[This is a slightly longer version of the paper I gave at UEL's recent workshop on modernism/postmodernism and also contains bits of the very short presentation I gave at the Badiou day at the Venezuelan embassy last Friday. As such, it's a bit patchy, but what are you gonna do...] In a piece on...

by Ryland Walker Knight —Bring yourself, roll

• Curb Your Enthusiasm, 7th Season [Larry David, 2009] Hard to beat "The Table Read," no doubt, among so many episodes this season, but, once again, LD proves how smart he is about people's petty shit and everybody's desire for a fairytale—despite knowing all too well that most things in life, as it turns out, aren't just jokes but lies. Or, a house of cards and red herrings. I feel like a human again.
• The White Ribbon [Michael Haneke, 2009] Almost exactly what I expected, but it's the first Haneke film I've wanted to see a second time. The film's ambiguities, in ways I've not felt from this...

Filmmaker Kyle Henry was one of our "25 New Faces" in 2006 on the basis of his excellent debut feature, Room, and now he's blogging about his fascinating follow-up, Fourplay. Executive produced by Jim McKay and Michael Stipe, and produced by Jason Wehling, Fourplay is a series of short films highlighting sexual transgressions, and, as the blog makes clear, the final product may be compiled into a feature, released as a series of shorts, or may be part of some other, more fluid kind of format. From the description of the film on the blog: Four transgressions, four transmissions, four true tales of sexual intimacy: in AUSTIN, a young heterosexual couple debate independence vs conceiving and...

A few weeks ago I attended a reception at Ira Deutchman's house in which Columbia University's new Focus in Creative Producing was announced, and I've been remiss in posting here about what is a really promising and, in these times, necessary course of study up on Morningside Heights. From the press release: Building upon a strong record of faculty and alumni recognition at the Oscars, Sundance and other film festivals, Columbia University School of the Arts is expanding its master of fine arts film program. Film: Creative Producing, a newly introduced course of study, will train the next generation of filmmakers in the modern complexities of professional movie production. Applications for...

I came across this short video of Doug Rushkoff speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo, and in it he echoes some of the things he spoke about at the DIY Days in Philadelphia, which I attended back in June. In that keynote as well Rushkoff hopskotched through the creation of central currency, detailing the role of governments in controlling the our ability to exchange value. It's a lot to cover in 12.5 minutes, and while I'm no expert in economic history, there's plenty to quibble with in his broad shorthand. Like, as a colleague pointed out after his Philadelphia lecture, didn't the creation of currency also have something to do with the fact that people didn't want to carry around big bushels of...

it's short and angry, just like me! Well, the book is out, apparently (or it is if you order it from Amazon - I have no idea what happened there - the publishing date was supposed to be the end of the month. Someone told me that Amazon just send stuff out as soon as it arrives, so I...

Muriel Blandings: I refuse to endanger the lives of my children in a house with less than four bathrooms. Jim: For 1,300 dollars they can live in a house with three bathrooms and ROUGH IT.

The Siren is changing lodgings this weekend and...

Contributing Editor Brandon Harris has posted on his blog a new preview of Filmmaker and MoMA's annual "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" program, which unspools at the museum this week. Screening will be the five films that will be competing for the Gotham Award we sponsor on December 1. (For schedule and film descriptions, visit MoMA's site.) Brandon writes that this year's program is the strongest we've put together in the six years of doing this series, and I agree. This isn't to say that previous years haven't been strong, but in the past we've always been able to indulge ourselves with some element of whimsicality in the selection process, including films that would truly...

by Ryland Walker Knight [The Resnais series playing at the PFA this month and next is part of a broader, traveling retrospective with a concurrent run in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center and a proposed stop at the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image in early 2010.] The third...