REVIEW: The Velvet Underground [2021]

It was all about extended time. Director Todd Haynes has culled through contextually relevant and era-specific footage, artistic contemporaries, interviews both archival and new, and more (the end credits are over five minutes long to fit the myriad sources) to create a definitive oral history of one of the most influential rock/pop bands of all-time, simply (and aptly) titled The Velvet Underground. He needs to go through these hours of information because, as we soon learn through the journey, that name was bigger than just a band. Its originators Lou…

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BIFF16 REVIEW: Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present [2016]

“No LSD needed” When Tony Conrad passed away in April 2016, I knew of him as an experimental filmmaker. It’s hard to be an art student at the University at Buffalo—despite his teaching in Media Studies rather than Fine Art—and not know his name at the very least. But that was all I knew: a name, reputation, and the plaudits of countless friends who knew so much more. Only when obituaries started being released in the likes of The New York Times did I realize how renowned a figure he…

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