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.

Waking up in HANOI

The pleasure of a languid, early film scene set to diegetic pop music is hard to match, in my book. The Vietnamese film THE VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN features three such sequences, repeated in the same bedroom at morning to different songs.

In this scene, LOU REED's 1970's single CONEY ISLAND BABY sets the tone for filmmaker TRAN ANH HUNG's carefully orchestrated wake up scene.

NITE JEWEL is not an alien, or maybe

This is one of those lo-fi druggy vids that just stick in my mind. The syrupy groove to NITE JEWEL's dance track ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is irresistible. It's the kind of thing that, at first, you think it's a joke—until you realize that Ms. JEWEL is just from another planet.

The NITE JEWEL record is out now on ITALIANS DO IT BETTER.