Shanghai 5 is a documentary by Charles Lanceplaine about the scene, people, skate culture, and chinese perception of skaters in Shanghai. It has a good amount of interviews that showed some insight into the difference in perception here vs. there – even how the one child policy influences parents view of skating. Education and professional success are higher priorities, and most parents disapprove and see skating as unproductive, even if it is just a hobby. On the bright side, the spots there look amazing.

via Hypebeast

Paths of Hate is coming out sometime this year and is action animation at its finest. I think there’s even some reference to old Macross-style space battles with the streaming and swirling contrails and tracers.

We are stoked that our concrete vases process got to be featured in the trailer for Crafting A Meaningful Home that Meg Mateo Ilasco put together a trailer with photog/videographer Thayer Gowdy. Check out the trailer and the other projects, and get your copy of the book at Amazon.

The Muppets Youtube Channel has some pretty funny shorts. Just in time for Thanksgiving is the Swedish Chef pumpkin carving:

And some sort of rabbit-eating monster thing. om nom nom nom:

By far and away the dumbest/lamest/shameless-est co-opting of skating by a brand that I have ever seen. Why does Hermes think that skateboarding and fingerboarding (seriously?) have anything to do with their company? Next thing you know, they’ll make an $1000 gold skate tool and a $2000 gold grip tape razorblade.

We’re not big running fanatics over here. In fact, I pretty much hate running. But the Nike Grid project takes data from people’s runs and makes an interesting game out of it. In London, neighborhoods are divided with phone booths. First, you setup a unique ID number. Second, you dial your ID as you pass through the phone booth waypoints. Third, Nike puts together interesting visualizations on the data collected, like the video up top.

I missed this one when it aired last night, but Banksy directed the opening couch gag for The Simpsons. It paints a grim picture of 20th Century Fox’s animation of the show (S.Korea) and merchandizing (China probably). Did Banksy do any research or is it a caricature? Probably a little of both, but mostly the latter. I mean, who would use cats to stuff dolls – the fur to non-fur ratio is so low. Fluffy bunny rabbits would have been a better choice.

I can’t wait for this year’s Treehouse of Horror.

via hypebeast

So you watched the video of free diving/base jumping into an underwater sinkhole. Now watch a clip (0-2:00) from Planet Earth: Caves for the real deal. The Cave of Swallows in Mexico is tall enough to house the Eiffel Tower and is a popular spot for insane people to jump into.

Wish I could go do this…

See more here.

If you ever wanted to know what a modern hong kong western would be, check out Exiled. It’s on netflix instant, so you have no excuse to be wowed by the cinematography.