Very short shorts, 7/27.

Tips and tidbits, short attention style, as we head into the weekend.

Aaron Hillis, writing in the Village Voice this week, about YouTube's uneasy relationship with experimental video art (and Scanners, Lincoln Center's annual vid fest): "Yes, content-delivery systems have evolved enough to render us an even more attention-deficient culture, dulling our senses or at least sating us with heaping piles of free media. While Scanners (a/k/a the New York Video Festival) once served as a practical conspectus for the handful of video pioneers whose work stood out from the pack, the fest will soon become a bimonthly affair just to keep up, a valiant yet uphill battle to cut through the explosion of online video—two-inch QuickTime windows are not exactly the ultimate format for experimental work, by the way—and catch the attention of the hypnotized masses who are growing more and more accustomed to getting their 'art' between checking e-mail and the RSS feed." [Whew. Take a deep breath. And then...]

It then prompted a nice continuation at The Reeler.

Peter Hyoguchi has the scoop on Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in 10 years, in a video interview.

Johnny Depp, in a Dark Shadows movie? Yep, says Variety: "Depp has said in interviews that he has always been obsessed with "Dark Shadows" and had, as a child, wanted to be Barnabas Collins, the vampire patriarch of the series. The role was originated by Jonathan Frid."

Wiley Wiggins points to an appropriately creepy new anti-littering PSA from...David Lynch.

Over on Anne Thompson's blog, a few different writers are covering Comic-Con, and, hey, it's swell to see Karen Allen again.

On Cinematical, Matt Bradshaw with another edition of Trailer Park. By the way, watching the new coming attraction for Darjeeling Limited, I was struck by how quickly I could tell it was a Wes Anderson movie (honest, without having heard, or remembered hearing anyway, anything about it). Literally ten seconds. I saw the cast, heard the peppy soundtrack, the deadpan dialogue, the color - yep, you, too, can play Name That Director in ten seconds. (I love Wes Anderson; I'm just sayin'.)

Interesting marketing tool here:

The documentary No End in Sight now has its own customized an IM chat that can be embedded on one's site. The film's director, Charles Ferguson, will participate in chats with users at scheduled times. Their marketing folks are asking people to embed this app on their web sites so users can participate in a dialog with Ferguson. Interesting concept.

More on the film here and here.

That's all for now. Welcome back, David!