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The cinetrix has retreated to her mountain lair, a summer tradition. Only this time, with a twist. Earlier this week, we had fiber Internet connected, and it's been like the rural electrification act part 2, electric boogaloo. You see, the old system delivered Internet via satellite, subject to the vagaries of weather, and had a FAP cap that could be blown up by streaming a single cat video. Suboptimal, to say the least. Now we can stream Netflix through the new blue-ray onto the new flat screen [so uncanny valley!], and I can imbibe the moving bits of the Interwebs in real time.
Walk with me.
Official Trailer: Always Together: Chinese-Jamaicans In Reggae from Always Together on Vimeo. My pal Generoso's new doc, which looks fascinating.
Silly French people, with your bande dessinees! [via] I totally can't figure out the vocalist on this -- part James Brown by way of Africa, part the Zombies, all while making pow pow gun noises with his mouth like a little boy?
This next clip is included because of the context in which I watched it most recently, on a former student's film blog, captioned
LYKE DIS IF U CREY EVERY TYME.
I totally do, too.
Pretty sure these androids also appear in Samsara, at least in the five minutes I caught from the balcony of the Carolina Theatre on opening night of this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival before deciding I was too tired to deal with Japanese robots and opted to head back to my air bnb digs.
Walter! I love Walter! [via]
Walter watches your eyes as you watch a film, and every time that you blink, it edits the video.
Based on the theories of Walter Murch in In the Blink of An Eye, I’ve transformed the subliminal action of blinking into a method of interaction with the film. By cutting every time that you blink, Walter creates a customized narrative for you, without interrupting your absorption in the film. You are free to watch while your unconscious does the work.
Montreal in the 60's from Jim Dayshine on Vimeo. A lovely find by way of David Hudson, which doesn't make the news out of Montreal these days any easier to take.
Some related Canadian content. First, you should really read this piece about Caroline Martel's installation Industry/Cinema at the Museum of the Moving Image. I first saw Martel's film The Phantom of the Operator at Full Frame in 2005. Last summer at the Flaherty Seminar, I was fortunate to see a version of this installation and part of her latest, a documentary on the mysterious ondes Martenot.
Second, this great post at Sounding Out about Quebec’s #casseroles: on participation, percussion and protest en Francais and English. The clip above and others embedded in the piece remind us again of the power of the amateur moving image to combat the official narrative of the state ...
Sometimes a manif casserole* sounds like random banging, but most I’ve experienced leave sheer raucous pounding for moments when one march meets up with another, or when someone on a balcony does something particularly cool to cheer on the marchers. A rhythm usually arises from the chaos, encircling the disorder and enveloping everyone. Sometimes the rhythms connect with chants like “la loi spéciale, on s’en câlisse,” which roughly translates to “we don’t give a fuck about your special law.”
<snip>
The numbers are part of the politics. For the last 100-odd days most Quebec students have been on strike against tuition increases of over 70% in five years. Some protests have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Quebec government tried to suppress the student movement by passing Bill 78 on May 18, 2012. Among its many preposterous provisions, any spontaneous gathering of over 50 people is illegal without prior police approval—even a picnic. Protesters not only must disclose their planned route, but also their means of transportation, According to Law 78, people are criminals the minute they join a protest, which is why so many people have taken to the streets.
*(manif is short for manifestation en cours, a street protest)
Talking Heads, play us out.
