8
A Bare Knuckle Video
Shock
I love Ultimate Fighting Challenge, but those professional dudes have nothing on these idiot amateurs who beat the shit out of each other in schoolyards and car parks across the USA for absolutely no reason. Sample dialogue: ‘Fuck him up! You getting this shit on tape? Yeah spit on him Mario! Swing, yeah motherfucker—head butt! You popped that cunt-motherfucker! Ooohh! Oh god! Look at Carl, he’s fucked up! Fuck that, Kill ‘im, fuck ‘im up, ass-fucking! Oh help him! Fuck that fucker got fucked! Stop pulling her hair! Get off the hair you dumb bitch!
Think you can take me—who’s on the ground! I’m trying not to hurt you ‘cause you’re my friend. Hold my beer. Hit ‘im in the nuts and then the head…that’s it!
Westside my nutsack you fuckin’ faggot bitch! Fuck off you fuckin’ homo gay!
This shit is horrible and you should buy it for your little brother as an early Christmas present.
CHUCK & TITO
8
Somewhere Anywhere Everywhere
Globe/Stomp
Hopefully that guy that was bit in half by that big mean sharky poo shark got to see this before he bled to death. He would have loved watching this.
OLD TOAST
8.5
Corporate Ghost: The Videos 1990–2002
Geffen/Universal
How do you sell out to a major label but retain your indie credentials? Buggered if I know, but Sonic Youth have managed to do it for nearly fifteen years. Maybe it’s the way they hire renegade filmmakers like Harmony Korine, Richard Kern and Todd Haynes to do big budget videos and blow all the green on making them look like they were produced in the Czech Republic or at Channel 31 or something. Maybe it’s the way they let us watch them age but never get old. Maybe it’s because Lance Bangs is awesome and he threw this whole thing together. I don’t actually care. All I know is that they included the ‘Superstar’ video and for that you will be forever grateful.
CAREN KARPENTER
5
Is Live, And Well, In New York City
DFA/Universal
I really wanted to like The Rapture again. For some reason, the idea of a Richie Valens type demise had appealed to me ever since they got sponsored by Adidas and again when most of Echoes smelled like gay sex.
Then they announced a live DVD. Would they earn some brownie points with a kick-ass set? No they wouldn’t. They would dance like girls and do raver hand gestures and decide that being able to hear those perfect, monster bass-lines would be a bad idea. The Rapture are a hoax.
DIRTY TRAITOR
6
Baby Snakes
Warner
This man is proof that genius musicians are fucking horrible, boring filmmakers and even worse stand-up comics. That said, you’re not likely to see a bass player rape and drown a blow-up doll while clay-mation he-burgers devour some poor bastard’s penis encrusted face in many other concert DVD’s. This almost passes as a documentary about a bunch of nerds who failed drama class and decided to throw a massive party so they could let it all hang out and feel better about their failures. I hope they enjoy their stupid, creepy pantomime before a pack of dudes jump off the back of a pick-up truck and beat them down with a toolbox.
NIPPLES
6.5
Dithers
Stomp
An interesting “design-o-mentary” consisting of interviews with mostly US East Coast dudes from the contemporary design movement like Shepard Fairey, Dave Kinsey, Andy Jenkins, Andy Mueller, Giant, Bigfoot and Kevin Lyons. This ain’t no Style Wars but kinda tries to be. We check their studios, galleries, and there’s the odd glance at toy and/or paint can collections. Compromising commerciality for design, doing graff for a marketable product—the hard issues are discussed. I was more impressed with the second disc with Ricky Powell filming squirts of NYC newcomers with his studio visits—Dalek, Jest, Kostas and legends Seen and Stash. It is what it is.
AWOL
11
Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham
Kaleidoscope/Shock
Think of the best thing you have ever seen (even in a dream) and then go out and get these master collections and it will be on there somewhere. You will never have to tape Rage again and you can have your life back. Buy Spike for the videos, Gondry for the mind-melting documentary and Cunningham if your girlfriend is a goth.
CAREN KARPENTER
8
A Documentary by Ben Wolfinsohn
Plexifilm
This film falls between Spinal Tap and the brilliant film about Lightning Bolt “The Power Of Salad & Milkshakes”. Follow the path of this power noise duo across the USA as they play shows in and around their tour van. An absurd, revolting, joyfully disturbing, hilarious film that will leave you wondering if these two idiots are geniuses or the beginning of the end of the world. You know after watching this that the first band to play on the moon won’t be U2 or Justin Timberlake or some other disgusting fuck of the ilk because Friends Forever are most likely there now playing a show to nobody while hanging out the window of their Volkswagon van (with wings).
DP RIDES AGAIN
