October saw the televised debut of BBC Four‘s Synth Britannia, an enthralling and ruminative documentary on the advent of synthesizers in electronic music and their ascent into the pop lexicon of the 1980s. Narrowing its lens upon electronic pioneers such as Wolfgang Flür (Kraftwerk), Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle), and Gary Numan, [...]
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Palais Schaumburg
November 30, 2009 – 3:45 am
If anyone was wondering what Moritz von Oswald, Thomas Fehlmann, and FM Einheit were doing in the early eighties, it sounded (and looked) something like this. Click ahead for another track.
Best Films of the Noughties
November 27, 2009 – 4:17 am
They might be a month too early but the Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque has just released a list of the best films of the 2000s as chosen by a survey of film curators, festival programers, and historians. Top of the list is the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, followed by two films [...]
DIY: Zero Film Festival 2009
November 26, 2009 – 9:41 am
My friends and I made a film once. It was a short film, and by short I mean under five minutes in length. We shot for ten hours and we ran out of money, even though nobody got paid and the set was mostly duct tape. And we never finished it. And it sucked. The [...]
New Salem mix
November 26, 2009 – 6:31 am
We Make It Good and The FADER present the latest installment of their We Make It Good Mix Series with a mix by Salem. It features their Gucci Mane remix, which has been floating around, oOoOoo, Twista, The Beach Boys and more. Thanks Oscar Carlson.
Reconstruction of the Hudson River Plane Landing
November 25, 2009 – 11:10 am
Click play for the recreation of the US Airways flight from LaGuardia that pilot Capt. Chelsey Sullenberger landed in the Hudson last January after a bird strike over New York. It was the first time in 50 years of commercial jet flight that a jetliner was landed successfully in water without fatalities.
Poppy de Villeneuve’s Leaps and Bounds
November 24, 2009 – 2:01 pm
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. To mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth Poppy de Villeneuve has created a short film with the Rambert Dance Company at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. The film can be seen at ELUXURY.
As is the custom with Latino teenagers, one is holding a giant walnut.
November 23, 2009 – 9:06 am
While swimming through the tubes yesterday, I stubled upon Keith Schofield‘s treatment for Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck’s ”Heaven Can Wait”. The treatment has very little to do with the actual result, which I find beautiful, and not only because Charlotte Gainsbourg is Jesus to me (evident, what with the bloodline and all). It’s rare for a director [...]
Begging to be Black: Antjie Krog
November 23, 2009 – 8:13 am
Chapter one
A gunshot cracks. The man lunges forward, his hands groping towards a stationary taxi nearby.
Somebody yells.
Bystanders scramble in all directions. Waiting taxi drivers duck behind their steering wheels. Another shot and the man falls on the tar, his attaché case flung sideways. Blood streams from his shattered shoulder blade as he crawls towards the vehicle. He would reach it, but a figure wearing a balaclava closes in on him. Light-footed, as if with sprung ankles, his pursuer stands astride him as he comes to a stop.
The wounded man turns on his side to look up.
From the planted stance of the heels, the perfect balance of the pelvis, the way the arms in red sleeves reach down, with strange grace, to point the pistol at his forehead, the wounded man knows: this is the end.
A final shot. But because the wounded man moves his head at the last moment, the bullet that kills him does not leave his body: it penetrates the frontal skull bone two centimetres above the eye and exits four centimetres behind the left ear, where it is caught between the skull and the black skin in a small swelling.
Quickly, the killer pulls off the balaclava, rolls the pistol in it and, with elated energy, runs off – accompanied by another man – away from the body and towards the station, sidestepping taxis and terrified spectators.
William E Jones: Tearoom
November 23, 2009 – 4:25 am
In response to Jeff’s posting of the charming Will Phillips video, I thought I’d draw attention to the excellent William E Jones film being shown at Swallow Street right now. The overwhelming poignancy of this simple film of found footage emerges with the contextualizing record of each grainy, voiceless figure: John Smith, 27, married, 2 [...]
