead,” “Stake Land,” and now “Juan of the Dead.” (“Stake Land” may be more so vampire than zombie, I don’t recall clearly, the title imagines vampire, but I think that they were zombie vampires, either way, it’s a surprisingly good horror movie but not so funny.)
“Juan de los muertos” is of course low budget and campy, but it’s Cuban which means clever, over the top and funny. It at once satirizes Cuba, Fidel, the Revolution, Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism, the United States of America, Hollywood and Horror. However the characters are endearing and there are surprising scenes. Best of all, it’s freely available on YouTube:
Larry Bogad: Tactical Performance
Artist, performer, activist, professor Larry Bogad recently posted his TEDxUCDavis talk on YouTube. It’s well worth checking out and may inspire some fun and thoughtful hijinks!
The Work of Sharon Paz
Today I met the artist Sharon Paz who is a fellow resident artist at Helsinki’s HIAP. Following our meeting, I watched a 2012 video work of hers and absolutely love it, check it out!
DISTRACTED DESTRUCTION, Sharon Paz, 2012 from Sharon Paz on Vimeo.