Stanley Kubrick’s Filmography Animated

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | May 6th, 2011

French graph­ic artist Mar­tin Woutis­seth has put togeth­er this love­ly fil­mog­ra­phy of Stan­ley Kubrick, based on ani­mat­ed posters of his own design, and set to a won­der­ful score by com­pos­er Romain Trouil­let. Woutis­seth’s visu­al inter­pre­ta­tions of each film, from Killer’s Kiss (1955) to Eyes Wide Shut (1999) are works of art in their own right. We espe­cial­ly loved the details on the mask for Eyes Wide Shut at minute 3:00.

You can watch Killer’s Kiss for free at our online movie archive, plus Kubrick­’s first film, Fear & Desire, on Google Video.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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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RIP Arthur Laurents, Writer of West Side Story

in Film, Theatre | May 5th, 2011

A sad, lov­ing farewell to the great play­wright, libret­tist and direc­tor Arthur Lau­rents, who died in his sleep today at the age of 93. Mr. Lau­rents was best known for writ­ing Gyp­sy (1959), The Way We Were (1973), and of course the incom­pa­ra­ble West Side Sto­ry (1959), about which this author has noth­ing to say, except that with­out West Side Sto­ry the world as she knows and loves it would cease to exist.

He will be missed.

via  @SteveSilberman

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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50 Classic Russian Films (Including Tarkovsky’s Finest) Now Online

in Film | May 5th, 2011

We have pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured films by the great Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky. So we’re over­joyed to report that the Moscow film com­pa­ny Mos­film has just made 5o Russ­ian clas­sics avail­able on YouTube in high def­i­n­i­tion. Accord­ing to Yahoo News, Mos­film has pledged to release five more films each week, all in HD with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles, even­tu­al­ly bring­ing the total for the year to 200.

You can look over the whole list of cur­rent­ly avail­able clas­sics at Mos­film’s YouTube chan­nel. (Non-Russ­ian speak­ers might want to hit Google Trans­late.) In yet anoth­er con­ces­sion to the deca­dence of West­ern cap­i­tal­ism, each film is pre­ced­ed by a short com­mer­cial. We hope some bal­ance has been restored to the uni­verse by the inclu­sion of com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor Joseph Stal­in’s favorite movie, the musi­cal com­e­dy Vol­ga Vol­ga.

Don’t miss our big col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

via Yahoo News

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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Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

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.

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Phoenix Still Rising: Egypt After The Revolution

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

Much has been said, tweet­ed and writ­ten about the 2011 Egypt­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, glo­ri­fy­ing it as one of the most land­mark tri­umphs of free­dom in recent his­to­ry. Yet the West­ern media has deliv­ered sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle on its after­math, leav­ing the lived post-rev­o­lu­tion real­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple a near-mys­tery.

This beau­ti­ful short film by British film stu­dio Scat­tered Images offers a rare glimpse of a phoenix still strug­gling to rise from the ash­es of oppres­sion. With incred­i­ble visu­al elo­quence, the film peels away at the now-worn media iconog­ra­phy of the rev­o­lu­tion itself, reveal­ing how life after it has actu­al­ly changed — or has­n’t — as Egypt remains a nation in tran­si­tion, with a future yet to be decid­ed.

Polit­i­cal­ly, there is a vac­u­um. The rev­o­lu­tion demand­ed a gov­ern­ment account­able to the peo­ple and ruled by trans­par­ent insti­tu­tions. But now, the only ruler is uncer­tain­ty.

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.

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The World’s First (and Slightly Scandalous) Hand-Tinted Motion Picture

in Film, History | May 2nd, 2011

The world’s first hand-tint­ed motion pic­ture was pro­duced by Thomas Edis­on’s com­pa­ny, Edi­son Stu­dios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878–1961), was just a teenag­er when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sen­sa­tion and a scan­dal. (Note the flash­es of under­gar­ment, all the way up to above the knee, about 29 sec­onds in.) It may have been a sign of things to come: Moore would go on to star as the Gib­son bathing suit girl in the first Ziegfeld fol­lies, where she remained until her mar­riage and retire­ment brought her back to respectabil­i­ty in 1912.

The film is also worth com­par­ing with a sim­i­lar but much more del­i­cate­ly paint­ed ver­sion done just five years lat­er by the Lumiere broth­ers.

(Spe­cial thanks to the recent­ly-launched Weyume)

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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Warhol’s Screen Tests of Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico & More

in Film, Music | April 29th, 2011

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot close to 500 short movies of friends, celebri­ties, mod­els, and any of the oth­er love­ly young things who passed through his stu­dio known as The Fac­to­ry. The indie-rock duet Dean and Brit­ta recent­ly com­posed songs for 13 of the videos, which they’ve been per­form­ing live as part of a mul­ti­me­dia con­cert for sev­er­al years. “13 Most Beau­ti­ful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” is avail­able on DVD, CD, and of course, YouTube.

We espe­cial­ly loved “I’m Not A Young Man Any­more,” fea­tur­ing an icy cool Lou Reed, so hip and desir­able that even his Coke bot­tle looks as if it’s wear­ing sun­glass­es. There are oth­er gems as well, start­ing with the doomed Edie Sedgewick, one of The Fac­to­ry’s ear­li­est stars, who died of an over­dose in 1971.

The 5′10″ Ger­man mod­el Nico, before she began record­ing with the Vel­vet Under­ground.

The preter­nat­u­ral­ly beau­ti­ful Paul Amer­i­ca, star of Warhol’s film “My Hus­tler,” who even­tu­al­ly hired lawyers to seek pay­ment for his role in the movie that made him a reluc­tant gay icon. He died after being hit by a car in 1981.


And final­ly, the late Den­nis Hop­per, extra­or­di­nary on screen even by Fac­to­ry stan­dards. Accord­ing to Dean and Brit­ta, he was the first to buy one of Warhol’s soup can paint­ings.

On a some­what unre­lat­ed note, the Dean is of course Dean Ware­ham of Galax­ie 500 and Luna. If you’re a fan of his music, or even just nos­tal­gic for 90’s era pre-Nap­ster indie rock, you might want to check out his dry, thought­ful mem­oir, Black Post­cards: A Rock & Roll Romance.

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.

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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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Charlie Chaplin Mini Film Festival

in Film | April 21st, 2011

A few things to know about Char­lie Chap­lin. He starred in over 80 films, reel­ing off most dur­ing the silent film era. In 1914 alone, he act­ed in 40 films, then anoth­er 15 in 1915. By the 1920s, Chap­lin had emerged as the first larg­er-than-life movie star, if not the most rec­og­niz­able per­son on the plan­et.

The actor still holds enough cul­tur­al sway that Google gave him a spe­cial doo­dle for his birth­day last week. And now we give you a 4‑in‑1 col­lec­tion of Chap­lin films. Cre­at­ed in 1938, this mini film fes­ti­val, run­ning 46 min­utes, presents The Adven­tur­er, The Cure, Easy Street and The Immi­grant, all filmed in 1917. (Find an alter­nate ver­sion here.) Plus if you head into our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, you will find anoth­er 10 Chap­lin films, all free. Just scroll down to the Silent Film sec­tion, and you’ll be on your way…

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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