Down to the Bone

in Film, Life | November 2nd, 2010

Every Novem­ber 2nd, Mex­i­cans cel­e­brate the Day of the Dead. Close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with oth­er Catholic hol­i­days (All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day), the Day of the Dead gives par­tic­i­pants a chance to pray for and remem­ber dear­ly depart­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends. And it’s often car­ried out in a fes­tive spir­it, not one marked by melan­choly. As Car­los Fuentes, one of Mex­i­co’s most cel­e­brat­ed writ­ers, once said about death: “We Mex­i­cans don’t advance towards death, we return to it, because death is not the end but the begin­ning, the start of every­thing: we descend from death.”

Today, on the Day of the Dead, we give you a clay­ma­tion film that cap­tures the mood of the hol­i­day — Has­ta los hue­sos or Down to the Bone. René Castil­lo, a self-taught ani­ma­tor from Guadala­jara, wrote and direct­ed the film back in 2001. And it went on to win many inter­na­tion­al awards for excel­lence in film. Down to the Bone runs nine min­utes, and it’s a wild ride through­out. H/T M.S.

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Free Movies: Watch the Classics & Gems Online

in Film | October 24th, 2010

Almost a year ago, we start­ed scour­ing the web for free movies — for films worth your pre­cious time. We start­ed with 75, and now we’re above 200. What will you find on the ever-grow­ing list of Free Movies Online? Films by Orson Welles, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, Alfred Hitch­cock, Stan­ley Kubrick, David Lynch, Bri­an DePal­ma, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Fritz Lang, Elia Kazan, Howard Hawks, Ida Lupino, Ken Loach, Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, Bil­ly Wilder, and Mar­tin Scors­ese. The list cov­ers many dif­fer­ent gen­res (come­dies, film noir, indies, doc­u­men­taries, short and ani­mat­ed films, even some note­wor­thy B movies) and spans the entire his­to­ry of cin­e­ma, mov­ing from ear­ly silent films to con­tem­po­rary movies. It also fea­tures bril­liant per­for­mances by major actress­es and actors — too many to name right here. For copy­right rea­sons, there’s gen­er­al­ly a heavy empha­sis on the clas­sics. If you have time to spare, check out the full col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. And if we’re miss­ing any good ones, please feel free to send us your tips or add them to the com­ments sec­tion below.

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The Office Meets the Twilight Zone

in Comedy, Film | October 22nd, 2010

‘The Black Hole’ runs two min­utes. Be sure to hang with it until the end. H/T @ellmcgirt

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David Lynch Talks Meditation with Paul McCartney

in Film, Music, Psychology | October 18th, 2010

David Lynch has been prac­tic­ing Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion for decades, and, last year, he inter­viewed anoth­er long­time TM prac­ti­tion­er – Sir Paul McCart­ney. The inter­view (find Part 1 above and Part 2 here) turned quick­ly to The Bea­t­les, their involve­ment with the Mahar­ishi Mahesh Yogi (guru of the TM move­ment), and their famous trip to his ashram in Rishikesh (India) in Feb­ru­ary 1968. There, among oth­er things, they wrote 48 songs – many of which con­tributed to The White Album – before hav­ing a falling out with the guru and leav­ing town.

The film­mak­er sat down with McCart­ney before a ben­e­fit con­cert staged by The David Lynch Foun­da­tion in April 2009. Lynch’s orga­ni­za­tion pro­vides schol­ar­ships to schools so that stu­dents can learn TM. Both Paul and Ringo per­formed at ben­e­fit that night…

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!

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The Last Farm: An Oscar Nominated Short Film

in Film, Life | October 16th, 2010

The Last Farm, a short Ice­landic film direct­ed by Rúnar Rúnars­son and star­ring Jón Sig­ur­b­jörns­son, is now being fea­tured in the YouTube Screen­ing Room. Nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for Live Action Short Film in 2006, the 20-minute pro­duc­tion gets into some sober­ing yet inescapably uni­ver­sal issues – love, aging, fam­i­ly and death. And I’ll leave it at that. You can now find this film list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online along with 200+ high qual­i­ty cin­e­mat­ic works. Or you can pur­chase it on a DVD that brings togeth­er sev­er­al Acad­e­my Award-nom­i­nat­ed short films from 2005.

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!

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Last Minutes with ODEN

in Film | October 13th, 2010

This past Sat­ur­day, Vimeo held its first annu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny in New York City. Films by nine final­ists were screened (see the list below) and then came the big moment: the announce­ment of the Best Video Award, which went to Eliot Rausch, direc­tor of “Last Min­utes with ODEN.” As an orga­niz­er of the Vimeo fes­ti­val explains, the doc­u­men­tary (watch above) is about “redemp­tion and trans­for­ma­tion.” It’s about how Jason Wood, an ex-con­vict and drug addict, grows per­son­al­ly, even spir­i­tu­al­ly, through his rela­tion­ship with Oden, a three-legged dog now strick­en with can­cer. The doc­u­men­tary takes us poignant­ly through their last day togeth­er.

Nar­ra­tive: “Thrush” by Gabriel Bis­set-Smith
Doc­u­men­tary: “Last Min­utes with ODEN” by Eliot Rausch
Music Video: “Liars ‘Scis­sor’ ” by Andy Brun­tel
Ani­ma­tion: “Between Bears” by Eran Hil­leli
Orig­i­nal Series: “Break-ups The Series” by Ted Trem­per
Exper­i­men­tal: “oops” by Chris Beck­man
Motion Graph­ics: “TRIANGLE” by Onur Sen­turk
Cap­tured: “Flu­id Sculp­ture“by Char­lie Buck­et
Remix: “BREAKDOWN the video” by Kasu­mi

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Star Wars Retold with Paper Animation

in Art, Film | October 7th, 2010

It’s hard not to enjoy this. Artist Eric Pow­er retells the basic sto­ry of the Star Wars tril­o­gy, using cut-paper ani­ma­tion. The film runs a very quick 2:40, and Jere­my Messer­smith’s ‘Tatooine’ pro­vides the sound­track. (You can down­load the song here for what­ev­er price you want.) More ani­mat­ed films by Pow­er appear on his web­site: www.ericpowerup.net

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Watch a Hair-Raising 1954 Animation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” Narrated by James Mason

in Film, Literature | October 6th, 2010

In 1849, the great Amer­i­can writer Edgar Allan Poe met a strange death in Bal­ti­more. If you recall, Poe was dis­cov­ered, either in a state of delir­i­um or uncon­scious (accounts dif­fer) and appar­ent­ly wear­ing some­one else’s tat­tered clothes, out­side a tav­ern. He was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal where he remained, unable to explain what had hap­pened to him, until he died. (A post in our archive breaks down the strange cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death pret­ty well.)

To mark the admit­ted­ly grim occa­sion, we are high­light­ing today the 1953 ani­mat­ed film ver­sion of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” nar­rat­ed by James Mason. Upon its release, the film was giv­en a bizarre recep­tion. In the UK, the British Board of Film Cen­sors gave the film an “x” rat­ing, deem­ing it unsuit­able for adult audi­ences. Mean­while, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was nom­i­nat­ed for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in the US, though it ulti­mate­ly lost to a Dis­ney pro­duc­tion. The film runs a short 7:24, and now appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Bonus: You can also down­load a free text ver­sion of Poe’s clas­sic via Project Guten­berg, and then a free audio ver­sion from our list of Free Audio Books.

Many thanks to Mike S. for send­ing this our way. Have a great piece of Open Cul­ture to share with your fel­low read­ers? Get in touch here.

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:

The Mys­tery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 The­o­ries on What Caused the Poet’s Demise

5 Hours of Edgar Allan Poe Sto­ries Read by Vin­cent Price & Basil Rath­bone

Édouard Manet Illus­trates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edi­tion Trans­lat­ed by Stephane Mal­lar­mé (1875)

Down­load The Com­plete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Sto­ries as Free eBooks & Audio Books

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