Experimental indie staple Animal Collective premiered their new album ODDSAC at Sundance Festival this past summer. Yes – Sundance. It’s a visual album directed by Danny Perez. I saw it at a screening in Chicago a few weeks ago. I suggest you get your hands on it – especially if you liked that creepy-ass VHS from The Ring.

I’m not necessarily suggesting that this film is good, but rather just completely expected. Films of this caliber seem completely immune to genuine criticism. Instead, it’s more appropriate to simply say that this album/film was visually and audibly accurate. If it weren’t for the fact that Animal Collective wrote the film’s musical score, or what seems more like hyperbolic folly with traces of music, I wouldn’t even mention the sound at all.

With a film this experimental and visual, this audio track seemed to be par for the course. You know what I mean – when people walk through the forest, the noise that their feet make as they walk over dry leaves sounds much more like the sound of someone crushing elephant bones, not someone walking through a forest of dry leaves. Conveniently, Animal Collective’s music already sounds a little like someone crushing elephant bones.

Having said that, no matter how atrocious the music or film was or could have been, it’s refreshing – and hopefully an indication of what lies ahead for the music industry. As years go by, I find myself continually bitching about how the future that I had anticipated never seems to actually be happening. However, as I was sitting in the Chicago screening of ODDSAC, I was reminded that flying cars aren’t the only sign of the world slowly becoming a Philip K. Dick novel.

Animal Collective and Danny Perez took liberties with an increasingly tired industry (music albums), and made a beautiful project that should be appreciated as true art. I’m looking forward to more of these “visual albums” (specifically if Atom and His Package starts making music again).

Tim and Eric are my favorite. This is a purposefully broad sentence because it’s a blanket term for a large grouping of lists that Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are at the top of in my world of preference. They’re my favorite comedians who use a green screen in everything they do. They’re my favorite adults who often times pretend they’re children for comedy’s sake. They’re my favorite candidates for the next California governor’s race. They’re my favorite talent scouts, having found people like James Quall and Richard Dunn. They’d probably be my favorite relief pitchers for the Cleveland Indians. They’d probably be my favorite members of a 14 piece big band. They’re my favorite at virtually everything they do.

NOW, they’re very close to edging out Tom Kuntz (my current favorite) in the “favorite commercial director” list. Of course their premier foray in corporate soul selling comes by the hands of Old Spice, who not only sponsor some of Tom Kuntz’s greatest commercial work, but also come in a close second to Sonic as having the best commercials in the world. Here are Tim and Eric’s Awesome new commercials for Old Spice. It looks like “attractive black man without a shirt, with large muscles, and a towel around his waste” could be becoming a recurring fixture in the advertising world. I sure hope this is the case, for the sole fact that that sentence would read hilariously in a college marketing textbook.

The advertising world totally bit it during the recession. For a while, just like in any profession, thousands of people were getting fired and slapped around by the giant state football championship ring bearing hand of “the man”. When people were getting laid off in the ad world though, that meant that some of the more (debatably) creative and interesting people in the world were out of work.

If interesting people are sitting around with nothing to do but watch reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore Show and draw, their brains are going to expand with ideas until eventually they burst. In which case, the brain debris becomes documentaries, creative charities, and fine art. If you ask me, industry creatives should be replaced with scabs every 2-3 years to keep the DIY market fresh.

From one of these excessively creative brains came a new documentary/movement called Lemonade. It’s about exactly what I just described – creative people getting laid off because Goldman Sachs is irresponsible, THEN finding a way to do something cooler than they did before. Thus – taking lemons, and turning them into Lemonade. Good wordplay, director of the film. Maybe if copywriters would be fired more often, we’d have a steady flow of well-named documentaries.  Think about it.

Learn more about the movie by going to http://www.lemonademovie.com/.

This post can also be found at http://curated.culturejam.com

Prezi - Powerpoint killer? *fingers crossed*

For the sake of keeping things relevant, this post is about a presentation website that will make all of your future employers think that you are much more impressive than you will ever deserve. This website/software is called Prezi and uses a type of flash-esque [It's called Javascript, Ben -Ed.] technology to make your business proposals way more creative and ornate than they actually are. If you go to Prezi’s website, you’ll see why it’s so effective. I call it the Michel Gondry effect, where you stare at something seemingly simple, tilt your head, and think “how does that even happen?” It’s awesome.

Okay. Now that that’s established, the REAL reason why I am commenting on this wildly convenient website is because on the homepage of Prezi there is a man who gives a short video presentation of Prezi’s capabilities. Watch it and share my embarrassment for the poor man. As interns, people are going to ask you to do things that you don’t want to do. Sometimes it’s walking in the cold to the FedEx on 5th avenue. Sometimes it’s going to be going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and getting a quote on doorknobs for the female bathroom.

It should never be humiliating yourself over the internet [I beg to differ -Ed.]. If you can’t read a teleprompter and you don’t know how a green screen works, let your boss know. If they are at all the kind of group of people who you want to eventually work for, they’ll understand.

Don’t make the same mistake that the Prezi man-boy made. Or DO make the same mistake that the Prezi man-boy made, and let us know about it so that I can write about it. Being an intern should be a learning experience. If you can make your mistakes public so that the rest of us can learn from it, we’re all better off. Thanks for the martyrdom Prezi.

Enjoy a Prezi demo from a 9-year-old cos why not?