Sir Ian McKellen Reads Manual for Changing Tires in Dramatic Voice

in Film, Television | October 13th, 2011

Sir Ian McK­ellen shows why he has been nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award not once, but two times. The actor (Lord of the Rings, King Lear) reads a tire repair man­u­al in dra­mat­ic voice  … and, of course, pulls it off — shades of Peter Sell­ers per­form­ing The Bea­t­les in Shake­speare­an mode and Richard Drey­fuss giv­ing a dra­mat­ic read­ing of the iTunes End-user license agree­ment. And, oh, let us not for­get Christo­pher Walken’s hilar­i­ous read­ing of Lady Gaga’s Pok­er Face.

H/T @matthiasrascher

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!

Ian McK­ellen Stars in King Lear

Sir Ian McK­ellen Puts on a Daz­zling One-Man Shake­speare Show

A 68 Hour Playlist of Shakespeare’s Plays Being Per­formed by Great Actors: Giel­gud, McK­ellen & More

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

The Matrix: What Went Into The Mix

in Film | October 7th, 2011

With a series of three films, direc­tor Kir­by Fer­gu­son has been grad­u­al­ly mak­ing the case that “Every­thing is a Remix.” In doing what they do, artists col­lect mate­r­i­al, com­bine and trans­form it, and even­tu­al­ly mold it into some­thing unique, though not entire­ly new. Fer­gu­son has traced this idea through lit­er­a­ture and music, film­mak­ing, and technology/computing. And while we wait for the fourth and final install­ment in the series, we get a lit­tle treat to tide us over — a six minute look at the cin­e­mat­ic ori­gins of the 1999 sci-fi action film, The Matrix. Made by Robert Wil­son and with the help of some crowd­sourc­ing, this fun video iden­ti­fies 24 films that influ­enced The Matrix. They’re are all list­ed below the jump. Con­sid­er watch­ing the clip in a wider for­mat here.

(more…)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Comedy Classic

in Comedy, Film, Television | October 6th, 2011

Yes­ter­day was the 42nd anniver­sary of the first broad­cast of Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus. The orig­i­nal BBC show aired for only five years, but its impact on pop­u­lar cul­ture has been last­ing. To cel­e­brate, we bring you the 1982 film, Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. The image qual­i­ty isn’t the best here, but the humor shines through. The movie com­bines live sketch­es, filmed in 1980, with excerpts from a two-part 1972 Ger­man tele­vi­sion spe­cial, Mon­ty Python’s Fliegen­der Zirkus. High­lights include: “The Min­istry of Sil­ly Walks,” “Nudge Nudge,” “The Lum­ber­jack Song,” “Sil­ly Olympics” (fea­tur­ing the “100 Yards For Peo­ple With No Sense Of Direc­tion” and the “200-Meter Freestyle For Non-Swim­mers”) as well as one of our favorites, “The Philoso­phers’ Foot­ball Match.” Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl has been added to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Stream It: Title Track of David Lynch’s Upcoming Solo Album

in Film, Music | October 5th, 2011

David Lynch has been busy late­ly, cre­at­ing every­thing except the fea­ture films that made him famous. Ear­li­er this year, he “direct­ed” Duran Duran’s con­cert in LA and col­lab­o­rat­ed with Inter­pol to cre­ate an ani­mat­ed sequence for the 2011 Coachel­la Fes­ti­val. Then came his puz­zling video response to the Wash­ing­ton Debt Deal, a creepy com­mer­cial for his new line of cof­fee prod­ucts, a new night­club opened in Paris, and now this: a haunt­ing elec­tron­ic album called Crazy Clown Time that brings his strange aes­thet­ic to a whole new medi­um. The album is due out on Novem­ber 8th, and above you can lis­ten to the title track for free.

via Boing­Bo­ing

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Martin Scorsese: Why I Made The George Harrison Documentary

in Film, Music | October 5th, 2011

Just a quick reminder, Mar­tin Scors­ese’s two-part doc­u­men­tary on George Har­ri­son airs tonight and tomor­row night on HBO. After mak­ing films about Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, the leg­endary film­mak­er now turns some­what unex­pect­ed­ly to the silent Bea­t­le, and you have to won­der why. Why George? So Scors­ese recalls when things orig­i­nal­ly clicked, the first moment when he real­ized the “pic­ture had to be made.”

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Mechanical Monsters: Seminal Superman Animated Film from 1941

in Film, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society, YouTube | October 4th, 2011

In 1941, direc­tor Dave Fleis­ch­er and Para­mount Pic­tures ani­ma­tors Steve Muf­fati and George Ger­manet­ti pro­duced Super­man: The Mechan­i­cal Mon­sters — a big-bud­get ani­mat­ed adap­ta­tion of the pop­u­lar Super­man comics of that peri­od, in which a mad sci­en­tist unleash­es robots to rob banks and loot muse­ums, and Super­man, nat­u­ral­ly, saves the day. It was one of sev­en­teen films that raised the bar for the­atri­cal shorts and are even con­sid­ered by some to have giv­en rise to the entire Ani­me genre.

More than a mere treat of vin­tage ani­ma­tion, the film cap­tures the era’s char­ac­ter­is­tic ambiva­lence in rec­on­cil­ing the need for progress with the fear of tech­nol­o­gy in a cul­ture on the brink of incred­i­ble tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion. It was the dawn of the tech­no-para­noia that per­sist­ed through the 1970s, famous­ly cap­tured in the TV series Future Shock nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, and even through today. Take for exam­ple books like Nicholas Car­r’s The Shal­lows and Sher­ry Turkle’s Alone Togeth­er: Why We Expect More from Tech­nol­o­gy and Less from Each Oth­er.

Super­man: The Mechan­i­cal Mon­sters is avail­able for down­load on The Inter­net Archive, and Toon­a­mi Dig­i­tal Arse­nal has the com­plete series of all sev­en­teen films. Find more vin­tage ani­ma­tion in Open Cul­ture’s col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

It’s 5:46 A.M. and Paris Is Under Water

in Art, Film | October 3rd, 2011

Thanks to the cre­ative work of Olivi­er Cam­pagne & Vivien Balzi, you can see Paris look­ing a lit­tle like Venice does in the win­ter — mer­ci­ful­ly freed from crowds and often under water. For more great per­spec­tives on Paris and Venice, don’t miss:

Le Fla­neur: Time Lapse Video of Paris With­out the Peo­ple

Paris Under­ground

How Venice Works

Venezia in Sum­mer

H/T Roger Ebert

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Three “Anti-Films” by Andy Warhol: Sleep, Eat & Kiss

in Art, Film | September 22nd, 2011

We recent­ly told you the sto­ry. In the mid 60s, Andy Warhol quit paint­ing rather abrupt­ly and began some new adven­tures in mul­ti­me­dia. Tak­ing a quick detour into music, Warhol became the man­ag­er, “pro­duc­er” and over­all patron of the up-and-com­ing band, The Vel­vet Under­ground. But film is where he focused his cre­ative ener­gies.

Between 1964 and 1966, the pop artist shot close to 500 short movies — or what he called “screen tests” — of friends, celebri­ties and mod­els. (Find screen tests of Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedg­wick, and Den­nis Hop­per here.) And then he shot a series of longer films, or rather “anti-films,” that chal­lenged the con­ven­tions of film­mak­ing. No three act struc­tures here. Above, we start you off with his first film, Sleep (1963). Orig­i­nal­ly Warhol want­ed to make Brigitte Bar­dot the star, but he even­tu­al­ly set­tled for his friend John Giorno, and you get what the title promis­es. 40 silent min­utes of Giorno’s long slum­ber.


Next in the loose tril­o­gy comes Kiss, a 54 minute film built out of a series of short­er films. It’s all cou­ples kiss­ing. Men & women. Women & women. Men & men. And it’s all silent again.

Then we cap things off with Eat (1964), 40 min­utes of watch­ing the starv­ing pop artist Robert Indi­ana gnaw on a raw mush­room and noth­ing more. The tril­o­gy-ender was first screened at the Wash­ing­ton Square Gallery, along with anoth­er long-take film, Blow Job.…

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

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

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

Andy Warhol’s 1965 Film, Vinyl, Adapt­ed from Antho­ny Burgess’ A Clock­work Orange

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

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