HA0004 - Zoo Kid - "Out Getting Ribs" from House Anxiety on Vimeo.
Both gorilla vs bear and Pitchfork have selected their videos of the year and, just for the fun of it, I've scattered a few up and down this Saturday Briefing.
Via Mike Everleth comes news that the National Film Preservation Foundation has begun production on Treasures 6: Next Wave Avant-Garde, "a 2-DVD set to be released in fall 2013. Envisioned as a sequel to the NFPF's award-winning Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986, the new anthology explores how avant-garde film took root and spread after the 1950s as the next generation embraced diversity and forged connections with conceptual and performance art." No titles have been announced yet, but we can look forward to 5½ hours of restorations from several archives.
212 featuring Lazy Jay from Azealia Banks on Vimeo.
"In this week's long review I take a look at the recently released box set Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection, which compiles all the sound films made by the comedy team during their salad days at Hal Roach Studios," writes JR Jones in a roundup of "this week's movie action" for the Chicago Reader. "After spending about a week laughing at this stuff, I had to go out and see Young Adult and The Sitter — the experience was like having the greatest sex of my entire life and then pounding a nail into my own face." #8 in his top ten of 2011 countdown: The Wise Kids, directed by Stephen Cone, whom Ben Sachs interviews; Ben's #7: Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.
Battles, "My Machines," by Daniels, featuring Gary Numan (!)
More lists. Stephen King's "Top 20 for 2011" at Entertainment Weekly is as eclectic as ever. All of pop culture is game, and of course, there's a handful of movies in there as well, the highest ranking (at #2) being JC Chandor's Margin Call.
Neil Young's been tallying his "Performances of 2011."
At Movie Morlocks, Kimberly Lindbergs writes up her "Favorite Film Related Books of 2011," five of them this week, with another round promised for Thursday; at Salon, over 50 writers pick their favorite books of the year.
In the works. Eddie Murphy may play former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry in a biopic Spike Lee would direct for HBO. Philiana Ng has more in the Hollywood Reporter.
Neil Marshall's next: Hellfest. Benjamin Wright has more at the Playlist.
Battles - Ice Cream (Featuring Matias Aguayo) - taken from forthcoming album 'Gloss Drop' from Warp Records on Vimeo.
New York. The series Magicians on Screen opens at the Museum of the Moving Image today and runs through New Year's Day. At Moving Image Source, magician Ben Robinson, who'll be presenting a live show this evening, writes an appreciation of that grand illusionist, Buster Keaton.
Photos. BlackBook's got 24 shots Jack Erling's shot on the set of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, which'll be scored, it's well worth noting, by Jonny Greenwood. Set in the 50s, "the movie follows a drifter (Joaquin Phoenix) drawn into the fold of a charismatic leader (the Master of the title, aka Philip Seymour Hoffman) espousing a newly created pseudo-religious belief system ('the Cause') to an increasingly devoted following. The drifter finds himself equally drawn to the Master's daughter (Amy Adams)…. Several observers have noticed parallels between the story of the Master and his Cause, and the founding of Scientology by L Ron Hubbard."
Bill Callahan, "America!"
More viewing (1'53"). Movieline has the new trailer for Frederick Wiseman's Crazy Horse.
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