Dementia 13: Coppola’s First Full-Length Feature

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 29th, 2011

Would the 1963 hor­ror film Demen­tia 13 be remem­bered today with­out the sub­se­quent achieve­ments of its young direc­tor, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la? It’s hard to say. Con­tem­po­raries seem to have thought oth­er­wise: The New York Times review­er described the film’s direc­tion as “stol­id” and its cast as “unlucky,” and the pro­duc­er, B‑Movie king Roger Cor­man, furi­ous­ly took the reins from his pro­tege the minute he saw the first cut.

But Demen­tia 13 was still the first full-length fea­ture of a man who would go on to direct three of the great­est films ever made, and so it’s tempt­ing (and fun) to scour Demen­tia 13 for ear­ly man­i­fes­ta­tions of genius. Watch it and judge for your­self — and look out for the dolls.

Cop­po­la’s film appears in the Noir, Thriller and Hor­ror sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, along with oth­er Roger Cor­man movies. The Inter­net Archive hosts an alter­nate ver­sion of the film as well.

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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Blinky™: A Touching Short Film About A Killer Robot

in Film, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture | March 25th, 2011

That’s right, touch­ing.

From Blade Run­ner to Ter­mi­na­tor to at least 30 per­cent of what made Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca great, vio­lent robot revolt is noth­ing new. But 27-year old Irish film­mak­er Ruairi Robin­son, who was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar for his ani­mat­ed short Fifty Per­cent Grey, tweaks the for­mu­la by shrink­ing the are­na: This bat­tle­field isn’t a galaxy, a solar sys­tem or even a plan­et; it’s just the lone­ly sub­ur­ban home of a boy whose par­ents fight all day.

Max Record (Where the Wild Things Are) is fine as the angry son who hopes a new toy will solve all of his prob­lems, but this movie belongs to the robot: More WALL‑E than cylon, more R2-D2 than ED-209, and priced at just $999.99, Blinky is a machine the whole fam­i­ly can love. He catch­es, he cleans, he plays hide and seek, he’ll wait for you in the rain, and he just wants to be your friend.…Until he does­n’t.

A warn­ing here: Even though at its best Blinky speaks direct­ly to the bloody-mind­ed fifth-grad­er in all of us, we sug­gest watch­ing the whole thing before show­ing it to chil­dren, or even squea­mish adults.

(Vis­it the always excel­lent io9 for more free sci­ence fic­tion film rec­om­men­da­tions.)

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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Le Flaneur: Time Lapse Video of Paris Without the People

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | March 23rd, 2011

Luke Shep­ard, a stu­dent at the Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris, began work­ing on Le Fla­neur as part of a project for school, but it quick­ly took on a life of its own. He used a Nikon D90 DSLR cam­era to take over 2,000 pho­tos of Paris at night, and then used Adobe After Effects and Pre­miere Pro to pro­duce this impres­sive tour of a world that most of us rarely see – Paris with­out Parisians. In Eng­lish, “fla­neur” trans­lates rough­ly as “stroller,” “loafer,”  or per­haps “aim­less walk­er,”  and, in an inter­view with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er, Shep­ard explained that he was  inspired to shoot these images in part by late-night plea­sure rides on his bicy­cle.

(Note: Some view­ers may pre­fer to watch with the vol­ume off, as the chase scene-ready sound­track detracts a bit from the eerie sense of a vir­tu­al­ly desert­ed city.  For more time-lapse pho­tog­ra­phy, check out these videos of Mec­ca, New York City, and the Milky Way.)

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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Leonard Cohen Reads “The Future” (Not Safe for Work)

in Music, Religion, Video - Arts & Culture | March 22nd, 2011

If you’ve been feel­ing the End Times’ icy breath a lit­tle close on your shoul­ders these past few weeks, we rec­om­mend a healthy dose of Leonard Cohen. You can start with this 20-minute inter­view from 1993, con­duct­ed by Bar­bara Gowdy of the Cana­di­an lit­er­ary series, Imprint. And click “play” with cau­tion — it starts with Cohen read­ing the very NSFW poem “The Future,” from his epony­mous 1992 album.

The sec­ond you hear that famous blue bari­tone say “Give me absolute con­trol over every liv­ing soul,” you know the apoc­a­lypse can cer­tain­ly wait till the poem’s over. Or maybe it can’t, but at least you’ll have spent your last few moments lis­ten­ing to Leonard Cohen.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Teens Ponder Meaning of Contemporary Art

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | March 14th, 2011

In 2009, Tate Liv­er­pool dis­played four works of con­tem­po­rary art in dif­fer­ent loca­tions around the city. Acclaimed film direc­tor Mike Fig­gis was asked to turn the reac­tions of Liv­er­poodlians to these sculp­tures into short films. The video above shows teenagers dis­cussing Jeff Koon­s’s “Three Ball Total Equi­lib­ri­um Tank.” Anoth­er short film cap­tures the views of stu­dents when one of Dan Flav­in’s instal­la­tions called “Unti­tled” was dis­played at their school for one day.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Bobby McFerrin Shows the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | March 11th, 2011

The jazz vocal­ist and ten-time Gram­my win­ner Bob­by McFer­rin turns 61 today. To cel­e­brate, we’re post­ing this clip from the 2009 World Sci­ence Fes­ti­val, in which McFer­rin leads an impromp­tu audi­ence sing-a-long in order to demon­strate the pow­er of the pen­ta­ton­ic scale. We bet you’ve nev­er seen music the­o­ry taught quite like this.

McFer­rin, by the way, is shar­ing the stage with sev­er­al sci­en­tists, includ­ing Daniel Lev­itin, McGill pro­fes­sor and author of the book This is Your Brain on Music. If this clip hap­pens to awak­en your inner croon­er instead of your inner neu­ro­sci­en­tist, you can also check out a short singing les­son with McFer­rin on Qtv.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Mark Twain Lives (in Animation)

in Art, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | March 10th, 2011

Tak­ing a page from the RSA play­book, the New York Pub­lic Library has uploaded to its YouTube Chan­nel a series of illus­trat­ed talks. John Waters, Jay‑Z, Wern­er Her­zog – they’re all there. And so too is Mark Twain “read­ing” from his own work – work that was first pub­lished in 2009 with­in a vol­ume called Who is Mark Twain?. Flash Rosen­berg pro­vides the art (see her work on Vimeo); John Lith­gow does the voice.…

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North Korea’s Cinema of Dreams

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 4th, 2011

Kim Jong-Il, North Kore­a’s leader, is revered as a genius of cin­e­ma by his own peo­ple. Or so the North Kore­an pro­pa­gan­dists would have you believe. In this fas­ci­nat­ing video from Al Jazeera, we fol­low two reporters (Lynn Lee and James Leong) as they gain unprece­dent­ed access to Pyongyang’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Cin­e­mat­ic and Dra­mat­ic Arts, where young actors are picked to serve the mas­sive pro­pa­gan­da machine. Along the way, Lee and Leong encounter two young film stu­dents – Kim Un Bom and Ri Yun Mi – as they rehearse, take music and dance lessons, and call atten­tion to their priv­i­leged lives.

How are films dif­fer­ent in cap­i­tal­ist coun­tries vs. North Korea? Leave it to Ri Yun Mi, the film stu­dent, to explain (3:27 in the video):

“Films made in cap­i­tal­ist coun­tries are com­mer­cial prod­ucts. Movies in our coun­try bring out the ide­ol­o­gy of the peo­ple. We could say we are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of our [Com­mu­nist] Par­ty.”

The young reporters go on to explain the chal­lenges they faced in cre­at­ing this film. They were repeat­ed­ly denied per­mis­sion to film at the Uni­ver­si­ty, and fre­quent­ly told to delete footage when it did­n’t con­form to North Kore­a’s stan­dards. All in all, this film does a good job illu­mi­nat­ing anoth­er hid­den part of North Kore­an life: the cin­e­ma of dreams.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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