Amsterdam-based photographer and video artist Fiona Tan (born 1966) has been a central figure on the contemporary art scene since the 1990s. In her video News from the Near Future (2003) a collage of historic film and audio material tells of man’s ambivalent relationship with water as a force of nature. Drawing on the archives of the Amsterdam Film Museum, Tan composed a narrative crescendo starting off with idyllic impressions of the watery world and building to increasingly menacing scenarios of an unleashed nature. Images of floods and churning seas, of wild winds and storms, parade before our eyes the destructive force of water. Tragedies at sea are reported in the style of old newsreels or radio shows, segueing into pictures of flooded cities that – as indicated in the work’s title – forebode future catastrophes. The cinematic repertoire of waves, tides and floods acts as an historical memory, presenting the sea as a metaphor for the flow of time.
A small town is overrun by ankle-biting-blood-sucking DWARF Vampires. Things get complicated when the vertically-challenged coffin-creepers get their itty-bitty hands on a sword with the blood of the last slain Tall Vampire.
The human city of Zion defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo fights to end the war at another front while also opposing the rogue Agent Smith.
Fired from his band and hard up for cash, guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn finagles his way into a job as a fifth-grade substitute teacher at a private school, where he secretly begins teaching his straight-A students the finer points of rock 'n' roll and the power of sticking it to the man.
Exiled Lord Yukinaga is betrayed by a ninja clan he and his family mercilessly killed in cold blood. But when the Lord’s subordinate, a beautiful ninja Firefly, discovers the slain bodies, she uses the Sword of Deus to review Yukinaga – only to find the former Lord has become a demonic emissary of evil to avenge his death and betrayal! his evil minions pillage Firefly’s gorgeous ninja friends and kill her allies.
When wily pirate Captain Barbossa seizes Jack Sparrow’s beloved ship, the Black Pearl, and kidnaps the governor’s daughter, Elizabeth Swann, blacksmith Will Turner reluctantly teams up with the unpredictable pirate Jack to rescue her—only to uncover a terrifying curse that turns Barbossa’s crew into the undead.
A lowly pencil pusher working for MI7, Johnny English is suddenly promoted to super spy after Agent One is assassinated and every other agent is blown up at his funeral.
Comments
Have you watched News from the Near Future yet? What did you think about it?
