Blocky Balboa [Temporary title until I think of something better. Honest]

These are great. Toy designer and animator Alex Leighton has fashioned a whole bunch of characters from wooden blocks and they're brill.

Look at the details - Goonie Chunk's Hawaiian shirt apparently 'hurt his brain' to paint. As you may expect, they're one-off art pieces so we can't all have them on our mantelpieces, but we can but hope that he produces them in quantity soon...

The Stuff of Today Looking Like the Stuff of Yesterday...Today!

Technologically, I like new stuff. I'm pleased I live in an age of on-tap stimulation and convenient bodily-organ replacement, and wouldn't ask to return to the days of using lard in your hair and wearing a suit to the beach.

But I don't usually like the way new stuff looks - all featureless and smooth as a dolphin's bum. I like objects to look like they were made by humans from stuff I'd recognise, like trees, metal and cows.

One answer is to reconfigure new stuff to look like old stuff. Such as thus:

Over at Steampunk Workshop the above thing of beauty has been created from a bog-standard, manky old PC keyboard. Click on the picture for a step-by step guide. Some day I'll get them to interior-decorate my house.

Or for Andrew Lehman's complete modification of a slightly retro (1988) Mac to look like Terry Gilliam's vision of Jules Verne's office, click this link here.

No Country for Eric and Ernie

Paul Stassino in No Country

Due to life's numerous swivels, bumps and u-turns, I only got to see No Country for Old Men for the first time yesterday. Damn shame, as I bloody enjoyed it, and it's the best non-animated movie I've received from my new-ish LoveFilm account.

Javier Bardem in That Riviera Touch

But I can't decide if I like it better than the original: That Riviera Touch starring old-time TV favourites and British national icons, Morecambe and Wise. The Cohen brothers remake sets the action in America rather than France, and Josh Brolin's character isn't a traffic warden like Eric and Ern, but otherwise, the story of Eric Morecambe finding a bag of money belonging to criminals and being pursued by both them and the police remain the same.

Next, the Cohens are planning a version of (eighties TV double act and erstwhile Christian evangelists) Cannon and Ball's The Boys in Blue, moving the action from the English countryside to Douglas County, Nebraska, and starring Benicio Del Toro and Viggo Mortenson.

The wait for a Star Wars / Winnie the Pooh crossover is finally over!

First post. Wookie the Chew: a clever portmanteau of Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh by uber-talented James Hance.

He lives here: http://www.jameshance.com/wookiee-the-chew.html