Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein Live at a Cinema Near You

in Literature, Theatre | March 14th, 2011

Here’s the trail­er for the play Franken­stein, which opens in Lon­don at the Nation­al The­ater this Thurs­day. Two intrigu­ing points: 1.) This pro­duc­tion is helmed by Dan­ny Boyle, the Oscar-win­ning direc­tor behind Slum­dog Mil­ion­aire, 127 Hours, and the appro­pri­ate­ly ter­ri­fy­ing zom­bie movie 28 Days Lat­er. 2.) Boyle’s Franken­stein is part of the Nation­al The­ater Live pro­gram – now in its sec­ond sea­son – and will be simul­cast live in hun­dreds of movie the­aters all over the world. There are 12 par­tic­i­pat­ing venues in Cal­i­for­nia alone – click here to find out if there’s one near you.

For a pre-screen­ing refresh­er, you can down­load Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el for free at Project Guten­berg, or as a free audio­book at Lib­riVox. And what­ev­er you do, don’t miss this video of the gor­geous 1934 illus­trat­ed edi­tion, with wood­cuts by the Amer­i­can artist Lynd Ward.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Teens Ponder Meaning of Contemporary Art

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | March 14th, 2011

In 2009, Tate Liv­er­pool dis­played four works of con­tem­po­rary art in dif­fer­ent loca­tions around the city. Acclaimed film direc­tor Mike Fig­gis was asked to turn the reac­tions of Liv­er­poodlians to these sculp­tures into short films. The video above shows teenagers dis­cussing Jeff Koon­s’s “Three Ball Total Equi­lib­ri­um Tank.” Anoth­er short film cap­tures the views of stu­dents when one of Dan Flav­in’s instal­la­tions called “Unti­tled” was dis­played at their school for one day.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Harvard Thinks Big

in Harvard, TED Talks | March 14th, 2011

10 Har­vard pro­fes­sors. 10 fas­ci­nat­ing ideas. 10 min­utes each. That was the gist of Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-esque event held on Feb­ru­ary 11th. Now fast for­ward sev­er­al weeks, and the talks all appear online for free. Find them on YouTube, iTunes, or Har­vard’s ded­i­cat­ed web site.

Of all the 10 talks, we decid­ed to fea­ture one: Daniel Gilbert, a psych pro­fes­sor known for his book Stum­bling On Hap­pi­ness, presents a talk called “It’s the End of the World as We Know it, and I Feel Fine.” (Yes, a nod to R.E.M.) And it tries to make sense of a baf­fling ques­tion. Our plan­et is on the brink of an eco­log­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe and we’re calm­ly sit­ting here watch­ing videos. Humans have thrived because we take threats seri­ous­ly. But why not this one?

Oth­er speak­ers at the event include Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Wrang­ham, and Elaine Scar­ry – some well known Har­vard names. One fig­ure not present was Michael Sandel. But here we have his TED Talk from 2010: The Lost Art of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Debate.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online

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