We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies
Junkee-endorsed bits and bobs to make your weekend better. Includes Andrei Tarkovsky films, David Lynch cooking quinoa, and a web-art project called 'Cunnilingus In North Korea'.
Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.
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Film: The films of Andrei Tarkovsky
Recommended by: Mel Campbell (‘Machete Kills? More Like Machete Sucks: A Critical Analysis‘)
Anyone who’s into cinema will know Andrei Tarkovsky as one of the greats. The Soviet director’s films — the best known of which are Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979) — are slow-paced, meditative, dreamlike, unconventionally structured, and full of striking imagery that invites metaphysical interpretations. He was showered with awards before his untimely (and, some believe, KGB-initiated) death from lung cancer in 1986. He regularly appears on ‘must-watch’ lists. Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa were both massive fans.
Watching these films on your computer or tablet obviously isn’t the way of a true cinéaste, but if you just want to see if T-bag is your cup of tea, it’s a great start. And if you like these, you can always shell out for the Criterion Collection editions.
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Interview: ‘Serious Jibber-Jabber With Conan O’Brien: Mel Brooks’
Recommended by: Rob Moran
‘Serious Jibber-Jabber’ is flame-haired rockabilly legend Conan O’Brien’s awesome side project, a Charlie Rose-esque wankathon where he spends HOURS just shooting the shit with his favourite people. Previous editions have included Jack White, Martin Short, statistician Nate Silver and the writers of The Simpsons; the latest installment featured the iconic comedy brains behind The Producers (1967), Young Frankenstein (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Spaceballs (1987): Mel Brooks.
Over the course of the hour-long interview, Conan nerds out over things like Get Smart and Blazing Saddles, and gets Brooks to casually reflect on his stupid jokes, comedic boundaries, and timeless appeal (“Spaceballs rules!”). You’ll basically spend the whole time thinking, “Oy, what a nice old man.”
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Article: ‘10 Reasons Why Today’s TV Is Better Than Movies‘ from The Guardian
Recommended by: Emma Ryan
We’ve heard it before: cinema trumps TV in terms of quality viewing. Wrong! Today’s television is offering us more than just a guilty pleasure, cliched laugh track, and something to fill the hours between The Project and bed. In this article for The Guardian, Stuart Heritage comes up with ten reasons why today’s TV content is better than movies, including its focus on longform storytelling and cinema’s tedious fixation on franchises.
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Trailer: 0:23 of Captain America: Winter Soldier
Recommended by: Matt Roden (‘Masters Of Sex, The Boob Tube, And SBS‘)
The only thing I was really excited about this week was second 0:23 of the new Captain America trailer, because that’s when I realised Drazic (from Heartbreak High) was in it. I can’t remember which hero/villain from the comics wore rollerblades, but great casting, I say.
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Art: ‘Cunnilingus In North Korea‘
Recommended by: Andy Huang
Cunnilingus! So if you’ve got a lot of free time, click away on this link m’dear, and you shall be directed to a very stimulating, hypnotic piece by the web-art collective YOUNG HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES. As you can tell from the CAPS, they mean serious business. Based in Seoul, YHChang create really, er, provocative web-art with a socio-political consciousness that’s expressed through the online medium, and designed with an interactive, non-stop, sensory-overload experience in mind.
Basically, their work is really cool, okay? This one is called ‘Cunnilingus In North Korea’, and is available in German, French, Spanish
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YouTube: ‘David Lynch Cooks Quinoa’
Recommended by: Madeleine Watts
It’s David Lynch demonstrating how he likes to eat quinoa. Do I need to elaborate?
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Website: Pitchfork Review Generator
Recommended by: Edward Sharp-Paul (‘The Seven Reviews You Meet On Urbanspoon‘)
If you, like me, believe that hyper-referentiality, smug subjectivity and convoluted soubriquets are more important in an album review than description, context and engagement, you’ll enjoy the ‘Pitchfork Review Generator‘.
For instance, if the chronically under-appreciated Balearic Witch-Drone band Three-Way Hogans ever piqued your interest, you’ll be glad to know that their latest album is “an ambivalent corduroy satchel of apocalyptic vapour-DIY”.
Sure, it’s fun for about a minute, but what a minute.
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Website: My Wife’s Fight With Breast Cancer
Recommended by: Alan Parry
The weekend is essentially here, but let’s get some sobering reality out of the way first. Here are some amazing photos by Angelo Merendino, chronicling his wife Jennifer’s battle with breast cancer. I essentially turned into a blubbering mess on the train to work this morning upon viewing them, so now I plan to do as much shit as I can this weekend and you should too.
So go enjoy your time off, and maybe hold off on at least one beer and throw those few coins to a cancer-related charity of your choice. Because seriously, fuck cancer!
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