The Latest from Boing Boing

Four Lions: This is Spinal Tap for suicide bombers
Prizewinning pirate shed
Widgey Q Butterfluff: gross-out lampoon of saccharine 1980s Saturday morning cartoons
Ceramic replicas of Disneyland's iconic popcorn box and paper cup
Copyright scholars talk Copyright Termination
Space-saving murphy furniture designed by a mechanical engineer
Extension cord lamp kit
Econopocalypse: the Marxist animated whiteboard explanation
Whatever it costs, it's worth it! Independence Day poster, 1942
Paleo-ad predates product names
Battle of the stilted copyright metaphors
Disneyland Indiana Jones ride recreated as Left 4 Dead level
Roast Chestburster and other science fiction delights
Fireworks animation by Pes

Four Lions: This is Spinal Tap for suicide bombers

Posted: 05 Jul 2010 02:57 AM PDT

Parenthood has seriously put a crimp in our moviegoing activities, but every now and again Alice and I get to go see something, and we always try to pick a good one. We scored big on Saturday night, with Chris Morris's Four Lions, a farce about British "homegrown terrorists" that had us squirming and laughing in equal measure.

Morris is legendary in the UK for his fearless send-ups of media scare-stories. Programs like Brass Eye (a TV series that hoaxed politicians and pop stars into condemning imaginary drugs, skewered pedophilia panic, and so forth) made his reputation as a prankster and searing critic of idiotic, media-fuelled popular delusions.

Homegrown terrorism is a perfect subject for Morris's scalpel and sledgehammer: here in the UK, "homegrown terrorism" has been the basis for laws prohibiting looking at certain website, laws allowing for secret spying, laws allowing for groundless stop-and-searches, laws suspending habeas corpus, and advertising campaigns encouraging Britons to go through each others' rubbish bins looking for evidence of bomb-making equipment.

But in Morris's Four Lions (as in real life), homegrown jihadism is real and alive -- and hopeless (also largely true to real life, where most of these nefarious supercriminals succeed primarily in killing themselves). Five suicide bombers conspire to blow themselves up to strike a blow for radical Islam against corrupt British society. Two travel to Pakistan for terrorist training (they don't fare very well -- unsurprising given that one of them is convinced that heaven is like the Rubber Dingy Rapids ride at the Alton Towers coaster park); in their absence, Barry, the white convert and super-radical, makes an even bigger hash of their domestic operation.

A recurring theme is the jihadis' attempt to make their martyrdom videos, presented as a series of bloopers as they repeatedly attempt to articulate their mission and its justification (one of the terrorists, Faisal, appears with a cardboard box over his head because his confused father has told him that having an image made of his is haram).

On the other side of the war on terror, the bulbs are no brighter. The crack anti-terrorism squads and stern government ministers match the jihadis for idiocy, incompetence, and incoherent ideology.

But it's not all broad caricature; by showing us the story from the bombers' perspective, Morris gets well into our discomfort zone (especially with the tender family scenes with Omar, the protagonist, whose loving wife and son are entirely supportive of his plan to kill himself). Picture Spinal Tap for suicide bombers and you'll get the picture.

Four Lions was the sort of movie that had us alternately laughing and covering our eyes, and we spent the whole weekend talking about it.

Four Lions

Prizewinning pirate shed

Posted: 05 Jul 2010 02:20 AM PDT

Uncle Wilco from Reader Shed sez, "A sheddie from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, has won Shed of the Year 2010. Reg Miller's pirate-themed shed, 'The Lady Sarah out of Worthing' named after his partner, and comes complete with a Koi Carp pond and even a parrot! Reg said 'I've spent years working on my shed and to win Shed of the Year 2010 is a real thrill -- it's the ultimate accolade for shed owners! It's still a work in progress, as I'm constantly adding to my collection of pirate memorabilia and props and the shed is slowly but surely taking over the whole garden." And the winner of Shed of the Year 2010 sponsored by Cuprinol Sprayable is... (Thanks, Uncle Wilco!)

Widgey Q Butterfluff: gross-out lampoon of saccharine 1980s Saturday morning cartoons

Posted: 05 Jul 2010 02:16 AM PDT

Stef Cherrywell's Widgey Q. Butterfluff is a fun, slightly raunchy gross-out comic lampooning 1980s-era cutesy Saturday morning cartoons/toy adverts like Strawberry Shortcake, Teddy Ruxpin, The Smurfs and Care Bears. Widgey Q Butterfluff, the series' heroine, is a fat, sweet pixie so filled with syrupy good wishes and treacly sentiment that she is practically a walking advertisement for insulin. She lives in idyllic Snugglepump valley, where she and her cutesy friends have adventures that are, on the one hand, pitch-perfect sendups of the 80s cartoon genre, and, on the other hand, Mad-Magazine-grade gross-outs, filled with drug and sex references and highly entertaining self-reflexive humor.

The black-and-white Slave Labor Graphics collection is great, lightweight entertainment -- check out this excerpt for yourself.

Widgey Q. Butterfluff

Ceramic replicas of Disneyland's iconic popcorn box and paper cup

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 11:19 PM PDT

Designers Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily have been commissioned to produce these ceramic replicas of Disneyland's classic, iconic paper cup and popcorn box for the 55th anniversary of Disneyland's opening, coming up this July 17 (which is also my birthday!). The edition is limited to 1955. There's no chance I'll be able to get to LA for this, so I guess I'm buying mine on eBay.

Ceramic Disneyland Classic "Paper Cup"

Ceramic Disneyland Classic Popcorn Box

(Thanks, Mr Jalopy!)

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 10:04 PM PDT

Dwiff sez, "Three copyright scholars - including David Nimmer [ed: legendary copyright expert] - discuss copyright termination and the pivotal role played in case law by Superman, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Lassie and Winnie-the-Pooh. Starts slow, but well worth the listen."

Copyright law has long recognized in authors an unwaivable right to terminate certain contracts and licensing agreements. A handful of high-profile cases have already called substantial attention to this termination provision, with disputes touching such iconic characters as Superman, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Lassie, and Winnie the Pooh. In this edition of the IP Colloquium, copyright guru David Nimmer joins UC Berkeley Professor Peter Menell and UCLA Professor Doug Lichtman in an informal conversation about the termination right, its controversies, and the implications for modern copyright practice.

Intellectual Property Colloquium - Copyright Termination (Thanks, Dwiff!)

Jack Kirby estate will wrest copyrights back from Disney-Marvel ...

Space-saving murphy furniture designed by a mechanical engineer

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 09:58 PM PDT

Having lived my whole adult life in small, crowded spaces, I'm extremely excited to see these exceedingly well-designed space-saving tables, desks, shelves and beds, which, for a change, don't require you to move everything out of the way before using them, or require a heroic act of Greco-Roman wrestling to make them work.

Amazing Italian Designed Space Saving Furniture (via Making Light)

Extension cord lamp kit

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 10:40 PM PDT

Here's Craighton Berman's DIY Extension Cord Lamp Kit from the Makers Market: coil an extension cord around the laser-cut acrylic frame and presto, instant lamp!

Coiled extension cord lamp kit

Econopocalypse: the Marxist animated whiteboard explanation

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 12:44 PM PDT

Marxist sociologist David Harvey gave a great presentation analyzing the econopocalypse in Marxist terms at London's Royal Society for the Arts. The talk is animated with high-speed whiteboard doodles from Cognitive Media, a treatment that is really a top notch of augmenting complex lectures (I was so impressed with it, in fact, that I just stumped up for another year's membership at the RSA).

Communism and the financial crisis, cartoon edition (via Making Light)

Whatever it costs, it's worth it! Independence Day poster, 1942

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 11:00 AM PDT

From the The U.S. National Archives' photostream: Independence Day July 4th "Victory." Created by the US Office for Emergency Management, for the War Production Board.

Paleo-ad predates product names

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 10:16 AM PDT

This ad for zit remedy "Antiphlogistine" from 1943 appears to predate the idea of product names.

Battle of the stilted copyright metaphors

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 10:03 AM PDT

Thought of the day, courtesy of @Mark_S_J: "If copyright infringement is theft, photographing someone is kidnapping?"

Disneyland Indiana Jones ride recreated as Left 4 Dead level

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 09:58 AM PDT

Jeremy sez, "This fan/game modder faithfully recreated the Indiana Jones: Temple of the Forbidden Eye ride at Disneyland as part of a map pack for Left 4 Dead, a great zombie-slaying coop game from Valve. It's amazing how long and well-engineered to lessen boredom the line area is for the ride--something I didn't notice in the park itself, but which stands out when watching the video."

Yeah, that queue is not only entertaining, but it also takes you outside of the park, under the railroad berm and into the anonymous "go-away green" box in the parking lot where the ride is actually situated, along with many other later rides built after the park ran out of space (Haunted Mansion, Pirates, etc).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Zombies freeride (Thanks, Jeremiah!)

Roast Chestburster and other science fiction delights

Posted: 04 Jul 2010 09:55 AM PDT

This roast Chestburster (from Alien) was the piece de resistance in a science-fiction-themed birthday dinner that also included Blue Sun Firefly food, Klingon Gagh, Aunt Beru's blue milk from Star Wars, Dune Spice beer and Spice sticks, Slurm and Bachelor Chow from Futurama, Elvish bread wrapped in Mallorn leaves. The Chestburster is a modded pork tenderloin.

Sci-Fi dinner party (via Super Punch)