If there is anything certain about screenwriter Eric Heisserer’s The Dionaea House: Correspondence from Mark Condry, initially written as a web pitch to a yet-unmade movie, it is that piercing horror best takes hold through evocative fragments, through investigating the silent dead ends and meticulously stirring a sense of authenticity.
The tale begins with emails from Eric’s adolescent friend Mark, who writes of receiving an unsolicited newspaper clipping naming one of their former friends as the culprit in a gruesome public murder of a married couple in Boise, Iowa.
The circumstances of the shooting are peculiar, and after Mark’s investigation into his friend’s murders leads to his ultimate disappearance, Eric posts all the emails on the web, “in hopes that you’ll better understand why he did what he did.”
Recommended by Rhys Dipshan | Thursday, November 12th, 2015 | No Comments » |
We’ve all used applications that try to recommend new books depending on what we’ve already read… but what if there was a website that also recommended movies and music… and what if that website did it as a drawn out map? Yup, you know I’m going to tell you there is one. And you know you’re going to love it.
Gnod, The Global Network of Discovery, is all about helping users discover cool new artists that fall within the same web of genre, style, and tone as other artists they’re already fond of. Pretty cool, right? The website takes a moment to generate a map, but once it’s completed loading, it actually groups similar artists together, meaning not only can you make one new discovery, but you can make a dozen.
Try it out for yourself. Either enter in a favorite music artist, film, or author and see what awaits you!
Recommended by Chelsey Grasso | Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 | No Comments » |
We’re eager to look for any excuse to be lazy procrastinators, and Beepo is an unapologetic enabler. Created by deviantArt user tschery, the mini flash game lets you create music by sending a little ball over the screen with the control of arrow keys. There’s no score to keep or goals to make–only to make music by flicking a ball around. No matter how you press the arrow keys, it’s impossible to create an awful song. Instead, what you have is a mindless time waster that lets you play around with oddly sad music. Why is this so addicting?
Recommended by The Absolute Staff | Friday, March 6th, 2015 | No Comments » |
This month is the anniversary of J Dilla’s iconic last album Donuts. Released three days before his death and largely recorded from a hospital bed, Donuts is a hip hop classic that cemented J Dilla’s place in music history. Throughout the years, homages have been released in J Dilla’s honor, whether it’s Flying Lotus remaking “Fall in Love” or Dave Chappelle thanking J Dilla at the end of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. But this recent homage pays tribute to J Dilla in the best way possible–and it involves lots of intergalactic donuts.
Created by Cartelle Interactive Studio, The Dilla Dimension is an interactive, psychedelic short film that takes place in space and is inspired by music from Donuts. The film tells the story of two donuts as they journey through the galaxy, but the film is less about stringing a cohesive narrative and more about cool, generative effects. When set to J Dilla’s music, the whole project takes on a resounding quality that must be experienced (with headphones!). To learn more about how this was made, check out their Extras page.
Recommended by Tiffany White | Monday, February 16th, 2015 | No Comments » |