James presents ... I've become somewhat obsessed with rooting out great short films over the past year or so, mostly out of necessity.

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I've become somewhat obsessed with rooting out great short films over the past year or so, mostly out of necessity. I never seem to have enough time to watch quite as many films as I want to, so it's often the case that the shorter, the better. I've assembled an A-Z of some of my favorites, sorted by the director's surname. There's plenty of omissions that I either couldn't find online or had to be excluded because of my slightly anal organizing system, but I hope you find some treasures in here. I couldn't even think of a director whose name begins with U or X, never mind a great short film by them, but maybe those holes can be filled if you add in some of your own recommendations. Enjoy!


Tex Avery – King Size Canary (1947)



Stan Brakhage – Window Water Baby Moving (1959)

(part 1)


(part 2)


Adam Curtis – Oh Dearism (2009)



Maya Deren – At Land (1944)

(part 1)


(part 2)


Jean Epstein – La Glace A Trois Faces (1927)



Georges Franju – Blood Of The Beasts (1949)

(part 1)


(part 2)


(part 3)


D.W. Griffith – Musketeers Of Pig Alley (1912)



Todd Haynes - Superstar



Joris Ivens – Regen (1929)

(part 1)


(part 2)


Chuck Jones – Duck Amuck (1953)



Abbas Kiarostami – 2 Solutions For 1 Problem (1975)



David Lynch – Lumiere (1995)



Guy Maddin – The Heart Of The World (2000)



Gaspar Noe – Tintarella Di Luna (1985)

(part 1)


(part 2)


(part 3)


Nobuhiko Obayashi – Emotion (1966)



Vladimir Pudovkin – Chess Fever (1925)

(part 1)


(part 2)


Brothers Quay – Street Of Crocodiles (1986)

(part 1)


(part 2)


(part 3)


Alain Resnais – Toute La Memoire Du Monde (1956)
(part 1)
(part 2)


Ousmane Sembene – Borom Sarret (1966)

(part 1)


(part 2)


Peter Tscherkassky – Outer Space (1999)



Agnes Varda – Black Panthers (1968)



Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Phantoms Of Nabua (2009)


Tadanori Yokoo – Kachi Kachi Yama (1965)


Jia Zhangke – Black Breakfast (2008)

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p.s. Hey. Today or rather this weekend, the very fine writer, film expert/lover, and distinguished local James presents you with a big, jam-packed, and non-stop rich show whose array of amazing and varied short works should keep Monday and its unpleasant real world connotations at bay quite nicely. Enjoy, share the backwash from your explorations with James and the rest of us, and thanks both to every one of you out there in the dark and to James for his kind and generous gift to this humble blog. Me, I have a bit of a headache this morning for some unknown reason, but it's not too bad, so I probably needn't have even mentioned it, and yet I did. Let's see what kind of effect you have on it. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Yeah, sucks about Hugh Hopper. I love early Soft Machine too. Oh, it was just a long shot hope about you somehow making 'Jerk' in London, but I figured I'd toss it out there anyway. So what are you doing in Spain? Is it just a summery, leisurely, soak up some rays and so forth kind of thing? Yury and I need to start figuring out our little vacation (from his job, maybe in my case from the blog) in, I think, early August. I wish I liked the sun and heat more than I do. If it were my choice alone, I'd go north to Scandinavia or something, but Yury seeks the scorching. My perfect summer vacation would be a vacation from the summer. ** Marcus Whale, I looked around online, and you can get at least some of his stuff/albums on last.fm. I got one called 'Ocean Ghosts', maybe his most recent album (?), which I really love. What a nice find he's been thanks to you. The June eliminae pieces ... that's now. That's all I need to hear. Will your radio show be available, stream-able online? It sounds really interesting, so I hope so. 'Weak Species' is based on a couple of parts and characters from 'Closer' and a poem or maybe two of mine. It's a short film, about 40 minutes, I think. The director Dan Faltz wants to enlarge it into a feature that would be based on 'Closer' in its entirety plus a couple of poems plus this very old fiction piece of mine called 'A Herd'. It's just a matter of raising the funds, basically, as I understand it. Around me? At the moment, I need to start organizing my non-fiction collection this week, and on Saturday I'm off to a small French town where I'll spend most of a week working on Gisele's and Stephen O'Malley's and my next theater piece. And I'd love to get back into my novel in a passionate way asap. Thanks for asking, M. Good weekend. ** G.V., Oh, gosh, no offense taken whatsoever. It was interesting. It was into it and enjoying it for the first few comments, but the last one left me feeling too aware of its fakeness, and that awareness introduced a level of suspicion about the comments' real intentions, and that kind of threw me out of the fun of the narrative. As JoeM said, there have been a few times when fake comments left here were creepy and hostile, so a little paranoia on my part might have crept in too. Anyway, it was a curious and engaging experiment. Can you say anything more about the voice and the related writing project, etc? I'm interested to know. ** Bernard Welt, Why are you living in a remote artist residence house? Well, why not. Oh, the class you're teaching must not be at the usual Corcoran campus or possibly even for the Corcoran at all. I'm warm, right? I'd cure your swamped life by cutting the online Freud course from the squad if I were you, but I'm not, hence my beardless face, and I'm sure you can't. ** David, Swerving is optimal. Swerving is a sign of something good. I think so. When I'm feeling at my best, I usually get kind of swervy in the p.s., but perhaps I'm just being self-indulgent when I do that, but ... no, I'm not, and it's a good thing. I fear your pc is going to have a bad time with my blog this weekend and drag you along with it. When I was young, I used to fall asleep to the Robert Wyatt song from 'Thirds' almost every night for a long time. It was such a good friend. ** David Ehrenstein, Hm, it seems possible that 'A Single Man' could make a good film, but then again, what are the odds? It would have nice to see Gus or Todd Haynes take a crack. Wait, Tom Ford the designer is directing the film? Can that be? Uh-oh. I'll try to check out that D.A. Miller book. I need to find the right way in. ** Chris Stamm, Maybe you could figure out a way to promote the single via video chat. Then you could have your cake (face to face) and eat (success) it too. I don't know how one would do that, though. Or a youtube video of just you sitting there charming the pants off of the prospective critics and listeners. I'm not good at this promotion stuff, obviously. ** Stan_cz, I don't like doing readings. Once in a rare while, they'll turn out to be a pleasure, and I'll feel like I did it right. But it's a crap shoot. The best part about it is getting to talk to people who read your books afterwards. That's very interesting. Yeah, Bukowski famously hated doing readings, and yet, having seen him read maybe five or six times, he was an incredibly good performer whether he was drunk at the time or not. Publishing poetry? Gosh, there are a ton of places, but I'm kind of out of the loop on that front. I mean I read lots of poetry journals and online related sites, but I don't know which are looking for what or how one goes about that like I did when I was writing and submitting poetry a lot decades ago. Most of the interesting poets I know (try to) publish their poetry online in the many online poetry oriented magazines/ venues. Maybe others here who are submitting work at the moment have recommendations? ** JoeM, It's funny. Well, to me. I didn't watch those videos before I imbedded them so I had no idea Ed White mentioned me until you revealed that, but of course I immediately went back and watched. No, I don't think Ed was being sarcastic. He was just trying to be charming and a little naughty for the interviewer like he likes to do. Ha ha, Felice Picano saying nice things about me ... I think you know he can't stand me. I was in the same context with him a couple of times in NYC, and he went extravagantly and theatrically out of his way to snub me. It was hilarious. He's such a diva. I find the new Pet Shop Boys album kind of tired and drab. Maybe that's just me. ** David Saa V. Estornell, We've gotten some nice, bright sunlight here in Paris today too. I should do something outdoorsy with it. Oh, don't you worry about the 'Jerk' things. I'm sure whatever you gave her is wonderful. I'm still trying to get my schedule and hers aligned so we can meet up, hopefully today if she's not in Germany with 'Jerk', so I can find out what these candies are. What's up with the Peter Pan V. Estornell possibility? ** Orestes, A little bit of writing is enough writing for now. I'm not getting a lot done either, so that's what I'm telling myself. The theater piece of 'Jerk' is based on that story. They're very similar, although I added some new things to help it become theatrical, and, in the theater piece, we use hand puppets instead of marionettes. Thank you for your so kind words, pal. ** Blendin, Hey, Brendan! Obviously, I'm pleased you like 'UM'. You don't have to say nothing about it. Let me quote the unimpeachable Robert Pollard: 'Calling people on your knees / don't this so seriously / you just have to hum it all day long.' Vegas, yum. I'd love to go to Vegas right now. There must be some great deals available these days. Where are you staying? I only stay on the Strip. I'm a snob that way. Anywhere on the Strip except for Circus Circus (too nasty), Bellagio (too boring), Excalibur (too ugly inside), and that huge tower one (too nasty). Have the absolute blast that I can't have. ** Winter Rates, Jesus, what an incredible Melvins show that must have been. The Melvins are God. You can quote me. Oh, you're at the beach now, aren't you? Was it a sunny beach? Did you lie on the beach and get a tan? Did you body surf? Did you boogie board? ** SYpHA_69, Oh, that might work out really well if your brother ends up with a good therapist. I hope so. Yeah, I figured that Rolling Stone was going to fly off the shelves in some unprecedented fashion. In the States, I mean. It's on sale everywhere here, but Adam Lambert won't move copies here. Except maybe in the Marais. ** Math t, Zach is roommates with Tao now? That makes a lot of sense. That's good. Zach rules. I wish I could have talked to him more. Have you read his novel? It's fantastic. Oh, I know the work of Melanie Bonajo a little, and I like it too. I only found it recently when I did that post on Sannah Kvist, which might have been while you were away, because Kvist was a protege, I think, of Bonajo. I should do a post on her too. I think my headache today is an allergy headache. It went from cold and wet to very warm and dry yesterday, and my window is about maybe twenty, thirty feet from this park full of suddenly and gratefully blooming plants and trees. I think I got caught in the crossfire. Also, these three crows suddenly decided to live on a tree branch that's right by my window, and I think it must be mating season because they're making these very loud, terrible sounding strangled crow noises 24 hours a day, and that might be another headache inducer. It's weird what's sexy to a crow. In the human world, the noise they're making would only be sexy to, like, John Wayne Gacy and people like that. Dude, nice gift: those Doc Martens. You are Steven's pal among pals, no doubt about it. ** Christopher/Mark, I still have never met Andrew Holleran, which is strange. He looks like a sweet guy. He was the most endearing and charming of the three Violet Quill guys onstage. And Ed can be ultra-charming when he turns it on, as you know, so that's saying something. Memory tells me Holleran doesn't like my work at all, but that doesn't matter. It would be such fun to be able to read where you are living. Or just be where you are at all. I've only been in the Florida panhandle, but not in the bigger, meaty part of Florida. I keep wondering if Chastity would be transitioning if she hadn't been given the name Chastity. ** Flit, Oh, it's all subjective, right? I mean on the falling in love thing. I don't love all kinds of lovable things. Magazine quote, yum. A program to edit the blog? No. I mean I use what little blogger provides and nothing else. I've just sort of felt my way into the blog and how it looks. There's so little you can do with the format, really, and I try to move things around visually just a little so it'll look a little different every day and hopefully prevent too much visual predictability. There are programs you can use, I know, because I know people who get all kinds of outside help for their blogs, but I'm too klutzy on the tech front to figure all that out. How can I/we see your new blog? You knew I'd ask. Tell me. ** Mark, Contact high indeed. That stuff he's talking about is totally a great drug to me. I'm so very intrigued. A lot of the time I just read stuff long enough to get a taste and sense of the writer's style anyway. It's a very rare book that I read all the way through. So this Keller guy wildly fits one of my bills. Maybe I can get a blog post out of it somehow. Christ, I could just post that essay on story construction by him, and that might be enough. Hm. And I'll go use that link to see/read the Ahern stuff too. A huge thank you for all of that, Mark. ** Wolf, De-looping is always okay. I can't helping the missing you part. Yeah, that juggling act sounds like a ... well, juggling act. Like flaming swords juggling even. Nick can't come? That's too bad. You'll get rid of the ticket, though, easy, I think, if the rumors about the packed houses are correct. I mean, the Times (of London) interviewed me about 'Jerk' yesterday for some article they're running to flag the performances, so, you know, I'd guess your extra ticket will accrue some gimme gimme-ing. ** Fanny Burney, Hey. Oh, good, you came back. And now I learn you have a lovely blog! I really like that 'The Diary of Tally' piece. That's the only thing I've read over there so far. So kudos from me. I'll be hanging out there silently or otherwise. Oh, yeah, I think 'Bad Boy' was just Ed White having forgotten the title of 'Ugly Man' and saying the first two words associated with me that sprang to his mind in hopes that he got lucky. You can be assured that I will never title a book of mine 'Bad Boy'. Or, if I ever do, shoot me, okay? ** No more teenagekicks, Thanks for the name. Yeah, I actually knew that, and I completely forgot. I even went to a party with a small group of people that included him. He seemed quite nice. Dude, are you heading towards that novel completing deadline with the godspeed that we, your fans, expect of you? ** Thomas Moronic, Oh, man, I'm loving the description of your novel's inner workings. Consider Kiddiepunk's and my subsequent libidinal fireworks displays as a double strength signal fire from the central canon of the future. ** Alan, Even though it's very humbling that you enjoyed looking through my stuff, I know that if I could get my hands and eyes on the behind the scenes stuff of any numbers of writers, I'd be like you. It's kind of a funny, interesting thing to be compelled by, I guess, or maybe not. It makes perfect sense to me to love to know how things worked for a writer and came about. ** Kiddiepunk, Oh, my pleasure, of course, re: the tour. Dude, I'm missing LA so incredibly badly right now. Oh, it's kind of agonizing really. For me, the vegetarian burrito at Poquito Mas is the drool magnet. When you're here, we can wax and wane together while simultaneously sucking up the glories that only Paris can allow. I'm okay apart from this headache, you? ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Whitney Houston sang on a Material album? Weirdness. I'd say I need to hear that, but I don't. Yeah, I'm gonna do that objects of desire SPD. Next, soon. It's too intellectually horny to evade. You have the ability to delight and amuse and reawaken me to my marrow when you reference what you're listening to. Edgar Broughton Band, for goodness sake. One of these days I'm going to need to squat down in front of your record collection and drown in my memories. I appreciate the radio show tidbits. They were very 'tid', whatever that means. My imagination is lacing together those three songs like they were three expensive shoes. That means I'm excited. I guess that's all you need to know for now. ** NB, You can be more abstract than that? You are one gifted young man. Ha ha, well, I'm guessing that the over over-analysis has to do with the recent and hopefully still current affair of the heart, right? I'll take an abstract answer. I kind of like the combo of the abstract and the heart. I have long lost guys and missed opportunities too, just like your Dylan. I guess we all do. There was this boy named Scott who sat in front of me in some math class in, mm, 9th grade maybe who one day simultaneously flirted with me and humiliated me publicly when he sat down in his desk, and I noticed he had a rip in the middle of the seat of his pants, and he noticed that I noticed, and he announced/quipped very loudly, 'I bet you'd like to put your finger in there, wouldn't you, Cooper?' Busted, except it wasn't my finger I was thinking about. Then at a school dance thing not long afterwards, he gave me this long look and started walking toward this private part of the campus, occasionally looking over his shoulder at me, and I thought he was fucking me with me, but now I know he was hinting that I could, well, fuck with him, and not a decade goes by that I don't have a little memory of that incident and rewrite it. ** Roger P, Oh, don't worry about not writing when you're tired. It's only me who feels like I need to write here when I'm tired. I like quite a number of Robbe-Grillet's films. There are a few you can watch on the great Ubuweb, if you're interested. Some faves of his that spring to mind are 'Glissements progressifs du plaisir', 'L'éden et après', and 'Trans-Europ-Express'. No, I haven't done a Day here on Michel Butor, which is crazy. I tried at one point and couldn't find enough stuff to do a decent one. But I'll actually go try again this weekend. Worst comes to worst, I could do one of my spotlight posts on one of his books at least. Thanks for the reminder. In English, 'Frisk', like a lot of my titles, is supposed to transmit all of its various meanings simultaneously, which is why in translation my titles sometimes seem kind of dumb since you can't translate the inferences, obviously. The loveliest weekend to you, Roger. ** JW Veldhoen, We'd make a perfect party going couple. I could be the quiet 'straight man', your Dean Martin or Bud Abbott. ** Steevee, What a nice story and idea about that Ratledge/Hopper gig. ** BramBakery, Hey. Oh, I really like those two songs on your Myspace page a lot. In fact, hold on ... Everyone, our new friend BramBakery is quite the musical artist, it turns out, and you'll see what I mean if you link-jump over to his Myspace page and listen to one or both of the songs you can hear there. Your trio of hero references makes for such a good combination and goal, and I can hear them and, more than that, total transcendence of any referents in the songs. Super nice. I'd love to hear more if you can point more out to me. Yeah, Silverblatt is pretty incredible. He's been called the 'best reader' in America by all kinds of great writers, and I'd have to agree. He reads or has already read just about everything ever published. Being on his show is a real honor and also quite intimidating too. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Do you sleep on a futon? Weird question, I know, but it was occasioned by that 'rolling out of bed' onto a stapler thing. In LA, I sleep on a futon. I guess my day was okay. I don't remember much about it. I think I might have figured out a big problem I've been having with my novel, and if that turns out to be true, it was a good day. If not, it will be as though the day never existed at all. Now we both have two whole days in a row to have a glorious time. Shall we? ** Misanthrope, I just got really hungry and ate half of a carton of hummus and most of a packet of flour tortillas, and now I feel gross. The really scary drunks to me are the ones that are drunk and really intelligent, and if they're evil queens on top of that, run for the hills. Yeah, it's a lot about rhythm, isn't it? I mean about finding one's way back into the writing not about running for the hills, although ... Oh, I just read your dreaded story. That is very intense and very ugly of that motherfucker. Weird that you got hard and came. That's the twist in the story that would make it an interesting thing to fictionalize. But, yeah, that's creepier than shit, George. You know blaming yourself is ridiculous. Although I do blame all the boys to whom I've slipped roofies, but I'm Dennis fucking Cooper, so that's different. Wow, I shouldn't even joke about that, I'm sorry. I told you about the hummus and how gross I feel right now, right? Seriously, though, I work out all my shit in my writing, and it kind of works sort of, and no one gets hurt. Well, physically hurt. Use it in the work, man. That's what I do. But I feel for you, George. That was extremely fucking evil of that prick. ** Slatted Light, Hey, .... oh damn. I'm going to think of a clever variation on your screen name one of these days if it's the last thing I do. But not today, apparently. Ha ha, thanks about my fashion sense. I do my best. It kind of worked at the Lammys, appalling one and almost all of those overdressed stiffs. Yury is resigned to my lack of fashion sense. He's given up on correcting me. One time quite a while back when he didn't believe my allergies were real, I made this great sacrifice and put on a normal shirt to prove my case, and what happens to me is first I get really weak and then I turn really red and then I get a splitting headache and very nauseous. So I let all that happen right in front of his eyes, and he's been relatively hands off ever since. Oh, I saw 'Frontiers', and I actually liked it quite a bit. It's much, much better than something similar, say, the dumbass second 'Hostel' movie. Yeah, it's not bad at all. I was shunned even in my non-cannibal family. It took years and years before my mom stopped secretly sneaking meat into my food and finally realized I could sense it being there the second she set down my plate. People who eat meat don't realize that when you don't, meat is like an air raid going off in your food. You know what? I do have a vegetarian in my cannibal novel, as luck would have it. But he's a necrophile, and the cannibals like watching him do his thing, and, plus, his thing helps tenderize the meat, so they cut him some slack. Yury's pretty much better. He's off dyeing some French person's hair as I type. Anyway, you rule, man, and so you really must have a weekend that rules. Doctor's orders. ** Oh, shit, it's so late. I seem to have taken my sweet time today. So, watch what James thinks you should watch this weekend because he knows his stuff, and I can't disagree with a single one of his selections, and say stuff to him in response, and just generally have a very good time with the world at large between now and Monday.