Tag: Graham Uhelski

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018

Memphis music was vibrant as ever in 2018. Every week, the Memphis Flyer brings you the latest and best video collaborations between Bluff City filmmakers and musicians in our Music Video Monday series. To assemble this list, I rewatched all 34 videos that qualified for 2018’s best video and scored them according to song, concept, cinematography, direction and acting, and editing. Then I untangled as many ties as I could and made some arbitrary decisions. Everyone who made the list is #1 in my book!

10. Louise Page “Blue Romance”

Flowers cover everything in this drag-tastic pop gem, directed by Sam Leathers.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (13)


9. Harlan T. Bobo “Nadine” / Fuck “Facehole”

Our first tie of the list comes early. First is Harlan T. Bobo’s sizzling, intense “Nadine” clip, directed by James Sposto.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (11)

I used science to determine that Fuck’s Memphis Flyer name drop is equal to “Nadine”.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (12)

8. Aaron James “Kauri Woods”

The smokey climax of this video by Graham Uhelski is one of the more visually stunning things you’ll see this year.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (10)


7. Daz Rinko “New Whip, Who Dis?”

Whaddup to rapper Daz Rinko who dropped three videos on MVM this year. This was the best one, thanks to an absolute banger of a track.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (9)


6. (tie) McKenna Bray “The Way I Loved You” / Lisa Mac “Change Your Mind”

I couldn’t make up my mind between this balletic video from co-directors Kim Lloyd and Susan Marshall…

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (7)

…and this dark, twisted soundstage fantasy from director Morgan Jon Fox.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (8)

5. Brennan Villines “Better Than We’ve Ever Been”

Andrew Trent Fleming got a great performance out of Brennan Villines in this bloody excellent clip.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (6)


4. (tie) Nick Black “One Night Love” / Summer Avenue “Cut It Close”

Nick Black is many things, but as this video by Gabriel DeCarlo proves, a hooper ain’t one of ’em.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (4)

The kids in Summer Avenue enlisted Laura Jean Hocking for their debut video.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (5)

3. Cedric Burnside “Wash My Hands”

Beale Street Caravan’s I Listen To Memphis series produced a whole flood of great music videos from director Christian Walker and producer Waheed Al Qawasmi. I could have filled out the top ten with these videos alone, but consider this smoking clip of Cedric Burnside laying down the law representative of them all.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (3)

2. Don Lifted “Poplar Pike”

I could have filled out the top five with work from Memphis video auteur Don Lifted, aka Lawrence Matthews, who put three videos on MVM this year. To give everybody else a chance, I picked the transcendent clip for “Poplar Pike” created by Mattews, Kevin Brooks, and Nubia Yasin.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018

1. Lucero “Long Way Back Home”

Sorry, everybody, but you already knew who was going to be number one this year. It’s this mini-movie created by director Jeff Nichols, brother of Lucero frontman Ben Nichols. Starring genuine movie star (and guy who has played Elvis) Michael Shannon, “Long Way Back Home” is the best Memphis music video of 2018 by a country mile.

Music Video Monday: Top 10 Memphis Music Videos of 2018 (2)

Thanks to everyone who submitted videos to Music Video Monday in 2018. If you’d like to see your music video appear on Music Video Monday in 2019, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Aaron James

Float into the workweek with Music Video Monday.

Aaron James is back with a spectacular new video for his song “Kauri Woods”.

“The song was conceived during my hibernation in Pennsylvania this past December,” he says. “I woke up on a snowy morning to the sound of a bird chirping outside of my window. I found this to be very strange…because it was December. I felt like this bird had clearly lost its way and found itself on an unfamiliar path, separated from those who understand him. This is exactly how I felt while trying to write these songs while visiting home. I had realized how long I had been separated from my home, and away from those who truly understand me in ways that many other people don’t.”

The video, which takes James, Savannah Avery, and CJ Henry on a melancholy tour of Arkansas and Shelby Forest, is directed by Graham Uhelski of Mankind Films. It’s a parade of simple but arresting images. “When we think loneliness, we think melancholy, or being in a darker place mentally and emotionally, but we often forget about the beauty that can come out of solitude,” says James. “The video is a message to not dwell in your loneliness and to not spend time sulking and remaining stagnant in your path, but to instead use your solitude to become more self-aware, see the world and your surroundings through your own eyes, and learn more about yourself to understand better where you need to go to find fulfillment.”

Music Video Monday: Aaron James

If you would like to see your music video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis Wraps 20th Anniversary Film Festival With Record Attendance

In Thom Pain, the film which opened the 2017 Indie Memphis Film Festival last Wednesday, Rainn Wilson repeatedly teases the audience with the prospect of a raffle for valuable prizes, but never delivers. On Monday, after more than 200 film screenings at the Halloran Centre, Studio on the Square, Hattiloo Theater, Circuit Playhouse, Playhouse on the Square, and the Malco Ridgeway Cinema Grill, the closing night Memphis Grizzlies Grizz Grant screening finally delivered on the promise of a raffle.

Indie Memphis’ Executive Director Ryan Watt says that the twentieth anniversary festival set a record for attendance by attracting more than 12,000 filmgoers during the past week. A program of encore screenings, technically still part of the festival, at the Malco Collierville Towne Cinema this weekend will push that number even higher.

Good Grief directors Melissa Anderson Sweazy (left) and Laura Jean Hocking (right) pose on the red carpet with Indie Memphis Film Festival Executive Director Ryan Watt.

At the Audience Awards, presented at the closing night reception, the Memphis-made documentary Good Grief completed a rare sweep of Hometowner feature awards. The film, directed by Melissa Anderson Sweazy and Laura Jean Hocking, was previously awarded Best Hometowner Feature on Saturday night at a raucous awards ceremony at Circuit Playhouse, as well as the Audience Choice for the Poster Contest. Previous films that have won both audience and jury awards include Phoebe Driscoll’s Pharaohs Of Memphis in 2014 and G.B. Shannon’s “Fresh Skweezed” in 2011. The record for most prizes won at Indie Memphis by a single film belongs to Morgan Jon Fox’s OMG/HAHAHA, which won five trophies in 2009.

The other big winner to emerge from this year’s festival is Matteo Servente. The Memphis director won two short film prizes for two different short films: “An Accidental Drowning” won the MLK 50 prize for Civil Rights-related films, and “We Go On” won the Hometowner Short Film competition. “We Go On”, with a screenplay by Memphis writer and Burke’s Books owner Corey Mesler, had previously won top honors at the Memphis Film Prize. Servente who came to Memphis from Italy ten years ago, dedicated his wins to the cause of immigrant’s rights, saying “This is what happens when you don’t build that wall!” 

Hometowner Narrative Short Audience Award Winner Nathan Ross Murphy receives his trophy from Indie Memphis’ Ryan Watt.

The Narrative Feature award went to Cold November by Karl Jacob, and directors Landen Van Soest and Jeremy Levine took home the Documentary Feature award with For Akheem. The Hometowner Documentary Short award was won by “Blackout Day” by director Graham Uhelski.

Audience Award for Narrative Feature went to Mark Webber’s Flesh and Blood, while the audience chose Sideman by Scott Rosenbaum for Documentary Feature. The audience’s favorite Hometowner Narrative Feature was Nathan Ross Murphy’s “Muddy Water” and Lauren Squires Ready won the Documentary Short audience nod with “Bike Lee. Katori Hall’s “Arkabutla” was the audience choice among the MLK 50 films.

Good Grief and the award-winning short films will be on the program this Saturday at the Malco Collierville Towne Cinema. For more information visit the Indie Memphis website.