Look, we made a rag rug! A rug made of our rags…
It’s one of the best things we’ve ever thought of doing -all those fallen-apart pants and t-shirts, all those ripped shirts you never wear go into something you can sit on, stand on, and entertain on for the rest of your life. And it looks nice and colourful.
It took a year of sitting watching TV, listening to records and talking (mainly about how long it was taking) but we did it, and it’s thick and it’s cute.
Good to see The Times engaging with documentary , even if it is harking back to a supposed golden age (I mean, it totally was a golden age in the 30s to 50s but all ages are a bit golden to me) of British docs.
But really people, that is a pretty lazy article. Documentary never died, but if it did have a rebirth, it certainly wasn’t last week, it started at least 5 years ago when the possibilities of digital video came to fruition for all purses, and we’re still a-going on with it. And whats this with the list? Four random filmmakers - great. That sums it up totally. That represents all documentaries being made in the UK. Yep.
And four is the internationally recognised number for a good list, isn’t it?
Silly. You want 4 top British doc-makers? I do like all those 4 a lot but it’s not them. My money is on:
Andrew Kotting
Molly Dineen
Morgan Matthews
Daisy Asquith.
Easy as bloody pie… (that’s not someone’s name)
I was very into ‘zines when I was a young Charlie. But in the silly ol’ digital age, I’d lost touch. But the London Zine Symposium on Sunday showed they’re thriving. Lots of lovely anarchists with vegan cakes and good ideas for changing everything. It’s a counterculture where people get off their arses and do amazing pretty and intelligent things. And even more than ever the world needs ‘zines as a personal antidote to the identical worlds of mass media. It sounds like a cliche but it’s true.
My favourite is a guide to anarchist football - I haven’t read it yet. I bet it involves Luther Blissett
Saw Beautiful Losers just now at HotDocs - a lovely inspiring thing, with all the ramshackle artists of New York’s Lower East Side giving testament of how wonderful things can be when you do what’s most special to you. It’s not the most focussed film, but they all truly made the prettiest things they could, and that includes Harmony Korine before he ate himself - there was a remarkable clip from one of his earliest raw shorts, plus a glimpse of Gummo, reminding me why I spent my university days paying homage to a mental shrine of him hour after cinema hour.
But it also makes you feel proud of all the outsider artists there have been and always will be, and for once, we’re just as strong in the UK I reckon with our equivalent East Endy wandering wibbling minds making pretty little things and making me thrill. So I’m thinking Rob Ryan, king of the delicate and poetic, Mark Pawson, whose show just gone at the Horse Hospital was a party of little creatures, slogans, badges and cabinets of silly and profound curios, and of course the lady (and girlfriend)-laden shop where they’ve shown (and Rob R is at the moment), Tatty Devine, which pirouettes at the art-commerce end of things which Beautiful Losers slightly-melancholilylyly concludes on.
And that don’t cover it all. There’s the party party party ace Bob and Roberta Smith , of whom you might want to ignore that wikipedia record if you don’t want your art heroes crushed into an easy-to-understand box (which lifeless people write these thing?) and everything going on at the Sartorial Contemporary, which is very closed indeed in spirit to the B.Losers Alleged Gallery, albeit without the skating and (I think) more balding.
Sorry for a list. I just think it’s all really lovely.
I’m in Toronto for HotDocs - it’s ace. But what’s really ace are the streetcars and the generally old-fashioned transport system that relies upon trust and a strange metallic artdeco beauty and tiny little tokens…
More Steetcars! Less Cars! Chant with me!
Ladyfest London Films - what an ace programme. Don’t Need You looks particularly superb. Argh, you never get to see movies like that normally. Revolution girl style and indie cinema style now is what we need.
(although I’m away that weekend for my Dad’s 60th, so mmmm, I’ll be revolting in absentia)
So, to launch right into things, what’s the current state of world Mumblecore?
You know, you read of it in The Guardian and then forgot to keep up? Still no bells…OK, you thought it sounded amazing but then realised UK-wise, it only existed for one week at the ICA and it was impossible to buy any of them on DVD, so you’re forgiven for neglecting it.
But don’t anymore. Because it’s the best thing in film nearly ever. You should discover it yourself - it’s the only way - but get right up to date because I already feel rather left behind. So to launch you straight into the present, the annual indie gaddabout in the US, Sundance, has just ended and there’s various Mumblecore updates.
(remember to me, this is immensely exciting. To you, this may seem like crazy talk, but think of how you felt when you turned down something small that turned out to be ace)
These people look kind of strange don’t they? I like this collection of people - I only know of the people at the back, The Duplass Brothers, and indie boy’s lady of choice, Greta Gerwig, but the people at the front look interesting too don’t they? Well, they’re all delighted that new Duplass movie Baghead has gone down well and got some distribution.
And that’s really great - I loved The Puffy Chair, their last movie (well I think it was their last, it may not have been, you never know, everyone a bit hipster in the USA does so much all the time, they’re like herding cats) because it was quite sad and also quite funny, and it was very silly. But ach, I don’t know, don’t hate me, but whilst it had all the good stuff (improvised performance, shaky camera, ultra-Jewish everything, funny-lookin’ people) and I did love it…
…it wasn’t as unparalledly amazing as this man, Joe Swanberg’s LOL or all his multiple other ace stuff, including this little film he made at Sundance…
Yes, all the same people are in all these pictures, films and website. Don’t worry, it all makes sense when you get into it.And also yes yes yes, it’s all very American but don’t worry, the British Mumblecore revolution is coming, and not just in film, you know - my friend and brilliant cartoonist and singer from Leeds, Ian Coburn, is so so mumblecore it’s remarkable.Phew, see, this only scratches the surface, but you get the idea. It’s a big mumbling rumbling explosion. Oh yes, and do not ever ever call it Mumblecore outside of a blog, yes?