Author Archives: michael
Union Docs – #2
Moon & People Watching
Millie Watching Martha Watching Moon (2007, 18.7MB, 26 sec)
Millie in SUV Watching Martha and David Watching Moon (2007, 1.67MB, 10 sec)
Does exactly what it says on the package & poetry too.
See more from Millie & Martha.
A Panopticon in Burnley
A Panopticon in Burnley (2007, 20.9MB, 1:45 min)
Great short by Giles Perkins about a piece of public art by
Tonkin Liu situated on a hillside outside Burnley, UK.
I love Giles’s Super 8 work (folk might remember
his catalogue of British seaside bathing huts here last year, don’t
know whether we’ve re-posted it yet, but we will,
gentle viewer, we will) & there’s an added bonus in the sound
of those beautiful Lancashire vowels – ‘uor ouwses’ – on the soundtrack.
Delicious!
Ken Turner #9 – foot
foot of desire (2006, 8.16MB, 1:15 min)
Last movie in our Ken Turner season.
S’been great – love to show more in the future Ken!
Guy Maddin – Brand Upon The Brain
Brand Upon The Brain (Trailer) (2007, 3.47MB, 1:34 min)
Brand Upon The Brain (Foley) (2007, 4.92MB, 3:20 min)
Brand Upon The Brain, a new feature film by Guy Maddin, tours the US this summer accompanied with a live orchestrations by Ensemble Sospeso.
Maddin’s fantastically extravagant Super 8 films are always enchanting and the additional elements of live music, sound effects and narration by quirky celebs is sure to delight cinephiles of all ages. I was lucky enough to catch it in NYC last week with Crispin Glover as a very charming narrator, but the three Foley artists nearly stole the show. You can see them hard at work in their lab coats in the rehearsal video. Looks like it will have further distribution later this year with recorded soundtrack and narration by Isabella Rossellini.
Anarchy In The UK – Twittervlog
Anarchy In The UK (2007, 45.4MB, 4:44 min)
Anarchy In The UK has been a bit of a theme of late here on dvblog.
Now, from the indispensable Rupert Howe comes this breathtaking version.
Not only is it extremely funny, with an off the meter chutzpah quotient,
(witness the animal terror in the eyes of the guys on the tube towards the end)
but like a lot of Rupert’s work it’s a kind of contemporary London travelogue
(of the best sort: hard edged, eyes wide open truthful & hence beautiful) too.
Train Coming
The Smith Family/Train Coming/surreal.mov (2007, 1.12MB, 56 sec)
Edward Picot/traincoming.mov (2007, 31.9MB, 2:38 min)
The Smith Family/Train Coming/surreal2.mov (2007, 1.11MB, 57 sec)
I’m going to sign this one, because it’s marginally self-promoting
though not, I think, in a terrifically self-serving way.
I’m currently running a competition on my personal site to either perform, remix
do karaoke versions of, or do basically anything with, a short
(33 sec) song.
To date I haven’t exactly been inundated with entries, but
curiously three out of the current five are little movies &
great they are too.
Don’t think The Smith Family have a website (correct me if I’m
wrong folks) but Edward Picot can be found here & here.
Also – please feel free to have a go yourselves! -details from the competition link above.
–Michael
Union Docs – Three Whiteboard Pieces – #1
whiteboard #1 (2007, 21.2MB, 3:09 min)
Hmm..this might be controversial but it strikes me that Union Docs ,
an NYC based documentary arts collaborative are flirting with something
one might loosely call documentary formalism.
Well, I’m a sucker for formalism, the proviso of course
being it generates something I care about.
This does (although it seems to pushing the far boundary
of the ‘documentary’ category – I’d be interested in
UD’s thoughts about what constitutes this).
So, thinking going on…good! good!
Looks to be lots of other interesting stuff on their
site too.
Two more to come.
.
Random Acts & Inner Politics
Random Acts & Inner Politics (2006, 25.4MB, 1:57 min)
Nicely intense piece from Ryan Seslow.
Intense & urgent, which urgency gives it an interesting
forward momentum, a disregard for the nice finish & a
real punch.
There’s a visual confidence, almost a swagger, which I like
very much, too.
I’m not convinced all of Ryan’s work succeeds equally,
and I find some of the surrounding rhetoric a little
mystifying but it’s clear there’s something both
interesting & driven happening here.
Work to watch.