Marilyn Monroe & Elvis Presley Star in an Action-Packed Pop Art Japanese Monster Movie

in Animation | September 27th, 2017

Designed by Erik Winkows­ki, this wild cut-out ani­ma­tion, called “Scary Prairie,” fea­tures pop icons, an Andy Warhol aes­thet­ic, Japan­ese mon­sters, homages to Wild West films, all in one action-packed minute. What more could you want?

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Messy n Chic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Miyaza­ki Meets Warhol in Campbell’s Soup Cans Reimag­ined by Design­er Hyo Taek Kim

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe Recounts Her Har­row­ing Expe­ri­ence in a Psy­chi­atric Ward in a 1961 Let­ter

The Entire His­to­ry of Japan in 9 Quirky Min­utes

Hand-Col­ored Pho­tographs from 19th Cen­tu­ry Japan: 110 Images Cap­ture the Wan­ing Days of Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Soci­ety

The Big Ideas Behind Andy Warhol’s Art, and How They Can Help Us Build a Bet­ter World

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch the New Trailer for Wes Anderson’s Stop Motion Film, Isle of Dogs, Inspired by Akira Kurosawa

in Animation, Film | September 22nd, 2017

It sur­prised every­one, even die-hard fans, when Wes Ander­son announced that he would not just adapt Roald Dahl’s chil­dren’s book Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox for the screen, but do it with stop-motion ani­ma­tion. But after we’d all giv­en it a bit of thought, it made sense: Ander­son­’s films and Dahl’s sto­ries do share a cer­tain sense of inven­tive humor, and step­ping away from live action would final­ly allow the direc­tor of such detail-ori­ent­ed pic­tures as Rush­more, The Roy­al Tenen­baums, and The Life Aquat­ic with Steve Zis­sou fuller con­trol over the visu­als. Eight years lat­er, we find Ander­son over­see­ing anoth­er team of ani­ma­tors to tell anoth­er, even more fan­tas­ti­cal-look­ing sto­ry, this one set not in an Eng­land of the past but a Japan of the future.

There, accord­ing to the pro­jec­t’s new­ly released trail­er, “canine sat­u­ra­tion has reached epic pro­por­tions. An out­break of dog flu rips through the city of Megasa­ki. May­or Kobayashi issues emer­gency orders call­ing for a hasty quar­an­tine. Trash Island becomes an exile colony: the Isle of Dogs.” Equals in fur­ri­ness, if not attire, to Fan­tas­tic Mr. Fox’s wood­land friends and voiced by the likes of Jeff Gold­blum, Scar­let Johans­son, Til­da Swin­ton, and of course Bill Mur­ray (in a cast also includ­ing Japan­ese per­form­ers like Ken Watan­abe, Mari Nat­su­ki, and Yoko Ono — yes, that Yoko Ono), the canines of var­i­ous col­ors and sizes forcibly relo­cat­ed to the bleak tit­u­lar set­ting must band togeth­er into a kind of rag­tag fam­i­ly.

Ander­son must find him­self very much at home in this the­mat­ic ter­ri­to­ry by now. It would also have suit­ed the tow­er­ing fig­ure in Japan­ese film to whom Isle of Dogs pays trib­ute. Although Ander­son has cit­ed the 1960s and 70s stop-ani­ma­tion hol­i­day spe­cials of Rankin/Bass like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rein­deer and The Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy â€” all pro­duced, inci­den­tal­ly, in Japan — as one inspi­ra­tion, he also said on an ArteTV Q&A ear­li­er this year that “the new film is real­ly less influ­enced by stop-motion movies than it is by Aki­ra Kuro­sawa.” Per­haps he envi­sioned Atari Kobayashi, the boy who jour­neys to Trash Island to retrieve his lost com­pan­ion, as a twelve-year-old ver­sion of one of Kuro­sawa’s lone heroes.

And per­haps it owes to Kuro­sawa that the set­ting — at least from what the trail­er reveals — com­bines ele­ments of an imag­ined future with the look and feel of Japan’s rapid­ly devel­op­ing mid-20th cen­tu­ry, a peri­od that has long fas­ci­nat­ed Ander­son in its Euro­pean incar­na­tions but one cap­tured crisply in Kuro­sawa’s home­land in crime movies like High and Low and The Bad Sleep Well. Ander­son has made lit­tle to no ref­er­ence to the Land of the Ris­ing Sun before, but his inter­est makes sense: no land bet­ter under­stands what Ander­son has expressed more vivid­ly with every project, the rich­ness of the aes­thet­ic mix­ture of the past and future that always sur­rounds us. And from what I could tell on my last vis­it there, its dog sit­u­a­tion remains bless­ed­ly under con­trol — for now.

via Uncrate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Com­plete Col­lec­tion of Wes Ander­son Video Essays

The Geo­met­ric Beau­ty of Aki­ra Kuro­sawa and Wes Anderson’s Films

Wes Ander­son & Yasu­jiro Ozu: New Video Essay Reveals the Unex­pect­ed Par­al­lels Between Two Great Film­mak­ers

Acci­den­tal Wes Ander­son: Every Place in the World with a Wes Ander­son Aes­thet­ic Gets Doc­u­ment­ed by Red­dit

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

A New Animation Explains How Caffeine Keeps Us Awake

in Animation, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Science | September 4th, 2017

Let’s pref­ace this by recall­ing that Hon­oré de Balzac drank up to 50 cups of cof­fee a day and lived to the ripe old age of … 51.

Of course, he pro­duced dozens of nov­els, plays, and short sto­ries before tak­ing his leave. Per­haps his caf­feine habit had a lit­tle some­thing to do with that?

Phar­ma­cist Hanan Qasim’s TED-Ed primer on how caf­feine keeps us awake top loads the pos­i­tive effects of the most world’s com­mon­ly used psy­choac­tive sub­stance. Glob­al con­sump­tion is equiv­a­lent to the weight of 14 Eif­fel Tow­ers, mea­sured in drops of cof­fee, soda, choco­late, ener­gy drinks, decaf…and that’s just humans. Insects get theirs from nec­tar, though with them, a lit­tle goes a very long, poten­tial­ly dead­ly way.

Caffeine’s struc­tur­al resem­blance to the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter adeno­sine is what gives it that spe­cial oomph. Adeno­sine caus­es sleepi­ness by plug­ging into neur­al recep­tors in the brain, caus­ing them to fire more slug­gish­ly. Caf­feine takes advan­tage of their sim­i­lar mol­e­c­u­lar struc­tures to slip into these recep­tors, effec­tive­ly steal­ing adenosine’s park­ing space.

With a bioavail­abil­i­ty of 99%, this inter­lop­er arrives ready to par­ty.

On the plus side, caf­feine is both a men­tal and phys­i­cal pick me up.

In appro­pri­ate dos­es, it can keep your mind from wan­der­ing dur­ing a late night study ses­sion.

It lifts the body’s meta­bol­ic rate and boosts per­for­mance dur­ing exercise—an effect that’s eas­i­ly coun­ter­act­ed by get­ting the bulk of your caf­feine from choco­late or sweet­ened soda, or by dump­ing anoth­er Eif­fel Tower’s worth of sug­ar into your cof­fee.

There’s even some evi­dence that mod­er­ate con­sump­tion may reduce the like­li­hood of such dis­eases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and can­cer.

What to do when that caf­feine effect starts wear­ing off?

Gulp down more!

As with many drugs, pro­longed usage dimin­ish­es the sought-after effects, caus­ing its devo­tees (or addicts, if you like) to seek out high­er dos­es, neg­a­tive side effects be damned. Ner­vous jit­ters, incon­ti­nence, birth defects, raised heart rate and blood pres­sure… it’s a com­pelling case for stick­ing with water.

Ani­ma­tor Draško Ivez­ić (a 3‑lat­te-a-day man, accord­ing to his studio’s web­site) does a hilar­i­ous job of per­son­i­fy­ing both caf­feine and the humans in its thrall, par­tic­u­lar­ly an egg-shaped new father.

Go to TED-Ed to learn more, or test your grasp of caf­feine with a quiz.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wake Up & Smell the Cof­fee: The New All-in-One Cof­fee-Mak­er/Alarm Clock is Final­ly Here!

Physics & Caf­feine: Stop Motion Film Uses a Cup of Cof­fee to Explain Key Con­cepts in Physics

This is Cof­fee!: A 1961 Trib­ute to Our Favorite Stim­u­lant

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Bob Dylan Hates Me: An Animation

in Animation, Music | August 29th, 2017

Film­mak­er Caveh Zahe­di met his idol twice. And lived to ani­mate the sto­ry. Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan Clas­sic, “For­ev­er Young,” Ani­mat­ed for Chil­dren

I Met the Wal­rus: An Ani­mat­ed Film Revis­it­ing a Teenager’s 1969 Inter­view with John Lennon

Watch Kids’ Price­less Reac­tions to Hear­ing the Time­less Music of The Bea­t­les

Hear Bob Dylan’s New­ly-Released Nobel Lec­ture: A Med­i­ta­tion on Music, Lit­er­a­ture & Lyrics

 

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Legendary Animator Chuck Jones Creates an Oscar-Winning Animation About the Virtues of Universal Health Care (1949)

in Animation | August 17th, 2017

While our coun­try looks like it might be com­ing apart at the seams, it’s good to revis­it, every once in a while, moments when it did work. And that’s not so that we can feel nos­tal­gic about a lost time, but so that we can remind our­selves how, giv­en the right con­di­tions, things could work well once again.

One exam­ple from his­to­ry (and recent­ly redis­cov­ered by a num­ber of blogs dur­ing the AHCA deba­cle in Con­gress) is this gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da film from 1949—the Har­ry S. Tru­man era—that pro­motes the idea of cra­dle-to-grave health care, and all for three cents a week. This mon­ey went to school nurs­es, nutri­tion­ists, fam­i­ly doc­tors, and neigh­bor­hood health depart­ments.

Direct­ed by Chuck Jones, bet­ter known for ani­mat­ing Bugs Bun­ny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and the Road Run­ner, “So Much for So Lit­tle” fol­lows our main char­ac­ter from infancy—where doc­tors help immu­nize babies against whoop­ing cough, diph­the­ria, rheumat­ic fever, and smallpox—through school to dat­ing, mar­riage, becom­ing par­ents, and set­tling into a nice, healthy retire­ment. Along the way, the gov­ern­ment has made sure that health care is noth­ing to wor­ry about.

The film won an Acad­e­my Award in 1950 for Doc­u­men­tary Short Subject—not best sci-fi, despite how rad­i­cal this all sounds.

So what hap­pened? John Maher at the blog Dot and Line puts it this way:

Par­ti­san­ship and cap­i­tal­ism and racist zon­ing poli­cies shat­tered its ide­al­is­tic dream that Amer­i­cans might actu­al­ly pay com­mu­nal­ly for their health as well as that of their neigh­bors and fel­low cit­i­zens.

Three cents per Amer­i­can per week wouldn’t cut it now in terms of uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age. But accord­ing to Maher, quot­ing a 2009 Kingsepp study on the orig­i­nal Afford­able Care Act, tax­pay­ers would have to pay $3.61 a week.

So folks, don’t get despon­dent, get ide­al­is­tic. The Great­est Gen­er­a­tion came back from WWII with a grand ide­al­ism. Maybe this cur­rent gen­er­a­tion just needs to fight and defeat Nazis all over again…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Evo­lu­tion of Chuck Jones, the Artist Behind Bugs Bun­ny, Daffy Duck & Oth­er Looney Tunes Leg­ends: A Video Essay

How to Draw Bugs Bun­ny: A Primer by Leg­endary Ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones

This Amer­i­can Life Demys­ti­fies the Amer­i­can Health­care Sys­tem

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

36 Abstract Covers of Vintage Psychology, Philosophy & Science Books Come to Life in a Mesmerizing Animation

in Animation, Books, Design, Psychology, Science | August 11th, 2017

Ani­mat­ed ebook cov­ers are the wave of the future.

Graph­ic and motion design­er Hen­ning M. Led­er­er surfs that wave on the most unex­pect­ed of boards—a col­lec­tion of abstract mid-cen­tu­ry cov­ers drawn from the Insta­gram feed of artist Julian Mon­tague, who shares his enthu­si­asm for vin­tage min­i­mal­ism.

Led­er­er first came to our atten­tion in 2015, when we cov­ered the first install­ment of what seems des­tined to become an ongo­ing project.

His lat­est effort, above, con­tin­ues his explo­rations in the sub­jects which most fre­quent­ly trad­ed in these sorts of geo­met­ric covers—science, psy­chother­a­py, phi­los­o­phy and soci­ol­o­gy.

No word on what inspired him to toss in the first cov­er, which fea­tures a cheer­ful, Play­mo­bil-esque mush­room gath­er­er. It’s endear­ing, but—to quote Sesame Street—is not like the oth­ers. Those of us who can’t deci­pher Cyril­lic script get the fun of imag­in­ing what sort of text this is—a mycol­o­gy man­u­al? A children’s tale? A psy­cho­log­i­cal examination—and ulti­mate­ly rejection—of mid­cen­tu­ry pub­lish­ers’ fas­ci­na­tion for spi­rals, diag­o­nal bars, and oth­er non-nar­ra­tive graph­ics?

Whether or not you’d be inclined to pick up any of these titles, you may find your­self want­i­ng to dance to them, com­pli­ments of musi­cian Jörg Stier­le’s trip­py elec­tron­ics.

Or take your cue from yet anoth­er cov­er  con­tained there­in: I. P. Pavlov’s Essays in Psy­chol­o­gy and Psy­chi­a­try with a Spe­cial Sec­tion on Sleep and Hyp­no­sis.

Here’s the one that start­ed it all:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

55 Cov­ers of Vin­tage Phi­los­o­phy, Psy­chol­o­gy & Sci­ence Books Come to Life in a Short Ani­ma­tion

Artist Ani­mates Famous Book Cov­ers in an Ele­gant, Under­stat­ed Way

500+William S. Bur­roughs Book Cov­ers from Across the Globe: 1950s Through the 2010s

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Miyazaki Meets Warhol in Campbell’s Soup Cans Reimagined by Designer Hyo Taek Kim

in Animation, Art, Design, Film, Life | July 28th, 2017

M’m! M’m! Good! M’m! M’m! Good!,

That’s what Warhol Campbell’s Soup Cans recon­ceived as Miyaza­ki films are,

M’m! M’m! Good! 

Brazil­ian-Kore­an design­er Hyo Taek Kim has found a con­tin­u­ing font of inspi­ra­tion in his child­hood love of Hayao Miyaza­ki’s ani­mat­ed films.

He has decon­struct­ed them into a series of Pan­tone of col­or palettes and cap­tured sev­er­al favorite moments through the lens of VHS tape glitch­es.

Miyazaki–Special Soup Series, his lat­est explorato­ry jour­ney into the enchant­ed world of the revered mas­ter ani­ma­tor and director–finds him reduc­ing each film to a cou­ple of essen­tial fla­vors.

One can imag­ine Mom call­ing the kids in from an after­noon of sled­ding for a warm, Cream of Toma­to-ish bowl of Totoro.

Spir­it­ed Away and Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle are slight­ly more sophis­ti­cat­ed fla­vors, that may involve leafy greens.

Princess Mononoke and Por­co Rosso are Grandpa’s favorites–real stick to your ribs fare.

The sub­tle iconog­ra­phy brings added dimen­sion to the stark prod­uct design Warhol dupli­cat­ed to such acclaim.

As Kim told the Cre­ators Project:

Sim­ple design that works is always so much hard­er to cre­ate than you might expect. It’s just very fun to mar­ry two ideas, artists and/or con­cepts into one big image. Andy Warhol changed the world of phys­i­cal arts. Hayao Miyaza­ki changed the world of ani­mat­ed arts.

This is not Kim’s first go at Campbell’s. His ear­li­er Super­soup Series reduced super­heroes to con­som­mé and cream ofs. Don’t for­get the oys­ter crack­ers.

Posters and t‑shirts of Hyo Taek Kim’s Miyaza­ki Spe­cial Soup and Souper­soup Series can be pur­chased here.

View more of Kim’s soup cans online at the Cre­ators Project.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Roy Licht­en­stein and Andy Warhol Demys­ti­fy Their Pop Art in Vin­tage 1966 Film

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

A New Theme Park Based on Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neigh­bor Totoro Set to Open in 2020

Watch Moe­bius and Miyaza­ki, Two of the Most Imag­i­na­tive Artists, in Con­ver­sa­tion (2004)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Watch A Single Life: An Oscar-Nominated Short About How Vinyl Records Can Take Us Magically Through Time

in Animation | July 17th, 2017

In 2015, the Dutch ani­ma­tion stu­dio Job, Joris & Marieke, got an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for this delight­ful ani­mat­ed short, “A Sin­gle Life.” It’s a two minute tale about how music–particularly vinyl records–can trans­port us to mag­i­cal places. And we mean real­ly mag­i­cal places.

See­ing that we don’t believe in spoil­ers, we’re not going to say any­thing more–other than â€śA Sin­gle Life” has been screened at more than 200 fes­ti­vals and received more than 40 awards. And, what’s more, it will be added to our col­lec­tion of Ani­mat­ed Films, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

If You Could Spend Eter­ni­ty with Your Ash­es Pressed Into a Vinyl Record, What Album Would It Be?

How Vinyl Records Are Made: A Primer from 1956

Pro­fes­sor Ronald Mal­lett Wants to Build a Time Machine in this Cen­tu­ry … and He’s Not Kid­ding

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast