The Hammer and Tongs Collection

Hammer & Tongs is a production company and collective pseudonym for filmmakers Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith who spent their career up until 2005 making music videos before branching out into feature films with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and, two years later, Son of Rambow. They have worked with some of the biggest artists in the world including Blur, Radiohead and REM. This collection brings together twenty-one of their music videos and three short films which are confusedly arranged on the menu screen so you're not quite sure what each icon means and which videos are in each selection.

The full list is:

Blur - Coffee & TV
Vampire Weekend - A Punk
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Radiohead - Nude
REM - Imitation of Life
Pulp - Help the Aged
Pulp - A Little Soul
Supergrass - Low C
Supergrass - Pumping on Your Stereo
Bentley Rhythm Ace - Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out
Bentley Rhythm Ace - Theme from Gutbuster
Badly Drawn Boy - Disillusioned
Badly Drawn Boy - Spitting in the Wind
Beck - Lost Cause
The Wannadies - Little By Little
The Wannadies - Big Fan
The Wannadies - Hit
Moloko - Flipside
Fatboy Slim - Right Here Right Now
Eels - Cancer for the Cure
Eels - Last Stop This Town

This should be the sort of DVD that would sit alongside the many Works of the Director... titles so you can compare their videos with those directed by the likes of Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry (all wonderfully talented directors), two of whom (Jonze and Gondry have branched out into feature films). There are some of my all-time favourite videos on here, particularly Pumping on your Stereo by Supergrass, Blur's Coffee & TV and Last Stop This Town by Eels.


Although I wasn't overly keen on their adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, they more than made amends with the brilliant Son of Rambow which was amongst my favourite films of 2007. All these videos are fascinating from a historical point of view as you can see Jennings and Goldsmith developing as directors and making some of the more memorable music videos ever seen.

My only reservation is that, though there is a 'play all' function for all 21 videos, there is no option to enable you to play them by production year or artist so they just play in the sections in which you would find them on the menu screen, including the short films. It is also quite strange to have the short films mixed in with the music videos so, whilst you are watching videos by Radiohead and Supergrass, you suddenly have Dominic Leung's bizarre video Polish Plums which is basically his face, painted purple, superimposed over an apple whilst he tries to lip sync to the words in the video. The titles don't really give you any clue as to what videos are in which section although they do tend to take their name from one of the songs so the 'Spitting' includes Spitting in the Wind by Badly Drawn Boy and 'Gutbuster' contains Bentley Rhythm Ace's Theme from Gutbuster. One other thing that puzzles me and I hope is just limited to the review discs is that Beck's video for Hell Yes is on the menu under the 'Hit!' (from The Wannadies' song of the same name) title but is crossed out and says 'not available'.


The Disc

Extra Features
Each video has a commentary and you can choose to watch the selection with the commentary on or off and you tend to get Garth Jennings on the phone with the artist in question, from Jarvis Cocker to Graham Coxon and Damon Gough or, in the case of The Wannadies' Little by Little, the commentary is by Adam Buxton who was the only person in the video. These are generally quite interesting with some illuminating comments from the artist and director but they are limited by the constraints of time, usually three or four minutes, and sometimes have to be cut off quite abruptly.

On the main menu, under the Home Videos heading is a making of with interviews with Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith as well as clips from most of the videos they made and referred to during the piece. Running at half an hour this is fairly revealing and a good watch.


The Picture
Presented (for the most part) in a 4:3 frame, the full frame videos look fine but it is a shame that (most of) the widescreen videos were not shot anamorphically and the whole thing shown in a 16:9 frame as this would mean that you would see Coffee & TV in full 2:35:1 widescreen rather than in a tiny letterboxed format.

Generally, the quality is excellent with bright colours, good contrast levels and would be in the same shape as you would see them on MTV, VH1 or the like.

The Sound
Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo throughout and that is pretty much par for the course with music videos and it's only when you have videos of live gigs that a 5.1 option would come into the equation. There is no problem with any of the songs sounding blurred or with the audio failing to match the video so it is as good as you would expect.


Final Thoughts
Although far from perfect and with a few things that I would change or amend, the Hammer and Tongs Collection has a great collection of music videos, several rather bizarre short films and the addition of a commentary for each plus the making of makes this a rather attractive purchase for music fans.