Beyond the Iron Sky

A fine Sunday to all’y'all! Just wanted to drop a funny little video link to you guys, a project a friend of mine, Nikolay, has been working on, called Marsipan. It’s a nice CGI/stop motion animation about the exploration of Mars.

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

Ps. they are now on the competition with the clip on the Aniboom’s competition, so if you like it, do give it a nice rating :)

Have a nice beginning of the December, and remember to be nice so that the weird guy with the beard and a hat and everything brings you some cool stuff you don’t need but like to own :)

From the internets comes OSS Pontbriand, a spaceship made entirely of Legos by some rather awesome guy called Jeff Pelletier.

Yeah, it’s sleek and pretty as a ship can be, but that’s not all. It’s also got the whole interior and even the 105 person crew!

This is the stuff I dreamed of doing when I was a kid. Then again, it seems rather many people did and suprisingly many of them are actually did when they grew up, this is by no means the only awesome lego ship the internets has seen.

(via Retardmedia)

My band, Älymystö, which I’ve been occasionally mentioning also here on our blog, just made a cultural move and we released our first LP, Atomgrad (2005), for free download, under Creative Commons license, along with a nice new website. If you happen to be interested on hearing how a nuclear holocaust might sound like, Älymystö’s Atomgrad is not a bad album to start with!

(The full CD is also available from Wreck Store for those who want to support the music!)

Here’s a music video for Älymystö.

Älymystö is:

Mr Haapanen (known to you as the voice of the guy who greets Pirk’s sled welcome to Baabel-13): Machinist.
Mr Vuorensola (known to you as director of Iron Sky, Star Wreck & as Mr. Dwarf): Vocalist.
Mr Honkonen (known to you as Fukov & Festerbester): Theremin.
Mr Paalanen (not known to you. Yet.): Guitar
Mr Eskola (known to you as the guy who whispers to Fukov in the meeting of the captains in ITP): Bass

Click here to download Atomgrad for free as a Torrent.

Last week and weekend I was visiting in Norway, in a small village of Os that’s just few miles away from Bergen, at WT X:th Os International Film Festival. I was invited over to talk about Star Wreck, WreckAMovie and Iron Sky, the three things I love talking about. The festival is small but cozy, organized by group of film enthusiastics from Norway, some of them also members of the road crew of Immortal, one of the gretest black metal bands out there. I actually learned that Os is *the* place where a lot of the black metal movement is originated from, and it was nice to stroll around the city thinking about how this beautiful, scandinavian and idyllic view has inspired some of the most brutal music out there.

I had an opportunity to see some very interesting films in the festival, out of which I would suggest to everyone that if you haven’t seen Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, you should. It’s pretty funny, and Robert Englund is really on fire! Also, the presentations went well, one of them was also filmed and I should be able to post a link to it once it’s online.

In the last night of the festival in Saturday, there was the grand gala to which we attended. Most of it was in Norwegian, so I didn’t understand anything, until suddenly the language changed to English. They announced that this year they wanted to give a Special Award for the work that has been done over the free culture and introduction of the collaborative production model to filmmaking. I was shocked, surprised and delighted. I even received a bronze statue and everything! Totally out of the blue, but it was a very welcome surprise! During this fall, WreckAMovie has collected 3 awards, so not a bad at all!

That’s me and my new best friend, the Bronze Idol! (Photo by Essi Suomela).

Speaking of WreckAMovie, we just set up loads of new tasks there, do check them out - we’re gonna need your help on designing the Earth fleet for Iron Sky!

Click the picture to join the development on WreckAMovie.Com.

And here’s the AWESOME music video from Immortal, shot - propably - in the woods of Os! Enjoy, and do check out the amount of views on YouTube! Most likely the world’s best known black metal video out there! :)

Today is my birthday and guess what, I got present from JJ Abrams, he unveiled the new Enterprise from the upcoming Star Trek feature film (2009). I’m not sure what to think of it - maybe it will just take some time…I have to say that I were the producer of the new Star Trek film, I wouldn’t had balls to change it so much :) I guess that’s the whole point in this film - JJ Abrams wasn’t a fan of the original show, I was :)

The proportions look a bit strange… Below: Kirk’s Enterprise from the original films.

And here’s the very original design from the sixties. The updated film version from 1979 didn’t change the design so much.

Here’s the whole article, JJ Abrams interviewed.

While visiting in Os, Norway, I was honoured to be invited by the producer Kjetil Omberg to see the Norwegian Nazi Zombie flick Død Snø in a private screening. I’ve been following the film actively ever since I heard about it through Twitch because, well, it has Nazis, zombies and it’s from Scandinavia. Before we go further, do check out the teaser poster art. With artwork this cool and a concept this strong (and don’t forget the coolest tagline ever: Ein, Zwei, DIE!), what could go wrong?

The story unfolds with a very classical setting: a group of youngsters are heading for a cabin, with the intentions to drink, party and preferably have sex through the whole weekend. But, as we are talking about a Norwegian film, the events take place during wintertime, and the cabin is located high up in the mountains, in the middle of endless fields of snow.

What starts out as a fun in the snow and sun, snowball fights, fooling around with a motor sled and a Stiga, soon turns into a gory zombie onslaught as the kids find a box full of Nazi gold that definitively doesn’t belong to them.

The unique setting in the genre gives an unforgettable flavor to the easily one of the greatest zombie films that I’ve seen in ages. Director Tommy Wirkola breaks most of the deeply-rooted Zombie traditions with Norwegian rock and metal banging in the background - the Zombies run, think and even talk (well, just one word). Død Snø manages to do what many have tried and almost as many have failed while trying: it’s entertaining, scary as shit, agonizing, bloody, fun and kicks in like a 12-pack of beer. The story is well written, actors do an awesome job and director Wirkola’s comedy timing is excellent, as is his ability to build up the horror. He seems to know exactly how scary place an outhouse can be when it’s -20 degrees outside, in the middle of the night. Added with a Nazi zombie roaming outside, it’s definitively not a place you’d like to be with your pants around your ankles.

Död Snö is a wonderful piece of film that isn’t ashamed of it’s roots and language, and stands proudly as one of the great examples of Norther horror wave that’s going strong right now (with Sauna and Let the Right One In).

And here’s the trailer:

I haven’t enjoyed watching a film this much in a long time.

Tl;dr (Too Long; Didn’t Read): 5 / 5.

It seems that the bigger distributors are taking few steps forward with modern distribution, hopefully slowly dropping the old-fashioned first cinema, then DVD -release, as well as with territoriality. A British horror flick, Mum & Dad claims to be the first film to be distributed simultaneously on Cinema, DVD, Pay-Per-View & Internet download. I don’t know what is their distribution method on the Internet will be, hopefully DRM-free pay-what-you-like, but it looks like “Internet Download” means Video-On-Demand, and sadly there’s usually some crappy DRM attached to it…

There’s not too much info on the website, but at least one can sign up for the newsletter. We’ll keep on following Mum & Dad.

Oh, all the Dads reading this - have a great Father’s Day! Here’s the trailer for Mum & Dad, enjoy:

(Via Twitch Film)

Was when Darth Vader stepped on stage to conduct the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra playing the Imperial March - with a lightsabre.

The reason for this sight was that the Tampere Philharmonics had a concert with the theme “Space Adventure 2008″. They played themes from classic scifi movies and space themed classical music.

I have to admit that Darth Vader on stage was one thing I’d never thought I’d witness in my life. Even though considering the size of the fanbase seeing the orchestra playing the theme from Star Trek: The Next Generation with the conductor dressed in a starfleet uniform might have been even more impropable.

I have to admit I loved every second of the concert, with these kind of performances being rather rare here in Finland. One might complain a bit about it being aimed at the whole family with some, um, “funny” speeches in between chronicling the voyages of the Galaxy class starship Tampere Philharmonic. But I cant, I’ve seen the frigging Darth Vader conduct an orchestra. I’m a happy nerd.