The Wayward Cloud

The Taiwanese filmmaker TSAI MING-LIANG's 2006 film THE WAYWARD CLOUD didn't get much U.S. distribution, perhaps because American audiences are not ready for an off-the-wall, porn-u-topia, song-and-dance art film...

NYC's Museum of Modern Art plays the film this week.

"My Purple Past" by Deerhoof

Made by ASHA SCHECHTER, this music video for art rock faves DEERHOOF is an investigation into the different methods of home listening. One of the more successful fusions of rock video and structualist cinema.

Sound is architecture is cinema.

Outer Space

One of the most dedicated film deconstructionist working today, PETER TCHERKASSKY's 1999 film OUTER SPACE truly shows the outer limits of the world of motion pictures. Part cut-up, structuralist cinema, and filmic fantasy, the work of TCHERKASSKY instills a new kind of drama into previously traditional footage.

Who I Am and What I Want

Have I ever told you my life story?

(From David Shrigley)

The Discipline of D.E.

Early short film by GUS VAN SANT, based on the WILLIAM BURROUGHS short story of the same name. From 1978.

Sometimes by MIKE MILLS

Music video by MIKE MILLS for the 1999 song SOMETIMES by LES RYTHMES DIGITALES.

The Lost Tribes of New York City

Directed by CAROLYN and ANDY LONDON

BARR: First song

Artist BRENDEN FOWLER'S spoken word project BARR performed last night at the New Museum, NYC, where he also has work in the YOUNGER THAN JESUS generational exhibit up now.

This video was made by DAVID HORVITZ.

Alex Bag, first tape

Video artist ALEX BAG got her start producing videos for public access television. After getting kicked off the airwaves (twice), she found her distribution home among the art galleries, where she's been making her living lampooning the very world that accepts her.

Her first tape, and only one available for viewing, is from 1995, and includes BAG's signature one-woman performances, incuding the evolution of an SVA student. It's worth watching all the way through. I especially love the "Seudehead" segment.

Concerning distribution and exhibition, it's my belief that BAG's anarchist art world vision is being subsumed by the art world itself. ALEX: Break free and distribute your own work, either online or by DVD. You have an audience waiting for you when you do.

Gremlins vs the Avant-Garde

When I first saw GREMLINS 2 at a movie theater as a kid, it included this now famous scene involving HULK HOGAN. In a bold, self-described "anarchist," move, filmmaker JOE DANTE included a scene in which it appears the film is broken (by Gremlins in our projection booth!), and the HULK has to convince them to start it again:



When the movie was put out on home video, the filmmakers decided to put together a scene in which it appeared that gremlins had taken over the video feed, and, um, started flipping channels, I guess:



Of course, GREMLINS 2 wasn't the first film to "break the fourth wall," but certainly it is one of the most high profile.
Cheers to anarchy in Hollywood!

The Crying Game

Take Time

One of the prevailing features in the music of avant-garde pop-collagists THE BOOKS is laughter. The sense of wonder and play might be one of the reasons they're not taken seriously, in a form that applauds grim seriousness and esoterica.

The proof to the importance to THE BOOKS, I believe, lies in their self-produced music videos. Since the band had always used audio samples in their music from found video clips, it made sense to source a lot of that audio back to its original video for visual accompaniment when playing live. When I saw the band play live along with this clip, I was completely floored. THE BOOKS manage to take on all of experimental video, found footage, and collage art, and come out on top with one of the most strange, uplifting, and joyful pieces of cinema I've ever seen.

TAKE TIME is certainly one of my favorite little movies ever. This, and more by THE BOOKS are collected on the PLAY ALL DVD.

Battle In Heaven

Trailer for the CARLOS REYGADAS film BATTLE IN HEAVEN, 2004.

Oh, Calypso

A scene from Taiwanese director TSAI MING-LIANG' s 1998 film THE HOLE. Throughout this poetic urban fairytale, the characters re-enact musical numbers from legendary Chinese actress GRACE CHANGE. The original, below:

All My Life by Bruce Baillie

Part of the original wave of New American Cinema in the 60's, BRUCE BAILLIE's work was beautiful in it's simplicity and poeticism, always arriving at a deeply personal awareness of the image.

ALL MY LIFE, made in 1966 on 16mm film, is famously the all-time favorite film of my all-time favorite teacher of film.

...then let's make a vow

The opening scene of MIRANDA JULY's debut feature film YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is the perfect bridge from her open-hearted, yet noisy video art into the more narrative-concerned world of cinema pursued here on in.

JULY's vision of life and art as a personal act of radical theatricallity and her rejection of an abstracted love, unfortunately, is still a point of contention for a lot of artists and filmgoers. Her dedication no less hindered, the trouble with the work of MIRANDA JULY is certainly not in its absence of unveiled beauty. Rather, we should rejoice in art so willfully transparent.

KEECHIE by No Age

Ever since I saw ANDY BRUNTEL's music video for BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY's CURSED SLEEP, I have been paying attention to his every move. Unlike most promos made by bands and labels, BRUNTEL approaches the music video as a distinct art form, somewhere between a short film, and experimental video. He brings his surrealist visions to the small screen with impeccable set design and cinematography, and with an incredible consistency among various projects.

This clip, of one of the noisier tracks from your little brother's favorite band NO AGE, is a good argument for the re-consideration of the possibilities of the music video among artists.

The Limits of Control

Featuring music by Japanese metal band BORIS, the new film by JIM JARMUSCH is a wonder of texture and variations on a filmic theme. While the "momentary" camera-work by CHRISTOPHER DOYLE is a delight, the soundtrack (that's including the pure music of the dialogue), is one of the richest in recent memory.

Punk rock

Audio of MOGWAI's "PUNK ROCK," the lead track on the album COME ON DIE YOUNG, synched up with the video footage of IGGY POP interviewed by PETER GZOWSKI sampled in the song.

"Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?"

The Last Days of the Guitar

The previous clip from ROY ANDERSSON reminds me of the beauty of the live, improvised guitar filling a scene in long-take cinema.

In the GUS VAN SANT film LAST DAYS, the KURT COBAIN stand-in played by MICHAEL PITT draws out a scene while looping takes on guitar, vocals, and drums. In both of these instances, the amplified sound becomes another aspect of the stunning architecture of the scene.

You, the Living

For reasons unknown, ROY ANDERSSON remains Sweden's best kept filmmaking secret. His newest film is still yet to be distributed to the U.S., and we are left watching clips like this on the internet.

I can't think of another filmmaker who has developed such a huge and original style, while dedicating his work to the absurd, joyous ends of people as a whole. His films are strange, unsettling, and a huge delight, which is needlessly a rare combination of elements.

Muppets take "Manhattan"

The combining of film dialogue with scenes of animation/puppetry has now become something of a YouTube phenomenon. What once took hours of work with analog video, is now relatively easy with the right software. The true mark of a good bootleg edit, of course, is the confluence of image and sound, and—usually more important—technique.

The Muppets are ideal for this type of re-editing. The ambiguity of the mouth movements create a believability of just about anything that can be said—moreso than cartoons.

There is just so much to love about this bootleg.

Apocalypse Pooh

A recent edition of Canadian film Journal CINEACTION included a piece about an early bootleg video called APOCALYPSE POOH. Though it could be considered a "mashup," the work pre-dates the internet-era. It was circulated on bootlegged VHS tapes, along with other early examples of copyright-violating underground cinema that became possible once video was consumer level.

It has now surfaced on YouTube. As far as I know, the artist is still unidentified.

Migrating Forms 2009

The new incarnation of what was once the NEW YORK UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL is now known as MIGRATING FORMS. The weekend festival takes place this weekend, and in the tradition of the NYUFF, there is a commissioned trailer for the event by one of the artists.

MICHAEL ROBINSON is one of the most heralded young video artists working today, and this clip is one of the rare views of his work available on the web.

Parabolas, etc.

The WNYC program RADIO LAB has consistently been one of the most forward-thinking audio productions, and this foray into filmmaking continues that tradition. Directed by WILL HOFFMAN, this piece recalls the science-inflected films of CHARLES AND RAY EAMES. And the music, from TIM HECKER's underrated RADIO AMOR album, is another example of the program's undisputed curatorial instinct.

The Other Side of Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth, 1992, forever.

The excellent UK-based BOOMKAT recently presented an editorial about SONIC YOUTH on their mixtape-via-record shop recommendation web project called 14 TRACKS, in which they gave a hearty shout out to this early nineties JULES HOLLAND appearance.

Zen for video

Artist CORY ARCANGEL came to prominence with his piece SUPER MARIO CLOUDS, which hacked the original NINTENDO game to remove all game elements save the randomized clouds moving against a plain sky-blue background.

I think I might prefer its companion piece F1 RACER, which removed the cars and the twists and turns from the orignal car race game. (This is apparently the sequel, F2.)

A recent, similarly minded piece, simply called BLUE TUBE, works only when embedded off-site. Behold:

Stay the Same Never Change

Video artist LAUREL NAKADATE developed this feature-length project from short video pieces she was writing. At the New York premier, as part of the NEW DIRECTORS NEW FILMS series, she described that the film really came together after she began collaborating with OWEN ASHWORTH, of the one-man band CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE, who provides the soundtrack.

Both artists concern themselves with teen drama of the realist kind, but Ms. NAKADATE's work has been considerably more transgressive. See more about her artwork below:

Epilepsy is Dancing

This is what happens if an epileptic walks near the WACHOWSKI BROS's warehouse...

The press release accompanying this music video for ANTONY AND THE JOHNSON's current single asks you to "enjoy the fruits" of this "San Francisco art party."

M83 remixes something...

The teen drama-obsessed, (graciously) self-serious French electronica band M83 remixes the song SET IN STONE by electro newcomer FIRES OF ROME, thus highlighting all that is tense and necessary about the song, while leaving the rest behind. (The chorus is ditched in favor of the surreal turns of the verses, now completely out of hiding, and the overstuffed distorted electronic backing is replaced with a minimal piano and strings score.

The dramatic alteration to the song arrives via a "remixed" music video, the entire package of which being appealingly WTF-friendly.

I'm Mister Lonely

HARMONY KORINE may have made one of the most delightful, oddly moving, and refreshingly unique films in contemporary cinema with MISTER LONELY. This is the opening sequence of that film, a celebration of the poetry of slow motion. Here's hoping KORINE continues to develop his peerless style of filmmaking.

Call it a zeitgeist

Now it's KANYE WEST's turn to use the DVD-codec-destroying effects pioneered by video artist TAKESHI MURATA. Due respect given to WEST for what looks like the most vivid and meaningful use of the style, as well as using his star power to highlight new forms of underground art, shortening the link from Chelsea art galleries to MTV.

Brooklyn band cops Takeshi Murata

Brooklyn based CHAIRLIFT employ the trippy digi-fail effects used by video artist TAKESHI MURATA in their new video for the song EVIDENT UTENSIL. It works.

Click the corner menu to see in HD. (Not sure why YouTube doesn't allow embeds to automatically appear as HD.)

Kids Run Wild

Among the current crop of new hipster synth bands, THE PRESETS stand out for their attention to sonic details and a serious gothic streak. This new music video for the song IF I KNOW YOU shows what happens if kids run wild on the streets of L.A. with dancing on their minds.

The results are much sweeter than what could happen in France, if you remember JUSTICE's infamous STRESS clip:

Takeshi Murata

The video work of TAKESHI MURATA is striking in its totality of vision. Starting with a wave of early animation-inspired cartoon loops, his work has lately begun focusing on a certain kind of digital abstraction that DVD-encoding affords.

The above bootleg clip is unfortunately low quality, but gives a good example of MURATA's fluid, pyschedelic output. Come see the real thing next Tuesday night, Feb. 17, at Electronic Arts Intermix, where MURATA will also be present to discuss his work. Admission is free.

METAL G-DS

Baltimore filmmaker MATTHEW PORTERFIELD is now seeking funding for his second feature film, to be titled METAL GODS. A strict independent, PORTERFIELD's muted yet passionate film style unfortunately isn't one to attract studio attention, but his methodology perhaps provides a framework for the kind of filmmaking that can only be made without studio backing (independent or otherwise).

His first film, HAMILTON, trailer above, was a triumph of minimalist poetic narrative, the kind of success rarely seen, even in the broad spectrum of American Indies.