The Wilhelm Scream is Back

in Film | March 24th, 2010

The Wil­helm Scream, named after Pri­vate Wil­helm, a char­ac­ter in the 1953 West­ern film The Charge at Feath­er Riv­er, has appeared in over 140 Hol­ly­wood films, includ­ing Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reser­voir Dogs, and oth­ers. (See full list here.) Now the scream is com­ing back. Accord­ing to the LA Times, the scream will again echo through cin­e­mas with the May 7 release of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2. Above, you can watch a mon­tage of The Wil­helm Scream. Nat­u­ral­ly, the ur-scream comes first. Thanks Veron­i­ca for the tip on this one!

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The Essential Kurosawa

in Film | March 23rd, 2010

Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, the great Japan­ese direc­tor, would have turned 100 today. And to mark the occa­sion, The Guardian has assem­bled a handy guide to ten key Kuro­sawa movies. Above, we high­light a clip from Sev­en Samu­rai (1954), an enor­mous­ly influ­en­tial film both in Japan and abroad. The Guardian guide cel­e­brates this and nine oth­er major Kuro­sawa films, so it’s def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it. Mean­while, you’ll con­ve­nient­ly find two impor­tant Kuro­sawa works (Rashomon and Throne of Blood) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Movies.

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Nature by Numbers: Short Film Captures the Geometrical & Mathematical Formulas That Reveal Themselves in Nature

in Film, Math | March 21st, 2010

For cen­turies, artists and archi­tects have used some well-known geo­met­ri­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las to guide their work: The Fibonac­ci Series and Spi­ral, The Gold­en and Angle Ratios, The Delauney Tri­an­gu­la­tion and Voronoi Tes­sel­la­tions, etc. These for­mu­las have a real­i­ty beyond the minds of math­e­mati­cians. They present them­selves in nature, and that’s what a Span­ish film­mak­er, Cristóbal Vila, want­ed to cap­ture with this short film, Nature by Num­bers. You can learn more about the movie at the film­mak­er’s web site, and also find his lat­est film here: Inspi­ra­tions: A Short Film Cel­e­brat­ing the Math­e­mat­i­cal Art of M.C. Esch­er.

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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Cannes for Free!

in Film | March 18th, 2010

Right in time for the week­end… Work­ing in part­ner­ship with Stel­la Artois, TheAuteurs.com is now fea­tur­ing a selec­tion of its favorite films that have played at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

The line­up, includ­ing many prize win­ners, fea­tures movies by Fed­eri­co Felli­ni (Amar­cord), Wong Kar-wai (Hap­py Togeth­er), Michelan­ge­lo Anto­nioni (L’avven­tu­ra), Jacques Tati (Mon oncle), and oth­ers. There are nine movies in total, filmed between 1958 and 2008. And they’re free until June. These films should be avail­able world­wide, but reg­is­tra­tion is required. Kick back and start watch­ing here.

For more great clas­sics, see our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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The Greatest Film Scenes Ever Shot

in Film | March 14th, 2010

This week­end, The Guardian film crit­ic and select film­mak­ers list­ed their favorite movie scenes of all time. It starts with the icon­ic show­er scene from Hitch­cock­’s Psy­cho (above). No sur­prise there. And then what? The very long car chase from The French Con­nec­tion, Robet DeNiro’s talk­ing to the mir­ror scene in Taxi Dri­ver, the mem­o­rable last min­utes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the fight­ing skele­tons in Jason and the Arg­onauts, Bri­an DePal­ma’s “blood at the prom” scene in Car­rie, and some oth­er mem­o­rable ones.

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Logorama: The Oscar Winning Animated Short Now Online

in Film | March 10th, 2010

Note: Some lan­guage is NOT safe for work…

This past week­end, François Alaux and Herve de Cre­cy’s 17 minute film, Logo­ra­ma, won the Oscar for the best Short Film (Ani­mat­ed). The plot comes basi­cal­ly boils down to this: “In a world made up entire­ly of trade­marks and brand names, Miche­lin Man cops pur­sue a crim­i­nal Ronald McDon­ald.” Obvi­ous­ly, there is some com­men­tary here on how cor­po­ra­tions per­me­ate Amer­i­can soci­ety. The film has been brought online by GarageTV. For more films, check out our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

via @dylanschenkler and theflickcast.com

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Avant-Garde Media: The UbuWeb Collection

in Art, Film | March 9th, 2010

Fans of avant-garde art, take note. UbuWeb hosts a vast archive of online avant-garde media, and they’ve been doing it since 1996.  The site fea­tures a large mp3 sound archive, along­side an exten­sive film/video col­lec­tion where you’ll find some vin­tage clips. Take these items for exam­ple:

  • Four Amer­i­can Com­posers: Philip Glass — Peter Green­away’s doc­u­men­tary from 1983 takes you inside the work of John Cage, Philip Glass, Mered­ith Monk, & Robert Ash­ley. The clip here fea­tures the Glass seg­ment.
  • Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man — This 47 minute doc­u­men­tary focus­es on Argenti­na’s beloved author. As UBU writes, the doc­u­men­tary is a bit of every­thing — “part biog­ra­phy, part lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, part hero-wor­ship, part book read­ing, and part psy­chol­o­gy.”
  • La vil­la San­to Sospir — Jean Cocteau, the French poet, nov­el­ist and drama­tist, also shot a movie or two. Here’s his 35-minute col­or film from 1952…
  • Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spir­it — A video diary of beat writer Allen Gins­berg’s final days before death, and the days fol­low­ing.
  • The Vio­lence of the Image — Jean Bau­drillard lec­tures at the Euro­pean Grad­u­ate School.
  • Un Chant d’Amour — French writer Jean Genet’s only film from 1950. Because of its explic­it (though artis­ti­cal­ly pre­sent­ed) homo­sex­u­al con­tent, the 26-minute movie was banned and dis­owned by Genet lat­er in his life, says UBU.
  • Warhol’s Cin­e­ma — A Mir­ror for the Six­ties — A 64-minute doc­u­men­tary on Andy Warhol’s cin­e­ma of the six­ties, made in asso­ci­a­tion with The Fac­to­ry, MOMA and the Whit­ney Muse­um of Art.

This is just a quick sam­ple of what UBU has to offer. You can dig deep­er into their avant-garde media col­lec­tion here. As you’ll see, the video qual­i­ty can be a lit­tle uneven. But if you can’t get to a real arts cin­e­ma, then this is not a bad fall­back resource.

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Alice in Wonderland: The Original 1903 Film Adaptation

in Film | March 6th, 2010

Alice in Won­der­land has a long tra­di­tion in Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. You can find ver­sions from 2010, 1972, and 1951. You’ll even find a silent ver­sion dat­ing all the way back to 1903. Thanks to the British Film Insti­tute (BFI), you can watch online this silent ver­sion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic tale for the first time. Pro­duced just eight years after the birth of cin­e­ma, the film, orig­i­nal­ly run­ning 12 min­utes, was “the longest film pro­duced in Eng­land at that time.” The ver­sion above is unfor­tu­nate­ly incom­plete, run­ning just 9 and a half min­utes. But it has been recent­ly restored (to the best extent pos­si­ble). BFI offers more infor­ma­tion about this ear­ly cin­e­ma gem here. Final­ly, you can down­load a free copy of Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic, Alice in Won­der­land, with­in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

For more vin­tage movies, vis­it our col­lec­tion of 700 Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pho­to of the Real Alice in Won­der­land Cir­ca 1862

The Orig­i­nal Alice’s Adven­tures In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

See Ralph Steadman’s Twist­ed Illus­tra­tions of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land on the Story’s 150th Anniver­sary

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