Star Wars is a Remix

in Art, Film | February 3rd, 2011


Kir­by Fer­gu­son is back. Last Sep­tem­ber, the writer/director released the first of a four-part film series – Every­thing is a Remix – that teas­es apart the long his­to­ry of artis­tic “remix­ing.” This first short film con­cen­trat­ed on the artis­tic bor­row­ings of musi­cians and writ­ers, with Led Zep­pelin and the Beat writ­ers get­ting the major focus. Now, with his sec­ond film, the atten­tion turns to film, and par­tic­u­lar­ly to the homages and bor­row­ings of George Lucas’ Star Wars. Aki­ra Kuro­sawa films, Spaghet­ti west­erns and John Wayne west­erns, clas­sic wartime movies, Leni Riefen­stahl pro­pa­gan­da films, Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis – they’re all remixed into the epic space dra­ma. The film wraps up with Fer­gu­son look­ing at Quentin Taran­ti­no and his own remix­ing ten­den­cies. And that sets the stage for parts 3 and 4 – a project that you can help finance in your own mod­est way. I’m sure Kir­by will appre­ci­ate your gen­eros­i­ty…

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Cave of Forgotten Dreams

in Art, Film, History | February 2nd, 2011

The first Wern­er Her­zog 3D film will hit the cin­e­ma screens this spring, and the new trail­er paves the way for it. The 89 minute doc­u­men­tary, Cave of For­got­ten Dreams, brings Her­zog down into the Chau­vet-Pont-d’Arc Cave dis­cov­ered in 1994. Locat­ed in South­ern France, this cave, nor­mal­ly kept off lim­its to the pub­lic, hous­es the old­est cave paint­ings ever dis­cov­ered. We’re talk­ing paint­ings dat­ing back over 30,000 years and all still pre­served in pris­tine con­di­tion. Just as Las­caux left Picas­so in awe, the Chau­vet cave paint­ings inspired Her­zog to use 3D tech­nol­o­gy to cap­ture the char­coal fig­ures, the ear­li­est expres­sion of our artis­tic yearn­ings.

Don’t miss our ear­li­er post, An Evening with Wern­er Her­zog.

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The King’s Speech 1938

in Film, History | February 2nd, 2011

You’ve prob­a­bly seen the film, The King’s Speech, which just land­ed 12 Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Best Pic­ture, Best Direc­tor, Best Actor, Best Sup­port­ing Actor, and Best Sup­port­ing Actress. Now it’s time to rewind the video­tape and bring you back to 1938, when King George VI, for­mer­ly Prince Albert, Duke of York, makes a speech to open an exhi­bi­tion in Scot­land.

Take a quick hop, skip and jump to the British Path site to watch, and you will get a first­hand look at the King speak­ing in his own words…

Look­ing for a good read on your ebook read­er? Find a clas­sic in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Books avail­able in mul­ti­ple for­mats. Enjoy!

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Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revisited

in Film, Sci Fi | February 2nd, 2011

This week, The New York Times film crit­ic A.O. Scott revis­its Solaris (watch online here), Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film adap­ta­tion of the sci-fi nov­el writ­ten by the Pol­ish author Stanisław Lem (1961). Although Tarkovsky con­sid­ered the film some­thing of an artis­tic fail­ure (and Lem turned sour on the project too), Solaris won the Grand Prix Spé­cial du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. What’s more, Salman Rushdie lat­er called it “a sci-fi mas­ter­piece,” Roger Ebert gave it a big nod too, and Empire mag­a­zine ranked it 68th on its list of The 100 Best Films Of World Cin­e­ma. Solaris is one among many Tarkovsky films avail­able online (for free) through Google Video and Veoh, or you can always pur­chase Solaris in high qual­i­ty for­mat on DVD.

Look­ing for more movies? Vis­it our mega list of 340 Free Movies Online.

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Fully Flared

in Film, Random | February 1st, 2011

Take the intro to Ful­ly Flared, the 2007 skate­board­ing film direct­ed by Spike Jonze, Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque. And then remas­ter it in 720p HD and you have quite the sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence. Give the clip at least a minute to unfold…

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Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paintings & Museums to You

in Art, Google | February 1st, 2011

More good­ness out of Google­plex. Today, Google is rolling out a new tool called “Art Project,” which gives you access to more than 1,000 works of art appear­ing in 17 great muse­ums across the world. Using Google’s Street View tech­nol­o­gy, you can now tour col­lec­tions at the MoMA and Met in New York City, the Uffizi Gallery in Flo­rence, the Her­mitage in St. Peters­burg, the Van Gogh Muse­um and Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam, the Nation­al Gallery in Lon­don – just to name a few muse­ums now vir­tu­al­ly open to you. And you can vis­it count­less paint­ings, some ren­dered in super high res­o­lu­tion. (We’re talk­ing 7 bil­lion pix­els!) Take for exam­ple, Ver­meer’s Offi­cer and Laugh­ing Girl (see above) or Van Gogh’s The Bed­room. When you view Van Gogh’s paint­ing, make sure you zoom in and look at the brush­work.

Although you won’t have access to the entire­ty of every muse­um (actu­al­ly the selec­tions are rather lim­it­ed in many cas­es), Google’s Art Project does put 385 rooms on dis­play. Not a bad start.  You can read more about the new ini­tia­tive on Google’s blog here. H/T to @eugenphoto

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Jake Shimabukuro Plays “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the Uke

in Music, TED Talks | February 1st, 2011

If you’ve nev­er seen Jake Shimabukuro han­dle the ukulele before, you’re in for a lit­tle treat. Known for his com­plex fin­ger­work, the ukulele vir­tu­oso now tours with Jim­my Buf­fet and has record­ed with Yo-Yo Ma. Mean­while his fab record­ing of “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps” has clocked 7,000,000 views on YouTube, all of which sets the stage for this: Shimabukuro bring­ing his act to the TED 2010 stage. For more ukulele fun, don’t miss The Com­plete Bea­t­les on Ukulele.

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What’s the Internet? That’s So 1994…

in Media, Technology | January 31st, 2011

Now mak­ing its way around the inter­nets, a lit­tle semi-vin­tage clip of Bryant Gum­bel and Katie Couric, then hosts of The Today Show, try­ing to sort out the new, new thing called “The Inter­net.” This bit was record­ed on Jan­u­ary 24, 1994, just months before Justin Bieber came into the world and Kurt Cobain exit­ed stage left…

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