I’ve never been happy with the way I’ve used video on this blog, even when it’s stuff I’ve created myself. Seeing as I’m still thinking about what I want this phase of the blog to actually do, I’m taking a few days to play around with how things should look going forward. Embedding video from elsewhere is fine and dandy, but it tends to disappear and I hate going back a couple of months later to find dead links and empty video players. To that end I’ll probably dust off my YouTube account and start self hosting bits and bobs.

In the meantime here’s a little embedded video to see if I’ve taught it to turn up in my RSS stream yet:

Linda, Linda, Linda is one of those films I was talking about with a lot of heart. Aside from that little ditty by The Blue Hearts it also features a score by James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins) and is well worth tracking down. More details here.

Don’t worry it’s not Jack Black’s School of Rock. It’s got more of an All About Lily Chou-Chou meets Ghost World feel to it.

Linda Linda

I wanna be beautiful like a water rat
He’s got beauty you can’t see in a picture

Linda Linda

If I see you and have a talk
Please catch the meaning of love

Linda Linda

Just like a water rat, nicer than anyone else
Just like a water rat, warmer than anyone else

Linda Linda

If I see you and have a talk
Please catch the meaning of love

Even though it may not be love, I’ll never leave you
I’ll get power, the only power nothing can beat

Linda Linda

After having some fun with film types and social media (I think there’s still some Michelle Yeoh footage to surface) I was approached by the publisher John Murray to see if I had any ideas about mixing things up with their authors. Of course, I said, as long as you have someone interesting. How about James Frey? was the reply…

Handily James was already scheduled to appear at the ICA last month and I’d already been chatting to those guys about helping out with what they do since they kindly suggested we relocate the Tuttle Club there. Perfect.

I’d read A Million Little Pieces just prior to its UK release and had actually met Frey before from my time as a bookseller, but aside from the South Park episode in which Oprah’s vagina pulls a gun and shoots a police officer, I hadn’t kept track of his career post-controversy. So off I went to his UK site and was pleasantly surprised to find it was the work of my friend @stml. Small world. Big Jim Industries is well worth a look too.

So the next step was to source some fan questions from Twitter:

In the meantime @blackpooltower (James’ UK publisher) got the word out via his forum which eventually lead to a fun afternoon at the ICA chatting to the author. He was as laid back and interesting as I remember and had a copy of Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (highly recommended!) tucked under his arm. He turned out to be eager to go past our allotted time and here’s the resulting interview in three parts:

“I don’t believe in inspiration”

“I’m from the notorious Freys”

“I have the same lawyer as the guys from South Park”

What was interesting to me was that while James wasn’t prepared to speak at the later event about the Oprah controversy, he was more than happy to answer questions about it direct from his readers. It was also encouraging to see how quickly John Murray themselves got excited about this kind of thing.

There’s a direct link here between both the innovative stuff we’ve been doing with Reuters and all the film related stuff I’ve had a hand in since the Juno Twitter screening back in ’07 and hanging out with Spielberg and the Indy cast in Cannes last year.

But more on all that later…

Oh and go read Bright Shiny Morning. It’s a lot of fun.

The London Film Festival press screenings start on Monday. I got my press pass yesterday and because I’m incredibly busy at the moment (genre-crossing sci fi tv doesn’t just write itself you know) I was looking for a slightly different way of covering the films this year.

After a quick conversation with Christian and Sol I decided to do a series of pithy film reviews on 12 Seconds. I have no idea yet how I’ll boil down some of the best cinema in the world to only 12 seconds, but I’m looking forward to kicking this off. I will of course be doing more traditional text reviews to accompany the best (and maybe worst) of the festival this year, but with 3 films a day starting next week the short video content should soon add up…

I’ll be embedding the vids here of course, but you can always jump into 12 Seconds and record your own mini reviews. Can you sum up The Breakfast Club, Star Wars or Night of the Living Dead in so short a video? I’d love to find out…