Your favorite horse

This music video for BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY's remake of his own NO MORE WORKHORSE BLUES was done by HARMONY KORINE in 2004. KORINE is the master of the oddly affecting, whacked out image.

Here, he uses a cast of two shot with bright, sunny video tones, and chops it up using a two-frame stutter effect that is not unlike the 3-D simulacra-style used by video artist KEN JACOBS. The last shot sees a cameo by WILL OLDHAM, the artist himself.

The Perfect Human

This 1967 short film from Danish filmmaker JØRGEN LETH was the subject of LARS VON TRIER's provocation THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS, in which LETH was challenged to remake the film five times, each with new "obstructions" set by VON TRIER.

On its own, the film is certainly a singular production, merging documentary style with Structuralism, cast in a New Wave sense of off-handed poetry. For contemporary film fans who have seen the VON TRIER film, THE PERFECT HUMAN never appears in full in that movie, so it's a real pleasure to watch the original, without the weight of any further challenges.

What happens in Vegas...

One of the most delightful film experiences I had last year was catching the work of OLIVO BARBIERI, both at film festivals and galleries. His photography from the SITE SPECIFIC_NEW YORK 07 series was on view here in NYC, but my first encounter with his unique shooting style was this film, SITE SPECIFIC_LAS VEGAS 05.

The beguiling yet simple technique used by BARBIERI involves a tilt-shift lens, throwing what looks like a narrow depth of focus on far-away scenes of cityscapes. First-time viewers, myself included, have a hard time deciding if the scenes are real, or models. But all of BARBIERI's toylike depictions are shot from a helicopter, using a slightly more advanced tilt-shift technique which he won't fully disclose. The result is a chance see well-known landscapes from an unusual perspective.

Township Funk

This incredible and gloriously timeless-looking clip from South Africa is actually the flagship single from the Kwaito scene's heavyweight DJ MUJAVA. The word on the street is that WARP RECORDS found this clip on YouTube and is now putting TOWNSHIP FUNK out as a single.

I love the energy and the fluid endless melody in this record, and amazingly it mixes quite well with today's NYC electro scene (I heard it in a club just last night).

Last kiss

MARTIN ARNOLD is one of the bigger names is contemporary art cinema. His approach is intensely formalist, in the structuralist tradition. This is a short segment from his 1998 film ALONE. LIFE WASTES ANDY HARDY, which re-edits footage from the ANDY HARDY film series orginally made between 1937 and 1958.

The stutter-jerk technique developed by ARNOLD is a doorway toward exploring classic Hollywood cinema, in order to reveal, in ARNOLD's words, "something behind that which is being represented, which was not represented."

Raise your hands up to the sky

When I think of dancing on film, a longtime favorite music video has been NICK CAVE AND THE BADSEEDS' unholy dance party with FIFTEEN FEET OF PURE WHITE SNOW. The unsettling and darkly comic cinematography is reminiscent of DAVID LYNCH, but the attitude is pure CAVE.

When I saw his punkier outfit GRINDERMAN perform in Chicago last year, the electric antics of NICK CAVE's lanky frame served by the mid- to upbeat music were the highlight of his performance. Here, we are also treated to a cameo appearance from JARVIS COCKER of PULP.