Last seen: 4 hours ago
Brian is a 60 year old guy from Hitchin, England, UK
I like looking on the bright side. I relate very much to the Mediterranean extended-family, take-it-slow, money-isn't-everything outlook on life. I'm not a great cook but I like cooking, especially Mediterranean food. I'm interested in environmental issues. My main hobby is flying (on a PC simulator).
The people I admire most are those who see no end to pain, illness, grief or disability and who still retain a sense of humour, people who spend time making life better for others in any way, and people with toxic parents who have "broken the chain" in bringing up their own children.
If you like my pages you will probably also enjoy my web site - do visit!
Rated • 1 review • painting, watercolour, arts, childhood • redbubble.com
Rated • 1 review • photography, glamour, surreal art • photosight.ru
Rated • 1 review • animation, environment, movies, digital art, pixar • google.fr
With WALL-E, Pixar Animation Studios have excelled themselves in several ways.
The creation of the desolate earth environment, and the space-going cruise ship, are incredible artistic achievements (as well as superb technical achievements) in their own right. I can imagine some people being put off going to see the movie because its first part is set in a planet-sized garbage tip, and who would want to see that? In fact, the earth environment is a work of strange, desolate beauty, lit by a coppery light and given wonderful aerial perspective by the haze in the polluted air. This picture (one of several concept background paintings for WALL-E at the Pixar - 20 Years of Animation exhibit in Finland) gives some idea, but the environment realised in the movie is so imaginative, so detailed and so highly textured that you really have to see it on the big screen. I shall certainly buy the DVD but it won't be the same!
The visual environment is only part of it, of course. The inventiveness of the story is quite exceptional, and it has some of the magic and pathos of the silent movies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. When WALL-E plays his treasured tapes of old musicals, the contrast of Earth's past with the current desolation is highlighted, but the musicals also provide an uplifting background to the unlikely romance between the two main characters, which is conducted entirely without normal speech.
The movie also has a serious side, very unusual in popular animated films. The space-going vessel (awesomely realised) is a combination of mega Caribbean cruise ship and aseptic Disney theme park. It is a pristine, gleaming vision of hell in which nothing has changed for 700 years, except that the passengers have become helpless and obese, doing nothing and creating nothing for themselves, seeing the world only through computer screens and having their every need attended to by an army of robots. Don't worry though, WALL-E is about to change all that... and the movie becomes (in addition to everything else) a really exciting adventure story.
In spite of the sombreness of the underlying themes, this is a joyous movie that sparkles throughout (and which has numerous Easter-egg references to other great movies). My favourite scene is probably the one where WALL-E and EVE are outside the space-ship, performing a kind of aerial (or vacuum) ballet as WALL-E uses a fire extinguisher to try to get back on board, which turns into a weightless dance worthy of "Singing in the rain".
It's magical stuff - go see it if you haven't already, and do NOT wait for the DVD to come out!
Rated • 1 review • arts, image searches, image searches art • artclub.fr
A very well organized French art site, found for me by my friend (and gold stumbler) bonbonnie (Bonnie).
Rated • 1 review • humor, fantasy art, digital art • conceptart.org
Rated • 1 review • arts, fantasy art, portraits • stumbleupon.com
Rated • 1 review • environment, alternative energy, energy saving • google.it
The Ford Motor Company has announced plans to cut back further on North American production of big trucks and SUVs to adapt to a consumer shift to more fuel-efficient cars...
Nobody likes high gas/petrol prices, but there is no doubt that it is concentrating all our minds in a beneficial way. In Europe, where petrol generally costs more than double what it does in America (currently we are paying about $9.30 per US gallon, if my maths is correct) our minds have been concentrated for quite a while!
Now the Ford Motor Company in the States is conducting a major restructuring exercise to shift its production to more fuel-efficient cars (more on this development here), which is good to see.
When faced with a "crisis" such as high oil prices, the doom-and-gloom merchants in the media talk about (and in doing so do their best to create) an economic recession. I find it more interesting to look at the resulting developments in energy saving and alternative energy taking place at an ever-accelerating pace, many of these happening in the USA, and many of which are going to generate new jobs and make a lot of money (if you believe in this stuff, why not invest in it?).
There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the world...
Rated • 1 review • photography, glamour, portraits • stumbleupon.com
