Splitscreen: A Love Story.

Winner of the 2011 Nokia Shorts competition, directed by JW Griffiths:



Absolutely brilliant.

Where I'd rather be.

Relatively speaking.

Would you care to meet one of my most recent favorite bands? Of course you would.

Back in September, Shaking Through did an episode on Twin Sister. This is that episode.

And here comes a song I really like, too.

Filed in my cabinet...

Under "shit to see." It's actually quite a crowded little place but everyone knows these guys don't take up much room.

By far my most anticipated film of the upcoming year.

Sorry suitors, but this heart belongs to Terrence Malick.

You probably won't see this. I probably will.

Steven Soderbergh directs a compelling new documentary based on actor Spalding Gray's performances of his own life experiences.

"From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance." (Written by Edinburgh International Film Festival)

Watch the trailer for "And Everything is Going Fine" here:
http://screenslam.com/index.php?vid=N3YWZ2MTpF_ymdDPeK-eHM-QinhYNgNh

Michel Michel

Amoeba Music sits down with director and creative sensationalist, Michel Gondry, as he discusses his band, visual effects, and more.

I'm losing my mind.

Terry Gilliam directed Arcade Fire's concert at Madison Square Gardens this week, and partnered with YouTube for a new concert experience that is up for viewing: www.youtube.com/arcadefire. Aside from Terry Gilliam being a god, I can't imagine a better band for this project; in fact, I think it's safe to say that Arcade Fire is one of my generation's greatest products, ever.

The Aggregate.

Much to my surprise (and excitement), today I received an email from Drew Norton, the incredibly talented director of the Phantogram video I posted recently. Drew came across my site, and graciously took the time to thank me for the shout out (AND -- excuse me while I gush -- he even went as far to say that he loves My Bonnie & Clyde) as well as sending me some information regarding one of his latest music video projects.

Drew said that his The Soft Black video is the first in a ten-part series which will cover every song from their 2009 release, "The Earth is Black..." I can only imagine what an exciting project this must be for a director; having the opportunity to create a sort of visual discography for a collective album. Can't wait to see what the next chapter has in store...


Brooklyn, NY- May 10, 2010

Your toes might tap but try and hold on to your stomach, as today sees the launch of the long-awaited music video for acclaimed Brooklyn psych-rockers Soft Black.

The self described "folk-noir" collective have teamed with director Drew Norton (Micachu & The Shapes- Lips, Phantogram- Mouthful of Diamonds) to create a series of videos bringing to life each song of the critically acclaimed 2009 release, "The Earth is Black" (praised by Rolling Stone, Impose Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan).

The original album, designed as a ten-song-cycle documenting the vivid, psychedelic and horrific nightmares of singer Vincent Cacchione, proves itself to be excellent fodder for the deluxe video treatment.

The new video for the infectious title track "The Earth is Black" plays like a Beatle's movie beamed in from outer space, and molested by Ed Wood as it falls back to earth. The dramatic rural setting, aggressive editing, and layered storyline are tinged with shlock horror that match the ambience of this hit track's dream landscape. Watch for a bloody axe, spilling guts, bleak hunting watch-towers... and a tree stump drum kit.

The Director "loves working on this unique project with such a talented and inspired band, they've got me looking way past the starting gate, next up, "The Flesh of the Sky." Singer and lead guitarist, Vin adds, "It was a true pleasure to start our work with Drew on this project, he's an artist with a ton of simpatico and a totally authentic dude. I couldn't be more confident in our ongoing collaboration."

This summer will see both Norton and Soft Black hard at work. As the director completes his 10 part music video series, the band prepare to drop a swagger-filled new EP titled "We Scatter Light," and many more videos.

Watch "The Earth is Black" by The Soft Black - directed by Drew Norton :

Best and worst.

I finally broke down and ordered a copy of John Waters' absurd (now that's an oxymoron) cult masterpiece, Desperate Living. It arrives this week, so it goes without saying that I'll be cancelling most of my weekend plans.

Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality.

Last year, I briefly met an artist who, in passing, mentioned that he did artwork for a NorCal band named Tera Melos. With fairly limited knowledge of the Sacramento music scene, not only had I not heard them, I hadn't ever heard of them. I began scouring around the internet to get a glimpse of the artwork, which in turn led to me to discovering the band's music (that just so happened to be on the stellar indie music label Sargent House.) Let me assure you, no matter your taste in music, it's absolutely impossible to deny the talent that lies within Tera Melos. (Watch their cover of Hey Sandy here.)

Recently, one of the members of Tera Melos, Nick Reinhart (one of the yummiest creatures I've ever laid eyes on) paired up with Zach Hill (of Hella and The Ladies) to form their side project, Bygones. (Fun fact : Bygones' 2009 'By-' album features Amber Coffman from Dirty Projectors on the cover.) Anyone with any interest in the math rock scene, and even those with no interest, would do themselves a disservice by not immediately dipping their feet into Bygones.

My personal fave of their recent album release : Click on That (Smash the Plastic Death): LISTEN HERE

Between Zach Hill's mind-numbing rhythms and Nick "the bod" Reinhart's insane start-then-stop-then-start guitar riffs, I honestly can't believe my eyes when I watch these two play. (Besides, I'm a total sucker for a hardcore talent-crush.)

What's even better? The art doesn't stop there. Apparently, a group of Reinhart's friends pulled together recently to write, produce, shoot and star in a movie entitled Snakeville. From IMDB.com, "Snakeville is a town in the middle of wherever you are and wherever it is you are going. Its denizens are odd, their hopes and dreams are small and big. This is a day in their lives." A look into the ridiculous minds of it's creators, Snakeville leaves me feeling that I'm not the only one who's enamoured with all things wonderfully strange.

-C.

Watch Snakeville now :

Dear Lemon Lima

Yann Perreau: L'amour se meurt from Bonsound on Vimeo.

Silence is golden.

I wanted to share an exciting email I received from Cinefamily (here in Los Angeles) about the return of silent films to the Silent Movie Theater! If you're unfamiliar, The Cinefamily is an organization of self-proclaimed movie lovers specializing in showcasing cult, avant garde, weird, educational and exceptional films. The family takes claim to the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles (which ran for four decades as the only fully functioning silent movie theater in the country), and hosts different themed film nights, special events, and so on. It's a truly remarkable organization for anyone to be a part of, especially film lovers and those with a fascination of the unique.

Cinefamily,

There's been a lot of wondering and concern about the state of silent films in the Cinefamily program, so I wanted to send a missive both clarifying our past approach, and informing you about the future -- a future that does include the continued tradition of showing silent films here. The Cinefamily is a non-profit whose goals are to explore *every* corner of cinema, and perhaps even a little beyond those corners, seeking to discover and share all kinds of film. We really do like it all, and want our program to be a big "tent" with great films from every genre, every place, and every decade. So it was not a conflict for us to continue the tradition of silent films here, a landscape rich with masterpieces and curios. The fact that we were welcomed into the Silent Movie Theatre, a wonderful home with such a rich history, was exciting -- but we also knew might lead to confusion.

Though we do many things here, we are keeping the tradition of showing silents at The Silent Movie Theatre alive with its own special time slot. For the past three years (two years since we opened, and one year previous while we were planning everything), we've dedicated one day a week to silents. The theatre had been exisiting for some time previously as a private rental house for weddings, parties, and private screenings, so this was actually an increase in silent screenings. Since last October, we did take some time off to assess the best course of action, but have no fear: the plan was to return stronger than ever.

We now have a guest programmer the first Wednesday of every month -- The Silent Treatment -- who will be showing rare archival prints, most of which are unavailable on DVD. While we may not show silents each and every Wednesday, we will show at least two or three a month, and we also plan on starting a matinee program in the spring, with more family-friendly classics by the big names in silent comedy -- Chaplin, Keaton, etc. Our investment is real -- we even bought new 18-frames-per-second motors (instead of the usual 24) for our projectors, so that we could show true 35mm restorations like The Flapper this Wednesday.

Keep in mind: we don't show silent films to make money, and in order to show as many as possible, we do need your support. The shows are more, not less, expensive than regular screenings, because we also have a live musician and a short program each time, both of which are above and beyond normal costs. Unlike previous owners, we inherited virtually no in-house library of films; while previous Silent Movie Theatre programmers could keep silents shows affordable by showing only public domain films they owned in-house prints of over and over again, every short and feature we show now costs us both rental and shipping fees. In addition, showing rare archival prints requires higher separate print loan fees (aside from rights clearances), insurance, and other sundry expenses.

If you want to help, in addition to attending the silents shows, you can also make tax-deductible donations to the Cinefamily -- and if you want to leave a little note "earmarking" your support for silent films, that does send a message. You can paypal us at donate@cinefamily.org, or mail a donation (with your name and address, so we can get you your receipt) to:

The Cinefamily
611 N. Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA, 90036

Oh, and lest I forget! We're re-opening our silents program with a film I've been dying to show. The Flapper is the best flapper movie this side of It, and undeservedly forgotten actress Olive Thomas was the first Hollywood starlet to earn the appellation. Sexy, fun, and a classic example of the kind of rare screening we hope to show more of (a 35mm print from The Eastman House is a really big deal, guys!), you should all come out to the show. To make it more fun, it's half-off the ticket price if you come in 1920s period costume, and feel free to join us at our "speakeasy" on the back porch (the password is: "swordfish"). So put on the ritz, rope a dope, bring your sugardaddy and come to the Cinefamily petting pantry to catch the latest flick. They're the cat's meow!

Best, and thank you for your time,
Hadrian Belove, Executive Director, The Cinefamily


Please take the time to visit : www.cinefamily.org

Early Edison Kinetoscope film footage.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense."

Undeniably, the greatest mind of all time, Albert Einstein, was quoted in saying, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Since I was a little girl, Alice was the only Disney (and later when introduced to Lewis Carroll, literary) character I ever felt a deep connection with. She was not like the other girls; not a queen, never a princess, not a damsel in distress, nor a leader of the minions. Alice was different; she was a clever day-dreamer who self-seekingly created her own world, filled with whimsical oddities and curious anomalies, simply to escape the mundane existence of the physical world. Simply, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary imagination. Her eccentric reality gave validation to my own mental departure from all things certain. Alice gave me the freedom to indulge in my own curiosities, and taught me how to explore the unfamiliar, how to question the rational and how to dream the unimaginable.

With yet another remake of this moralistic tale arriving soon, I have no doubt that Tim Burton's version will help to inspire others in visualizing and actualizing their own "nonsensical" realities.

- C.

Watch the teaser-trailer here :

Thuis. Casa. Accueil. Heim. Domov. Inicio. Home.

If you've never seen the documentary released in 2007 by Sigur Rós, the time has come to right your wrong.

Excerpt from the Heima website :

Heima : An introduction

Last year, in the endless magic hour of the Icelandic summer, Sigur Rós played a series of concerts around their homeland. Combining both the biggest and smallest shows of their career, the entire tour was filmed, and now provides a unique insight into one of the world’s shyest and least understood bands captured live in their natural habitat.

The culmination of more than a year spent promoting their hugely successful ‘Takk…’ album around the world, the Icelandic tour was free to all-comers and went largely unannounced. Playing in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves and the hoofprint of Odin’s horse, Sleipnir*, the band reached an entirely new spectrum of the Icelandic population; young and old, ardent and merely quizzical, entirely by word-of-mouth.

The question of the way Sigur Rós’s music relates to, and is influenced by, their environment has been reduced to a journalistic cliché about glacial majesty and fire and ice, but there is no doubt that the band are inextricably linked to the land in which they were forged. And the decision to film this first-ever Sigur Rós film in Iceland was, in the end, ineluctable.

Shot using a largely Icelandic crew (to minimise Eurovision-style scenic-wonder overload), ‘Heima’ - which means both “at home” and “homeland” - is an attempt to make a film every bit as big, beautiful and unfettered as a Sigur Rós album. As such it was always going to be something of a grand folie, but one, which taking in no fewer than 15 locations around Iceland (including the country’s largest ever concert at the band’s Reykjavik homecoming), is never less than epic in its ambition.

Material from all four of the band’s albums is featured, including many rare and notable moments. Among these are a heart-stopping rendition of the previously unreleased ‘Gitardjamm’, filmed inside a derelict herring oil tank in the far West Fjords; a windblown, one-mic recording of ‘Vaka’, shot at a dam protest camp subsequently drowned by rising water; and first time acoustic versions of such rare live beauties as ‘Staralfur’, ‘Agaetis Byrjun’ and ‘Von’.

Los Angeles loved Bob Mitchell.

Thanks to the folks at LA-underground.net for posting this blurb today :



Bob Mitchell, longtime organist at the Silent Movie Theatre, passed away on the 4th of July at the age of 96. Chances are if you've ever been to see one of the many silver screen classics at the Theatre or at various silent film revival nights around town, you've seen Mr. Mitchell on organ or piano accompanying the films. As regular attendees of SMT/Cinefamily and just huge fans of the man who's been a cherished local icon for nearly a century, we will miss him dearly. There will be a short memorial service for Mr. Mitchell at the Silent Movie Theatre on Wednesday prior to the 8pm screening of Greta Garbo's Love.

Los Angeles loved Bob Mitchell.

METROPOLIS.

9:35 PM. NEW BEVERLY CINEMA. Digital Re-master. TO-NIGHT.


Happiness.

The signifigance of sentimentality in imagery and sounds...

...is to move you just enough to change you.

Human Prints from julrom1 on Vimeo.