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Under discussion:

Party Monster  (1998)

Party Monster  (2002)

BILLY THE KID - In NYC

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• Above: Billy Price, star of Billy the Kid, goes to New York, crosses the street, and suddenly finds himself shirtless in an impromptu dance party. I watched this video for the first time on mute, whilst on a conference call, and thought I was having a psychotic break. Thanks, Kevin.
• Woody Allen’s Speechless vid, via United Hollywood. This wouldn’t even be on here if it wasn’t such a slow week.
• This has nothing to do with movies, really, except that James St. James wrote a book that became two of them. And it’s totally tasteless. But SO TRUE. And I don’t know what you guys are doing, but my RSS is DEAD this week. Should I just blame Google?

Under discussion:

Dancer in the Dark  (2000)

This is Michel Gondry’s video for Bjork’s Declare Independence. It’s okay. It kinda has the feel of a musical number from Dancer in the Dark, except shot with a more expensive camera, and instead of Catherine Deneuve dressed like a factory worker, there are soldiers bopping around on strings. I actually kind of prefer the clip I found on YouTube, embedded above, which uses stock war footage and clips from Spike Jonze’s video for It’s Oh So Quiet to create a screed against “the Bush monarchy.” At the very least, it’s got a crackpot energy to it that Bjork used to be so good at, but hasn’t been able to pull off in awhile. I don’t think Michel Gondry directed that one, though.Gondry video via Fimoculous.

• From the Is That Even Legal? file: With the writers strike seemingly neverending, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler is asking film producers “to dust off any unproduced scripts that could be turned into TV series.” The part of the story I really love? Shoddy pastiche is encouraged: “Because most movies tend to run around two hours in length, Tassler isn’t looking to produce the full scripts. Instead, she’s asking producers to identify key scenes or passages that could be filmed and cobbled together into a pilot or shorter pilot presentation.”
• China has banned the import and release of American films for at least three months. This will effectively eliminate the Chinese release of at least five major studio films, including Beowulf and Enchanted.?? The Chinese government probaby, in part, is looking to lessen competition for locally-produced films; there’s also a wee chance this might have something to do with the fact that it’s kind of a crap time for U.S./China relations.
• Morgan Spurlock, Alex Gibney, and Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing are among a host of documentary stars that have signed on to direct a segment of a doc based on Steven D. Levitt’s Freakonomics. The film is being co-produced by Seth Gordon of King of Kong fame.