what was the Buzz all about...

This morning, killing time that can ill-afford to be killed, I ended up doing a bunch of surfing on the track & trails of MTV's Buzz (from the early 90's). Interesting that. It was a huge influence on Taylor, Shvatz & I in college. Rapid fire tele-collage-vision with a solid conceptual basis (a one-word theme per 30min. episode, a global view, statistics and interviews, and a shaky handheld camera). The research yields interesting facts, and a few parallels n' stuff. Anyway, here's the report, then I have to get to Tentacle work:

First off, Buzz is not listed on imdb.com, even though director Mark Pellington seems to now be a successful video/movie director. Further linkage reveals he graduated from UVA the year that I graduated from high school (whatever that means, but it was interesting to learn). His new film sounds like a sci-fi thriller, sounds very on the X-files vibe in fact.

There's an interview with Pellington where he talks about making his second film Arlington Road now that I understand more what narrative filmmaking is about..., hm, it's interesting, cuz Buzz was a non-narrative work. It must be interesting to work your way back into more traditional forms. I guess I do that a bit now when I'm writing story type stuff, having gone through a more kinda language-poetry aware (I won't say influenced, though in a general sense that's true) phase.

One more connection of a different sort, both of his films debuted at Sundance film festival, which Taylor & Anna went to this year. Once again it impresses me, that fact that we're walking the same ground we were worshipping from afar less than 10 years ago. Which is cool, and something I've given a fair amount thought to recently. And will be the subject of post here a few days hence....