DiMattiaFilms

We have moved!!

2010-09-16T01:37:00.002-04:00

DiMattiaFilms has moved locations. Our new address is:

http://dimattiafilms.virb.com

Or just regular old DiMattiaFilms.com will do the trick.

Everything Must Go!

2010-08-30T22:10:00.008-04:00

Yes, if you read one of my recent tweets, I have set up shop on Virb and will be getting rid of this dinosaur within the next few days. My new site will focus solely on my film work, as I have found little use for this blog, and felt that I needed something a bit more professional to guide people to so they can see examples of my work. The DiMattiaFilms blog was a fun and exciting experiment, one that got me through my college years and then some! Not to mention Jump Cut Radio, which was fun, but in retrospect, felt like the biggest ego-stroking project I ever got involved in. Sorry, Nathan. :-)

Just FYI, this blog isn't going away anytime soon. It will still be available at its original URL of http://dimattiafilms.blogspot.com. I'm just officially announcing that I will no longer be updating it, and that dimattiafilms.com will soon point to my new site on Virb before the week is through.

Thank you, everyone who ever visited my site, and I hope to see you on the other side!

New Mixtape - The End...?

2010-08-01T18:32:00.003-04:00

It's ironic that I return from a long hiatus to talk about a mixtape I made centered around songs about endings. I submitted it for the Yewknee Summer Mix Series, and you can view the tracklist and download it here. It features a wide variety of musicians new and old, including a handful (Jeff Hanson, Sparklehorse, J Dilla) who are sadly no longer with us. This mixtape is dedicated to them. Enjoy.

Doritos vs. Tom Waits

2010-04-11T01:41:00.002-04:00

Here's a mini-documentary I put together for the recent Chips and Salsa Film Festival held at The Soapbox in Wilmington, NC:

This video wins the Internet for today.

2010-04-08T12:58:00.006-04:00

Pac-Man, Tetris, and other classic video games destroy New York in the amazing short PIXELS from Patrick Jean:

Help Support a Late-Night Double Feature Picture Show! (Actually, It's Just One Feature)

2010-03-13T11:40:00.002-05:00

Some of my FFFs (fellow film friends) have gotten together and put up a Kickstarter page asking people to pledge funds so they can put together a bad-ass performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Browncoat Pub & Theatre. They only need $250, and there's a wide variety of rewards for pledging, including signed posters, t-shirts, your name in the program, and more! If you got a minute to spare, swing on by their page and drop 'em a couple bucks.

Free Album from Greensboro's Workday/Schoolnight

2010-02-04T03:08:00.005-05:00

One of the big surprises I received at the Cucalorus 14 launch party back in 2008 was a performance by Greensboro experimental rock band Invisible, a group that utilized ingenious homemade devices that produced beats from a variety of found objects. It was a fascinating performance, one that preceded a screening of a documentary made about the band, and kept me interested in what Invisible would do next.

Well, one of the members, Bart Trotman, has just delivered a free album under the moniker Workday/Schoolnight entitled Plastic Ocean. It's a sprawling work, combining minimalist glitch-pop with sound collages utilizing dozens of thrift store cassettes, including "self-help tapes, self-hypnotic tapes, daily affirmations, and vocabulary lessons." The songs alone are fairly interesting to listen to, but it's the ludicrousness of the samples Trotman uses to bookend each song that keeps me listening. I will say that the length of the album (70 min.) left me wishing some more editing had taken place before its release.

Still, it's hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that gift horse has such a wide variety of interesting samples at his disposal. You can get the whole album for free on Megaupload or Mediafire, but only for a limited time.

New Firewall of Sound Trailer!

2010-01-11T15:27:00.003-05:00

So excited to finally be able to post the new trailer for my music documentary Firewall of Sound. Enjoy!

Please leave me your comments, either on here or on our Vimeo page!

Shmowzow! Adventure Time on Cartoon Network!

2009-12-21T10:33:00.002-05:00

I've known about this for a while, but it still excites me to no end to finally see the promos for the upcoming animated series "Adventure Time."

Keep visiting their production blog for crazy awesome stuff like storyboards, animatics, background paintings, and more!

Hall of Awesome: The Top 10 Albums of 2009

2009-12-21T03:29:00.004-05:00

10

Bon Iver

Blood Bank EP (tie)

10

Animal Collective

Fall Be Kind EP (tie)

9

Loney, Dear

Dear John

8

Various Artists

Dark Was the Night

7

Blakroc

6

Neko Case

Middle Cyclone

5

M. Ward

Hold Time

4

Mos Def

The Ecstatic

3

The Flaming Lips

Embryonic

2

Grizzly Bear

Veckatimest

1

The Decemberists

The Hazards of Love

Click on the album titles to stream them, courtesy of La La.

Honorable Mentions:
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Basement Jaxx, Scars
Cursive, Mama, I'm Swollen
Discovery, LP
Helado Negro, Awe Owe
StreightAngular, After and Before
Wilco, Wilco (The Album)
Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs

Hall of Awesome: The Top 5 Music Videos of 2009

2009-12-20T02:08:00.004-05:00

I had a hard time narrowing down my list of favorite music videos for this year to just five. Also, I decided I was sick of dealing with embedding issues with YouTube, so for this list, I turned to my new favorite video provided, Vimeo, for this playlist of clips, which are as follows:

5. Coldplay, "Life in Technicolor II" (dir. Dougal Wilson)
No stranger to the Hall of Awesome, Dougal Wilson returns with a decidedly more lighthearted video featuring an overly elaborate Coldplay puppet show, ending with one of the funnier gags I've seen in music videos this year.

4. Justice + Lenny Kravitz, "Let Love Rule" (dir. Keith Schofield)
I've already waxed poetic about the awesomeness of director Keith Schofield, but I can't stress it enough: the guy knows his shit. Not only did he put out a killer Charlotte Gainsbourg/Beck video a month ago, he made this glorious gem pairing '80s kitsch with end credits meta madness.
(UPDATE: Now available with director commentary!)

3. Bodies of Water, "Under the Pines" (dir. Andy Bruntel)
This video made an appearance in my annual Scary Music Videos list, and it reappears here for two reasons. One, the video hasn't been making a lot of lists considering it came out all the way back in January, and so most people have forgotten about it. Second, every element of this video, from production design to costumes to the aged look of the film contribute to the eerie Grimm fairytale vibe of its story. It's a story that seems utterly ridiculous on paper, but works as an effective visual companion to the propulsive song it's set to.

2. Ramona Falls, "I Say Fever" (dir. Stefan Nadelman)
Oh. My. God. Such a great video. Scary, gorgeous to watch, perfect pairing of song and visuals. So many things I could say about this clip, but it really speaks for itself.

1. U2, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (dir. David O'Reilly)
First, an explanation. I don't like this song. Musically, it's pretty mediocre, a desperate revival of U2's standard pompous stadium rock. Lyrically, it's abysmal, with Bono stumbling through lines like "Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot" as if he decided to scribble them down at the last minute and not bother asking anyone if they were good or not. Thankfully, animator and Best Short Film of 2009 shoo-in David O'Reilly was brought in to direct a video and it more than makes up for U2's lax songwriting. In fact, it almost works to the video's advantage that the song is so forgettable, because it makes the visuals that much easier to pay attention to.

Honorable Mention:
Bob Dylan, "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" (dir. Nash Edgarton)
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck, "Heaven Can Wait" (dir. Keith Schofield)
Depeche Mode, "Wrong" (dir. Patrick Daughters)
Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart" (dir. Andreas Nilsson)
Matt & Kim, "Lessons Learned" (dir. Taylor Cohen and Otto Arsenault)
N.A.S.A. feat. Sizzla, Amanda Blank and Lovefoxxx, "A Volta" (dir. Logan)
They Might Be Giants, "Meet the Elements" (dir. Feel Good Anyway)
UNKLE, "Heaven" (dir. Spike Jonze and Ty Evans)

Calvin and Hobbes Revisited

2009-12-17T12:19:00.001-05:00

By Farel Dalrymple
Originally uploaded by davidxryan

Thanks to Yewknee for the heads up. Check out this Flickr photostream for a collection of gorgeous re-interpretations of Calvin and Hobbes by some very talented artists.

Hall of Awesome: The 2009 Mixtape

2009-12-16T13:35:00.003-05:00

Every year, I compile a top ten list of my favorite albums of the year. However, there are a ton of individual songs that deserve some props as well, even if their respective albums didn't impress me enough to make my best-of list. So, without further ado, enjoy these 19 tracks that epitomize the best music 2009 has to offer. As with last year, there's a La La playlist at the bottom of this list (and in the sidebar) featuring all of these tracks, which you can stream in full.

How I Became the Bomb, "Action Lady"

A highlight from a solid series of EPs from lovely Tennessee rockers How I Became the Bomb.

Imogen Heap, "First Train Home"
Girls, "Lust for Life"
Andrew Bird, "Anonanimal"
Death Cab for Cutie, "Little Bribes"

Further proof that Death Cab can still deliver catchy little pop songs like no one else.

Animal Collective, "Bluish"
Basement Jaxx, "Raindrops"

My pick for dance anthem of 2009.

Camera Obscura, "The Sweetest Thing"
Dirty Projectors, "Stillness is the Move"
Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart"
Discovery, "I Want You Back"

It doesn't matter how many "tributes" people will be making to Michael Jackson in the coming years. They won't be half as awesome as this cover from Vampire Weekend/Ra Ra Riot side-project Discovery.

The Mountain Goats, "Drug Life"

The best track from the Merge covers compilation, with John Darnielle returning to his trademark, bare-bones, voice-and-guitar sound.

Helado Negro, "Dahum"
Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind"
They Might Be Giants, "Meet the Elements"

They Might Be Giants are no strangers to making educational pop songs, but this is one that can be loved by children and adults alike.

Yo La Tengo, "Periodically Double or Triple"
The Avett Brothers, "I and Love and You"
Mastodon, "The Last Baron"

Naturally, this playlist can't end without thirteen minutes of ear-bleeding metal.

Bon Iver, "Woods"

With "Woods" and the Jaxx's "Raindrops," we proved Jay-Z wrong about the death of Autotune.

The Hall of Awesome 2009 Mixta...

Hall of Awesome: Five More Best Music Videos of the Decade

2009-12-14T00:36:00.005-05:00

I thought I would kick off this year's Hall of Awesome with my favorite music videos of the decade, but Pitchfork pretty much beat me to it with their Top 50 Music Videos of the 2000s, a list so well-conceived and compiled that all I can do is simply present to you five more music videos I thought should have made their list. As usual, all the videos are compiled in a single YouTube playlist, viewable at the bottom of this post.

Supergrass, “Low C” (dir. Garth Jennings/Nick Goldsmith; 2005)
This decade, the documentary music video became a go-to style for bands wanting to stand out from the crowd. Most recently, the genre has been picked up by Massive Attack, whose video for "Paradise Circus" features an elderly woman reminiscing about her days as a porn star, intercut with definitely-NSFW scenes from one of her films. This 2005 effort from Supergrass finds the band reteaming with "Pumping On Your Stereo" directors Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (a.k.a. Hammer & Tongs) for a nostalgic visit to Weeki Wachee, where a group of women are trying to keep their mermaid-themed tourist attraction from going under. It's a rare chance to see the usually SFX-heavy directors deliver a simple story with a minimum amount of style, but with a lot of heart.

Wintergreen, “Can't Sit Still" (dir. Keith Schofield; 2007)
When television stopped being the preferred delivery method for music videos, bands soon realized that in order to get people watching, they were gonna have to come up with something that fell into one of three categories: bizarre, hilarious, or controversial. And by the end of the decade, no one was doing it better than Keith Schofield. Every video of his falls into one of the three categories, and oftentimes he covers all three in one clip. Case in point is "Can't Sit Still" by Wintergreen, an elaborate little video that he posted on YouTube with the sure-to-score-a-ton-of-hits title "How to Make Meth". While the video didn't go batshit viral, it did ruffle the feathers of some people who were afraid kids would actually try to make the harmless concoctions the band ingests in the clip, and Keith eventually had to admit the thing was satire after YouTube threatened to pull it from their site. As usual, this video has embedding disabled, so click on the link above to watch it. As a consolation prize, I've included in the playlist below Keith and the band's less controversial (but equally informative) video for "When I Wake Up".

Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood” (dir. Jamie Hewlett/Pete Candeland; 2001)
This decade proved that a band can not only sell an image, the band can become the image. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett long-shot concept of an animated rock band turned out to be a worldwide success. And while the songs are top-notch, they wouldn't be half as good without their accompanying videos, animated by Hewlett and his team at Zombie Flesh Eaters.

The Strokes, “Last Nite” (dir. Roman Coppola; 2001)
I can't really explain what I thought of The Strokes' and their video for "Last Nite" when I first came across it one night on MTV (surprisingly, MTV was still showing videos back in 2001). The video's concept is almost insultingly simple: The Strokes, on a soundstage, performing the song live, under a sheen of '70s gloss provided by director Roman Coppola. The video is fun because of its sheer "fuck it" attitude, as Julian Casablancas throws his mic stand offstage like a javelin, and Fab Moretti's drum mics keep falling down. As a result, the version of "Last Nite" they perform is unique from the version that actually appeared on Is This It.

Aphex Twin, “Rubber Johnny” (dir. Chris Cunningham; 2005)
Technically, this is not a music video for Aphex Twin (although the song is taken from his 2001 record Drukqs). It's a short film by music video extraordinaire Chris Cuningham, one of only two videos he made this decade (not counting his commercial work). It's a disturbing and darkly humorous experiment, where Cunningham himself plays the titular character, who has the ability to morph into increasingly erratic shapes as the music of Aphex Twin pumps out of the speakers. It pretty much encompasses the definition of "WTF?" and is a fitting calling card for one of the least prolific, but certainly most watched, music videos directors of this decade.

My Cucalorus 5 (in 5 words or less)

2009-11-10T16:38:00.003-05:00

Here are my picks for this year's Cucalorus Film Festival and why they're must-see films, in five words or less.

#1: The Square. Arson, murder, adultery. Australian Fargo.
(11/12, 7:45 PM, Lumina)

#2: Big Fan. Patton Oswalt goes nuts.
(11/12, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#3: The House of the Devil. Satanists terrify innocent '80s babysitter.
(11/13, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#4: Americatown. America, abridged. With crazy legs.
(11/13, 4:30 PM, City Stage)

#5: Calvin Marshall. Funny, great soundtrack. Plus baseball.
(11/14, 7:15 PM or 11/15, 10:30 AM, Lumina)

For your consideration, here's all the trailers:

New Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves"

2009-10-20T18:01:00.003-04:00

People who've already gone out and purchased Sufjan Stevens' new movie/soundtrack, The BQE, have probably already stumbled across a couple hidden tracks shortly following the film, a noisy instrumental and this plaintive choral piece featuring Stevens back on vocal duties:

Sufjan Stevens - "The Sleeping Red Wolves" (MP3)

According to this interview from The Quietus, Stevens had originally intended "The Sleeping Red Wolves" to be included in The BQE, but "there just wasn't enough time, so I just threw it in at the end."

The BQE is out now on Asthmatic Kitty, in a myriad of formats.

Scary Music Videos 4: The Reckoning

2009-10-13T11:00:00.006-04:00

It's that time of year again, and this time, I've taken the liberty of compiling all fifteen of my original scary music video picks into one, easy-to-use video playlist. Unfortunately, some of the videos have embedding disabled, so you'll need to visit my playlist page on YouTube for the full list. I've also added three new videos to the mix:

Liars, "Plaster Casts of Everything" (dir. Patrick Daughters)
It's official: Patrick Daughters has made my list of Best Music Video Directors of the 2000s, thanks to his eye-catching videos for Feist, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Grizzly Bear. In this clip, he teams the back-projection used in The White Stripes' "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" with a concept straight out of a David Lynch film. The end result is most unsettling.

Fever Ray, "If I Had a Heart" (dir. Andreas Nilsson)
Karin Dreijer of Scandanavian electronic group The Knife is no stranger to scary music videos, having appeared on last year's list in her collaboration with Röyksopp for the song "What Else is There?" Now, for her solo effort, she hired Andreas Nilsson, who has been behind most of the videos for The Knife, to pull out all the stops on the express train to Creepy Town.

Bodies of Water, "Under the Pines" (dir. Andy Bruntel)
In addition to being an exceptional animator (see: Rilo Kiley's "It's a Hit" and his Roman Coppola collaboration "Red"), Andy Bruntel has made a fair share of kickass music videos for the likes of No Age, The Mountain Goats, and Best Music Video of 2007 nominee Bat for Lashes. In this clip, a hunter is cursed with bad luck after he steals a diamond from inside a dead dog's stomach. What follows is a Grimm fairytale with a twisted sense of humor.

Don't forget to check out the other three entries in the Scary Music Video series.

Update

2009-08-13T19:54:00.002-04:00

I just realized I haven't posted a single thing on this site since June. This marks the first time I ever skipped an entire month without posting anything. I apologize for my lack of updates, but here's a brief overview of what's been happening in the world of DiMattiaFilms.

The big news is my crew and I just returned from a week-long trip in New York City and Boston for Firewall of Sound. I spoke with record store owners, venue managers, bloggers, and tons of musicians. I hope to start editing this footage in the next couple of weeks, and will post a new trailer for the film when time permits. In the meantime, keep checking the official website for the film for further details and updates.

The Japanese have built themselves a giant robot to play with!

2009-06-24T01:23:00.001-04:00

boy meets gundam
Originally uploaded by nuetaipoo

Economic crisis? What economic crisis? In Japan, they've built a (totally for-reals) life size gundam!! Now, it can't really move (other than it's head), but it looks totally badass during the day, and even more badass at night. If this (as well as the dismal reviews of Transformers 2) are to be believed, Americans still have a ways to go before we catch up to the Japanese in the field of robot badassery.

Signs of Decline: The NYT Homicide Map

2009-06-18T18:37:00.004-04:00

How's this for a morale booster? A nationwide depression epidemic + awesome Internet technology = The New York Times Homicide Map. Keep track of all the places in the five boroughs where a murder has been comitted, complete with age and ethnicity of both killer and victim, the murder weapon, and motive. It's like a GPS system, only them dots ain't movin' no more.

Only $50 away from achieving our goal!!

2009-06-11T00:18:00.002-04:00

As many of you know, I've been hard at work on a feature-length version of my documentary project, Firewall of Sound, focusing on the independent music industry and its relation to the Internet. In order to help raise funds for the project, I've created a page on Kickstarter.com, asking people to donate toward us completing the film, and as of right now, we are only $50 away from achieving our goal of raising $1,000!!

But, the rule is if we don't reach our goal by July 10, WE WILL GET NOTHING, so we need people to come to the rescue and get us over that mark! IF ONLY TEN PEOPLE DONATE $5 EACH, THAT WILL BE ENOUGH TO MEET OUR GOAL, so as you can see, every little bit helps! Thanks for taking the time out to read this, and I sincerely appreciate all your support.

The Trailer Editor for In the Loop Needs a Three-Picture Deal

2009-05-29T15:40:00.002-04:00

A lot of movies are released every year in this country, most of which range from mediocre to terrible. But not only does the new political comedy In the Loop look fantastic, the trailer itself is a beautiful cut-and-paste collage of clever references, well-timed critic blurbs, intentional ambiguity, and hey is that the Clockwork Orange music I'm listening to?

Once again, Hollywood has proven that movie trailer + soundtrack from a Kubrick film = better movie trailer. But, unlike 2012, this one might actually deliver the goods.

Thanks to Screengrab.

Interview on Destroy Before Reading

2009-05-29T10:59:00.004-04:00

In case you haven't been following my other blog about my documentary Firewall of Sound, I was recently interviewed by Andy Maddison of Destroy Before Reading. Check it out.

Get Unbunny's Black Strawberries Reprinted!

2009-05-13T15:28:00.008-04:00

Ryan Catbird has been working hard to get people to pledge money to his project on Kickstarter, which involves getting the long out-of-print release Black Strawberries by indie stalwarts Unbunny reissued on 180-gram vinyl. Take a listen:

Unbunny - "In a Way" (MP3)

It's a wonderful example of fans directly financing the release of music. $5 or more gets you a high-quality download of the album, $20 or more gets you the LP, and $40 or more gets you the Deluxe Version LP, which promises to feature "special extras, additional artwork and/or customization, hand-numbered and signed by Jarid Del Deo [leader of Unbunny]."

He hasn't reached the $3,500 goal yet, and there's only 53 days left, so if you haven't chipped in, please consider it. Oh, and just so you know, all donors will have their name listed in the liner notes!

Swine Flu Adverts

2009-04-28T00:52:00.001-04:00

If only we'd listened to ourselves from the '70s!

Thanks to Amelie and John.

Firewall of Sound website, new and improved!

2009-04-16T19:38:00.003-04:00

I've revamped the official website for Firewall of Sound, and while it doesn't really have anything new to report (just synopsis, trailer, etc.), it will soon be a haven for all things related to my feature documentary. We've got some interesting interview subjects and my crew and I will soon be making trips down to Athens, GA, and possibly up to Chicago. In the meantime, check out the new and improved firewallofsound.com and subscribe to the RSS feed to be kept in the loop!

News You Already Knew: Beatles Catalogue Remastered!

2009-04-07T11:00:00.005-04:00

Before today, 9/9/09 was just the day The Beatles: Rock Band was gonna be released (which is still pretty cool-sounding). Now, it's gonna be the day that the good people at Apple Corps Ltd. finally get off their ass and remaster the entire Beatles discography. Thank God they waited until the CD format became almost completely obsolete! Anyhoo, each album will come with new liner notes, packaging, and making-of documentaries included on each disc:

I'll be the first to admit I have most of the Beatles albums on burned CD-R (sorry, $25 for the unmastered White Album is borderline criminal), so I'm extremely happy to learn that my lazy spending habits are finally paying off. There have been many efforts to rejuvenate the dying music market, but this is the first one in a long time that might actually bear fruit. Let's hope people still have disposable income by the time September rolls around. Also, for those wondering if this means the Beatles are finally coming to iTunes, "Discussions regarding the digital distribution of the catalogue will continue. There is no further information available at this time." Well, as they say, ob-la-di, ob-la-da.

Please Say Something now online!

2009-03-11T16:06:00.003-04:00

My early pick for best short film of 2009 is now available for free to watch on Vimeo. Make sure to turn HD on and view full-screen:

Please Say Something - Full Length from David OReilly on Vimeo.

UPDATE: The short's now on YouTube. Check it out (in HD of course) and vote the shit out of it!

Filming a Ghost: Jandek in Chapel Hill

2009-02-24T01:03:00.010-05:00

Last night, there was a ghost sighting in Chapel Hill, a sighting I was fortunately able to document on videotape. The ghost was dressed in a black suit and pants, with a black hat and a black electric guitar. He was accompanied by three other specters, who employed a wide variety of instruments, including keyboards, drums, bass, xylophone, saxophone, and howling. Together, their ghostly reverie haunted the sacred walls of UNC’s Gerrard Hall, a place that I was told James K. Polk had once spoken at, from 7:30 to 9:30 on a cold Sunday evening. The ghost in charge of the proceedings went by many names: Sterling Smith, the representative from Corwood, or the name most people know him by, Jandek.

An elusive individual, yet one who had been releasing records with astounding profuseness since 1978, Jandek only started giving live concerts in 2004, when a music festival in Glasgow wrote to his PO box in Houston (the only way to get in touch with him) asking him to come and perform. Shocking all parties involved, Jandek agreed, and has continued with an on-and-off tour schedule since, rarely playing the same venue twice, and always with a different backing band. For this performance, Jandek was accompanied by John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats on keyboards, an instrument he admitted to having never played live since he was 9; Anne Gomez on bass, sax and the aforementioned howling; and drummer Brian Jones, who also took time to bang away on a xylophone during some of the numbers. Before the show, some of the ushers had set up a table where you could pick up pairs of earplugs, giving an indicator as to what was in store for the audience.

The set lasted two hours, and incorporated roughly six songs, most of which stretched past the twenty-minute mark. The opening number began with about 15 minutes of instrumental noise courtesy of Darnielle banging away on the keyboards, Gomez slapping her bass, and Jones rapidly swapping out time signatures, before Jandek took to the microphone with a long list of items, each one beginning with the phrase “I tried…” One of the shorter numbers was a song entitled “I Think I’m Unstable”. I assume that was the title since that line was repeated ad infinitum during the eight-minute song, in between harmonica solos (also performed by Jandek) and Darnielle complementing the harmonica with organ. The most memorable song of the night was a sort of call-and-response between Jandek and Gomez, in which Jandek would recite a few lines from his lyric book and Gomez would respond with a sustained howl into her microphone. The first time she did this, it elicited some whoops and shouts from the audience. Subsequent times, it simply became another instrument in the swirling mass of the song.

Overall, it was a fascinating concert to watch, even though I had to watch most of it through a viewfinder. There were three cameramen total: me, positioned stage left, roughly six rows back; and my friends Justin and Daniel, who were both in the balcony, center stage and stage right, respectively. We were told that a live album/DVD would be forthcoming (if the pattern of live Jandek titles continues, this one will surely be called Chapel Hill Sunday), but that it might be a while because Jandek was still working on releasing albums of concerts from a couple years ago. As I handed the tapes off to the mysterious representative from Corwood, I made sure to tell him that I couldn’t wait to see the finished result.

The flyers were printed on manila envelopes, complete with a pair of one-cent stamps.

Thanks to Justin and Daniel for filming, Neil for moral support, and especially Ned for making it all happen.

Jane Austen vs. Predator

2009-02-17T10:52:00.005-05:00

So...just last week, I talked about the upcoming zombie spoof of Jane Austen's seminal work, Pride and Prejudice, entitled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Now, I receive the following e-mail:

Elton John’s Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends. Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator,” which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

Wow. Did all of Jane Austen's books suddenly become public domain so everyone's jumping on the parody bandwagon or is there a niche market for sci-fi twists on classic novels that I am unaware of? 'Cause I'll go ahead and admit I always thought an alien invasion would've been a nice addition to The Count of Monte Cristo, and why not have Jean Valjean on the run not only from the French police, but also from a killer cyborg from the future? Hollywood, I am waiting for your call.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-02-17T00:54:00.002-05:00

And what greater gift to get than the greatest viral video ever?

The Lonely Island, Incredibad

2009-02-11T00:35:00.006-05:00

The success of Internet comedy trio The Lonely Island could’ve easily been attributed to being in the right place at the right time, but their staying power has proved that Lorne Michaels didn’t just pick the first result that came up on YouTube. Now, the three Saturday Night Live cast members/writers have returned to their original moniker for Incredibad, a CD/DVD compiling their most memorable songs from SNL, as well as a handful of new tracks and sketches.

The first thing you may notice about the collection of tracks is that Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer have an affinity for nerdcore rap, whether its Andy and fellow SNLer Chris Parnell bustin’ rhymes about a trip to the theater to see The Cronicles of Narnia (“Lazy Sunday”), or Andy and Akiva bragging about their nautical escapades with T-Pain (“I’m On a Boat”). While this is a strategy that pays off pretty consistently, it does make for a somewhat tedious listen once we finally arrive at the alien three-way that is the title track. High-profile guests like Jack Black and Norah Jones provide entertaining diversions from the familiar material, and it’s nice to finally have unbleeped versions of SNL favorites like “Dick in a Box” and “Natalie’s Rap,” a hilarious hardcore rap parody featuring a wonderfully unhinged Natalie Portman.

Interludes like “The Old Saloon” poke fun at the obnoxious DJ call-outs during promo tracks, but sometimes, like in the case of “Shrooms,” the simpler the idea, the funnier. Songs rarely break the three-minute mark, which is the perfect length to get the jokes across without wearing out the concept, something the other writers of SNL could stand to learn.

Overall, Incredibad does an exceptional job cataloging the first few years of one of the more recent success stories to emerge from the Not Ready for Primetime Players. However, the accompanying DVD feels more like a last-minute bonus than a comprehensive collection, only delivering five of their infamous “SNL Digital Shorts” and three Lonely Island skits. Still, a gift horse this hilarious shouldn’t be looked in the mouth, especially if said horse has just consumed a bottle of Carlos Santana’s champagne.

Your Week in Zombie News

2009-02-10T11:23:00.005-05:00

For some reason, there appears to be a steady amount of zombie-related media being released to the unsuspecting public, and while I am all for anything and everything zombie, I feel the need to point out two of the more recent releases:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Featured on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," and recommended by John Hodgman, one of the stars of the #1 Children's Film in America, this parody of the classic Jane Austen novel features the original text, plus "all-new scenes of bone crunching zombie action!" The book's already reached #88 on the Amazon.com Best-Seller list, and it hasn't even been released yet! Also, that cover is amazing. Zombifying the covers of famous literature needs to be the new Photoshop challenge.Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is just ten bucks from Amazon.com. It's release date is listed as "unknown."

Otto; or, Up with Dead People
a film by Bruce LaBruce

This film and I crossed paths last year when I was a programmer for the Cucalorus Film Festival, and let me tell you, I hope we never see each other again. I am all for more gay/lesbian cinema. In fact, a lot of the entries I viewed were about homosexual relationships, and for the most part, they were all very entertaining and would've been perfect fits for Cucalorus. Bruce LaBruce's gay zombie porn, however, was boring, incomprehensible, and featured embarrassingly bad acting by people who clearly had no need to attempt the fake foreign accents they were trying to pull off. I mean, seriously, how do you fuck up a film taking place in a parallel universe where "gay zombie porn" has become a cottage industry? It practically writes itself! And look at the tagline on the DVD cover:That's right; it says "Bringing sexy back...from the dead." If half the film were as creative as that tagline, maybe Otto would've been shown at the festival. It's still ten times better than the offensively heterosexual Deadgirl, recent Cucalorus entry and my pick for worst film of '08. Otto; or Up with Dead People is on DVD for $24.99 on Amazon.com.

Countdown to Watchmen: The Keene Act and You

2009-02-05T11:15:00.003-05:00

The Watchmen viral videos continue with this fake PSA on the Keene Act, which banned the act of costumed vigilantism in the United States:

Not as professional as the vintage 1970 newscast, but I love the step-by-step "How to Avoid Rorschach" at the end. For more awesomeness, check out the official website for The New Frontiersmen, as well as their Flickr page.

Pictures for Sad Pilgrim

2009-02-05T00:53:00.005-05:00

I love when two of my favorite comic artists collaborate on one strip. In this case, John Campbell (Pictures for Sad Children) provides the story while Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim) provides the pictures:

Twittering Sátántangó

2009-02-04T23:58:00.009-05:00

Bela Tarr is often heralded as the master of the long take. His films are known for their slow, drawn-out stories and the elaborate camerawork that accompanies them. I've known of several films by this Hungarian auteur (Werckmeister Harmonies, The Man from London) but after reading this analysis on NotComing.com, I decided to make Sátántangó, a seven-plus-hour epic that spans four discs, my first foray into Tarrville.

Now, even though I decided to go on this journey alone, it doesn't mean I can't share in the experience. So I've chosen to post my thoughts on Twitter as I watch the film. After I've finished with each section of the film, I'll post all my twitters in this blog post for easy reference. So, without further ado, let the twittering (tweeting, twiting, whatever) begin!

Part 1: February 5

9:08 PM - Part one of seven-hour Bela Tarr movie tonight. See you on the other side.

9:13 PM - Let's see if I can make it back to my apartment without freezing to death first.

10:24 PM - 47 minutes in and I'm already getting tired. (For some reason, this post never made it from my phone to Twitter, so I'm paraphrasing.)

10:44 PM - At 1:07, a bug crawls around on the camera lens. Nice touch.

10:46 PM - This score sounds like it was performed on an old Casio.

10:59 PM - Is Futaki a Hungarian name?

11:09 PM - Now watching an old man fall asleep. Was this movie designed to treat insomnia?

11:18 PM - Most exciting thing to happen in the film so far: the old man fell over.

11:26 PM - When I hear the title of this film, I can't help but think of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song, "Satan Said Dance."

11:50 PM - End of part one. Wow. 2:10 in, and we don't even have anything resembling a plot! We'll see what happens in part two, once Netflix sends it.

Part 2: February 8 (My phone decided to go apeshit on me, so tweets appeared out of order or not at all. Hooray for technology!)

9:27 PM - Alright, you asked for it (actually, you didn't). It's time for part two of Sátántangó!

9:33 PM - Ok, let's see if i can remember all the characters from part one...

9:43 PM - Every conversation in this film seems to take place in two different time zones.

9:43 PM - Ah, that creepy electronic score is back!

9:56 PM - I believe that was the shortest chapter yet, 25 minutes.

10:02 PM - Ah, I believe we have reached the infamous "cat torture" chapter of the film.

10:06 PM - Starting to get tired earlier than I was last week. 35 min. vs. 54 min.

10:16 PM - I think I would much rather be Kelly Reichardt's dog than Bela Tarr's cat.

10:23 PM - I don't think Irimias is ever gonna arrive in town.

10:26 PM - PETA would have a field day with this film, but they're too busy dealing with "Kittens on a Roomba."

10:35 PM - Gotta break to pick up my roommate.

11:04 PM - Aaaand...back to the cat torture.

11:11 PM - I think Bela's taken the "film the actor as they walk away" motif as far as it can go.

11:12 PM - Have now acquired alcohol and will drink every time the camera cuts.

11:17 PM - Dr. Drink-A-Lot makes a return appearance.

11:25 PM - Little girl chapter over. Now on to a chapter subtitled "The Devil's Nipples."

11:29 PM - If that guy says the word plodding one more time...

11:34 PM - Everyone in this movie looks as if they're missing a soul.

11:46 PM - Man, even the parties in this film are depressing to watch.

11:48 PM - Could someone explain the man with a loaf of bread attached to his head?

11:52 PM - This is the worst song ever.

11:53 PM - I think I would rather hear the drunk man talk about plodding for an hour than listen to any more of this song.

12:00 AM - This is the second time someone has fallen asleep in the movie. A hint of sorts?

12:08 AM - And end of part 2.

UPDATE: So...some of you may be wondering why I never concluded this entry with my analysis of the third part of Sátántangó. The fact of the matter is that I thought this was a pretty silly exercise to begin with, and I didn't feel the need to continue it with the third disc. Rather, I just sat down and watched the film, unabated and undeterred. And even though the above posts may lead some to believe that I held the film in contempt and desired to mock it before it even began, the truth is that I thought Bela Tarr's film was a fascinating experiment in subtlety and mood, from the foreboding opening shot of cattle prowling the streets of an empty village, to the never-ending trek the old doctor takes to find the source of the mystery bells. Overall, it was a satisfying experience, although it's an experience I probably won't choose to repeat for some time, at least until I have another seven hours to kill.

Also, I have no idea what's going on in the comments to this post. Either someone is posting the same time as different people (I highly doubt that Mihaly Vig actually reads my blog) or it's computer hour over at the looney bin. (My apologies to people who actually posted coherent responses.)

Gatorade Corners the Elusive Nerd Market

2009-02-04T11:06:00.005-05:00

Gatorade sells a lot of sports drinks to a lot of people, but apparently they must have been missing out on the demographic of geeks and nerds (a demographic that yours truly is a lifetime member of). How else to explain this insanely elaborate homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, entitled The Quest for G?

While the joke doesn't really work some of the time (how do you make fun of something that was funny to begin with?) there are some inspired moments, including the gang's showdown with dance group JabbaWockeez and their final battle with a fire-breathing poodle.

The Viral Marketing of Watchmen Begins

2009-01-23T14:57:00.002-05:00

...with this exceptionally well-made fake newscast from 1970, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Dr. Manhattan. Check it out, especially if you've never read the book, as it will (hopefully) answer some of your more pressing questions about the film.

Watchmen arrives, court-approved, in theaters March 6.

RE: OMG TWTR

2009-01-20T01:30:00.004-05:00

Let me explain the addition of a new sidebar that you may (or probably may not) have noticed. Because my public demanded it (they didn't) and because I have such a fascinating life (I don't), I decided to sign up for Twitter, the all-purpose digital personal space invader that's like Facebook, except minus everything but the status updates. Anyhoo, mildly interesting and possibly embarrassing (depending on my intoxication levels) updates will be collected in the new ~~DiMattiaTwitter~~ Incessant Ramblings sidebar. Apparently a lot of famous people do it (including the aforementioned LeVar Burton), so that's usually enough to convince me to tag along (and before you ask, yes, I would jump off a cliff if LeVar Burton did it, too, but don't take my word for it. BA-DAH-DUMM!)

Other famous (and semi-famous) people twittering (or tweeting, or whatever):
John Cleese (famous for throwing a dead parrot)
Bill Corbett (famous for impersonating a robot)
Jonathan Coulton (famous for writing a song about cake)
Felicia Day (famous for being the love interest of evil genius Doogie Howser)
Stephen Fry (not famous for throwing a dead parrot)
John Hodgman (a famous minor television personality)
Paul F. Tompkins (famous for loving many various decades on VH1)
The staff at The A.V. Club (famous for eating cheeseburger in a can)
Barack Obama's PR department (cleverly disguised as Barack Obama)

Oasis Tries Their Hand at Viral Marketing

2009-01-20T01:05:00.005-05:00

Last year, Oasis decided to promote their new album, Dig Your Own Soul, in a very unusual way: get buskers from the New York City metro system to learn a couple of the songs, and then "leak" the songs to an unsuspecting public by performing them. Well, that time has come and gone, but they made sure to document the whole experience in this fascinating, 18-minute film (with cinematography by Wendy and Lucy's Sam Levy):

Mad Men Crash The Soup

2009-01-19T17:40:00.003-05:00

I never get tired of the left-field surprises The Soup keeps throwing at me:

In related news, LEVAR BURTON?! I haven't seen that dude in, like, forever!!

Keanu Reeves to Continue Decimating My Childhood

2009-01-16T10:51:00.002-05:00

After single-handedly destroying The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of my favorite science fiction films of all-time, Keanu Reeves (who last appeared in a decent film in 2006, with Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly) has decided to take his mediocrity gun and aim it at my favorite anime series, Cowboy Bebop. From Film News Briefs:

Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Japanese anime TV series “Cowboy Bebop” to the big screen, with Keanu Reeves attached to star as a bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071. One of the big titles in anime, “Bebop” is set in a time where “astral gates” make interstellar travel possible. Humanity, decimated by a lunar explosion resulting from a gate accident, spread out across the solar system, as did crime, which gave rise to the use of bounty hunters. Reeves would play Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter and former member of a crime syndicate. Spiegel, along with Jet Black, a fellow bounty hunter and former cop, are the two pilots of the spaceship Bebop. Peter Craig is writing the script.

All we can hope for is a solid supporting cast to compensate for Neo McBland.

Firewall of Sound - Official Trailer

2009-01-15T00:09:00.004-05:00

I was in the lab all this week, cutting together a short trailer for the upcoming feature-length version of my indie music doc Firewall of Sound. I'd prefer you visited the actual YouTube page, so you could watch it in high-quality, but I've embedded it here for your convenience:

So...what does this mean? Well, I am currently applying for a wide variety of grant money, which will go towards equipment and travel expenses for the film. I have ideas about who I would like to interview and where I would like to go, but all of that is dependent on how much money I will be receiving and who agrees to be a subject in the film. I have been immensely grateful to the people who agreed to be interviewed for the short film, and they will most certainly appear in the feature, some of whom I might contact for follow-ups in the near future. Ideally, I would like to use the feature-length to focus on topics I wasn't able to cover in the short, like bloggers who started their own record labels, the recent trend of bands doing impromptu gigs for blogs like La Blogotheque, and what it means to be a "sellout" in an industry where little to no money can be made off of traditional distribution.

As you can surmise, a lot of this is up in the air, and I hope to have more definite answers to your burning questions in the near future. For now, there's a trailer and a placeholder website, which will only exist long enough for me to modify the blog I made for the film back in '06. Until then, keep checking back and I'll keep you posted on updates.

R.I.P. McGoohan and Montalban

2009-01-14T21:43:00.004-05:00

Two amazing actors died today: Patrick McGoohan, best known as the titular star of the surreal '60s British spy series The Prisoner, and Ricardo Montalban, who played everyone's favorite evil supervillain in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They will both be missed immensely.

Hall of Awesome: Best Albums of 2008

2009-01-06T17:39:00.008-05:00

10

Sigur Rós

Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust

9

Fleet Foxes

8

She & Him

Volume One

7

Gnarls Barkley

The Odd Couple

6

Girl Talk

Feed the Animals

5

Death Cab for Cutie

Narrow Stairs

4

R.E.M.

Accelerate

3

Spiritualized

Songs in A&E

2

Coldplay

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

1

Bon Iver

For Emma, Forever Ago

2008 was a year of rediscovery for me, a time to take in all the music I'd been missing out on for the last few years. I fully absorbed In Rainbows and if I could take back my Best of '07 list, it would be at the top. I took advantage of Amazon.com's daily discounts on MP3s, snatching up The Shins' Oh, Inverted World, Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand, Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People, M.I.A.'s Kala and others. Also, to celebrate the election, Ryan Catbird gave away everything his label had released for free, so I'm still taking in the vast quantities of music he's supplied me with (thanks again, man, and let me just say Manishevitz' East to East is fantastic). So, I'm surprised I was able to cobble together ten albums I actually got around to listening to this year, and some of them I didn't even hear for the first time until a few weeks ago. I only recently decided to include Fleet Foxes on my list, even though I had their song "Blue Ridge Mountains" on my 2008 Mixtape, thus breaking one of the few rules I give myself. I really don't feel like getting into the specific reasons why I picked each album, other than to say that I didn't expect new albums by R.E.M. and Spiritualized, two acts I felt had become irrelevant in recent years, to make my list but there you have it. Also, Bon Iver not only wins the best album of the year award, but also the best album to listen to during a drive through a rainstorm in the middle of the night award. Anyway, click on the album titles to stream them, courtesy of La La.

Honorable Mentions:
Ben Folds, Way to Normal
Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
The Explorers Club, Freedom Wind
Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords
Jeff Hanson, Madam Owl
Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul
The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Pershing
Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day and Others, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: The Soundtrack

Hall of (Not So) Awesome: The Worst Films of 2008

2008-12-26T19:06:00.008-05:00

I'd like to say I did a fairly good job of weeding out the bad movies beforehand, thanks to sites like The A.V. Club and Rotten Tomatoes. But I still found myself subjected to some truly horrible movies this year, and though I was thankfully spared from dreck like The Happening and Witless Protection (the A.V. Club's top two worst movies of the year), I was still able to find five films unworthy of the celluloid they were printed on...

5. Hancock (dir. Peter Berg)

Let me begin by saying that Hancock itself was not a bad movie. Rather, the second half of Hancock is a bad movie. For the first hour, we are presented with a wildly funny, wholly unpredictable look at a reluctant superhero being molded into something more presentable by a struggling PR man. That PR man is played by Jason Bateman, who needs to be in more movies, the opposite of which can be said about Charlize Theron, who is practically invisible throughout the first half, but sadly dominates all of the second, going so far as pushing star Will Smith out of the spotlight. While more of the blame needs to go to the screenwriters for making Theron spout all this unnecessary back story and superhero mythology, claiming that (SPOILER) she and Smith are immortal alien lovers, even though nothing resembling chemistry occurs between the two actors. Bottom line is Hancock was one or two rewrites away from being a solid superhero movie. Close, but no cigar.

4. Saw V (dir. David Hackl)

I got to hand it to the Saw guys; they keep finding imaginative ways for Tobin Bell to reappear in films, even though he was killed off in the third one. His demise came too early, anyway; he always seems to be the only good actor to appear in these new installments. Saw V certainly didn't do anything to change that theory, with Costas Mandylor taking over Bell's role as the new Jigsaw killer, making Shawnee Smith the 2nd Most Boring Person to Replace Jigsaw (there have only been two). It doesn't help that the killer and the protagonist (Scott Peterson) look a lot alike, and are both equally flat actors. The film does a nice job revisiting the haunted house motif that made Saw II tolerable, but it's simply a case of too little, too late. Just reanimate Bell's corpse already!

3. Mamma Mia! The Movie (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)

Yes, I somehow found myself in a screening of Mamma Mia!, which brought the average age of the audience I was with down about 20 years. It was a clear mistake, too, as a film in which Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan walking to the bank to deposit their paycheck for working on this film would've been much more entertaining. They would've retained their dignity, anyway, as Mamma Mia! required most of the cast to flail around like idiots (and not just during the dance numbers), scream incessantly whenever meeting someone, and in the end credits, donning the most misguided costumes ever conceived:

I know I wasn't the target audience for this film, but then again, I wasn't the target audience for Hairspray either and I loved it.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielburg)

I almost feel sorry for including this movie on the list; haven't Spielburg and Lucas suffered enough for their crimes?

No, no they haven't. As long as this film contains CGI prairie dogs, nuclear bomb-proof fridges, sword-wielding Russian psychics, a failed attempt at a sidekick franchise, and the award for Worst Use of John Hurt in a Movie, no punishment will be too harsh for this disaster of a film, not even South Park's scathing attack on Lucas and Spielburg in the episode "The China Problem":

1. Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel)

If I had seen this film during my time as a programmer for Cucalorus, I would've given it a bad mark and that would've been that. But somehow this film went through our screening process unscathed and was given a prime midnight slot at this year's festival. Anticipation was high and everyone was excited about seeing the next word in American horror movies. Well, we're still waiting for the next word, because all we saw were two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie.

The guys stumble across the titular character, one of them decides to keep her as his sex toy, and mayhem ensues. At no point does the audience sympathize with anybody (except maybe the poor actress playing the dead girl), and directors Sarmiento and Harel keep creativity and originality to a bare minimum as they bombard the screen with all manner of sex and violence, ultimately signifying nothing. Some of the women in the audience were enjoying themselves, apparently finding some misguided sense of empowerment from scenes in which the dead girl gets her revenge on the male protagonists, but by that point, I simply wasn't up to watching the rest of this bloody train wreck, so I ended up leaving the theater, ashamed that the people I worked for and trusted had decided to screen this horrible excuse for a movie.

Coldplay's Christmas Wish (with Simon Pegg)

2008-12-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

Coldplay gave their fans an early Christmas present with a free download of the Thin White Duke remix of "Viva La Vida," as well as this video of the band performing "Jingle Bells" with dueling harmonicas by Chris Martin and special guest Simon Pegg:

Hall of Awesome: 5 Movies We're Looking Forward To in '09

2008-12-23T22:05:00.006-05:00

1. Watchmen (dir. Zack Snyder)
I don't think I need to explain why this is the most hotly anticipated superhero movie since...well, The Dark Knight. The original graphic novel is one of the most fascinating books ever made, pictorial or otherwise, and while I believe that director Zack Snyder is anything but "visionary," I do believe he is good at faithfully adapting comic books, so this one seems like a pretty good fit. Plus, no big name actors to distract us from all the awesome visual effects. I also have to give Snyder credit for keeping his fans in the loop, with his comprehensive video blog and free stuff on iTunes. Release Date: March 6

2. Coraline (dir. Henry Selick)
Henry Selick is the true genius behind Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and this time, he's teaming up with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Mirrormask) for this homemade tale of a young girl whisked into a parallel world where everything is the same...yet completely different. Stop-motion animation always gets me excited, and the filmmakers have been gracious enough to provide fans with a slew of footage and featurettes to whet our appetite. Release Date: February 6

3. Up (dir. Pete Docter/Bob Peterson)
As usual, Pixar has kept a tight lid on their latest creation, only recently debuting a trailer (shown below) and plot summary, which looks like it was pulled out of a Chris Van Allsburg short story. If this is half as good as WALL•E, I'll be impressed. Release Date: May 29

4. 9 (dir. Shane Acker)
Animator Shane Acker created a surreal little short back in 2005 called 9, in which a little human-ish creature (kinda like those felt things in LittleBigPlanet) has to defeat a robot bug thing and save the souls of his lost friends...or something. Anyway, it caught the attention of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch) who produced a feature-length version, keeping Shane Acker as the director and hiring an all-star cast (including Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly and Jennifer Connelly) to do voicework. We'll see if the intimate little short film can blossom into a multi-million dollar blockbuster, but if the trailer is any indication, it should be quite interesting to watch. Release Date: September 9

5. Duplicity (dir. Tony Gilroy)
Tony Gilroy took everyone by surprise when he suddenly went from "guy who wrote all the Bourne screenplays" to "guy who wrote and directed the Oscar nominated Michael Clayton." Now, he's back with a slightly more comical look at corporate corruption, as Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play ex-spies who decide to double-cross their respective employers (played by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti) and collect $20 million. Looks like Ocean's Eleven meets The Bourne Identity, and with Gilroy at the helm, I wouldn't want it any other way. Release Date: March 20

Devin's Merry Little Mixmas! This Wednesday!

2008-12-22T11:42:00.003-05:00

I'll be doing one more show for WUAG 103.1 FM on Christmas Eve, from 1 to 3 PM. To listen to the show on your computer, open up iTunes and from the Advanced menu, select Open Audio Stream and type in the following URL:

http://152.13.184.64:8000/

I'll be playing ONLY Christmas songs during my set, but they'll be mainly indie-based, including Holiday cheer from Goldfrapp, Beth Orton, Death Cab for Cutie, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Chris Walla, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, and selections from the BRAND-NEW SUFJAN STEVENS CHRISTMAS EP that leaked onto the web last Friday. So this Christmas Eve, grab a glass of spiked eggnog, cozy up to the fire, and crank up the volume!

One Christmas Compilation Worthy of Your Cash

2008-12-18T13:42:00.002-05:00

Last year, I neglected to mention that the excellent blog Hard to Find a Friend posted an indie Christmas compilation entitled Peace on Earth, featuring new music by Chris Walla, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, and my good friend Perry Wright and his band, The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers. Well, I'm not making the same mistake this year, as they've debuted a second volume of Peace on Earth, with much of the same artists back with more holiday cheer, plus new recordings by American Analog Set, Oxford Collapse, Bodies of Water, and Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene. The whole thing costs less than a movie ticket, and 100% of the proceeds go to the Children of Uganda, so you get the double satisfaction of getting some kick-ass Christmas tunes and helping out a worthy cause. Volume One is still available, too, with all proceeds going to Toys for Tots. Seriously, guys; it's a win-win situation no matter which one you buy.

Hall of Awesome: 2008 Mixtape

2008-12-17T22:32:00.005-05:00

Every year, I select my top ten albums of the year, and every year, there are always a ton of other albums that may not be deserving of that list, yet still have some amazing songs on them. That’s where the 2008 Mixtape comes in, taking those individual songs and stringing them together in a futile attempt at coherence. Thanks to the people over at La La, you can stream the whole thing for free in the blog sidebar. Here's the full tracklist, along with my comments on some of my selections:

The Decemberists, "Valarie Plame"
Colin Meloy and Co. put out three singles this year, each with some pretty solid tunes on them, but it begs the question: Why didn’t they just release one six-track EP instead of spreading them out over the course of three months?
The Magnetic Fields, "California Girls"
Gnarls Barkley, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul"
Beck, "Chemtrails"
Danger Mouse gets a double feature this year, and here's hoping 2009 will prove to be an equally productive year for the man.
Oasis, "The Shock of the Lightning"
The Explorers Club, "Forever"
Even though I wouldn't stop talking about this album, it didn't blow my mind enough to appear on my top 10 list this year. It still remains an impressive collection of Brian Wilson-influenced beach pop that is definitely worth a listen.
Chairlift, "Bruises"
Someone give the guy who picks the songs for Apple ads a raise.
The Hold Steady, "Constructive Summer"
Flight of the Conchords, "Ladies of the World"
This album would've easily made my top 10 list if Flight of the Conchords had bothered to include ALL of the songs from season one. Oh well.
Fleet Foxes, "Blue Ridge Mountains"
I got into this album extremely late in the game, so it won't be topping my list like some others, but this song immediately caught my ear and refuses to let go of it.
Keane, "The Lovers are Losing"
Ben Folds, "Bitch Went Nuts"
I'm willing to forgive Folds for some of the filler on his latest album, mainly because the Ben Folds Five reunion concert kicked so much ass.
Music Go Music, "Light of Love"
Yeah, I thought it was ABBA, too, but it's not.
Death Vessel, "Bruno's Torso"
Of Montreal, "An Eluardian Instance"
Antony & The Johnsons, "Shake That Devil"
I've always thought Antony was too weird for his own good, but this song really blew me away. The awesome part takes over at about 2:30.
Benji Hughes, "Baby, It's Your Life"
Conor Oberst, "Souled Out!!!"
Peter Gabriel, "Down to Earth"
This final track should serve as an indicator of what my favorite movie of the year is going to be.

Hall of Awesome: Top 5 Music Videos of 2008

2008-12-16T22:30:00.004-05:00

Just hit play in the YouTube player below and enjoy all of my music video picks for '08, from five to one! Descriptions and critiques are to follow:

5. Mogwai, "Batcat" (dir. Dominic Hailstone)
Mogwai took a decidedly different direction for their lead single off 2008's The Hawk is Howling, even going so far as to hire Chris Cunningham-protégé Dominic Hailstone for the terrifying video. It makes up for Cunningham's video hiatus, and it stands up very well on its own as an unsettling distortion of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

4. Radiohead, "House of Cards" (dir. James Frost)
Eyebrows were raised when Radiohead announced their new video for "House of Cards" was made without a camera, but instead with a series of lasers and motion capture techniques that captured Thom Yorke's face, among other things, making for a cool-looking video for an excellent song. But props must also be given to all the animators and directors who worked on videos for Radiohead's contests, my favorites being "Nude" by James Houston, "Weird Fishes" by Tobian Stretch, and "Reckoner" by Clement Picon.

3. Justice, "Stress" (dir. Romain-Gavras)
Even though '07 was the year Justice released their self-titled debut, '08 was the year for them to deliver on the hype surrounding that release. They had a wildly successful tour, a killer live CD/DVD, and two new videos: the awesome "guess-that-logo" video by So-Me, "DVNO," and "Stress." Heavily influenced by the 1995 French classic La Haine, with its gritty, documentary style camerawork and controversial subject matter, the video follows a nameless group of delinquents (decked in jackets with Justice's cross logo emblazoned on the back) as they cause all methods of mayhem and chaos, from assault to vandalism to carjacking. The directors raise the question "Is this for real?" by including nice touches like having the gang wait for the sound guy before they take off in their stolen car, or in the video's finale, where the gang turns against the cameraman and break bottles over his head.

2. Gnarls Barkley, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" (dir. Chris Milk)
What hasn't been said about this amazing video? Evolves from a somewhat corny breakdown of post-relationship depression to a fascinatingly surreal performance piece as an animated heart with the voice of Cee-Lo Green sings into a piece of broccoli, while the diner's customers and employees (including Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse) look on in shock. I never get tired of that ending either.

1. Björk, "Wanderlust" (dir. Encyclopedia Pictura)
Back when Michael Jackson ruled the airwaves of MTV, the debut of a new music video would often be hailed as an event that was not to be missed. Björk and the geniuses over at Encyclopedia Pictura brought a little bit of that magic back when they announced the debut of a new, eight-minute odyssey set to Volta highlight "Wanderlust." They held a premiere screening, gave away tons of 3D glasses to eager fans, and posted 30-second "sneak previews" of the video on Björk's YouTube page. Luckily for them, the video surpassed the hype, as "Wanderlust" takes the viewer on a journey through a world seemingly made out of animated strings of Play-Doh, as Björk and her herd of buffalo travel down a steady river and do battle with a water god and a clay doppelganger that grows out of Björk's backpack. Yeah, it's pretty fucking weird.

Movie review: Fear(s) of the Dark

2008-12-14T11:31:00.009-05:00

You gotta hand it to the French: they sure do love a good anthology. Last year’s Paris Je T’Aime had the considerable task of taking over fifteen short films from a wide range of directors (including American favorites like Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, and Gus Van Sant) and stringing them together in a multi-faceted look at France’s most cherished city. Now, Fear(s) of the Dark attempts to take the French anthology feature to the darkest points of the imagination, using an extremely limited color scheme (black, white, and various shades of gray) and a variety of talented animators of many nationalities.

Of course, the unfortunate truth is that Fear(s) of the Dark varies wildly in terms of quality and enjoyment. The biggest mistake that the curators of this miniature film festival make is chopping up three of the six entries and interspersing them throughout the program, making it hard for the audience to discern when (and if) those entries have reached their conclusion. Pierre di Scuillo’s short, in which a woman rambles on about her many fears while abstract images morph on the screen, works as a good transitional device, but shorts about a Japanese samurai ghost and an evil man with four vicious attack dogs would’ve had more impact if they were shown without interruption. Though this might come off as a little bias, the best shorts were the ones from the Americans, cartoonist Charles Burns and animator Richard McGuire. The former’s story, about a socially awkward college student with an unhealthy fascination of insects, does an exceptional job of creating a protagonist that has to earn its sympathy from the audience, as the young man (voiced by the late Guillaume Depardieu) changes from willing participant to hapless victim.

While most of the entries in Fear(s) of the Dark qualify as unsettling or disturbing in some way, McGuire’s short (the last in the program) is the only one that is downright scary. McGuire’s minimalist animation style makes the previous entries seem flamboyant by comparison, as he relates the wordless story of a man taking shelter in a house during a snowstorm, only to find that he may not be alone. So while Fear(s) in the Dark, as a whole, may not be a sweeping success, it does make me wish that new installments would show up each Halloween as opposed to new Saw films.

Criterion give away (some of) their movies (for a month)!

2008-12-11T11:16:00.005-05:00

The supergeniuses over at The Criterion Collection (with a little help from film forum The Auteurs) recently gave their website a complete overhaul, and in addition to an offering users the opportunity to watch some of their films online for five bucks (which will go towards the cost of the DVD if you decide you want to own it), they've had IFC Films sponsor a monthly online film festival, in which six Criterion films are available to watch online for ZERO DOLLARS!

This month, they've selected one film from each of the first six Eclipse series box sets, including an early work by Ingmar Bergman, a documentary by Louis Malle, a color feature by Yasujiro Ozu, and classics by Raymond Bernard and Samuel Fuller. Witness the awesomeness.

Become a DiMattiaFan®

2008-12-09T21:51:00.004-05:00

So, I'm sorry for updating this blog so sporadically. Hall of Awesome '08 is on the way, so that oughta inspire me to get my act together. In the meantime, click on the "Follow this blog" link in the sidebar to become a follower of DiMattiaFilms, or a DiMattiaFan® as I've taken to calling them. This will make it so updates to this blog will immediately pop up in your Dashboard, and it will also help convince myself that there are people who actually do read this blog on a regular basis. Please...the inflation of my ego depends on it!

Music Review: Justice, A Cross the Universe

2008-12-09T21:22:00.006-05:00

In 2007, a new French electronic duo, one that didn’t dress up in robot suits and shoot lasers out of a pyramid, released a debut album with a symbol instead of a title. It was considered one of the most promising new releases of the year, and a massive tour of America soon followed. That band, Justice, and that tour are documented on the new CD/DVD package A Cross the Universe, which includes a 64-minute documentary shot by Romain Gavras and So-Me, the directors of Justice’s provocative and wildly entertaining music videos (none of which are included on the DVD). The accompanying CD includes a full live performance from San Francisco, capturing Justice at their most raw and unhinged, carelessly mashing up bits and pieces from every song off their debut album, †, as well as snippets from sources as varied as Franz Ferdinand, Soulwax, Simian, and even Metallica.

However, it’s the DVD that shows exactly how Justice stand apart from their closest relatives, Daft Punk. For starters, it would be very hard to imagine Thomas Bangalter smashing a glass bottle on a fan’s head mere minutes before he was to take the stage, or Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo getting hitched in Vegas, only to have his new bride vanish the following day. Given one of the director’s penchant for staged misbehavior (one look at the video for “Stress” will tell you all you need to know), it’s hard to discern whether or not any of the mishaps Justice find themselves in are scripted. The supporting cast is quirky enough, from their tour manager and his obsession with firearms (an obsession that gets the band arrested at a local diner) to their bus driver’s desire to break the Guinness world record for singing the lowest musical note. There’s not much in the way of live footage, but there is plenty of pre and post-show antics, almost as if Justice had taken the mantra of their song “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy” to heart. Ultimately, A Cross the Universe makes for an attractive package, a gloriously fist-pounding live listening experience, as well as an amusing (and somewhat startling) look at the two guys behind the beats.

"2012" Trailer Actually Kinda Awesome

2008-11-19T20:35:00.002-05:00

Let's face it: Roland Emmerich hasn't really had a hit film in a while. He experienced mainstream success with Stargate and Independence Day, hit a snag with the box-office bomb (but still fun to watch) Godzilla, rebounded with The Patriot, then returned to disaster movies with The Day After Tomorrow. (He also did 10,000 B.C., but we don't really need to mention that, do we?) Anyway, his new one 2012 looks a bit too much like The Day After The Day After Tomorrow, but I'm willing to give it a shot, mainly because of its badass teaser trailer:

I'm sure you're wondering, "Devin, what makes this trailer so badass? Freaked-out monk gets devoured by giant tidal wave, that's it. Not sure what all the fuss is about." Really? Well, let me point you over to this:

So, really, I could change the title of this post to just read "Song from 'Shining' Trailer Kinda Awesome," but figured including the "2012" trailer would make it more topical.

Favorite Thing of the Day

2008-11-19T11:47:00.001-05:00

The End
Originally uploaded by Dill Pixels

As seen on Yewknee. A Flickr set comprised entirely of ending title cards from a wide variety of sources. See if you can guess which TV show/movie each one belongs to.

Cucalorus Watch '08: The Aftermath

2008-11-19T01:04:00.007-05:00

Well, Cucalorus 14 is said and done. Thanks to the recent political sea change, the mood at this year's festival was decidedly chipper and optimistic. As a result, politically charged documentaries like Crawford and Secrecy were skipped in favor of more lighthearted fare, such as Good Dick, a comedy about a young video store employee who becomes obsessed with the girl who stops by and rents nothing but porn, and We Are Wizards, a documentary delving into the wide span of Harry Potter fandom.

The eccentric characters of Chicago were represented in a pair of documentaries, one of whom was present for this year's festivities. Vincent: A Life in Color, directed with an experienced eye by first-time filmmaker Jennifer Burns, follows Vincent P. Falk, who takes breaks during his programming job to dress up in flamboyant suits and dance on the bridges of the Windy City for the benefit of passing tour boats. Burns premiered the film at Cucalorus, and brought Vincent (as well as her editor, Christine Gilliland) with her. Vincent proved to be a fascinating figure, both on film and at the festival. He and Burns frequented many of the films my friends and I did, including Wesley Willis's Joyrides, a doc about a similarly eccentric Chicago figure, albeit with a somewhat more tragic story. Willis achieved modest success for his mathematically-precise artwork, but it was his disjointed and offbeat music (which has appeared in Super Size Me and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law) that made him a star of the underground rock scene. Directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively spent equal time focusing on Willis's art and his music, as well as the strange circumstances that turned this sometimes-homeless, borderline-schizophrenic into a household name, until his death in 2003 due to leukemia.

4 Films (and 5 Shorts) You Should Probably See At Cucalorus 14

2008-11-09T19:49:00.004-05:00

The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival has arrived and, as with the presidential election, change is in the air. Unlike last year, which focused more on big studio releases with an indie slant (Rocket Science from HBO Films, Control from The Weinstein Company), this year promises more truly independent productions with a larger amount of attending filmmakers to discuss their work. Some of the bigger names in attendance are Jason Ritter, the star of the quirky comedy Good Dick; Emily Hubley, director of the breakthrough live-action/animation hybrid The Toe Tactic; and Kelly Reichardt, the director of Old Joy, the hit of Cucalorus 12, and this year’s entry, Wendy and Lucy. But the real meat-and-potatoes of Cucalorus has always been the films themselves, and with that in mind, here are four features (and one block of shorts) that I think will be more than worth your time.

Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel)
When two young men discover a female corpse in the basement of an abandoned asylum, they decide that she is a prize worth keeping in this sick and twisted hybrid of horror and black comedy. Cucalorus’s website promises this one will be the most talked-about film of the festival, and with both of the directors present to give a Q&A, it’s the one film you can’t afford to miss.

Deadgirl will be shown with short film Ashes Friday, November 14, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture (dir. Kenneth Price)
If you attended any screening at Cucalorus last year, you’ve probably met The Superkiiids, a trio of improv comediens who specialize in absurdist humor and bizarre sketches. Well this year, they are proud to present their feature-length debut, in which the Kiiids are faced with the challenge of creating Back to the Future Part IV. It’s a premiere screening that’s guaranteed to be insane, with director Kenneth Price and The Superkiiids on hand afterwards for a Q&A.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture will be shown with the music video “Me-I” by TV on the Radio Saturday, November 15, 4:30 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes) (dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
Director Nacho Vigalondo introduced himself to America with a short entitled 7:35 in the Morning, in which he stars as a man who holds a café hostage and forces the customers and staff to put on a musical number in order to impress a pretty woman who frequents the place. It was simultaneously hilarious and poignant, and ended up getting an Oscar nomination for best live action short. His feature-length debut promises to dispel with the dark humor in place of brooding suspense and twisted imagery as a man accidentally travels an hour into the past and must deal with his former self who is trying to kill him.

Los Cronocrímenes will be shown with short The Mark Thursday, November 13, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Wendy and Lucy (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt returns with this heartfelt look at the relationship between a young drifter (Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams) and her dog (played by Reichardt’s real-life pet labrador). Produced by I’m Not There director Todd Haynes and featuring gorgeous cinematography by Sam Levy, Wendy and Lucy is an American indie classic. Reichardt will be giving a Q&A after the screening.

Wendy and Lucy will be shown Saturday, November 15, 7:30 PM, in Lumina Theater at UNCW.

Glass Coffin Shorts
A police deputy and his passenger stumble upon an insane aslyum where the patients have taken over. Four young friends go on a holiday that soon turns into a macabre nightmare. A culture war is set off in a miniature train shop. An epic 1988 clay animation film is given a much-deserved revival. What more can be said about this amazing block of exceptional short films? Oh, how about all of them have Q&As afterwards?

Glass Coffin Shorts will be shown Friday, November 14, 10:00 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Keep in mind that this is just a fraction of the awesomeness at this year's festival. There's also The Toe Tactic (Thurs. 3:45 PM), Good Dick (Thurs. 7:30 PM), Wesley Willis's Joyrides (Thurs. 10:30 PM), We Are Wizards (Fri. 10:15 AM), A Good Day to Be Black and Sexy (Fri. 7:15 PM), The 27 Club (Fri. 9:45 PM), Nerdcore Rising (Fri. 10:15 PM), Absurdistan (Sat. 7 PM), Linkeroever (Sat. 9:45 PM) and tons more. Also, don't miss my short documentary Firewall of Sound as part of the UNCW Visions '08 collection of student films, Wed. at 2:45 PM in Jengo's Playhouse.

Cucalorus Watch '08: Lessons Learned from Being a Programmer

2008-11-04T11:41:00.004-05:00

It's official. The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival is one week away, and I am more than excited to see this year's films. This year, I was invited to be a programmer, and ended up watching over 50 feature-length films from every corner of the globe, from South Korea and Australia, to Germany and Austria. In the end, only four films I saw actually ended up in the festival, giving you a good example of how competitive it is (over 1,000 entries, shorts and features, were submitted this year, but only 145 will be screened). Coming away from the experience, I have amassed a list of do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts) for aspiring filmmakers, based on the majority of the films I had seen:

Avoid spelling things out. Take out blatant exposition and let the audience deduce things out on their own. They’re smart. They’ll figure it out.
Avoid “realistic” conversations if they don’t advance the plot. Quentin Tarantino wrote the “royale with cheese” bit, not you.
Make sure you record your dialogue well. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of the picture is. If the sound sucks, you’ve lost your audience.
Don't exploit a tragedy. If your lighthearted comedy can’t work without copious references to the ’92 L.A. race riots, then it can’t work.
Don't namedrop all your favorite movies into your characters’ dialogue. I don’t care how much you love Full Metal Jacket. Having your character recite the entire “This is my gun” speech isn’t going to help your movie.
Avoid having a character say the title of your movie unless it’s absolutely necessary to the script.
If you’re the director, don't put “a (your name) film” at the beginning. That privilege is reserved for people who actually have an Oscar nomination.
Don't insert a blooper reel into your end credits. You’d be surprised by how many people actually did this. Adding one is the same as saying “I know you hated my movie, but look at how much fun we had making it! Surely that must be worth something, right?”
Don't waste a lot of time and effort on the DVD sleeve. The best movies I saw came in unmarked slipcases and the discs had nothing but the title and the running time on them.
Don't use label-makers. Thick paper stickers make the discs hard to read in regular players and nigh on impossible in slot-loading players.
Finally, the goofy little shorts you made with your friends may have been a big hit on YouTube, but so was “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Neither have any place at a film festival.

Alright, that was the end of my ranting. I'll be posting a list of movies to see this year, so stay tuned.

Oh, and one more time for those who missed it: VOTE!

Two Interesting, Yet Radically Different, Video Clips Deserving of Your Eyeballs

2008-11-04T00:34:00.006-05:00

My close, personal friend* John Hodgman recently wished everyone a Happy Halloween by giving the YouTube community a brief taste test of the much talked about Crystal Skull Vodka, which sparked the interest of the world after a bizarre infomercial featuring Dan Aykroyd surfaced:

As promised by my long-winded post title, I have another completely unrelated video clip to share with you, courtesy of Drawn! It consists of a Japanese artist showing off his latest sculpture: a "papercraft heart" complete with working gear mechanisms! Like most things Japanese, it looks awesome and I must own it:

Oh, and I almost forgot: VOTE!

*Not really. I met him at a lecture and book signing in Durham. He is awesome, though.

Scary Music Videos Part 3

2008-10-19T23:44:00.010-04:00

UPDATE: Use this playlist to view these videos plus twelve others! For this list, click the playlist button on the bottom of the video, then click the right arrow.

Two years ago, I posted five of my favorite creepy music videos and it has consistently been one of my most linked-to articles. So last year I did it again and this year, I've scoured YouTube to find four more for your viewing (dis)pleasure. Enjoy!

Basement Jaxx, "Where's Your Head At" (dir. Traktor)
Superimposing faces onto animals and other people is nothing new here. Chris Cunningham famously took the face of Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin) and planted it on creepy little kids as well as supermodels, with equally horrifying results. But Traktor's video for "Where's Your Head At" takes it a step further, revealing a secret plot to kidnap musicians and transfer their brains into monkeys. What purpose this is supposed to serve is never revealed, but it does make for a frightening music video.

Squarepusher, "Come On My Selector" (dir. Chris Cunningham)
Despite his two freaky-ass videos for Aphex Twin (three if you count the experimental short film Rubber Johnny), Chris Cunningham's video for Squarepusher is my personal favorite. And while it certainly isn't his scariest, it is definitely his most fun. So many bizarre things are in this, including a hyperactive Japanese kung fu girl, a talking dog, and a bad case of brainswap. Another oddity about this video is the fact that Cunningham had all the actors speak English, then dubbed over their voices in Japanese and included English subtitles.

Mogwai, "Batcat" (dir. Dominic Hailstone)
The newest video on my list this year comes from instrumental rockers Mogwai, who delivered their uncharacteristically metal single "Batcat" not long ago, and with it, this terrifying video from Dominic Hailstone. Seemingly torn from the pages of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the video concerns a hooded girl fleeing from masked people only to wind up in a cave inhabited by the vicious title character.

Hugh Cornwell, "Another Kind of Love" (dir. Jan Švankmajer)
Who knows what '80s pop singer Hugh Cornwell was thinking when he hired freaky Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer to helm his 1988 music video for "Another Kind of Love." Like one of my earlier picks, the visuals and music don't match at all, which only heightens the disturbing nature of the video. Watch for the part where Cornwell's dismembered head collides with the female mannequin's head and creates a swirling mass of clay with four eyes and an alligator mouth and tell me that a Nine Inch Nails song would've probably suited Švankmajer's creepy vision better.

Feel free to leave links in the comments to some of your own favorite scary music videos, and have a Happy Halloween!

Two New Reasons to Read (or at least to listen to someone else reading)

2008-09-08T22:06:00.006-04:00

This October, two of my favorite authors will be releasing new books. This is notable because (1) I rarely read because I sadly don't seem to have enough time to sit down and pick up a tome, so anything new in the world of bookdom is of interest to me and (2) it's my blog and, goldarnit, it's notable, okay?

Sarah Vowell caught my eye when she appeared on "The Daily Show" promoting her travelogue-cum-history-lesson Assassination Vacation. I was somewhat familiar with Ms. Vowell, thanks to her voiceover work as Violet from The Incredibles. Still, what struck me about her interview with Jon Stewart was her casual mention that he makes an appearance on the audiobook version, portraying twentieth president James A. Garfield no less. I'd never heard of an author who invites special guests to perform on her audiobook, and Vowell's latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, has a colorful cast of characters, including actors Peter Dinklage, Bill Hader, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, John Slattery, and "Daily Show" correspondents John Oliver and John Hodgman. The hardcover version of The Wordy Shipmates drops 10/7, as well as the audiobook version, which is totally worth the extra two bucks.

Speaking of "Daily Show" correspondents, resident expert John Hodgman got involved with the show thanks to an appearance on it promoting his first book, a compendium of complete world knowledge entitled The Areas of My Expertise, which in addition to amusing anecdotes about furry lobsters and the Mall of America, also included an exhausting list of 700 hobo names, which have since become the things of internet lore, inspiring an art project and a successful webcomic.

Well, he's back with another massive almanac, this one titled More Information Than You Require, which not only promises to explain "hermit-crab racing" and "how to cook an owl," but also comes with another 700 names, this time of Mole-Men, and will also include their occupations, whatever that means. While Hodgman's television personality (which includes portraying a PC in the incredibly popular Apple ads with him and Justin Long) is one thing, his style of writing is most definitely another, and while people who enjoy the former may not click with the latter, it's worth noting that if you can crack the dense layer of irony that comes pre-packaged with every Hodgman novel, sweet confectionery goodies lay beneath. More Information Than You Require drops 10/21. More info, including the entire book jacket, can be found on Hodgman's (awesome) official website.

Mirman on Palin

2008-09-02T18:42:00.002-04:00

Eugene Mirman, the landlord from "Flight of the Conchords," wants to make sure all of America is informed about Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin before they vote this November. For example, did you know that Sarah Palin was raised by wolves (not same-sex wolves, of course) and that she bit a bear to death? Clearly, it must be true since it was reported in highly reputable online media!

More awesome stuff, including the animated "Get Your War On" series, can be found at 236 Video.

Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

2008-08-10T23:58:00.003-04:00

Here's a little something to remember you by, Isaac.

We'll miss you.

Who's watching Apple?

2008-07-18T18:05:00.003-04:00

I'm sure I don't need to remind anybody that the Watchmen trailer just came out and it is, indeed, quite badass. One thing I did notice is that on Apple's page for the HD versions of the trailer, there's a rather amusing error in the cast list: "Laurie Juspeczyk" and "Jon Osterman" are character names, not actor names. Oh, well.

I apologize for not posting as frequently as I used to. A lot of different things have been happening in the last few weeks, and unlike most other bloggers, I don't like writing about my personal life, mainly on the basis that it would probably bore most people to tears. I will say that I have finished a short screenplay I co-wrote with my friend, Stephen Ruiz, and hopefully we might be working on getting it shot before the year is out. We'll see...

The Flaming Lips Have Finished Their Movie!

2008-06-25T02:34:00.002-04:00

I'm sure everyone already knew this, but after seven years in the making, Christmas on Mars is finally complete and has already begun making the rounds at various music festivals, including Sasquatch and Bonnaroo. In order to prepare the audience for the film, the Lips have made this brief PSA that plays before they screen it:

Now, if only they could get the multiplexes to put this in front of their feature presentation, rather than the dancing popcorn...

George Carlin, R.I.P.

2008-06-23T11:59:00.004-04:00

George Carlin died Sunday at the age of 71. He will be sorely missed. Here's one of my favorite Carlin sketches from recent years:

George Carlin - Why We Don't Need 10 Commandments (mp3)

Get Smart Gets a Reality Check

2008-06-15T23:28:00.003-04:00

The New York Times turned in a puff piece about the new Get Smart movie, basically talking about how hard it will be to update a television series making fun of the cold war for a modern audience, an audience made up mostly of kids and Steve Carell fans. However, the Times made a mistake by including a multimedia section showing three scenes from the television series and three similar scenes that will appear in the film, which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what you probably already knew, but were afraid to admit: the movie sucks in comparison to the television show. You simply can't hire the two guys who wrote Failure to Launch and expect the same level of comedic brilliance that show creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry provided.

So, it looks like both Get Smart and The Love Guru will blow, so you're just gonna have to hold out until next week when Wall-E comes out to get your comedy fix.

Movie Review: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs

2008-06-11T22:03:00.002-04:00

In the mid-2000s, something unusual happened. Futurama and Family Guy, two of the seemingly endless amounts of television programs Fox had cancelled at the start of the decade, were suddenly popular again, mostly thanks to a successful syndication of both shows on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup and strong DVD sales. Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane decided to exploit the situation, and revive the series for three increasingly formulaic seasons on Fox, as well as an upcoming spin-off, The Cleveland Show. In Futurama’s case, Matt Groening decided to take things in a different direction, choosing to create a series of direct-to-DVD movies, which would then be split into half-hour episodes for Comedy Central. While the first of these movies, Bender’s Big Score, oftentimes felt contrived and lacking in the biting satire that fans of Futurama had come to expect from its creator, The Beast with a Billion Backs actually feels like a feature-length film, and less like a series of episodes strung together.

What makes the new movie work is that writers Eric Kaplan and David X. Cohen (who co-developed the show with Groening) keep the subplots to a bare minimum and, thankfully, keep away from that nasty plot device called time travel. In the film, a giant hole in the universe has been ripped open, causing scientist Stephen Hawking (played by the real Stephen Hawking) to stage a conference for all the scientists to try and come up with a solution to the problem. Meanwhile, Fry (Billy West) starts a relationship with Colleen (Brittany Murphy), who gives him a bit of a surprise when it turns out that she has four other boyfriends. After discovering this, Fry dumps her and decides to jump through the rip in space, in order to start a new life. Once through the rift, he discovers a planet-sized, multi-tentacled monster called Yivo who falls in love with Fry’s universe and decides to mate with it. Strange, I know, and it gets stranger. Pretty soon, Fry becomes the Pope of Yivo’s new religion, and invites humanity to leave Earth and enter the other dimension. At the same time, Bender becomes a member of the secret League of Robots, whose mission statement to “Kill All Humans!” is pretty much ignored by its members, which include Calculon, Hedonismbot, and other familiar faces in the Futurama universe.

It may seem like a lot to swallow, but keep in mind that Bender’s Big Score had a lot more plotlines, and plenty of disorganization to go with it. The Beast with a Billion Backs keeps the energy focused on one story at a time, and only rarely pulls out some obscure character for a cheap laugh. The movie also benefits greatly from the casting of David Cross as Yivo, who injects some much-needed droll humor into an otherwise daunting character. Overall, Groening restores our faith in the future of Futurama with a wonderful new movie, and while it does represent a return to form, it doesn’t feel like a rehash of the same old jokes.

Radiohead: The Best Of (DVD Review)

2008-06-03T15:47:00.004-04:00

Capitol Records drove the final nail into the coffin that was Radiohead’s contract today, with the release of a massive selection of greatest hits compilations, including a single-disc edition, a double-disc limited edition, a quadruple-LP edition, and a DVD featuring all of their videos. All of these came with the somewhat unoriginal title Radiohead: The Best Of, a puzzling choice considering so many of their song titles would make wonderful alternatives. What about No Surprises...or Exit Music...or We Suck Young Blood? Anyway, if you’ve already got most of Radiohead’s albums, you’ll probably find the DVD to be the only release this week of any value (though that LP box set looks pretty sweet, too). On it are 21 of their music videos, culled from each of the albums released on Capitol. The only glaring omissions are two videos done for Kid A, most notably Stanley Donwood and Shynola’s animated film for “Motion Picture Soundtrack.”

Unlike the single and double-disc CD sets, the DVD is arranged chronologically, so that viewers can truly see the evolution of the band from angst-ridden alt-rockers to representatives of the dark corners of the avant-garde. Pablo Honey alone is represented by four videos (three more than necessary, but I guess we must be thorough), most of which feature Thom Yorke mugging for the camera while the band plays on behind him. Radiohead’s visual style matured along with their music as they released 1995’s The Bends, and the directors they worked with began to forge dense narratives, as evidenced by the videos for “Just” and “High and Dry” (both the US and UK versions are on here, though the US version is the one worth watching). Jonathan Glazer proved especially good at translating Radiohead’s music into memorable visuals, with his beautiful time-lapse photography for “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and the sinister car ride of “Karma Police.”

The real treat, however, is all the videos for Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, most of which have never been released on DVD in the US. Michel Gondry’s astounding one-shot video for “Knives Out” is alone worth the price of admission, considering it was mercilessly removed from Gondry’s Director’s Label DVD at the last minute. Also essential viewing is Shynola’s ethereal computer animated video for “Pyramid Song,” featuring a polygonal character diving into an ocean filled with abandoned buildings and houses. One of the more surprising inclusions on this set is the video for “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors / Like Spinning Plates,” directed by Johnny Hardstaff and featuring two Siamese twin babies whose chests get ripped apart by robotic machinery. The video isn’t as graphic as the description suggests, and the highly detailed machinery is actually quite beautiful to look at. Finally, out of the four videos for Hail to the Thief, the Jan Svankmejer-influenced “There There,” directed by Chris Hopewell, is the definite highlight.

Overall, Radiohead: The Best Of does a good job of showing a band in transition, as their video collection slowly goes from simply starring the band to reinterpreting their increasingly sinister, yet highly innovative music.

Music Review: Verve Remixed 4

2008-05-28T17:23:00.005-04:00

One often wonders if Verve could’ve saved a whole lot of production costs if it had just lumped the best songs from the last three Verve Remixed compilations onto a single disc and released that instead. The same case could be made for the fourth volume in the series, which suffers from the same problem that plagued the earlier volumes, which is that not many DJs like to do a whole lot of tinkering to the classic compositions they are asked to remix.

Like volume three, which culled most of its remixers from the indie community (Postal Service, RJD2, and Danger Mouse, to name a few), volume four tries for thematic unity by recruiting globetrotting turntablists to work their magic on the Verve back catalog. It’s a gamble that pays off…for the most part. Nina Simone’s “Gimme Some,” a track originally rooted in the blues tradition, is given a Motown sheen by pop producer Mike Mangini, while French electro experimentalist Pilooski does a thumping cut-and-paste number on Simone’s “Taking Care of Business,” making it one of the biggest departures from the original and a definite highlight of the Verve Remixed series. Meanwhile, funk/jazz hybrid group Antibalas transforms the rhumba stylings of Patato & Totico’s “Dilo Como Yo” into something resembling an atmospheric outtake from Panda Bear’s last album.

But for every Pilooski and Antibalas, there’s a Truth & Soul, who simply add a beat to Dinah Washington’s “Cry Me a River” and call it a remix. Even more perplexing is Kenny Dope’s take on James Brown’s “There Was a Time,” which sounds like nothing has been altered, but still ends up being two minutes longer than its original incarnation. As always, the compilation ends on a downtempo note, with The Cinematic Orchestra taking Ella Fitzgerald’s cover of “I Get a Kick out of You” and laying some acoustic guitar over it, as well as a somewhat obnoxious vinyl-scratch sound effect. It’s an anticlimactic end to a somewhat lackluster compilation, but for the people at Verve, I suppose it’s business as usual. (In typical bureaucratic fashion, Verve decided to punish the people who actively searched for a physical copy of the album at record stores. A bonus, album-only remix of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” by Mint Royale was added to the iTunes version of the album.)

Farewell, Sydney

2008-05-26T21:25:00.004-04:00

Sydney Pollack has passed away. He was not only an outstanding filmmaker, with directing credits for Tootsie, Out of Africa, and The Way We Were, he was also an outstanding actor, with his final performance, as George Clooney's superior in Michael Clayton, being one of the acting highlights of 2007. He died of cancer at the age of 73.

My Criterion Collection

2008-05-18T12:52:00.006-04:00

I recently counted up all of the Criterion Collection movies I had the pleasure of viewing and found that I have seen over ninety of their titles. How well do you rank? (Titles are listed by Spine No.)

#1: Grand Illusion (dir. Jean Renoir)
#2: The Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#11: The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
#12: This is Spinal Tap (dir. Rob Reiner)
#13: The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme)
#24: High and Low (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#25: Alphaville (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#26: The Long Good Friday (dir. John Mackenzie)
#29: Picnic at Hanging Rock (dir. Peter Weir)
#30: M (dir. Fritz Lang)
#33: Nanook of the North (dir. Robert Flaherty)
#39: Tokyo Drifter (dir. Seijun Suzuki)
#40: Armageddon (dir. Michael Bay)
#46: The Most Dangerous Game (dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack & Irving Pichel)
#48: Black Orpheus (dir. Marcel Camus)
#51: Brazil (dir. Terry Gilliam)
#52: Yojimbo (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#53: Sanjuro (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#56: The 39 Steps (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#57: Charade (dir. Stanley Donen)
#61: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones)
#64: The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed)
#65: Rushmore (dir. Wes Anderson)
#70: The Last Temptation of Christ (dir. Martin Scorsese)
#78: The Bank Dick (dir. Edward Cline)
#91: The Blob (dir. Irvin S. Yeaworth)
#97: Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee)
#98: L’avventura (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
#100: Beastie Boys Video Anthology (dir. Various)
#102: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (dir. Luis Buñuel)
#103: The Lady Eve (dir. Preston Sturges)
#104: Double Suicide (dir. Masahiro Shinoda)
#105: Spartacus (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
#107: Mona Lisa (dir. Neil Jordan)
#110: M. Hulot’s Holiday (dir. Jacques Tati)
#111: Mon Oncle (dir. Jacques Tati)
#112: Playtime (dir. Jacques Tati)
#116: The Hidden Fortress (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#131: Closely Watched Trains (dir. Jirí Menzel)
#135: Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#137: Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
#138: Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#140: 8 ½ (dir. Federico Fellini)
#144: Loves of a Blonde (dir. Milos Forman)
#157: The Royal Tenenbaums (dir. Wes Anderson)
#164: Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)
#166: Down By Law (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
#168: Monterey Pop (dir. D. A. Pennebaker)
#170: Trouble in Paradise (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
#175: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (dir. Terry Gilliam)
#178: My Life as a Dog (dir. Lasse Hallström)
#190: Throne of Blood (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#217: Tokyo Story (dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
#219: La Strada (dir. Federico Fellini)
#220: Naked Lunch (dir. David Cronenberg)
#221: Ikiru (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#226: Onibaba (dir. Kaneto Shindo)
#230: 3 Women (dir. Robert Altman)
#233: Stray Dog (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#247: Slacker (dir. Richard Linklater)
#251: Shadows (dir. John Cassavetes)
#260: Eyes Without a Face (dir. Georges Franju)
#265: Short Cuts (dir. Robert Altman)
#268: Youth of the Beast (dir. Seijun Suzuki)
#280: The Sword of Doom (dir. Kihachi Okamoto)
#287: Burden of Dreams (dir. Les Frank)
#288: F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles)
#300: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir. Wes Anderson)
#302: Harakiri (dir. Masaki Kobayashi)
#307: Naked (dir. Mike Leigh)
#309: Ugetsu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
#319: The Bad Sleep Well (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#322: The Complete Mr. Arkadin (dir. Orson Welles)
#336: Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater)
#349: Kicking and Screaming (dir. Noah Baumbach)
#352: Jigoku (dir. Nobuo Nakagawa)
#353: Sólo con tu Pareja (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
#374: Bicycle Thieves (dir. Vittorio de Sica)
#377: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (dir. Mikio Naruse)
#381: La Haine (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz)
#385: Army of Shadows (dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
#386: Sansho the Bailiff (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)
#387: La Jetée (dir. Chris Marker)
#391: If…. (dir. Lindsay Anderson)
#393: Pitfall (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara)
#395: The Face of Another (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara)
#396: Ace in the Hole (dir. Billy Wilder)
#399: House of Games (dir. David Mamet)
#400: Stranger Than Paradise (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
#408: Breathless (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#413: Drunken Angel (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
#421: Pierrot le Fou (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
#431: The Thief of Bagdad (dir. Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell & Tim Whelan)

Real Life Wall-E

2008-05-18T00:01:00.002-04:00

As if I didn't need another reason to see the new Pixar film, apparently they went and built a real-life version of the title character. Take a look:

Explorers Club Debut LP This Tuesday

2008-05-17T12:25:00.004-04:00

I've been singing the praises of the Most Likely to Win a Beach Boys Sound-Alike Contest band, The Explorers Club, whose debut album, Freedom Wind, drops on CD and LP this Tuesday. It's a beautiful summer soundtrack, and one I will definitely be picking up when it comes out. For now, though, not only can you grab a couple free MP3s from the album, you can stream six tracks as a muxtape!

Criterion Goes Blu-ray!

2008-05-07T18:49:00.005-04:00

Diehard cinephiles, get ready to buy your favorite movies all over again: The Criterion Collection will start releasing Blu-ray versions of existing titles this October. According to a recent e-mail sent to newsletter subscribers, "These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions." Here's a look at the list of films slated for high-def release:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

If one or two of those titles seem new to you, it's because they probably are. Kar Wai Wong's Chungking Express, Gregory Nava's El Norte, and Wes Anderson's directorial debut, Bottle Rocket, will be receiving the Criterion treatment for the first time.

MST3K: The Movie is Silently Released on DVD

2008-05-07T01:01:00.003-04:00

For the longest time, the only way you could see the glorious slice of mid-90s nostalgia that was Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was to either have a friend with a penchant for making VHS bootlegs or to have a YouTube account. Well, the folks at Rogue Pictures (Shaun of the Dead) decided to quietly give the film its long overdue DVD release this Tuesday. Of course, in typical bureaucratic fashion, the disc has zilch as far as extras are concerned. But the film looks great and, in the end, isn't that really all that matters? Here's my favorite moment:

"This American Life" Returns to TV Tomorrow Night

2008-05-03T16:20:00.003-04:00

I have recently come to the conclusion that I no longer have the time or the ability to discover new television shows by turning on the television. I now get my TV fix through my DVD player. Programs like "Human Giant" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are so rarely shown on their respective networks that buying their seasons on DVD is the only way I am truly able to take them in.

Case in point is "This American Life." Not only have I never had time to listen to the NPR station here in Wilmington, and thus have to subscribe to the podcast version of the radio show; I also don't get Showtime, so I won't be able to tune in to the premiere of the second season this Sunday. However, I do have access to YouTube, and Showtime has been kind enough to bestow some clips from the upcoming season, including a second short film by animator extraordinaire Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth):

"This American Life: Season One" is available on DVD exclusively at Borders bookstores (trust me, it's worth the effort). Season Two debuts tomorrow night at 10 PM on Showtime or, for those without Showtime, probably the next day on YouTube.

Hooray! Another short film complete!

2008-05-01T18:05:00.002-04:00

This one's called Ball and, despite its short running time and simple premise, was a bitch to put together. Rotoscoping every single one of those frames literally drove me crazy. I think I frightened a few of my friends when they interrupted me working on this thing in the editing lab. Anyway, here is the finished result:

The song is "It's Okay" by the delightful PWRFL Power, off his self-titled EP, which you can purchase for a whopping $4 at the Catbird Records website.

Disney Repackages Existing Documentary Footage, Slaps Some Sigur Rós on It, Hopes Nobody Notices

2008-04-29T00:43:00.004-04:00

So...I thought the idea behind Walt Disney Pictures' new nature documentary division was that they would be making new nature documentaries, not just taking existing footage from the hit BBC miniseries Planet Earth and editing it down to a feature-length film. Videogum said it best when they hypothesized that it was a shot-for-shot remake, with Vince Vaughn as a polar bear. What truly baffles me is the release date. Does it seriously take Disney so long to edit the show down to 90 minutes that they have to push the release all the way to Spring 2009?

Oh, and the Sigur Rós soundtrack only makes me wish Disney were releasing Heima in theaters instead of this.

The new Coldplay album cover + more!

2008-04-28T00:54:00.010-04:00

Coldplay's official website just released a bunch of updates about their new album, including the cover art:

I gotta say that I'm impressed. It was getting to the point where it didn't feel like the band was putting any effort into coming up with album art, so even though it looks like all they did was splatter the title over a pre-existing painting, kudos for being different this time around.

Their website also says that on Tuesday at 12:15pm UK time (that's 6:15pm here on the east coast), they'll have a free download of their first single "Violet Hill," and that the May 7 issue of NME will come with a free 7" of the new single, plus b-side "A Spell A Rebel Yell". You can already pre-order the issue online (it'll set you back about $25 if you want it shipped to a US address).

Finally, Coldplay will be playing two free shows, one at the Brixton Academy in London on June 16, and one at Madison Square Garden on June 23. Details on how to obtain tickets for these shows will be posted soon.

The new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends will be released stateside on June 17.

UPDATE: More info on the origin of the painting on the cover, courtesy of Sleevage.

Redone Zodiac Credits

2008-04-23T22:10:00.002-04:00

For my Motion Graphics and Effects final, I decided to create a new opening title sequence for my favorite film of last year, David Fincher's Zodiac. The whole thing was created using Adobe After Effects. Enjoy!

Yes, They Went There

2008-04-23T16:42:00.006-04:00

Whoever is left standing in the smoldering crater that will be this November's presidential election, I hope that he (or she) will be forced to watch this "campaign ad" (or: pathetic attempt at pandering to fans of professional wrestling) on repeat from the day they win to their inauguration, to serve as a reminder of how shallow and plastic he (again, or she) really is:

As always, Jon Stewart says it better than anybody else.

Tati's Trafic Set for July Release on Criterion

2008-04-21T01:00:00.002-04:00

Jacques Tati is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, with M. Hulot's Holiday, Mon Oncle, and Playtime being my three favorite films of his. So I am excited to announce that The Criterion Collection will be releasing Tati's last film, 1971's Trafic, on a beautiful new 2-disc DVD set this July. In addition to the 97-minute film, the set will also include a 2-hour documentary from 1969 entitled In the Footsteps of Monsieur Hulot, referring to the alter-ego that Tati has portrayed in nearly all of his films.

As usual, the cover art looks fantastic:

Now, I just hope Criterion will get around to releasing Tati's debut feature, Jour de Fete. Also on tap for July: a new 2-disc re-release of Kurosawa's modern crime drama High and Low.

New Hertzfeldt Short + Stills

2008-04-16T19:37:00.007-04:00

Animator Don Hertzfeldt, who has consistently blown my mind and/or made me laugh my ass off with shorts like Billy's Balloon, Rejected, and The Meaning of Life, has made some major announcements regarding his new film, part two in the trilogy that began with 2007's Everything Will Be OK. The film is going to be called I Am So Proud of You and he has posted some awesome stills from it on his blog:

More stills, as well as DVDs of all of Don's work, t-shirts, and more awesome stuff, can be found here.

Why I Love Indie Labels

2008-04-07T16:52:00.003-04:00

I've already sung praises about Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, but they (and their label Polyvinyl) have really outdone themselves with this pre-release. For $12, you get Pershing on CD or LP, a poster, download codes for three bonus SSLYBY tracks and a 16-track Polyvinyl sampler, a sticker, a button, and a Mystery Flavor Airhead (not pictured; already consumed). So, congrats to the band for making buying music fun again.

Oh, and the mystery flavor was blueberry. The blue color kinda gave it away.

SSLYBY - "Think I Wanna Die" (MP3)

Kristen Schaal on "The Daily Show"

2008-03-16T13:07:00.003-04:00

Comedienne Kristen Schaal, who plays Mel, the #1 fan of "Flight of the Conchords," made her "Daily Show" debut last week. Here's how it went down:

See other nuggets of Kristen Schaal goodness.

"David" Trailer Now Online!

2008-03-13T00:14:00.003-04:00

The trailer for my short film debut, David, is now on YouTube! Please enjoy:

The official website for the movie isn't up yet, but it should be by the end of this week. Thanks to everyone who worked on this project! I look forward to sending it to various festivals this summer!!

New Justice Video - "DVNO"

2008-03-01T17:03:00.005-05:00

Back in the day, I used to watch a short film called "Flying Logos" on an old VHS tape entitled "Computer Animation Festival Vol. 1". Basically, it was an attempt at creating a story by using footage of a bunch of CGI company logos. It was simple fun (which is generally the case with old-school computer animation) but that's the first thing that came to mind after watching the new video for Justice's "DVNO." So Me, the production firm that designed their hit video for "D.A.N.C.E." returns to the fold to send-up a ton of 1980-90s company logos by replacing the names with lyrics from the song. It's really pretty sleek, and it's an early contender for best music video of '08.

Garfield Minus Garfield

2008-02-27T12:38:00.002-05:00

Who knew that if you removed Garfield from his comic strip, you'd end up with a series of disturbing, yet hilarious, looks at the schizophrenic behavior of one Jon Arbuckle?

More here.

The Post-Oscar Report (and the Very-Belated Top 10 Movies of 2007 List)

2008-02-25T00:04:00.003-05:00

Yay, Once won for Best Original Song!! All in all, tonight was a good night for great movies. No Country for Old Men took the top prizes, There Will Be Blood secured the Actor and Cinematography awards, and Atonement won next to nothing! Still, there were a few upsets. I mean, Tilda Swinton for Best Supporting Actress? Even she looked surprised! And who would've thought The Bourne Ultimatum would take home so many technical awards?

And now, for the unveiling of my unbelievably belated Top 10 Movies of 2007 list:

Zodiac (dir. David Fincher) Fincher has always had a knack for making a great-looking movie, though only one film in his repertoire (Se7en) melds the visuals with an equally engaging story (in Fight Club, the over-indulgent visuals clearly overpower the story). Thankfully, Zodiac finds Fincher finally combining his meticulous attention to detail with a story truly worthy of such scrutiny. Despite the film’s long running time and the fact that all of the murders happen during the first half-hour, Zodiac never loses its pace, as long as the audience is as willing to become as ensnared in the intrigue as lead actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey, Jr. are. With Fincher at the helm, that shouldn’t be a problem.
There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) It’s ironic that the film P.T. Anderson dedicates to the memory of Robert Altman is also his first film to deviate from the Altman formula of ensemble casts and intersecting storylines. Rather, the ghost of Stanley Kubrick permeates through every oil-soaked frame of There Will Be Blood, a moral fable of sorts, in which Daniel Day-Lewis gives what may be the best performance of his career. Anderson also continues his talent for picking excellent young actors by casting the unknown Dillon Freasier as Day-Lewis’ son, reviving the theme of father/son relationships that played such a major role in other Anderson films like Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Jonny Greenwood also plays a major role in There Will Be Blood, supplying one of the most unsettling musical scores this year, conjuring up the spirit of György Ligeti, another frequent Kubrick collaborator and supplier of the infamous “monolith music” from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen) The Coen brothers had begun to slowly sink into the land of over-indulgence and self-parody with their mediocre comedies Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Thank God they came to their senses and turned out their darkest and most gripping crime thriller since Fargo. No character says any more than needs being said, and no music is heard throughout most of the film, creating an overall sense that our lead actors (Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin) are simply biding time until their imminent demise, quite possibly in the form of Javier Bardem, whom the Coens have turned into one of the most terrifying killers since…well, Peter Stormare in Fargo.
Juno (dir. Jason Reitman) What sets Juno apart from the recent string of quirky comedies like Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, Eagle vs. Shark, and countless others, is how it takes all of the clichés of the genre (dialogue with countless pop-culture references, silly props like a hamburger phone, a soundtrack with at least one Kinks song in it) and makes them feel fresh by injecting a truly heartfelt storyline about a young girl’s quick and perilous journey into womanhood. Also, any movie that can get a good performance out of Jennifer Garner is surely worthy of some sort of award.
Once (dir. John Carney) In a year where nothing but depressing, dark mood pieces are making everyone’s top ten lists, it’s nice to see John Carney’s sleeper hit make it near the top of most of them. Glen Hansard and newcomer Marketa Irglova turn out one of the most heartfelt, effortless, and downright honest movies of the year, with a soundtrack that rivals the best musicals.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir. Tim Burton) Tim Burton has always walked a tightrope between harmless children’s horror (Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) and full-on dread and doom. His adaptation of Sweeney Todd, however, makes Sleepy Hollow look like the animated Disney version, as Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter sing and dance their way through countless gory murders, usually followed by dinner. The music isn’t particularly memorable in individual chunks (with the exception of “Not While I’m Around,” sung wonderfully by newcomer Ed Sanders) but as a whole entity, the score feels entirely born out of the material, and it would’ve been impossible for Burton to envision a Sweeney Todd movie without it.
Great World of Sound (dir. Craig Zobel) This movie could have been really bad. Writer/director Craig Zobel could’ve focused solely on how ridiculous some of the musicians seem, unaware that they’re being played for saps in a motion picture. But instead, he focuses on the integrity of his main character, played deftly by stalwart character actor Pat Healy, as his dream of being a music producer slowly disintegrates right before his eyes. Kene Holliday provides a wonderfully entertaining counterpoint to Healy before revealing that he has yet to come to terms with his own demons. The best film I saw at Cucalorus 13.
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet) Sidney Lumet is a fucking institution in the movie industry. With at least three landmark movies under his belt (12 Angry Men, Network, Dog Day Afternoon) there was no need for him to make another movie ever again. But Lumet was persistent, and at the ripe old age of 83, turned out this unbelievably taut and morbid thriller, featuring what may possibly be Philip Seymour Hoffman’s greatest performance, a hard-earned accomplishment considering this is also one of the best showcases for Ethan Hawke and Albert Finney.
Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird) Cars may have been Pixar’s first stumble in an otherwise stellar canon of animated features, but Brad Bird easily put fears of a creative dry spell to rest with his charming tale of a Parisian sewer rat destined for culinary greatness. Once again, Pixar prides itself not on big names to provide its voice work, but on actors who genuinely fit the characters’ personalities. Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, and (of course) Peter O’Toole all shine.
Hot Fuzz (dir. Edgar Wright) Say what you will about the comic team of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They have a knack for not only sending up every stereotype of whichever genre they tackle, they also do the genre justice with an engaging storyline and fascinating characters. Hot Fuzz aims a little higher than its zombie-centered counterpart (the film breathlessly combines elements of police procedural, crime thriller, slasher film, and buddy cop movies) but it remains one of the most engaging comedies of the year.

Honorable Mentions:
The Darjeeling Limited (dir. Wes Anderson)
Everyone gave Wes Anderson a hard time this year because his newest film wasn’t “different enough.” Let’s face it; India already looks like a Wes Anderson film. What is different is Anderson’s focus, not on an old man at the end of his rope, or on a grade school wunderkind, but on three brothers, already alienated from themselves and their indifferent mother, and their desperate attempts (or, rather, Owen Wilson’s desperate attempts) to reconcile their differences before abandoning one another forever. As a matter of fact, Anderson makes some bold choices this time around, especially regarding the inclusion of the short prequel Hotel Chevalier, which boils the Anderson formula down to thirteen minutes, and also complements several scenes in the subsequent feature.

Rocket Science (dir. Jeffrey Blitz)
Blitz, coming off the heels of his Oscar-nominated documentary Spellbound, again deals with the struggle kids face when they’re forced to grow up too quickly, albeit in a fictional setting. Reece Daniel Thompson stars as a stuttering young man who is practically forced to join the high school debate team by the domineering Anna Kendrick. Blitz uses the tried-and-true Napoleon Dynamite formula when it comes to creating quirky characteristics, but he deftly subverts them in a genuine attempt to show what happens to kids when the pressure is applied and nothing less than excellence is expected.

Superbad (dir. Greg Mottola)
The one thing lacking from the countless Judd Apatow comedies this year and last was an overall sense of style, and while there’s certainly nothing in Superbad to justify the blaxpoitation-drenched soundtrack or retro graphics, at least it’s something. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera do a great job carrying the main plotline of the film, but it’s Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, and the downright hilarious Christopher Mintz-Plasse as “McLovin” Fogell who help carry this film into the upper echelon of high school comedies like Dazed and Confused and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The TV Set (dir. Jake Kasdan)
Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow know a lot about the television industry. The two collaborated on a pair of shows (Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), both of which got cancelled early on, and both of which found massive cult followings, propelling Apatow to the head of the pack in the film industry, helming nearly every successful American comedy of the last four years. In The TV Set, we find executive producer Apatow and writer/director Kasdan at their most venomous, as they stick a red hot poker to the television executives they’ve had to put up with for the better part of a decade. Their scorn and hatred is encompassed in Sigourney Weaver’s character, a producer who embodies all that is wrong with the television industry. Her character is only concerned about the bottom line, and thinks nothing of canning writer David Duchovny’s new show in favor of a second season of something called Slut Wars. While The TV Set isn’t the laugh-riot that movies like Superbad and Walk Hard are, it doesn’t try to be. Instead, it’s a dark satire of how regulated network television is, and how good TV executives are at weeding out talent and diluting creativity.

Gondry's Sweded Be Kind Trailer

2008-02-22T16:34:00.002-05:00

In a stroke of inspiration, Michel Gondry decides to remake the trailer for his own movie, Be Kind, Rewind, this time with himself in all the roles. Pretty funny stuff.

Click here for the original trailer.

Wild Things Test Footage

2008-02-17T12:45:00.006-05:00

Film Ick pointed out this video, which appears to be a leaked scene from the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers adaptation of the beloved children's book Where the Wild Things Are. It certainly looks legit, although the voice work seems slightly off. Maybe it's a piece of test footage. Either way, it's exciting to see something come out of this highly secretive production other than a couple of stills.

If you're looking for more from the Spike Jonze department, check out his new video for Kanye West. It kind of falls at the end of the spectrum opposite from Where the Wild Things Are, so I'm labelling it NSFW.

UPDATE: According to a few sources, this is most likely test footage shot in LA. Apparently, that's not even the kid who ended up playing Max in the movie.

Kanye West - "Flashing Lights" video

2008-02-13T19:52:00.005-05:00

A new music video by Spike Jonze is news. A new music video by Spike Jonze for Kanye West is big news. While I've never been a huge fan of Mr. West, he does keep good company (he's worked with Daft Punk, Chris Martin, producer Jon Brion, director Michel Gondry and animator Bill Plympton) so it's only natural for Jonze to take a break during the production of Where the Wild Things Are to head up a new Kanye vid, though if you're expecting another "Praise You," you will be sadly mistaken. The "Flashing Lights" video is similar to Jonze's more disturbing endeavors like Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Y Control," one of my favorite scary music videos. Watch and decide for yourself.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - New Album Out in April

2008-02-11T00:56:00.001-05:00

I can't wait. Also, the two photographs that appear onscreen when he's talking about touring libraries with Harry and the Potters, those were taken at the show I went to at the Greensboro Public Library. Very awesome.

Hey! I made a commercial!

2008-02-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

We shot this literally 48 hours after I came up with the concept. I believe this is take six. If I have time, I'll upload earlier takes to show you guys the process that went into making it.

If you're a student filmmaker and your interested in submitting a film for Reel Teal, visit the Flicker Film Society website for an official entry form and rules.

The Best Superbowl Ad

2008-02-04T00:16:00.000-05:00

FedEx's "Carrier Pigeons" commercial wins hands-down, not just because it has some of the most impressive special effects I've seen, but also because it pulls a classic "bait-and-switch" and delivers a hilarious series of outlandish gags, one right after the other.

See how they made the commercial here.

Oscar Nods Announced!

2008-01-23T23:06:00.000-05:00

I had written my Oscar predictions for the year, but never got around to posting them. So, now that the Oscar nominees have already been announced, let's see how close I was:

Best Picture
Juno
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac

3 out of 5 ain't bad. I'll go ahead and say that I naïvely included a lot of nominations for Zodiac, thinking that a low-key Spring release date wouldn't hurt its chances of Oscar gold. Silly me!

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

I was really surprised at how many of the Best Actor nominees I got right. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was another film that undeservedly got snubbed by the Academy this year, but at least Hoffman got a nomination in the Best Supporting category. Also, I didn't know if Tommy Lee Jones' character in No Country for Old Men was the "star" of the movie, which probably explains why he was nominated, but for In the Valley of Elah instead.

Best Actress
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Ellen Page, Juno

Once again, three out of five. Adams will soon receive the Oscar she should've gotten for her role in Junebug, just not this year. I have no idea why Cate Blanchett received a nod for her Elizabeth sequel, not only because she was nominated for an Oscar for the same role back in 1998, but she's also up for a Best Supporting nod for I'm Not There.

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood
Robert Downey, Jr., Zodiac
Albert Finney, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Kene Holliday, Great World of Sound

Wow, did I ever screw this one up. Bardem is a given, but no props for Dano? Seriously? The dude more than held his own with Daniel Day-Lewis, so that's gotta be worth something! Also, I believe Kene Holliday's performance is one of the best I saw at Cucalorus 13 and I hope Great World of Sound finds some sort of a cult following.

Best Supporting Actress
Juliette Binoche, Paris Je T'Aime
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Jennifer Garner, Juno
Samantha Morton, Control
Imelda Staunton, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Once again, a measly one out of five. Even though Juliette Binoche's part in the sprawling project Paris, Je T'Aime is a small one, I was moved by her performance and thought it deserved recognition. I'm surprised the Academy overlooked Jennifer Garner in Juno, but maybe they haven't forgiven her for Elektra yet. Also, let me just say that Imelda Staunton's character in the fifth Harry Potter movie is one of the great villains of modern-day cinema.

Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
David Cronenberg, Eastern Promises
David Fincher, Zodiac
Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

I was happy to see P.T. Anderson and the Coens up on the list, but no Lumet? I enjoyed Jason Reitman's direction as much as the next person, but there were better directors out there this year. Cronenberg and Fincher have never even been nominated for a Best Director Oscar, a mistake that must soon be rectified.

Best Original Screenplay
Brad Bird, Jim Capobianco and Jan Pinkava, Ratatouille
Jeffrey Blitz, Rocket Science
Diablo Cody, Juno
Kelly Masterson, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
George Smith and Craig Zobel, Great World of Sound

I was blown away to find that I had correctly predicted that Ratatouille would be up for a Best Screenplay Oscar. And even though Blitz and Zobel were on there mainly 'cause I loved those movies so much at Cucalorus, I am once again disappointed at the Academy's lack of props for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Leslie Dixon, Hairspray
John Logan, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
James Vanderbilt, Zodiac

Hairspray was kind of a last-minute addition to my list, mainly because I hadn't seen a whole lot of movies based on a previously existing work. Sweeney Todd also didn't get as many nods as I had thought it would, and once again, no love for Zodiac.

Overall, I'm happy that two of my favorite films of 2007, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, got the most nominations this year. I'm also happy that at least one song from Once is up for the Best Original Song award (though, according to the New York Times, this may be redacted). However, it saddens me to say that the Onion's pick for the worst movie of 2007 has been nominated for a Best Makeup award. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Academy Award nominated...Norbit.