David Lynch in Four Movements: A Video Tribute

in Film | December 27th, 2011

Last year, Richard Vez­i­na cre­at­ed a pop­u­lar video trib­ute to Stan­ley Kubrick (A Stan­ley Kubrick Odyssey). Now he returns with David Lynch in Four Move­ments. Accom­pa­nied by musi­cal pieces from Ange­lo Badala­men­ti & David Lynch, each move­ment revolves around a dis­tinc­tive theme or visu­al trend in Lynch’s works. Here’s how the 20 minute video unfolds:

  • First Move­ment: Melan­choly and Sad­ness — Ques­tions In A World Of Blue
  • Sec­ond Move­ment: Action, Vio­lence, and Sex — The Pink Room
  • Third Move­ment: Dreams and Night­mares — Into The Night
  • Fourth Move­ment: Love and Hope — Mys­ter­ies of Love

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Organ­ic Cof­fee (Bar­bie Head Not Includ­ed)

David Lynch on his Favorite Movies and Film­mak­ers

David Lynch Debuts Lady Blue Shang­hai

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Bono, Glen Hansard & Friends Busk For Charity on Grafton Street

in Music | December 27th, 2011

Shop­pers on Grafton Street in Dublin were treat­ed to a rare street per­for­mance on Christ­mas Eve by some of Ire­land’s most illus­tri­ous pop musi­cians. U2 front­man Bono, oscar-win­ning singer/songwriter Glen Hansard, Liam O’ Maon­lai of Hot­house Flow­ers, Mundy, and Declan O’Rourke gath­ered on the famous shop­ping street to spread hol­i­day cheer and raise mon­ey for the home­less.

It was the third straight year of Christ­mas Eve busk­ing for Bono and Hansard. A large group of fans showed up in antic­i­pa­tion, hav­ing been tipped off the day before by Hansard. “Busk­ing with some friends tomor­row on Grafton St.,” he wrote on Twit­ter. “Come and throw a coin in the box for Simon Com­mu­ni­ty and the Peter McVer­ry trust.” The crowd grew so big that the police moved the per­for­mance to the gate of St. Stephen’s Green, at the end of the street.

The group per­formed a rous­ing, sing-along ver­sion of the Mic Christo­pher song “Hey­day” (above), and some hol­i­day favorites, includ­ing the 1960s hit “Christ­mas (Baby Please Come Home),” which can be seen on YouTube here and here.

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The Short Films That Saved Pixar

in Animation, Film | December 27th, 2011


When Steve Jobs became the major­i­ty investor in Pixar in Jan­u­ary 1986, the com­pa­ny looked noth­ing like it does today. Back then, Pixar was main­ly a tech­nol­o­gy play. It sold expen­sive Image Com­put­ers to gov­ern­ment agen­cies and med­ical insti­tu­tions along with ren­der­ing soft­ware. That strat­e­gy did­n’t pay off par­tic­u­lar­ly well. The com­pa­ny hem­or­rhaged cash; lay­offs ensued; and things were gen­er­al­ly look­ing bleak for the young com­pa­ny.

Pixar’s for­tunes changed, how­ev­er, when it tapped into the tal­ents of a young ani­ma­tor named John Las­seter. Dur­ing Pixar’s ear­ly days, Steve Jobs and co-founder Ed Cat­mull asked Las­seter to devel­op a short ani­mat­ed film to help show off the capa­bil­i­ties of Pixar’s hard­ware and soft­ware. He came up with Luxo Jr. (above), which turned two lov­able lamps into movie stars. The short film won first prize at SIGGRAPH, the annu­al com­put­er graph­ics con­fer­ence held in 1986. Lat­er Luxo Jr. was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award.

In 1988, Pixar was still hang­ing on by a thread. But Jobs con­tin­ued to nur­ture Las­seter’s work and direct­ed pre­cious resources towards anoth­er short film. When giv­ing Las­seter funds ($300,000), Jobs said to the ani­ma­tor, “All I ask of you, John, is to make it great.” And that he did. The result, Tin Toy (above), won the ’88 Acad­e­my Award for ani­mat­ed short film, the first com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed film to win the award.

Tin Toy caught Dis­ney’s atten­tion, and they began to pur­sue Las­seter. But Las­seter stayed loy­al to Pixar, and before too long, Pixar and Dis­ney decid­ed to part­ner on the pro­duc­tion of Toy Sto­ry, which net­ted a prof­it of $330 mil­lion. Pixar dumped its hardware/software busi­ness and focused on mak­ing ani­mat­ed films from then on, before Dis­ney even­tu­al­ly pur­chased Pixar for $7.4 bil­lion in 2006.

If you’re look­ing for a lit­tle more ani­ma­tion, don’t miss The Adven­tures of André and Wal­ly B., the 1984 short film made by Las­seter at the Graph­ics Group, the unit with­in Lucas­Film that was even­tu­al­ly spun into Pixar. Also here we have the First 3D Dig­i­tal Film, which hap­pened to be cre­at­ed by Ed Cat­mull (1970). He co-found­ed Pixar and is now pres­i­dent of Walt Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios and Pixar Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios.

More Relat­ed Pixar Con­tent:

A Rare Look Inside Pixar Stu­dios

The Beau­ty of Pixar: 500 Scenes from 17 Films

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