It didn't used to be all reality shows. In 1990 MTV aired Buzz, an experimental video art collage show by director Mark Pellington. Genesis P-Orridge, William Burroughs, RU Sirius, David Byrne, and other transgressive thinkers (oh yes, and Jon Bon Jovi) were all featured in the debut show, which was openly inspired by Bruce Conner and other experimental filmmakers. Boing Boing noticed that the first episode has been been posted to YouTube, and I've embedded the clips below.

Kristin here: So says director Guillermo del Toro in his self-deprecating lead-in to his audio commentary on the great Danish filmmaker’s 1932 classic, Vampyr. Fortunately he did not act on his words but goes on to give an erudite, often personal series of insights into the film. Owners of the...

Thursday, 26 November Reading and discussion of Capitalist Realism 19:30 - 21:30 Open House Springfield Road Brighton Mark Fisher (aka k-punk, of course!) is talking about Capitalist Realism, an examination of the ideological character of the present day.

My interview with Chantal Mouffe for the New Statesman is here.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the 15 films that have made the shortlist for Best Documentary. Two of the most prised docs of the year made the list: Louie Psihoyos's The Cove and Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., as well as a few lesser known titles like Anders Ostergaard's Burma VJ and Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor. But surprisingly excluded were Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and James Toback's Tyson. The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on February 2. Best Documentary Shortlist: The Beaches of Agnes Agnes Varda, director Burma VJ Anders Ostergaard, director The Cove Louie Psihoyos, director Every Little Step James D...

The Sundance Institute announced today the 13 artists selected for the New Frontier section at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. These works will be shown at New Frontier on Main, open to the public Thursday, January 21 through Saturday, January 30, 2010. (The full list of artists are below.) One of the artists chosen this year is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured), who we discovered last year has an interest in the new media/digital artists on the Web as he's created the site hitRECord.org. In the Spring 2009 issue we talked to him about the site, which at the time was still not fully realized he admitted, but his goal is to have the site be a home where filmmakers, artists, poets...

by Ryland Walker Knight (1) (2) —Rap my soul awake why don't you: 1, 2

LAUNCH EVENT WITH TERRY EAGLETON, SIMON CRITCHLEY, KATE SOPER, EYAL WEIZMAN AND CHAIR ALBERTO TOSCANO. See here for details. DON’T LOOK BACK: RADICAL THINKERS AND THE ARTS SINCE 1909 Thursday 26 November 2009, 18.30–20.00 Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG On the 100th anniversary of the...

The mountain came to Mohamed. I picked up a bug that lingered and made me miserable. But I had accepted the honor of being a juror for the Kieslowski Prize at the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival, which began last week and runs through November 22. Only six foreign-language films were competing for our votes, and, either at other festivals or through the kindness of European sales agents, I had seen them all. (The prize is sponsored by Screen, for which I am a reviewer.) Something told me I should cover myself as a journalist just in case I didn’t heal in time, since I had promised to cover the event. So I made a list of films I hadn’t seen (many I had viewed at other fests) that seemed of...