The Work of Director Spike Jonze

A double-sided DVD with a selection of works by director Spike Jonze. There is a good selection of musical video clips, some of them with comments by the group or actors involved, a section on rarities with some short films, and three documentaries.

The Video-clip section contains a good selection of his musical clips, which showcase Jonze's versatility, inventive, innovation, and savoir faire, from hip hop to 50s-like music. The best clips in the section are What's Up Fatlip? by Fatlip, Oh so quiet by Bjork, Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim, and above all Buddy Holly by Weezer and the masterpiece Sky is the Limit by Notorious BIG.

The section on rarities is OK, with a lovely short called "How they get there". I did not find the documentaries that interesting. They looked like home made. One of them is a mockumentary about his alter Ego, the choreographer Richard Koufey.

None of his commercials are in the CD, which is a big disappointment.

The DVD does not have anything about Spike Jonze himself. No biographical data, or he talking about his work, his ideas, or anything. Another disappointment. Thank God for the Wikipedia

This is one of three DVDs (currently) which show various works (usually music videos, commercials and/or shorts) by the director, Spike Jonez. The other two showcase directors Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham.

As compared to the other two directors, Spike Jones is rooted more in the everyday. The imagery is not psychedelic nor is it surreal. His vision seems to be based more on technique.

Many will remember Spike Jonez as the director of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. He has also collaborated on many videos with artists such as the Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers and Tenacious D.

There are some good videos. Here are my favorites :

1) Wax - California. Man on fire running after a bus.

2) Pharcyde - Drop. Video occurs backwards-forward.

3) Daft Punk - Da Punk. Dog head walking the streets of NYC.

Of course everyone will remember his video for Fatboy Slim's Praise You, in which he is participating. He leads this dance troupe in their artistic interpretational dance of the song.

This is definitely a worthwhile pick although I did not like it as much as the other two in the series.

-Celluloid Rehab

Man, the preview for this series looked fantastic, but sorting through the 333 minutes of the dual-sided DVD gave me (and my remote) pause.

If you were considering watching this, I'd go in the reverse order of what I did. I went mostly sequentially through it which meant first the videos (which were alright to see again, many I had seen before...) and then the commentary for said videos, which was excruciating at times.

Then when I flipped it, the rarities just seemed like they could have been any college kid's reel (well not any, but you know...more aren't than art).

Then finally I hit the documentaries like a marathon runner hitting the wall...but those were clearly the most interesting. The awkwardness, self-deferential tone of the Fat Lip nicely set up the amazing "Praise You" mini-history. I don't want to comment too much about that for spoiling it, but suffice it to say several times during its filming I found myself wondering if art is for the artists alone, or if it requires a connection with an audience.

To me that's an interesting and intricate question. Just like what grade to do you give a B-boy who has F-minus skills and A-plus attitude?

So if you rent this, I'd definitely say watch that, and also the "Amarillo" documentary on Texas teens with rodeo driven dreams first. Then the Oasis video that never was, and then enjoy your old favorite Spike'd videos. For me those foremost were Bjork (always) and surprisingly the Breeder's "Cannonball." I wonder if the new Deal, er Deals, are up to the old...

Kind of hard to rate this, so I'll just give it a point for each *hour* (yikes...)

5.5/10

It is very difficult to rate this DVD. On the one hand Spike Jonze has directed such awesomely genius videos like Beastie Boys "Sabotage" and FatBoy Slim's "Weapon Of Choice". But on the other he did such usual works, like "Cannonball" by The Breeders. While watching this DVD I've noticed that Spike's main problem is that he is not a perfectionist, like other directors, presented in Director Label's series. In fact, Spike is a lazy director. Just think about it: the idea of "Sabotage" belongs to Adam Horowitz of Beastie Boys, the concept of Notorious B.I.G. video has been developed by Spike's former girlfriend director Sofia Coppola. And "Praise You" has been co-directed by Sofia's brother Roman. When Spike Jonze was assigned to do the Dinosaur Jr. clip he met Macsis of the band and asked him about what did Macsis want to see in this video. And there's even a documentary placed on the disc about Spike hanging around London asking ordinary people about the Oasis video of their dreams. Does this guy have any of his own ideas? Yes, he has. It seems like when Spike really interested in working on a good video, he makes it perfect. But most of his videos (non-classic) are simple ordinary works. And, of course, there's no use to say that Slim's "Weapon Of Choice", Weezer's "Buddy Holly", Bjork's ""it's Oh So Quiet", Chemical's "Electrobank" and some other videos and shots presented on this impressive FOUR HOUR, DOUBLE-SIDED DVD are worth paying for. The DVD also contain different interviewees and commentaries, but the quality of their sound is rather bad. And traditional Director's Label 52-page book is not that interesting and stylish as Michel Gondry's and Chris Cunningham's. Though this is not a perfect realize, It's imperative having Beasties and FatBoy Slim's clips in every good DVD collection. So, you'll have to buy The Work Of Director: Spike Jonze.

The work of Director Spike Jonze includes a collection of music videos, short films, and documentaries filmed by the acclaimed director during the 90's.

His style for music videos is amazingly unique, and are usually a pleasure to watch. But with only 19 of his 50+ videos, casual fans may be steered away.

The special features are lacking, but since the extra short films on the two-sided disc are incredibly rare, it's a must have for longtime fans. With a 52 page book included with Spike's photos and documentary, it's worth the price.

Highlights include Weezer's "Buddy Holly" video, and an assortment of critically acclaimed music videos.

All in all, a must buy, but more towards the big time fan.