So it’s been a minute since the last installment. Part of the reason is that the value of Creative Miswatching by Altering the Movie seems relatively self-evident.

The ways to do it are countless (zoom in on the DVD, turn the TV upside down, eff with the colors, scratch the film …) And the long tradition of artists altering existing movies proves the method’s worth. (This Slow Jamz vid is a particularly good illustration, since it draws an analogy to the vurrryy accepted/important practice of altering music recordings).

What can I add? Only that the even tho the stuff we make isn’t very “funny looking”, creative miswatching through altering movies is key to my and W’s work — especially when it comes to sound. Many of the unusual treaments of the sound/image relationship in our movies (see J.C.!) come from paying attention to the potentials that come from watching other movies with the sound “wrong”.

One clear-cut example is that watching Count Yorga: Vampire on mute while listening to Books On Tape’s album inspired the opening sequence to our BoT music-video. (The results of that experiment in creative miswatching are illustrated above).

It’s kinda warm out! That means the SUMMER (film festival season) is coming. So L & W need writeups of all their recent movies.
Last night, using methods of creative (mis)watching, about twelve beers (many from Russia!) and their imaginations, Lev and Whitney wrote these funabled synopsis:

Music video for Book’s On Tape’s “Stones to Turn /
Bridges to Burn”
With XXXtended love scenes, intricate vampire plots
and 90s-music shoutouts, Stones to Turn / Bridges
to Burn is too soft-core  to be a music video, but
too hardcore to be pornography.

Fun’s Over
File under science-fiction, beach, romantic comedy.
The future is fun, when you’re in the sun. But not
when you’ve got gonorrhea.
Fun’s Over: life’s a “beatch”.

O, Nurse!
Nobody listens to the doctor
because there’s a speedboat, and it’s Bastille Day, and
Batman Returns is on, and we’re at an apple
orchard, and there’s Liberia, and it’s in color…
The punchline is gay sex.

Jazz Christmas
Looking back, it’s clear the young NYC hipsters of
the 1920s were earnest with their own dramas, fads
and fetishes but totally unaware of their fate (Crash!)
Anywayz…
Presenting for your pleasure, Jazz Christmas:
the Beautiful and Damned, before they knew about
that second part.

That’s right — crazy slang poems!
But really seriously. Are you on the selection committee of any film festivals? Do you just “know” about some “cool” ones?
Lev.and.Whitney@gmail.com!