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7 TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
Radiohead 1998
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| Radiohead's late-'90s knack for the matter-of-fact manifests itself prominently in the title of this DVD. As such, 7 Television Commercials is what it says it is: A compilation of seven videos from the English band's The Bends and OK Computer albums. No more, no less. The DVD reissue of the original VHS adds no special features--just seven music videos for seven songs that bridged the gap as the Brit-pop band blossomed into art-rock pioneers. If you were paying attention to music-television channels in the 1990s, you already know and love the groundbreaking short films that accompanied "Just" and "Street Spirit," and that odd-but-charming animated bit for "Paranoid Android." And if you've never seen them... well, you can probably just look them up on YouTube. |
| Review by John Brodeur ~ 30|Jul|2008 |
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THE WORK OF DIRECTOR MICHEL GONDRY
Michel Gondry
2003
Filmmaker Michel Gondry's ingenious and resourceful vision first found its way into the world via his startling work on a series of music videos. This entry in the Directors Label series is one of the most visually inventive collections of music videos ever made, utilizing rarely seen techniques such as one-take shoots (Lucas’s "Lucas With the Lid Off" and Massive Attack’s "Protection"), split screen effects (Cibo Matto’s "Sugar Water"), and an innovative use of repetition (The White Stripes' "Hardest Button to Button" and Kylie Minogue’s "Come Into My World"). Gondry took the seemingly limited music video format and filled it with limitless possibility, disregarding all the restrictions and conventions of the medium and injecting a much-needed shot of life into its arm. A fascinating booklet packed full of Gondry’s sketches, thoughts, and storyboards completes this indispensable collection.
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| Review by Nick Neyland ~ 02|Jul|2008 |
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THE WORK OF DIRECTOR CHRIS CUNNINGHAM
Chris Cunningham
2003
Chris Cunningham, former British special effect maven who enjoyed a brief association with fellow director Stanley Kubrick, brings his taste for perverse and unsettling subject matter to this short collection of music videos, many of which were shot for British electronica label Warp Records. His penchant for depravity is manifested in two startling videos for Aphex Twin ("Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker"), which set a new benchmark for the medium. His work has caught the attention of mainstream artists, and this collection includes the memorable "robot love" clip from Bjork’s "All is Full of Love" and also a cut for Madonna with "Frozen". A collection of Cunningham’s short films and a lengthy booklet in which he explains his filmmaking motivations make this a great way to enter his wonderfully wrongheaded world.
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| Review by Nick Neyland ~ 02|Jul|2008 |
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DIG!
Ondi Timoner
2003
You think your band is dysfunctional? Let's see if you feel that way after watching filmmaker Ondi Timoner's 2004 documentary of seven years in the life of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. At first a fairly innocent picture of two friends (Massacre's Anton Newcombe and the Warhols' Courtney Taylor-Taylor) trying to build a scene around themselves, the film follows Newcombe's descent into drug-fueled self-sabotage while Taylor-Taylor's band navigates the major-record-label machine. While Newcombe has derided the film as portraying him unfairly, Dig! succeeds as a compelling, often very funny portrait of a troubled genius. The fact that the "genius" shows through is a testament to not only the film's value, but to Newcombe's considerable talent as well.
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| Review by John Brodeur ~ 19|Jun|2008 |
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THE WORK OF DIRECTOR SPIKE JONZE
Spike Jonze
2003
Spike Jonze has provided us with some of the most iconic images in the history of music videos, all of which are contained in this DVD. Whether it's the Beastie Boys posing as '70s cops, Weezer performing at "Happy Days" haunt Arnold's or Christopher Walken sashaying through a hotel, Jonze's prowess is on full display in this package. In addition to the classic video clips are rare shorts filmed by the director prodigy including "Torrence Rises", a mockumentary focusing on the faux-dance troupe featured in Jonze's video for the Fatboy Slim song "Praise You", and "Amarillo by Morning", a documentary about teenage rodeo hopefuls in Texas.
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| Review by Andrew Gnerre ~ 29|Apr|2008 |
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MAYA DEREN: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
Maya Deren
2002
Maya Deren lived the classic artist cliché. Outsider, changed her name, suffered, made art, died young.
Maya Deren was born in Kiev, Ukraine, as Eleanora Derenkowsky, before making her way to NYC, where she became an avant-garde filmmaker. Multi-faceted, she was also a choreographer, dancer, poet, writer and photographer.
Using a secondhand 16 mm Bolex camera, she made her most well-known experimental film, 'Meshes of the Afternoon' in 1943, together with her husband, Alexander Hammid, a Czech cinematographer.
She continued to make her quietly strange films on shoe string budgets, all infused with a pace and rhythm that was second nature for a dancer. Titles include 'At Land' (1944), 'A Study in Choreography for the Camera' (1945), and 'Ritual in Transfigured Time' (1946).
Deren was rewarded for her efforts in 1947 with the Grand Prix Internationale for 16 mm experimental film at the Cannes Film Festival for 'Meshes of the Afternoon'.
She died in 1961, at the age of 44, from a brain hemorrhage brought on by extreme malnutrition.
Her works still haunt and inspire. Weak imitations of her look are often seen at student film festivals. The style is easily copied, but Deren's sentiment is not so easy to replicate.
Worth serious study.
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| Review by Mara Marich ~ 23|Apr|2008 |
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