NFB.ca has finally launched, allowing some of its great catalog of films to be available to the world. Above is Norman McLaren’s Pas de Deux, one of many great ones on the site. Another must-see is Lonely Boy, which I’ve posted here before, but in a sloppily-segmented YouTube version. The high-quality version here seems closer to DVD quality than I would have expected.

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Montréalers might also be interested in Montreal by Night, a portrait of the city in the 40’s; 23 Skidoo, a bizarre post-apocalyptic view of the city, and Our Street was Paved with Gold, about St. Laurent Blvd in the 70’s.

Thanks to Montreal City Weblog and Said the Gramophone for these selections.

The following image and caption were found while browsing through microfilm in Montréal’s main library—a simply amazing artistic rendition of a Montreal “of the future”, published just after the turn of the century. Who knows, if we end-up seriously seeking a truly carbon-neutral society, these predictions may end up coming true, in a sense. -Neale

If the steady march of technological progress continues, the caption says, airships such as these will fly across the Atlantic Ocean every two days, while nine-masted schooners ply the waters of Montreal harbour, and buildings of forty storeys tower in the background. Interestingly, in pointing out the artist’s inclusion of the Union Jack on the airship, the caption asks, “In twenty-five years’ time, will we be under the same flag?”

Some details:

The Mittenstrings are a band, but that’s not their whole story. Though they play the occasional live show, they were originally conceived as a TV show of sorts—a show starring foam-core cut-outs and filmed in a style dubbed “Inanimation”. Over the summer I helped put the video episodes together along with the directors Lily and Sylvan Lanken.

The music (which is the real star), has been listenable on their MySpace page for a while now.

I’m very happy to announce that the videos are now up too. I did much of the editing, and some voicework, though I am not a professional at either of these things. I hope you enjoy it.

Here is my entry for the just-completed M60, the Montréal 60-Second Film Festival. The festival, in its inaugural year, was a big hit, with tons of great films and far too many people being turned-away at the door.

My entry is really more of a tech demo than a film. It was done entirely with a flatbed scanner, an idea that quickly lost its luster as my cheap $100 scanner slowly imploded under the strain of about 400 scans in the space of a few days, getting ever slower and showing ever more lines and other artifacts of wear.

10 Beautiful Data Visualizations

Some of these are great, but some are pretty purely aesthetic.

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Smashing Telly

A great site of well-curated documentaries, most of them full length. Recently featured: Air Guitar Nation, The Vice Guide to North Korea, Saul Bass, and a documentary about Stanley Kubrick. Of course there’s lots more too.

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Thoughts on Seeing Leonard Cohen Live

Sean of Said the Gramophone with his first article for McSweeney’s - a very Montreal-y take on one of Montreal’s favourite musicians.

Prints by Bree,ree

I just spent about 30 minutes going through this guy’s prints. They’re great.

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The Largest Police have Ever Seen

The worst kind of crime hits my home province.

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The Bitter End

Anyone in Montréal over the fall should check out Dan Beirne (of Said the Gramophone fame) in his new improvised “sitcom” The Bitter End. I’ve not seen it live yet, but I have seen this funny preview on their blog (where they also hope to be posting every single episode).

Here are some photos I snapped in Downtown Montréal of some of Roadsworth’s new pieces.

&$@#*!

Hoefler and Frere-Jones have a post on their blog about those random strings of non-letter characters used to denote swearing. Apparently there is even a name for it:

The term is grawlix, and it looks to have been coined by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker around 1964. Though it’s yet to gain admission to the Oxford English Dictionary, OED Editor-at-Large Jesse Sheidlower describes it as “undeniably useful, certainly a word, and one that I’d love to see used more.

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House of Cards

Radiohead’s new video is pretty neat. It was done without cameras, using laser-based 3d scanners instead.

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Schwartz’s & Roadsworth Movie Trailers

One makes smoked-meat sandwiches, the other does street art. But both are institutions in my home town of Montréal, and both are now getting documentaries.

Some very great people are launching a new mini film fest here in Montréal, M60, which will consist of 60 filmmakers each making a 60-second long film. First come, first served. It’s completely un-curated and open to whomever in Montréal wishes to participate. The launch will be July 24th, where they’ll be announcing the exact rules and a general theme for the submissions.

I did some drawings for the project, including the logo above and some of the images on their website.

Montréal-based street artist Roadsworth first endeared himself to me by using his stencils to create illegal bike paths where there were none, in response to the municipal government’s then lack of accommodation for cyclists. His artistic pieces have been some of my favourite in town for many years - they’re extremely playful, topical, and play off of their environment in a way that makes people take notice of the urban environment.

While walking down the street at mid-day several years ago I stumbled across a stencil of an owl on the sidewalk. It was obviously Roadsworth, but I was stumped as to why he had placed it at the bizarre angle he had chosen. His pieces almost always play off their location, but I was confused about the meaning of this one. I passed a few nights later, and realized that the owl was in fact perching on the diagonally-falling shadow of a street light.

He gained fame in 2004 for his much-publicized legal problems after being caught stenciling on a public road. I had feared that his work would never return, but it seems that him and the city have put their problems behind them, and Roadsworth is now doing some commissions here and there. Spacing Montréal’s Christopher DeWolf has a gallery of his recent work.