Viewing Log #67: With a bang bang [12/27/10 - 1/2/11]

by Ryland Walker Knight

— in the middle of the bed

• Déjà Vu [Tony Scott, 2006] # This time, I kept thinking about how lazy my initial reaction was, back in Seattle, in 2006, when I thought the film not only crass but offensive. Shows how easy it is to not pay attention to stuff outside story. Shows how much I grew going back to school. Because there are some truly beautiful moments/visions in this film. My favorites are confined to that little room, for the most part, with all the overlays and interactions across that surveillance window screen, but the semi careening at the camera is great and who can forget: yet another Tony Scott movie ending on a freeze frame.
  
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind [Steven Spielberg, 1977] # One of the odder Hollywood hits, for sure, that's pretty much all exposition and build up for its entirety. Dreyfus going nuts throwing the yard into the kitchen sink is the only concrete action/scene not spent dancing about, waiting for a concept to emerge. If anything, it's one of the better (more beautiful-looking) arguments about the allure of the concept. There's also a lot of goofball jokes that Steve is always trying really hard to get away with, and always only hitting about half the mark.
  
  
• square shot [Daniel Kasman, 2010] Very conceptual, but also very cool. You can watch it below, if you haven't already (or if you have), and you can read more contextualizing from Danny in the Notebook. I think it's pretty unique but Kevin had a few nice compliments about influences in the comments that are quite clearly a part of the make-up. In any event, as I dropped in there, can't wait for more DKaz words put into images in 20!!.
  
  
• Father of My Children [Mia Hansen-Løve, 2009] # One of the more wonderful films from last year, full of life amidst all those goodbyes. A great way to say goodbye, in fact, to a lot of things. And hello to others.

— expect more like this (and like this)

Wolf Like Me

by Steven Boone

Hippy dippy Woodstock director Michael Wadleigh made only one narrative feature film, the majestically weird horror fable Wolfen. Having not seen it since Late Late Show screenings in the 1980's, I remembered Wolfen, faintly, as that other, lesser, wolf flick of 1981.

Not until screening it recently with a horror afficionado pal did I come to understand it as a reeling peyote vision of New York City's Third World future, the one I'm staggering through presently. Damn. This video is my parting shot as I prepare to join a sad, strange exodus from the city that used to feel like home.

Originally posted at BIG MEDIA VANDALISM

MOONWALK: THE ADAPTATION

by Steven Boone

It all comes down to what you believe, because none of us knew the man.

I believe Michael Jackson was a good guy. I believe he never harmed anyone's child. I believe he was one of those rare people who tried to apply his otherworldly talent to healing some of the basic, eternal problems of humanity. I believe he was a great man of strong constitution and boundless vision. I believe that the incessant lies told about him were his indirect murderer.

Moonwalk is the autobiography he wrote in 1988.

I believe David Lynch is the filmmaker who should make the inevitable Moonwalk movie. Lynch's capacity for empathy; his ability to describe alienation, suffering and loneliness in spiritual, visual terms; his American ear; his understanding of corporate show business as a place where dreams are nourished with candied arsenic... make Lynch the best equipped among marquee-value auteurs to say something vital about Michael's life and death.

Here are some notes and sketches for the Lynch adaptation:

Originally posted at BIG MEDIA VANDALISM

More Vimeo switching for your visual sweet tooth.

by Ryland Walker Knight (for Steven Boone)

After I learned that my imeem videos were gone, I alerted my boy Steve about it and he said, "Sure, sure, I'll switch when I have the time." Well, time has come. By popular demand, his inaugural Low Budget Eye Candy video on George Lucas' debut feature THX-1138 is now available above and on vimeo proper, where, Steve assures me, more are in the pipeline. And they sound amazing. Hopefully I'll be joining him soon with some moving image essays (as noted here, as hosted here). For now, though, eat your heart out, Lamar Odom.

HUNGER vs the infotainment telesector

by Steven Boone + Ryland Walker Knight

[A note: Some of you out there may already be hip to this video through its appearance on SpoutBlog last week. If it's news to you, feel free to click that link and see it there. We embed it here because, besides the obvious friend trumpeting, well, we think it's great. It's the kind of stuff we would like to see more of here (and elsewhere on this interweb). Below you can read Steve's typically on-point intro, which we, perversely, of course, have made our follow-up context for the images above. We've done this for the simple fact that we like the idea that their relationship can be switched, flipped, overlaid, uprooted, found and forged in new ways. We find this fact to be self-evident. And, as members of this fancy web, a right of (even a will to) our power. We know this power is miniscule; we do what we can.]

In the 1996 book Jihad vs. McWorld (1), political science braniac Benjamin Barber coined the term “infotainment telesector” to describe the conglomerates controlling print journalism, television, music, film and advertising. He could have just said, “the media,” but noooo. Infotainment telesector sounds like something from ’50s sci-fi, but its weird, metallic ring is just about right for 2009. In a social climate where no one bats an eyelash at baseball stadiums named after rapacious banks, we are living out previous eras’ dystopian visions of the future. It’s just hard to tell because everybody’s so animated, far from dehumanized, and we have a participatory comfort toy Orwell and the others couldn’t predict,the Internet (2).

In the following video appreciation of the acclaimed art film Hunger, I don’t deal with Barber’s work at all but use his clanky term to evoke what British artist Steve McQueen’s film is up against: A metronome set by the infotainment telesector that nearly everybody, even those artists who proclaim themselves radical (or disengaged) outsiders, marches to. It’s a spectacular con, and so many of us are falling for it, but not McQueen. He’s in a minority of filmmakers worldwide who let their images and sounds move at a natural pace.

What the hell am I talking about? What’s a “natural” pace?

(1) Read the original 1992 article by Barber by clicking here and heading over to The Atlantic's surprisingly well archived internet back catalogue.

(2) You gotta love that Andy Rector put this Daney-tennis-Godard-slaphappy-Lewis bit together right around the same time.

LOW BUDGET EYE CANDY #1: THX-1138

by Steven Boone

[New note (8/6/09): A new and improved, to say operational, version is now ready and available for your viewing pleasure above as part of our VINYL-wide switch to Vimeo. —rwk]

[New note (2/14/09): A new and improved, to say tighter and cleaner, version is now ready and available. If pressed, or not, Steve might say I jumped the gun on posting the original iteration of this video. What can I say? I was excited; I was impressed. In fact, I still am. This little thing is cool and I'm happy to host it here. —rwk]

[Original note (2/2/09): Steve's credit at the close is for BIG MEDIA VANDALISM. However, as the Odienator has taken over that space for Black History Mumf, we decided to post this video here for the time being. Hope you digg it as much as we do. —rwk]