Art Attack: Youku Movies, Ai Weiwei's seeds, Van Gogh's last days, Red Gate's anachronistic sculptures

Even though the city's just barely awakening from its Chunjie slumber - and the light blanket of snow we woke up to this morning isn't helping, things will start to pick up pace again. In the meantime, watch movies for cheap online, munch on sunflower seeds (oh wait, these aren't for eating), and maybe... just maybe, if you're feeling up to it, you can check out an exhibit or screening.

When it comes to watching movies in China, you've got the theaters showing Hollywood and Chinese hits, you have DVD hawkers everywhere, and once upon a time, we could pop open Youku and watch just about anything our hearts desired.

It was a sad day when I realized Youku was cleaning up its less-than-legal content. Now where do I go to catch the next episode of The Office, Chuck, House, Top Chef, Glee, Dexter, etc. etc.?

What we're learning (besides that I try to follow way too many TV shows for my own good) is that this is all part of Youku CEO Victor Koo's master plan to take over the world of web content. By going legit - and of course, going IPO - Youku's setting up to harness the movie-watching dollars of those vast internet-using legions we're always hearing about in this great country.

Ok, so none of this is terribly new. I should confess that I've been a little out of the Youku loop since it cleaned up its act. But when a colleague told me we can watch Inception on Youku for RMB 5, I decided to check it out.

On their special Inception site, the movie goes for RMB 5, but many others listed at the bottom - including Iron Man 2, Mission Impossible 2, and a smattering of lesser-known or older films - go for RMB 3, and there's even an option to pay RMB 20 for a month of unlimited viewing (although the site is clear that some content won't be available in the monthly package). The selection's not amazing yet, but who wants to bet they're working on that?

Apart from its Premium movie offerings, Youku also has many of the latest Chinese movies: Let the Bullets Fly and If You Are the One 2 are both available for free.

There's more. (Clearly, the site has been busy since I took my Glee-watching elsewhere...) As part of a push for original content through its 11 Degrees New Media Project, Youku's also been producing short films that are drawing masses, according to the site's own English language blog, Youku Buzz.

"Miss Puff's Goldfish Bowl" is a Scanner Darkly-type animation about sex and the city - Beijing, not New York:

And "Old Boys" is an offbeat nostalgic number about battles between best friends, from the love interest in grade school to a reality show contest:

In other news, Ai Weiwei's celebrated Tate Modern exhibit filled the British museum's Turbine Hall with a wonderland of some hundred million ceramic sunflower seeds that visitors were meant to romp in - and romp they did. But the resulting dust proved biohazardous, so the seeds were cordoned off for a "look but don't touch" exhibit.

The Guardian reports that a 100kg sack of those same seeds will be offered up at Sotheby's on February 15, and the high estimate for what Ai Weiwei's seeds will fetch is £120,000. (No word on how much of that money will go to the 1200 workers who spent 2 years producing the little ceramic guys. Also no word on what Ai Weiwei's non-ceramic seed would fetch...)

We've given you enough to keep you busy indoors, but if you're got cabin fever and want to get out, here are a couple suggestions:

The French Cultural Centre is showing Van Gogh, Maurice Pialat's biopic of the Dutch painter's last days, on Friday at 5pm, and Saturday at 7.30pm.

BC MOMA has a special screening of Zhao Liang's documentary Together - featured in the January issue of the Beijinger - this Saturday at 5pm, featuring a Q&A with Zhao and director director Gu Changwei (Peacock, And the Spring Comes). Together is partly a "making of" documentary about Gu's new dramatic feature Life is a Miracle.

Red Gate Gallery's exhibit "Ming to Nirvana" turns their Ming Watchtower into an anachronistic sculpture garden, with everything from Island 6's LED sculptures to Li Xiaofeng's ceramic sartorials. This exhibit ends when February does, so catch it while you can.