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Sigue Sigue Sputnik - 'Love Missile F1-11' (1986) "Soon the whole world will know my name." Sigue Sigue Sputnik were a UK act active from 1982 to 1989, being the brainchild of Tony James , earlier of Generation X fame (the band that gave the world Billy Idol ), with Martin Degville on vocals and also featuring guitarist Neal X (a.k.a. Neal Whitmore ), keyboardist Yana YaYa (a.k.a. Jane Farrimond ) and two drummers, Chris Kavanagh and Ray Mayhew . The debut single 'Love Missile F1-11' was unleashed on the unsuspecting world on the 17th of February, 1986, with a music video in tow, directed by Hugh Scott-Symonds . Sigue Sigue Sputnik, supposedly named after a Russian street gang (though it seems the name originates from the Philippines and literally means in Spanish "Go, go, satellite"), were the ultimate 1980s gimmick band and hype act. Their sound can be described a sort of electronic rockabilly. They cited Suicide, the pio...

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (directed by William Greaves, 1968) This film really blew my mind, being a sort of meta-behind the scenes documentary (or whatever). There are three separate film crews: the first one is shooting a screen test for a sordid psychodrama-cum-soap opera type of film, called "Over the Cliff". They, in their turn, are filmed by the second crew, supposedly for a behind-the-scenes documentary. Then there's the third crew, shooting both the crews 1 & 2 and everything else that is happening on location. Perhaps it's a human experiment made up by William Greaves (1926 - 2014), playing the role of an incompetent director and bad screenwriter to get reactions from his actors and crew and thus setting in motion the whole creative impetus for this reality-TV before reality-TV work (or cinéma vérité as they used to call it). As an amateur/student filmmaker I could really relate to the situations and the interpersonal friction here. S...