A Rare Look Inside Pixar Studios

in Art, Film | February 16th, 2011

Since 1995, Pixar has released a steady stream of award-win­ning ani­mat­ed films. First came Toy Sto­ry, then Find­ing Nemo, Mon­sters, Inc., The Incred­i­bles, and most recent­ly Toy Sto­ry 3. (You can revis­it Pixar’s clas­sics in this won­der­ful lit­tle trib­ute video.) Get­ting inside Pixar Stu­dios has nev­er been easy. But last week The New York Times pulled it off, pro­duc­ing a six minute video that takes you through the stu­dios designed by Steve Jobs him­self, and inside Pixar’s patent­ed ani­ma­tion process – a process that com­bines more tra­di­tion­al and cut­ting-edge ele­ments.

Note: This video tour also appears on Vimeo and YouTube.

H/T @matthiasrascher

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100 Greatest Posters of Film Noir

in Art, Film | February 11th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s and 50s, Hol­ly­wood entered a “noir” peri­od, pro­duc­ing riv­et­ing films based on hard-boiled fic­tion. These films were set in dark loca­tions and shot in a black & white aes­thet­ic that fit like a glove. Hard­ened men wore fedo­ras and for­ev­er smoked cig­a­rettes. Women played the femme fatale role bril­liant­ly. Love was the surest way to death. All of these ele­ments fig­ured into what Roger Ebert calls “the most Amer­i­can film genre” in his short Guide to Film Noir. (Also find 23 noir films right here.)

Accom­pa­ny­ing noir films were visu­al­ly engag­ing movie posters, and Where Dan­ger Lives (a noir blog) now gives you the “100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir.” They’ve been work­ing through this “best of” list for the past three months, and they con­clude this week with the Top 10 …  the best of the best.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne Films

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Oedipus … Starring Vegetables

in Film, Literature, Theatre | February 9th, 2011

Sopho­cles and Aeschy­lus may be spin­ning in their graves. Or, who knows, they may be tak­ing some delight in this bizarre twist on the Oedi­pus myth. Run­ning eight min­utes, Jason Wish­now’s 2004 film puts veg­eta­bles in the star­ring roles. One of the first stop-motion films shot with a dig­i­tal still cam­era, Oedi­pus took two years to make with a vol­un­teer staff of 100. But the hard work paid off. The film has since been screened at 70+ film fes­ti­vals and was even­tu­al­ly acquired by the Sun­dance Chan­nel. Sep­a­rate videos show you the behind-the-scenes mak­ing of the film, plus the sto­ry­boards used dur­ing pro­duc­tion.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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The James Dean Story: The Early Documentary by Robert Altman

in Film | February 8th, 2011

On James Dean’s 80th birth­day, this film prob­a­bly deserves its own lit­tle men­tion. The James Dean Sto­ry, a 79 minute doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cling the life and times of Jim­my Dean, came out two years after the young actor’s death in 1955. Most notably, the film was direct­ed by Robert Alt­man, a young direc­tor who would even­tu­al­ly make MASH, Nashville, The Play­er, Gos­ford Park, etc. It’s also cat­a­logued in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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!

 

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James Dean at 80

in Film, Television | February 8th, 2011

James Dean starred in only three major films – Rebel With­out a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant – before per­ish­ing in a car acci­dent on Route 466, near Cholame, Cal­i­for­nia in Sep­tem­ber 1955. (A free doc­u­men­tary cov­ers that.) A star died at 24. Mean­while, a leg­end for­ev­er embody­ing youth was born.

Jim­my Dean would have turned 80 today. Amaz­ing to say it. And, to mark the occa­sion, we’re fea­tur­ing a slide show show­cas­ing the pho­tog­ra­phy and voice of Den­nis Stock, the Mag­num pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took many icon­ic pho­tos of Dean, includ­ing Dean’s famous walk through a rainy Times Square with a cig­a­rette propped in mouth and hands in pock­ets. Stock­’s images shaped Dean’s pub­lic per­sona, and the work you’re see­ing here fig­ures into a more com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tion of Stock­’s oeu­vre on the Mag­num web­site.

PS Today is also Jules Verne’s 183rd birth­day. If you’re look­ing for his clas­sics – Around the World in 80 Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – you can find them in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

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What if Tarantino Directed the Super Bowl Broadcast?

in Film, Television | February 4th, 2011

What would it look like if our great direc­tors took cre­ative con­trol over the Super Bowl broad­cast? Slate imag­ines it, show­ing you how Quentin Taran­ti­no, David Lynch, Wes Ander­son, Wern­er Her­zog and Jean-Luc Godard would put their cin­e­mat­ic stamp on the broad­cast. The clip gets bet­ter as it moves along…

Enjoy the big game. And, if movies are more your thing, don’t for­get to vis­it our big list of 340 Free Movies Online. Films by some of the great direc­tors men­tioned above appear on the list.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter!

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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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