Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: Malcolm McDowell Looks Back

in Film | May 25th, 2011

A few days ago, we linked to the recent Col­lid­er inter­view with Mal­colm McDow­ell, the star of Stan­ley Kubrick­’s 1971 clas­sic, A Clock­work Orange. One of the high­lights of the piece is a short video clip in which the now 68-year-old actor describes the ori­gins of the film’s icon­ic — and hor­rif­i­cal­ly vio­lent — “Singing in the Rain” scene.

You can catch a much younger McDow­ell dis­cussing that same scene in 1972, start­ing at minute 6:30 of the inter­view below. For kicks, slide back to minute 4:15, and watch the cocky 28-year-old give his inter­locu­tor a sharp dress­ing down for dar­ing to sug­gest that Mr. Kubrick could be “dif­fi­cult” to work with:

via @DangerMindsBlog

Relat­ed con­tent:

Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Fil­mog­ra­phy Ani­mat­ed

Killer’s Kiss: Where Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Film­mak­ing Career Real­ly Begins

Kubrick vs. Scors­ese Mon­tage

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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Darren’s Big DIY Camera

in Art | May 25th, 2011

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Dar­ren Samuel­son spent a good year research­ing his big cam­era. Then it was time to build it. The bel­lows came first, craft­ed over two hard weeks on his liv­ing room floor. Next came the rear por­tion of the cam­era, and even­tu­al­ly the front, the rails, and the rest. All told, sev­en months of lov­ing labor went into mak­ing Dar­ren’s big DIY cam­era, capa­ble of pro­duc­ing 14×36-inch neg­a­tives. (By the way, it also used x‑ray film.) At long last, it was time to give things a try at San Fran­cis­co’s Lands End. The short doc­u­men­tary above shows you the rest. Don’t miss the images at the 2:20 mark…

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Jimmy Fallon Nails the Bob Dylan Impersonation

in Comedy, Music | May 24th, 2011

He looks like Bob Dylan. He sings like our birth­day boy Bob Dylan. And yet he’s cov­er­ing per­haps the cheesi­est 80s sit­com theme song ever made — which makes it all the more hilar­i­ous…

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Pop-Motion Animation: A New Take on the Flip Book

in Animation, Film | May 24th, 2011

When Dul­cidio Caldeira of the agency Para­noid BR was com­mis­sioned recent­ly to cre­ate a one-minute com­mer­cial mark­ing MTV Brazil’s 21st birth­day, he end­ed up re-imag­in­ing one of animation’s old­est forms: the flip book. The result is a work of inspired silli­ness, with char­ac­ters like Gene Sim­mons, Slash, Ozzy Osbourne—even Ozzy’s bat—appearing on a long line of bal­loons being popped at a rate of ten per sec­ond. Caldeira and col­lab­o­ra­tors Andre Faria and Guga Ket­zer used a laser to line up hun­dreds of bal­loons along a 656-foot (200-meter) set of tracks. It took them 24 hours to shoot.

Via: Print Mag­a­zine

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Peter Sellers Performs The Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” in Shakespearean Voice

in Comedy, Literature, Music | May 24th, 2011

Back in 1964, Peter Sell­ers (aka Chief Inspec­tor Clouse­au in The Pink Pan­ther films) made a cameo appear­ance on “The Music of Lennon and McCart­ney,” a tele­vi­sion pro­gram pro­duced at the height of Beat­le­ma­nia. The schtick? To read the lyrics of A Hard Day’s Night in a way that com­i­cal­ly recalls Lau­rence Olivier’s 1955 per­for­mance of the open­ing solil­o­quy from Richard III. It starts famous­ly “Now is the win­ter of our dis­con­tent …” (See full text here.)

On a very relat­ed note, don’t miss:

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Voic­es

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For Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday, Footage From His Earliest NYC Days

in Music | May 24th, 2011

Rock star, folk singer, poet, and nation­al trea­sure Bob Dylan turns 70 today, and just in case you haven’t made plans to mark the occa­sion, we’ve got a few options for you: If you’d like some com­pa­ny, you can check out this Google map of all the sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an cel­e­bra­tions world­wide to see if there will be one in your home­town. Or you can re-read Joe Queenan’s bril­liant­ly incor­rect assess­ment of the rebel at 50 in Spy Mag­a­zine. And if you’re feel­ing soli­tary and reflec­tive, there’s always Chron­i­cles Vol. 1 and Dylan­Ra­dio by can­dle­light.

We chose to go with the love­ly “Guess I’m Doing Fine” from the singer’s ear­li­est days in New York City (now avail­able on “The Wit­mark Demos: 1962–1964,” the lat­est install­ment of The Boot­leg Series. Watch the trail­er here). The 20-year old’s voice sounds a bit thin and plain­tive, and the lament per­haps under­cut by the many miles of road he has­n’t yet trav­elled, espe­cial­ly when he moans:

No, I ain’t got my child­hood
Or friends I once did know.
But I still got my voice left,
I can take it any­where I go.

But don’t be too hard on young Bob­by Zim­mer­man… He was a whole lot old­er then, and he’s younger than that now.

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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Lost Films: Identify Missing Cinema Through Crowdsourcing

in Film | May 23rd, 2011

Can you iden­ti­fy the man in this pic­ture? The archivists at Lost Films hope you can. The image is tak­en from footage of a vin­tage film that no one has been able to iden­ti­fy. Accord­ing to the descrip­tion that goes with the still, all we know now is that this odd­ly-dressed  char­ac­ter is an escaped con­vict named “Hem Lock.” The movie is prob­a­bly Amer­i­can, and it was most like­ly shot some­where around 1923. If you think you can add some more infor­ma­tion, it’s time for you to sign up.

More than 80 per­cent of silent films and a high per­cent­age of old sound films have been lost or are now unac­count­ed for. Lost Films is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort among film soci­eties in Ger­many, France, Poland, New Zealand, and sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries to help iden­ti­fy and locate some 3,500 lost or miss­ing films through crowd­sourc­ing. Any­one can become a mem­ber and then upload clips and images from “mys­tery movies” to the site, and also com­ment on the as-yet-unti­tled stills and images that have already been uploaded. The site also con­tains a heart­en­ing list of films that have been recent­ly been recov­ered.

The project is fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Cul­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion.

Be sure to find many silent and ear­ly sound movies (among oth­er things) in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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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Leo Strauss: 15 Political Philosophy Courses Online

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 23rd, 2011

strauss-large

In 1949, Leo Strauss, the Ger­man-Jew­ish emi­gré, land­ed at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, where he spent decades teach­ing and writ­ing on polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, espe­cial­ly the polit­i­cal thought of the Ancients. Strauss’ think­ing skewed con­ser­v­a­tive, and if he was some­times con­tro­ver­sial while alive, he has become only more so in death (1973). Nowa­days he’s con­sid­ered right­ly or wrong­ly the “intel­lec­tu­al god­fa­ther of the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal move­ment,” if not an “intel­lec­tu­al force behind the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s plan to invade Iraq.” Although Strauss com­ment­ed occa­sion­al­ly on con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics (Harper’s has more on that), he spent most of his time work­ing through major philo­soph­i­cal texts, and through his com­men­taries, devel­op­ing his own philo­soph­i­cal posi­tions, which were gen­er­al­ly hos­tile to the Enlight­en­ment project and mod­ern individualism/liberalism.

Strauss was unques­tion­ably an influ­en­tial fig­ure even if he still divides us, and now, cour­tesy of U. Chica­go, you can lis­ten to 15 of his phi­los­o­phy sem­i­nars online. They were record­ed between 1959 and 1973, and some rep­re­sen­ta­tive titles include Montesquieu’s The Spir­it of the Laws (a course that Paul Wol­fowitz took dur­ing the ear­ly 70s), Niet­zsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Hegel’s The Phi­los­o­phy of His­to­ry.

More sem­i­nars will be com­ing online. For now, we have cat­a­logued all 15 exist­ing sem­i­nars in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of 1100 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Four Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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George Carlin’s “Modern Man” Rap

in Comedy | May 21st, 2011

Forty years after George Car­lin first stopped by The Tonight Show (1966), he made one of his last appear­ances, deliv­er­ing a rap/poem that’s clas­sic Car­lin, a hyp­not­ic riff on mod­ern life and soci­ety. The lyrics appear right below.

I’m a mod­ern man,
A man for the mil­len­ni­um,
Dig­i­tal and smoke free.
A diver­si­fied mul­ti­cul­tur­al post­mod­ern decon­struc­tion­ist,
Polit­i­cal­ly anatom­i­cal­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly incor­rect.
I’ve been uplinked and down­loaded.
I’ve been inputted and out­sourced.
I know the upside of down­siz­ing.
I know the down­side of upgrad­ing.
I’m a high tech lowlife.
A cut­ting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal mul­ti­tasker,
And I can give you a giga­byte in a nanosec­ond. (The rest after the jump…)
(more…)

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3 Dreams of Black: A Mind-blowing Interactive Music Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 20th, 2011

So this is def­i­nite­ly not your grand­ma’s MTV. The clip we’ve post­ed above explains the mak­ing of “3 Degrees of Black,” an inter­ac­tive video made for your brows­er, which was the prod­uct of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the mul­ti-hyphen­at­ed artist/filmmaker Chris Milk and a group of 20-some­thing genius­es at Plan­et Google. But before you delve into the (admit­ted­ly fas­ci­nat­ing) back­sto­ry, be sure to expe­ri­ence the video for your­self and move your mouse around a bit.

“Three Dreams of Black” is a song from the new album “Rome,” itself a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Amer­i­can pro­duc­er Dan­ger Mouse and Ital­ian com­pos­er Daniel Lup­pi, fea­tur­ing Jack White and Norah Jones. The song is a per­fect choice for a trip­py, mul­ti-faceted project like this, which com­bines video, 2D and 3D graph­ics, and the user her­self. And yes, we know the whole “exper­i­ment” is basi­cal­ly just an adver­tise­ment for Google Chrome, but after spend­ing some time in their dream­scape, we’re cool with that.

via Metafil­ter

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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A Brief History of Light

in Art, Business, History | May 20th, 2011

No light, no civ­i­liza­tion. It’s pret­ty much that sim­ple. And it’s this sim­ple idea that m ss ng p eces, a Brook­lyn-based cre­ative com­pa­ny, explores ever so art­ful­ly in The Sto­ry of Light. Here’s how they intro­duce the video:

We have used light for sur­vival, to learn by, to enter­tain and express our­selves, mold expe­ri­ences, and illu­mi­nate our imag­i­na­tions. Inspired by such a sin­gu­lar sto­ry we set out to cre­ate a hand­made sto­ry­book fan­ta­sy illus­trat­ing mile­stones in the his­to­ry of light. Each chap­ter invites us through the annals of his­to­ry, lead­ing to present day where a new set of pos­si­bil­i­ties are yet to be real­ized in the light of tomor­row.

When you reach the end of the video, you’ll real­ize that the clip also dou­bles as a com­mer­cial for GE’s new led light bulb. Lend­ing an air of cool­ness to a dowdy con­glom­er­ate (GE)  is no easy feat. But it’s prob­a­bly not so tough when you’ve already made GE Cap­i­tal, a huge recip­i­ent of 2008 bailout mon­ey, look ever so hip. GE Cap­i­tal + Tay­lor Gui­tars = I think I will buy a Mar­tin, thank you very much.

You can learn more about the mak­ing of The Sto­ry of Light with this video …

via PSFK

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