The trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron and also the How It Should Have Ended video for the trailer

I've enjoyed all the recent Marvel superhero movies, and it looks like I'll enjoy the next one:  

James Spader does the voice for Ultron.  His current tv show, The Blacklist, is one of the two shows I'm currently keeping up with (sort of - we're three to four weeks behind on both of them)(the other show is - Surprise!) - Agents of Shield).  

We all got a big kick out of the How It Should Have Ended video:


Tuurngait

From their website:

Tuurngait is a graduation short film directed by five students from the Supinfocom school in Arles, South of France. One year of work, 20 computers and more than 1 month of machines calculation were required to generate the approximately 17000 images of the movie. 

It's a beautiful video! (Watch it fullscreen!)

Tuurngait from Tuurngait Team on Vimeo.

[Hat tip to The Presurfer]


"Chammak Challo" - from the movie RA. One

RA. One is an Indian, science fiction, superhero movie.  What more could you want?  

Our Zumba teacher posted her playlist today so I've had lots of fun looking up the videos for the songs.  I love the video for Chammak Challo, a song I've enjoyed in Zumba classes for about two years, but hadn't known the name of.  

It's obvious from the end of the video that more is going on here so I went and looked the movie up on Wikipedia:

The film follows Shekhar Subramanium (Khan), a game designer who creates a motion sensor-based game in which the antagonist (Ra.One) is more powerful than the protagonist (G.One). The former escapes from the game's virtual world and enters the real world; his aim is to kill Lucifer, the game ID of Shekhar's son and the only player to have challenged Ra.One's power. Relentlessly pursued, the family is forced to bring out G.One from the virtual world to defeat Ra.One and protect them.

We've been wanting to watch a Bollywood movie for a while, and this goes with our recent superhero trend.*  It's now at the top of our Netflix list.  Here's the trailer:

 

 

*  We've only been watching movies with PG-13 violence in them with younger son for about the last year so we've been watching a lot of action movies.  We also watched the 1979 Superman because he hadn't seen it yet.  

Swing Dance (with a video)

Dear husband and I started taking East Coast Swing Dance lessons in September.  He'd never taken any dance before, and I'd never taken any partner dance.  I still have to occasionally work at not leading.  :)

With all of the new, unexpected, and challenging things at his new job, dear husband said that dancing isn't that daunting.  He's more focused on practicing during the week than I am.  For some reason, I keep forgetting.  

The major problem is that the class is from 8:30 to 9:30.  It's usually difficult to quiet down and get sleepy when you have a dance class that late.  

Tonight I'm not having that problem.  Here's a swing video that daughter posted to my Facebook wall:


"World Spins Madly On" - The Weepies

I don't usually post the same song twice in one year, but both videos are well animated and very different.  Last February 15, I posted Thought of You, a beautiful, animated, dance video set to the Weepies song, World Spins Madly On

Recently, daughter posted the official video for the song on my Facebook wall.  It's sweet:


"Bohemian Rhapsody" sung by the Porkka Playboys (Or "What would happen if the Musicians should be more?")

Since I've already posted the Muppet and Celtic versions of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, I was pleased to find this video of a Finnish group, the Porkka Playboys, singing the song (in English) in a VW Polo (circa 1980)(the VW, not the video):

I used Google Translate to try to read their website in English, but it was only of limited use.  It couldn't translate many of the words, and what did get translated doesn't always sound normal.  On the other hand, it might not just be fault of the translation!  Here's a taste from the translation of the Musicians page:

Grace in 2008, proper young gentleman and a musician first Kukkola Jonah went to the flea market driven by a higher power round. Kotvan pytinki touring and scrap boxes pengottuaan his eyes finally osuikin one of the most remote on the shelf nököttävä, poison green, musical little devils that contains an accordion, with whom she wobble like a trance.  Jonah, was completely impossible to resist these little creatures call viekkaiden screams, so immediately accordion oravannahkoihin exchanged Jonah astelikin the street and rang the hypnotized enchanted accordion solo, taking alms from the thrilled audience.  Tästäpä four FIM richer Jonah got a thought: "Hmm ... If you already have one accordion and one caller to the public so hullaantumaan what would happen if the Musicians should be more?" It took Jonah and wondering earned money wisely invested in soft drinks...*

It starts to seem rather existential... or maybe transcendental... after you read it for a while.  Here's the end of that page:

...Well, nothing! When all the four people still sing and the angels' languages, the band was noted to be finished.

Already the first session it was clear that such a common sound is heard in the streets kuunaan Finland - So olkaatten careful: if the ringer when ostosreissullanne Or, you can hear a beautiful song, close your ears, because if you do not do so, Porkka Playboys steal your heart.

 

 *  I had to take a break and read other blogs before finishing this post because I was starting to write in the style of the translation!

 [Hat tip to Geekosystem]


Hand dance to "We No Speak Americano" - Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding

Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding of Up And Over It do a hand dance to We No Speak Americano by Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP (Warning:  This song will get stuck in your head (but the hand dance is fun!)):

[We had a good time in Raleigh today - had lunch at Lily's Pizza, ice cream at Turkish Delights, and (between the four of us) got 63 books out of the Cameron Village Library.  We found out today that both college students have summer jobs so we're happy!!!]


The Selfish Giant - Oscar Wilde

SelfishGiant The Selfish Giant, by Oscar Wilde, is one of my favorite short stories.  It's a beautiful story, which always makes me teary at the end.  We watched the lovely animated version* this evening (this video is a bit blurrier than the version we have):

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Older son is still singing the songs from it. 

*  The movie was made in 1971, and it was nominated for an Academy Award for an animated short subject.