کال 2003 - 499

2003

This homage to Ernie Gehr's famous film, working with movement and spatial illusions through the use of quick edits, becomes a physical experiment of its own, with the length of shots determined by the intensity of the sense of motion.

Cinema Study is a reworking of images and sounds taken from Orson Welles landmark film Citizen Kane. The piece breaks the frame into multiple smaller rectangles, each with short video and audio samples from the original film. Part of the activity of the viewer seems to be the activity of keeping track of the images, which pop around the screen, and how they relate to the sounds. All of the sounds in the piece are in a precise synchronous relationship with the images on the screen. The original narrative film breaks down almost completely, and becomes an almost pure visual and musical experience. Call it Citizen Kane the re-mix.

"Through a narrative in which action remains relatively static and intrigue is expressed abstractly through the composer John Davis' classical music and jazz sound track, the women's mundane tasks mirror each other, creating a structural parity between the two channels of the installation. Each channel not only reflects the other but also correlates to it: one woman's exit signals the other's entrance, thus making each image dependent upon the other. While the women's homes, dress, and technological access reveal a century's worth of creature-comfort advances, the two scenes emphasize the continuities of their moments over what might be the expected narrative of racial progress in the hundred years following the end of slavery." -Thomas J. Lax

To date, we've seen the same footage of Gene Vincent and other early stars of rock 'n roll over and over again. It seemed as though there wasn't much...and we'd seen it all. But then Bear Family did an exclusive deal for the rights to the old Town Hall Party show, California's largest country music barn dance. On this DVD, we see Gene with the Blue Caps filmed Oct. 25th, 1958, as well as July 25th and Nov. 7th, 1959. He sings Be-Bop-A-Lula, High Blood Pressure, Rip It Up, Dance to The Bop, You Win Again, For Your Precious Love, Rocky Road Blues, Pretty Pearly, Be-Bop-A-Lula, High School Confidential, Over the Rainbow, Roll Over Beethoven and She She Little Sheila.

A Super-8 film shot in 1997, re-edited and reworked with ink and bleach applied directly onto the footage. Parts of the original action can still be seen, though the emphasis is placed on texture, colour and the electronic music soundtrack.

While Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are preparing for their journey to the moon, somewhere, 30 miles north of Edmonton a solitary caravan is drifting through time.

St. Agnes Academy has a new principal, Father Benet, and a classroom of ten-year-olds that includes Sister Mary Gilbert, straight-A-student Mary Brown, and a precocious scholarship boy, Henry Harvin. Students report on their heroes: Mary's is Jesus Christ, whose middle initial she says is "H" - their former principal, an aging nun whose picture is on the wall, told her so. Henry's hero is Karl Marx. Sister Gilbert sends Harry to see the principal. He walks past moms gathered for a PTA meeting, chats with Ms. White, the school's secretary, and enters Fr. Benet's office for punishment. Father takes out a varnished paddle with holes in the blade. Who will get his comeuppance?

Two people dance in Barcelona to the rhythm of the city’s skyscrapers. The 9/11 2011 events introduced us to the real twenty-first century.

Here are priceless performances filmed during the Town Hall Party show, broadcast every Saturday night in the Compton suburb of Los Angeles. Bob performs on shows taped on Sept. 21st & 27th, 1958, as well as Oct. 4th & 25th 1958. Here, we see why Luman was one of rock 'n roll's all-time great performers as he sings Svengali, I Walk the Line, Blue Suede Shoes, Ready Teddy, Shake, Rattle & Roll, Rockin' Robin, Early in the Morning, Folsom Prison Blues, Precious, Oh Lonesome Me, Itchy Twitchy Feeling, Love Makes the World Go Round, Stagger Lee, A Lover's Question, I Got a Woman and My Baby Walks All Over Me.

Cross-campus pursuits. Bathroom Stall sex. Amateur philosophy. Just another day in the Alaska Statham County University Consortium Library. "Checked Out" follows four student librarians during a single shift. A movie about screwing around at work, and the choices we make in our lives.

Old Japan Now (2003) explores temple spaces, traditional Noh drama and modern Butoh dance to discover where ritual began and how it persists in modern practices. With footage from several important temples in Kyoto and Tokyo, as well as interviews with practitioners of Noh and Butoh, Old Japan Now seeks to explain some of the historical significance that descends from the Shinto religion and early animism. More poetic than clinical, the film is part diary and part haiku, considering the spiral path of ritual (KJ Mohr).

Between April and June 2003, the brutal SARS epidemic had a deep impact on Chinese people's lives, especially in Beijing. Flocks of migrant labourers who had come to the capital to find work started straggling back to their hometown in the countryside to escape the illness. I spent a day in the crowd packed into Beijing West railway station, trying to capture an event that made many feel emotional disquiet, while forcing them to meditate on their life and situation. Because of everyone's panic, many people are eager to leave Beijing to escape the disaster. On May 8th, the author recorded what happened at the Beijing West Railway Station that day, revealing the various mentalities of the Chinese people in front of emergencies.

A man is given a chance of redemption in the afterlife.

Stranded on Mars, a beautiful space archeologist calls upon -El Macho- Masked Mexican Wrestling Legend, to save her from the attacking hordes of angry Canadian Mummies. A Silent Movie Classic!