The movie trailer for the Coen Brother’s newest movie, A Serious Man, has just been released. Take a look:

The movie looks really good, but that trailer is incredible, isn’t it? I’m not sure if I’ve seen a more artful trailer ever. That incessant beat from the head hitting the wall and the accumulating noises from other parts is so crafty and well done. It’s so much more effective than any voice over could be. Did the Coen Brothers edit this trailer? Probably not, but to whoever did, I see a Golden Trailer Award in your future (that’s right, there is an award for movie trailers).

Watching it made me think of this blog post I wrote for a different blog about The Planet of the Apes and its trailer. I’ve pasted the post, along with the trailer, below.

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So, I just watched the original Planet of the Apes today. I was really just looking for something to watch while I ate lunch, but I got completely sucked in. And being unemployed, I got the time. I watched it all the way through, and I’ve got to say, the movie was fucking good. Not just fun to watch, but legitimately good.

I think it’s interesting that we all know the plot, we all know the quotes. It’s one of those movies that’s been inaugurated into our pop-culture, so much so that it feels like we’ve all seen it, without actually seeing it. When it’s referenced, we all get it, and can laugh at jokes about it, and make our own jokes without ever having to actually see it (this idea can also relate to the DVD collection, or the DVR, where just owning a copy of a movie gives us a level of satisfaction nearly equal to that of actually seeing the movie, but that’s a different topic for another time).

Back to movie. It’s great. The first quarter is masterfully suspenseful, packed with incredible landscape shots and great cinematography and music. Then come the apes, which are surprisingly not too dated. Then we get to an examination of ethics and humanity, then a sweet reveal, which we all know, but still gives you the chills, because Charlton Heston really was a sick actor. The movie also made me further realize how much the Mark Walburg one sucked.

How great is that trailer? Sure there’s some cheesy voice over, but you get to hear the man himself, Charlton Heston, explain the film. And how about that “This is a madhouse!” part? There’s a well made movie trailer.

About a month ago, Alex posted this piece on an idea we came up with on the road.

Like subway scratchitti and cut-out art, the idea is to take the ads you see everyday and cover the actual ad text with thick black paint, leaving only the image by itself. This takes the commercial element out the image, and leaves it to stand on its own, so it displays its own text and message, void of the advertisers message.

This is what Alex originally wrote: When I’m walking down the street and see advertising everywhere I look I often wonder what those ads would convey if there was no product name or copy on it. Some things would just be a couple laughing. Some seem to have a deep meaning. Some are of people ripping their hair out of their heads while sitting at a computer. Most you look at and think, “What could that possibly be for?”

So, here are some more blacked-out ads (can you guess what they’re for?):

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Say hello to the shiny new limited edition run of the official Transcendentalist Television posters for the first ever live show. These biddies were designed and screen printed by your’s truly, and are hot off the drying rack today. There are only 20 prints in the run, so you may need to throw some elbows to get your hands on one. Prints are 2 color screen prints on 12″ x 20″ archival paper, and are $5 each (bargain!).

I went to the Guggenheim’s The Third Mind (a term invented by William S. Borroughs, a member of the Beats, who, could we consider to be an old New Transcendentalist?) exhibition on Friday. It was a great show, focusing on East-meets-West art in the 20th century. At the exhibit, there was a generous amount of mention of the Transcendentalists, specifically Henry D. Thoreau, for the similarities between The Movement, and Zen Buddhism. Both focus on transcendence through self reflection, especially through an understanding of nature.

My favorite pieces –
The Sound of Ice Melting: two large blocks of ice are amplified by 8 surrounding microphones, discussing a common theme of ‘when you think there is nothingness, you are usually wrong.’

Tibetan Prayer Bells: They lay a track around the spiraling museum rotunda, upon which they would periodically send down a shuttle that rang Tibetan Prayer Bells as it way its way to the bottom. It sounded nice, everyone would gather around to watch, filling the atrium with heads. I’ve recently been interested in Tibetan prayer, because it is passive, rather than active – the wind blows the prayer flags, the bells sound by movement, a prayer wheel is also spun by the wind, all activities which please the gods mechanically, without direct involvement from the one praying. This Guggenheim piece was extra interesting, because it was a mechanical device, an added extra level of artifice, even more east-west, with the addition of technology to passive prayer,

Unfortunately, the exhibition closes in the next few days, so you have to take my word on it.

Our favorite street artist, Poster Boy, was arrested last month.

If you don’t know who he is, Poster Boy is New York subway artist, who’s work appears seemingly at random in Metro stations all over the city. With a razor blade has his only tool, Poster Boy slices art out of all those awful ads that get in your face everyday on your way to work (for a quick introduction to him, take a look at the video below). We’ve mentioned subway vandalism and scratchitti a few times before, but Poster Boy is our favorite criminal/artist, and certainly the most known. He’s been written about in New York Magazine, the Guardian, and his arrest has been covered by the Times. Every time I take a train in this city, I covet a chance to see a new work in person, on the platform, where I’m forced to study the same oversized faces and beguiling slogans daily.

I learned of his arrest when I passed a box for the New York Press, a magazine I’d never seen before, and saw in red comicbook lettering, over a neon green background, the headline “Who is Poster Boy?” I grabbed the paper, the display copy since the box was empty, and opened to the article. Poster Boy, real(?) name Henry Matyjewicz, was arrested last month at a soho gallery, where they were displaying a new work he’d done with Aakash Nihalani (the guy who makes those tape-cubes on the sidewalk). It was a completely legal piece of art, but the show opening advertised a live appearance by the outlaw, and so some plainclothesman showed up and busted him (apparently he was nabbed because he was bragging to some girl that he was Poster Boy, when he probably should have kept his mouth shut; but can you blame him?).

There’s an interview with Henry Matyjewicz, not Poster Boy, in the paper. It’s pretty interesting. For possible legal reasons, but hopefully more artistic and ironic reasons, Matyjewicz separates himself from Poster Boy, referring to him as if it were a different person. He talks as if Poster Boy is more than a person, and instead a movement, that he, Matyjewiscz, sometimes agrees with, and sometimes doesn’t. He even says that sometimes he wishes he could be more like Poster Boy. It’s an interesting interview, not great, but still worth checking out. I’m not sure the writer’s intentions, and he sometimes makes Matyjewicz sound like an idiot, but you can find the article here.

As a final note, the piece Poster Boy was showing at the gallery the night we was arrested, the piece above the article, ironically features a cut-out from Medea Goes to Jail.

Check out his flickr page, too. Maybe you’ve seen his work before, and just not realized it.

(oh, and he’s not really our first guest. We were talking about trying to get him, but it’s hard to do an interview from jail.)