On Friday nights — and particular events! — IndieWire After Darkish takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight film decide — one thing strange from any age of movie that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as skilled by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s advice.
The Pitch: Appointment Viewing for “Stoners, Seekers, Archivists, and Drinkers”
It took greater than 1,700 miles and an honest-to-God movie show for me to find that the livestream I’ve been wanting my complete grownup life tapes weekly simply ten minutes down the road in LA. Sure, I needed to fly all the best way to New Orleans, Louisiana for The 2024 Overlook Movie Pageant to stumble onto the genius that’s Museum of Residence Video.
The found-footage livestream with a semi-hallucinogenic really feel — described by its creators as “school radio for the eyes” and “channel-changing on an infinite scale” — is infused entrance to finish with California stoner tradition and bears each earmark of the media I really like. Arguably, I ought to have identified about it prior to now; these bastards at Thrillist positive did.
And but, sinking into my sofa tuning into MOHV for the primary time this previous week…forward of 4/20…on this…the yr of 2024…one thing in my soul went quiet and I knew: Bret Berg and I had met at precisely the correct time.
“I watched this final week’s episode of ‘SNL’ with Ryan Gosling,” the captious and charming host mentioned through the April 16 livestream — arm prolonged, joint lit. “The ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ sketch? Humorous on paper. Humorous for 20 seconds. Not humorous for 5 minutes.” Flawless.
A curly-haired imaginative and prescient of 420-friendly style however hardly a Teflon nostalgic, Berg works in movie distribution by day (he comes by way of the now defunct Cinefamily and school station KXLU 88.9 FM), however likes to make use of the lens of practically misplaced archival materials to touch upon present popular culture as a ardour.
“It’s so much like school radio and it’s so much like Bizarre Al’s ‘UHF,’” Berg advised me in an interview over Zoom.
“I really feel like I took lots of inspiration from particularly the scene the place he’s working with that word board of like, ‘This present goes on this night time and this present goes on that night time.’ I freeze-framed it as a child and skim all of the names of the reveals, and I believed, ‘How superior is that that he will get to only have his personal TV station, a lot much less a TV present?’”
Within the newest MOHV episode, Berg together with producer Jenny Nixon and producer/technical director Worldwide Voice of Motive — who, in line with the custom of school radio, every host speciality programming blocks for the web site — look again on the legendary Jan Hooks and the comic’s 5 years at “Saturday Night time Reside.” It’s a delightfully blistering curation that condenses Hooks’ profession to only its finest bits (and is capped-off with an unforgettable Bette Davis will-and-testament sketch I’m personally embarrassed to not have but seen as an IndieWire editor.)
“I’ve seen an excessive amount of TV to wish to watch TV anymore,” Berg mentioned; he’s additionally described MOHV because the very cause tv was made: a distillation of the perfect nonsense screens have ever needed to supply. “I’ve to current it to individuals on this overestimated like Cliffs Word type as a result of in any other case there’s an excessive amount of materials to get to.”
Curation is a craft in and of itself, and MOHV has sharpened its POV to a piercing but unbothered level. This celebratory however under no circumstances navel-gazing “SNL” reflection performed alongside Berg’s sharp however nonplussed commentary in addition to a smattering of hip-hop music movies…Martin Brief in an prolonged residence security demonstration…commercials of all shapes and stripes with a very good exhibiting by Mentos…and a sublimely trimmed down microdose of 1977’s woefully melodramatic “The Promise” amongst different oddities.
The multidisciplinary kaleidoscope of a livestream didn’t really display on the movie pageant the place Berg and I had been launched; nevertheless it’s due to The Overlook exhibiting a rendition of Berg’s “Fasterpiece Theater” (what the editor calls the ruthless supercut format he applies to motion pictures like “The Promise”) that I realized about MOHV. Too straightforward to lose however too good to overlook, the fabric that Berg combs, curates, and protects is strictly the kind of stuff this column goals to search out.
“Individuals have described the issues I do as a deep dive,” Berg mentioned, noting the large regional and generational enchantment of his anti-streaming service. “I don’t see it like that as a result of there’s no option to ever hit the floor. These are solely stones which skip throughout this ocean as a result of what I’m discovering is definitely a fraction of what was as soon as aired.”
MOHV began on Twitch in July 2020 as a pandemic-era repair for what was initially meant to be an in-person present. Now, it airs each Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. ET like Salvador Dalí-inspired clockwork by itself residence web site: https://www.museumofhomevideo.com.
It’s backed by Berg’s monolith of a tough drive (humorous sufficient, he’s not a lot of a bodily media man) and MOHV’s ever-expanding community of followers. Within the grand custom of midnight film screenings, Berg says in-person occasions are certainly serving to his viewers and neighborhood develop.
“I imply, that’s how we met,” he famous to me.
Livestreams attain a vibrant chat field (shout out to the moderators, lengthy could you reasonable) and an estimated 400 to 600 viewers who’ve made appointment viewing out of basking in these two-plus hour blasts of speak present segments, sport present clips, music movies, cutdowns of films, tv scenes, commercials, and extra.
The livestream is a digital vacation spot for “stoners, seekers, archivists, and drinkers,” Berg says every week; to not point out a celebration the place “you don’t must placed on socks.” However for even informal followers, MOHV is a welcoming midnight movie-adjacent mattress anybody with an web connection can cuddle as much as.
“Some persons are there to point out up and possibly go to sleep too, whether or not by sleep or inebriation,” Berg provided. He had a joint for our interview as effectively. “I’m nice with all variations. It’s simply TV.” —AF
In case you are a filmmaker with a lesser identified work of fringe cinema — or cinematic preservation! — that you just wish to see featured on IndieWire After Darkish, e-mail Alison Foreman (aforeman@indiewire.com) and Christian Zilko (czilko@indiewire.com). Make it bizarre, ya sicko.
Any loyal reader (or frankly, even a disloyal reader) of this column has seen me and Foreman spill infinite quantities of ink reminiscing concerning the midnight film screening and its position because the twentieth century’s counterculture cinema hub. However a case could possibly be made that unusual late night time tv was an equally essential distribution automobile for shoppers of bizarre media.
I don’t imply “late night time” within the sense of the speak present style, however merely TV that’s on very late at night time. Each stoner, night time owl, or cultural vagabond of a sure age can relate to the expertise of touchdown on a public entry broadcast within the wee small hours of the morning and being subjected to one thing endlessly unusual. Whether or not it was bizarre selfmade content material {that a} would-be auteur may solely afford to broadcast at 3am or a rerun of some obscure outdated film that ought to have by no means seen the sunshine of day, the grab-bag expertise made late night time channel browsing certainly one of linear tv’s biggest pleasures.
The phenomenon appeared to crystalize when Grownup Swim discovered a option to brilliantly recreate it by producing its personal unique content material that simulated the out-of-body expertise of discovering obscure randomness on tv. However very similar to the follow of going to an precise movie show at midnight, adjustments in viewing habits finally render cultural rites of passage out of date. YouTube and Reddit comprise more bizarre archival content material than anybody may watch in ten lifetimes, and watching an algorithm personally curate a feed that matches your pursuits finally turns into a greater use of time than channel browsing.
Nonetheless, taking a look at a display with the data that you just really do not know what’s approaching subsequent is a priceless expertise that we shouldn’t be so fast to ignore. I believe “Museum of Residence Video” is a pure recreation of linear TV weirdness, however introduced in a approach that’s aligned with present web tradition. If I hadn’t identified the context earlier than I watched, I may simply have been led to consider that Bret’s stoner collages of current media had been Grownup Swim segments. The truth that they’re comprised of precise tv and music historical past solely added to the expertise.
Complicated artwork kinds like movie and tv are comprised of many elements like writing and cinematography and music and performing. However when an artwork type exists within the public consciousness for lengthy sufficient, it will definitely turns into a element in and of itself. Texts are comprised of phrases and sentences, after which the artists of the subsequent technology comprise their very own works of current texts. “Museum of Residence Video” clearly subscribes to that philosophy, treating the finished works of yesteryear’s misguided TV producers like paint for its personal frescoes. Nevertheless it additionally takes issues a step additional and presents the supply format as its personal murals. These streams wouldn’t be practically as fascinating in the event that they didn’t air stay, however the thriller of not realizing what’s airing subsequent might be what retains me tuning in. Should you’re in search of some true 4/20 weirdness in your life, possibly it’s time to look at one thing that doesn’t all the time allow you to skip forward. —CZ
A Word from Bret Berg on Future MOHV Engagements
New programming hits the Museum channel quickly. We’re growing a very enjoyable common collection about our favourite tv tropes. Our producer Jenny Nixon can be getting extra of her “Afternoon Delight” episodes on the schedule.
We’re beginning a publishing line with our first zine! We’ve seen pals just like the Beacon Cinema in Seattle do their very own, we acquired jealous. So coming later this yr is “The Pobrecito Information To Residence Video”, a longtime film journal stored by our Austin, TX buddy Laird Jimenez. The primary movie ebook I ever learn was “Roger Ebert’s Residence Video Companion,” 1989 version… I wished MOHV to contribute one thing to the world in that very same vein.
And we may be IRL in your city! We’re taking the Museum on tour a couple of instances this yr. Thus far we’ve locked Chicago (the Music Field on Sunday, June 30). Stints in Texas and the Pacific Northwest to come back within the fall season. —BB
These courageous sufficient to hitch in on the enjoyable can watch Museum of Residence Video’s livestream at 10:30 p.m. ET each Tuesday; Patreon offers you entry to outdated episodes. In case you are dying to look at a stoner film proper now, Bret Berg recommends “Existenz.” IndieWire After Darkish publishes midnight film suggestions at 11:59 p.m. ET each Friday. Learn extra of our deranged recommendations…