#51: "your every act is live and direct"
Welcome to issue #51 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU, the unofficial tasting menu of the content apocalypse. Join me, won't you, on a brief guided tour of ten video treats that might suit your fancy. Please be kind to this humble enterprise when you visit the online product review platform of your choice, and always remember our world famous motto:
Scottovision
"Jomon" (2024) - Aura, the debut album by "voice artist" Hatis Noit, is getting a physical re-release in North America, and she just released a beautiful video to promote it.
Set in an alien biosphere, Jomon "weaves a tale of a profound ritual where different living beings come to life, led by the guiding hand of a shamanic Hatis Noit... Jomon emerges as a myth, where the spiritual and natural worlds converge in a captivating celebration of life and death." The animation and character design by NAOWAO are otherworldly and captivating; the music is intricate and haunting.
"The Mask" (2023) - Mad genius Conner O'Malley wrote & directed this mockumentary comedy, pleasantly describing it as "a short film about Tyler Joseph, a young man from Illinois who loves Whose Line Is It Anyway and The Mask."
Tyler Joseph (played by O'Malley) is a struggling improv comedian trying to get famous in the instatiktubesphere and failing miserably, eventually descending into dangerous conspiracy thinking and disrupting stunt shows, red carpets, and traffic in costume as Jim Carrey's character from The Mask. It's intensely funny and also unsettling, as it becomes apparent that some of what we're seeing as Tyler Joseph publicly unravels isn't exactly staged.
"As Above" (2020) - The opening title card of this gorgeous piece by filmmaker Roman Hill reads, "This film was shot on the 8mm2 surface of a chemical reaction."
Hill uses this perspective to explore "the tight link between the microscopic world and immensity of the universe." Indeed it's uncanny how the one-shot/no-CGI film invokes celestial imagery even as it remains locked on capturing the brilliant and mesmerizing activity occurring on a mere sliver of reality. Thomas Vanz provides the contemplative score.
"Cursed Shorts Marathon: 2023" (2024) - Animator Xploshi just posted a "marathon" collection of short films produced during 2023.
Running twenty minutes total, this collection takes you deep into the demented world of Xploshi's 90s-era kids' VHS/DVD parodies. Highlights include "Postman Pete: The Pills" (Pete loses a shipment of hallucinogenic cough drops), "Adult Life with Gary Workman" (Gary teaches kids to look forward to their existentially bleak futures), and perhaps my favorite, "Arthur Ruins Everything" (Arthur is such a nuisance that the village entombs him in a hollow cement block - no but it's funny, see).
"One Night/All Night" (2024) - Electronic act Justice released a string of outstanding music videos over the years - "Civilization," "New Lands," and "D.A.N.C.E." are all canonical.
Their latest vid, directed by Anton Tammi (one of The Weeknd's go-to directors), explores the improbable internal contours of an inexplicable creature living inside the band's logo. The track itself features Tame Impala if you needed more incentive to check out this fine addition to Justice's videography.
"Plane of Incidence I" (2024) - In an artist statement for the latest series of pieces by video artist Sabrina Ratté, she asks the question, "Are we flying through the perspective of mutated drones/bees, sounding like motors, and being attracted to the flowers growing on that strange, fleshy, breathing motorcycle?"
"Is it a breathing motorcycle," she continues, "or is it the ghostly sound of its long-gone driver’s breath that still echoes in the wind?" Don't watch Ratté's work expecting narrative, or for that matter, answers. This mysterious video is an ephemeral texture, a slice-of-unreality.
"I'd Like A Banana" (2009) - Official description: "In this episode, Monkey Josh would like a banana." Hey, me too!
A music video by the FunkeyMonkeys, a band formed by Joshua Sitron, composer for Dora the Explorer. Hat tip to Susie & Jer for the suggestion.
"Pressure: The Countless Faces Of Chaos" (2020) - A stylish depiction of a cyber-apocalypse, which strangely enough mostly occurs in the ruins of the real world. Also, mecha!
Directed by Ernest Desumbila, who also directed a similarly stylish recent music video for Labrinth, this short film offers its characters an iconic choice: "Be eternal, or be ephemeral." Not as straightforward as it sounds when people are handing off Medusa's head left and right.
"Pupa" (2014) - We're told by the official description, "A young boy fears the onset of puberty and his imagination takes over."
I think this animated short film is just as good knowing only that a young boy has larvae inside his skull that want to get out. The wild and creative character design makes every grownup the boy meets a new and bizarre creature or alien, and soon, the boy will join them in his own true form. Directed by John JH Lee.
"Moving Barcelona" (2021) - The Moving Cities project creates dance films in the public spaces of cities around the world.
The most recent entry is "a magical realist dance story about the Catalonian capital, an autonomous region in the Spanish State contending with an identity crisis. A city with everything going for it is still haunted by the ghosts of its past and despite much progress, it finds itself unearthing old wounds." Directed by Javan Chowdhury & Laura Obols.
Exit Music
Taking you out this issue with a beautiful deep house track from Charles Webster and Ursula Rucker called "Begin Anew." From the track's YouTube description: "Charles Webster - UK OG, bona fide house music royalty, 35 years of excellence and counting. Ursula Rucker – The legendary Philly poet who has been sought out by The Roots, Louie Vega, Hans Bieger, Ron Trent, Josh Wink and more. A dream pairing to produce a future classic."
Here's the YouTube playlist with this issue's recos. Please enjoy responsibly.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of WILD MASSIVE, BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.
