The two Scorsese concert films - Shine a Light and The Last Waltz

April 4th, 2008 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

Rolling Stones - Shine a Light Trailer

One of Martin Scorsese’s earlier movies was not a gangster pic but a documentary about aging rockstars and the last performance by ‘The Band’. It was released exactly 20 years ago, in April 1978. Scorsese’s latest film, released today is about a performance by the Rolling Stones, who were aging rockstars when the first film was made. Here are the trailers of the two movies, for comparison.

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Glenn Gould Chair

April 1st, 2008 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

Nobody played Bach like Glenn Gould - literally. He made uncontrollable noises while hunched up over the keyboard, perched on an ancient chair with a broken seat that he carried with him for performances. Now someone has made a replica of the completely knackered Gould chair, for over a $1000.
Glenn Gould Chair
Unlike many eccentric ‘artists’ Gould is the real deal, so obviously odd that his manner does not seem affected and his mastery is genuine.

Roll Up: Get Your Own Glenn Gould Fucked Up Chair Here

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Tales Of Mere Existence “I Have To Get Ready”

March 28th, 2008 · comment or link to (permalink)

Lev’s cartoons used to be the highlight of the most excellent Cole Valley Film Festival, when I lived in San Francisco. The technique is both original and simple, a monologue while drawing the cartoon, viewed from underneath back lighted paper, and the cartoons themselves are very good.
Tales Of Mere Existence “I Have To Get Ready”

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Staff upgrade

March 23rd, 2008 · 3 comments or link to (permalink)

Owing to my piss-poor level of posting recently (I am now a father of one), Jim Nachlin will be spinning the decks here for a bit. Jim is one of the only people I know who has that trainspotter mentality that makes for a good digital curator.

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SmashingTelly sells out

March 8th, 2008 · 3 comments or link to (permalink)

After much agonizing about it, I’ve decided (as some people might have noticed) that I will post clips on SmashingTelly. The reason I though a site about full length programs would work is that the practice of leaving low resolution full length documentaries would encourage people to buy DVDs (I have bought many of the things featured here), so it was a mutually beneficial practice.

That may become a de facto custom in future, but for now many links go dead too quickly. I will continue to post links to full format stuff that I find and have been up long enough that it looks like they are not being requested to get taken down, but will also link to clips. I will try to make the choices of clips be as interesting rather than gimmicky.

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