Category: Online

Mad Heidi

Who knew that Swissploitation was a thing:

It’s all been there: Blaxploitation, Mexploitation, Sexploitation, Nunsploitation, Naziploitation. We think it’s about time for the first Swissploitation film!

Let’s take famous Swiss mountain girl Heidi, cheese and the beautiful alps and combine them with Nazi gold, chocolate and Fondue. Add a few gallons of blood and lots of fun. That’s MAD HEIDI!

Mad Heidi is a fan funded action-adventure-comedy-horror parody of the much-loved children’s storybook character Heidi. But Heidi has grown up and she’s no longer a sweet little kid.

In the near future the world is sinking into war and chaos, but Switzerland has sealed itself off as an island of the rich. A despotic cheese magnate is ruling the country with an iron fist to maintain an artificial postcard-image of Switzerland. When Heidi is abducted by brutal government troops, she must defend herself and fight her war against the cheese-fueled machinery of hate. They will soon realize they just fucked with the wrong Heidi!

I found out about this by way of Screen Anarchy, which notes that Iron Sky‘s Tero Kaukomaa will be among the producers.

And there’s a trailer

You can support the production of Mad Heidi by buying either Heidi Bonds or merchandise.

I must need another t-shirt by now.

The Hendersons are coming!

The Far Side trails ‘new online era’ for Gary Larson’s beloved cartoons

Fans of the surreal, the bizarre and sardonic anthropomorphic cows are in a fervour after The Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson’s website was updated this weekend with promises of “a new online era”, 24 years after the reclusive creator retired at the age of 44.

This was published at the start of last week, so I’m a bit late here, but no matter. The Far Side is coming back and, having been a huge fan of Gary Larson’s offbeat view of the world back in the day, I am really looking forward to seeing what comes next.

It’s not clear whether this will be new content or re-issues of existing cartoons. Obviously new cartoons would be much preferred but, as long as the new site has an RSS feed, I will be more than happy to start enjoying a digital dose of absurdist surrealism.

A song for Sunday: Papaoutai

Politco has recently published their first Politico 28, a list of the 28 Europeans (one for each EU member state) who have caught their attention this year and are worth watching next year. The Belgian entry is Stromae:

Belgians have good reasons to love Paul Van Haver. On top of the understandable “local boy makes good” pride, there is the way the Brussels-based pop star — better known as Stromae — personifies Belgium’s weird social and cultural mix: He offers something for everyone in a famously fractious country. He’s a French-speaker with a Flemish last name and half-Rwandan ethnic heritage. His music combines the latest electronic dance grooves with old-school, sad-song “chanson,” and addresses political and social issues with humor. His non-threatening, nerdy persona still seems cool and cutting-edge. Imagine Tintin throwing down rhymes while doing a Michael Jackson moonwalk, and you get an idea of Stromae’s appeal.

So here’s Papaoutai, a surprisingly powerful song about growing up without a father.

Sunday morning movie: Renegade!

Renegade has lost everything… all he has left is his Renegade underwear. Embarking on a quest to claim back what is rightfully his, he battles through dangerous lands to win back his wife from the evil Dr. Monocle.

Inspired by He-man, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, 80′s Action figures and the childish desire to run around in your underwear pretending to be a superhero…welcome to the universe of Renegade. The story of a man who loses everything – his wife… erm, his clothes! Michael Cavanaugh & Kevin Van Witt’s short blends B-movie stereotypes, American Pulp Comic imagery and a bucket load of influences into a 4-minute narrative of riotous action.

From Short of the Week via io9.

Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia I remember seeing Arachnophobia way back in the 1990s. In the cinema. And I really enjoyed it. What’s not to enjoy when killer spiders find their way to small-town America and start doing exactly what you expect killer spiders to do.

The film is a lot of fun for a spider invasion flick, due in no small part to the presence of John Goodman as the friendly neighbourhood pest exterminator.

I am grateful, therefore, to Alex Wild of Myrmecos for noting that the entire film can now be found on YouTube.

Here’s the trailer