James Bond: 50 Years in Film (and a Big Blu-Ray Release)

in Film | January 24th, 2012

The James Bond movie fran­chise began in 1962, with the release of Dr. No, star­ring a young Sean Con­nery. (Watch the orig­i­nal trail­er here.) And it did­n’t take long for the pro­duc­ers, Albert R. Broc­coli and Har­ry Saltz­man, to real­ize that they were onto some­thing. Speak­ing in 1965, Broc­coli and Saltz­man (above) spec­u­lat­ed that they had cre­at­ed “a mod­ern mythol­o­gy,” the Super­man of their age, and a long-last­ing “enter­tain­ment trend.” How right they were.

Fifty years have passed since audi­ences saw the first Bond movie. Sev­en actors have played James Bond in 22 films. And the next movie, Sky­fall, will hit the­aters in Novem­ber, with Daniel Craig play­ing the lead role. This marks a cause for cel­e­bra­tion (or at least a chance for Hol­ly­wood to ring the reg­is­ter). In the very near future, you can buy the com­plete James Bond Film Col­lec­tion (22 titles in total) on Blu-ray for $199.99, which works out to $9 per film and that does­n’t fac­tor in 130 hours of bonus mate­r­i­al. The clip below will pitch you on the Blu-ray release that can be pre-ordered here. If you’re look­ing for free James Bond media, don’t miss Ian Flem­ing (the cre­ator of the James Bond lit­er­ary char­ac­ter) in con­ver­sa­tion with Ray­mond Chan­dler in 1958 here.

Leonard Cohen’s New Album, Old Ideas: Stream It for Free Online

in Music | January 24th, 2012

Fans of Leonard Cohen, you’ve wait­ed patient­ly. Sev­en long years. Now it’s final­ly here. Cohen’s new album Old Ideas offi­cial­ly hits the streets next week. But it’s now stream­ing online for free cour­tesy of NPR. It will only last a lim­it­ed time. So set­tle in now and lis­ten to the ten tracks, which as Guardian crit­ic Kit­ty Empire puts it, are not about “death, betray­al and God, juicy as these are,” but rather “the stuff that has made Cohen indis­pens­able for six decades: desire, regret, suf­fer­ing, mis­an­thropy, love, hope, and ham­ming it up.”

The poet­ic lines of the first track, “Going Home,” have been pub­lished in The New York­er. You can pre-order the album here. H/T @opedr

More Leonard Cohen Videos & Movies:

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen (1971 Doc­u­men­tary)

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began

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

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Watch the Film

Global Warming: A Free Course from UChicago Explains Climate Change

in Science, Video - Science | January 23rd, 2012

Two weeks ago, we fea­tured Har­vard Thinks Green, a series of six TED-style lec­tures pre­sent­ed by Har­vard experts, each focus­ing on the envi­ron­ment and strate­gies for revers­ing cli­mate change. One thing Har­vard Thinks Green did­n’t offer was a primer on cli­mate change itself, a good sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion of the under­ly­ing prob­lem. Enter Glob­al Warm­ing (YouTube), a 23-lec­ture course pre­sent­ed by David Archer, a pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of The Geo­phys­i­cal Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go. The first half of the class explains cli­mate physics and how the cli­mate works; the sec­ond half shows how human activ­i­ty and ever-increas­ing car­bon lev­els dis­rupt the equi­lib­ri­um of the envi­ron­ment, cre­at­ing a very uncer­tain future for gen­er­a­tions to come. The first, short lec­ture above out­lines the scope of the class.

Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at UChica­go in Fall 2009, Archer’s course was geared to non-sci­ence majors and taught in con­junc­tion with his text­book, Glob­al Warm­ing: Under­stand­ing the Fore­cast, which hap­pens to be avail­able on Ama­zon here. Glob­al Warm­ing (YouTube) is now list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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:

132 Years of Glob­al Warm­ing Visu­al­ized in 26 Dra­mat­i­cal­ly Ani­mat­ed Sec­onds

A Song of Our Warm­ing Plan­et: Cel­list Turns 130 Years of Cli­mate Change Data into Music

Sal­ly Ride Warns Against Glob­al Warm­ing; Won­ders If Tech­nol­o­gy Can Save Us From Our­selves

Prof. Bri­an Cox Has a Mad­den­ing Con­ver­sa­tion with a Cli­mate Sci­ence-Deny­ing Politi­cian

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

in Film, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture | January 23rd, 2012

In 2009, Brook­lyn-based Web devel­op­er Casey Pugh was look­ing for a new way to explore the poten­tial of crowd-sourc­ing when he hit upon an idea of galac­tic pro­por­tions. He took the orig­i­nal 1977 Star Wars film (lat­er known as Episode IV: A New Hope in the chrono­log­i­cal­ly ordered six-part series) and chopped it into 15-sec­ond pieces, invit­ing fans from around the world to choose a piece and re-cre­ate it in what­ev­er medi­um they liked: live-action, pup­petry, ani­ma­tion, you name it. Three years and one Emmy Award lat­er, Pugh and his team have put the best pieces togeth­er and (with the bless­ing of Star Wars cre­ator George Lucas) released the fin­ished film, Star Wars Uncut: The Direc­tor’s Cut. It runs a fun two hours and five min­utes. You can watch the com­plete movie above and learn more on the offi­cial web­site.

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 Star Wars Good­ies:

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars the Musi­cal: The Force is Strong in this One

Darth Vader’s Theme in the Style of Beethoven

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

The Star Wars Hol­i­day Spe­cial (1978): It’s Oh So Kitsch

Michel Foucault: Free Lectures on Truth, Discourse & The Self (UC Berkeley, 1980–1983)

in Philosophy | January 23rd, 2012

Image by Nemo­main, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Michel Fou­cault (1926–1984) was an enor­mous­ly influ­en­tial French philoso­pher who wrote, among oth­er things, his­tor­i­cal analy­ses of psy­chi­a­try, med­i­cine, the prison sys­tem, and the func­tion of sex­u­al­i­ty in social orga­ni­za­tions. He spent some time dur­ing the last years of his life at UC Berke­ley, deliv­er­ing sev­er­al lec­tures in Eng­lish. And hap­pi­ly they were record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty:

• Four Lec­tures on Truth and Sub­jec­tiv­i­ty (1980)
• Six Lec­tures on Dis­course and Truth (1983)
• Three Lec­tures on “The Cul­ture of the Self” (1983)

These last lec­tures are also avail­able on YouTube (in audio for­mat).

One of Fou­cault’s more con­tro­ver­sial and mem­o­rable books was Dis­ci­pline and Pun­ish (1977), which traced the tran­si­tion from the 18th cen­tu­ry use of pub­lic tor­ture and exe­cu­tion to–less than 50 years later–the preva­lence of much more sub­tle uses of pow­er, with a focus on incar­cer­a­tion, reha­bil­i­ta­tion, pre­ven­tion, and sur­veil­lance.

Here he is in 1983 com­ment­ing on that book (thanks for the link to Seth Paskin). The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast recent­ly dis­cussed the book with Katharine McIn­tyre, doc­tor­al can­di­date at Colum­bia. Fou­cault’s image of the panop­ti­con well cap­tures mod­ern pri­va­cy con­cerns in the elec­tron­ic age.

Final­ly, we leave you with a School­house Rock-style pre­sen­ta­tion of Fou­cault’s book The His­to­ry of Sex­u­al­i­ty, Vol­ume 1 and some vin­tage video of Fou­cault’s 1971 debate with Noam Chom­sky. Fou­cault’s lec­tures have been added to our list of Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, part of our big col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jacques Lacan, Aca­d­e­m­ic Rock Star, Gives a Pub­lic Lec­ture, 1972

Lovers and Philoso­phers — Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beau­voir Togeth­er in 1967

Phi­los­o­phy with a South­ern Drawl: Rick Rod­er­ick Teach­es Der­ri­da, Fou­cault, Sartre and Oth­ers

100 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es (Part of Our List of 875 Free Cours­es Online)

An Animated Tour of Fallingwater, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Finest Creations

in Animation, Architecture | January 21st, 2012

Falling­wa­ter was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935. Con­struc­tion began a year lat­er and was even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed in 1939. Many con­sid­er Falling­wa­ter one of Wright’s finest cre­ations. Hence why Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine count­ed it as one of the 28 Places to See Before You Die. Now, thanks to the mini movie above, you can watch the build­ing of Falling­wa­ter take place right before your eyes, and then take a tour of the house. It’s all done in com­put­er graph­ics and runs 4+ min­utes. And, as one read­er tells us, the “video is as real as it gets.” You can learn more about the film and the house at this web site.

For more Frank Lloyd Wright, you’ll also want to vis­it the R.W. Lind­holm Ser­vice Sta­tion, a gas sta­tion designed by the famous archi­tect in the 1930s. We’ll take you on a vir­tu­al tour right here.

Remembering the Soulful Etta James

in Music | January 20th, 2012

“When I’m singing blues,” Etta James once said, “I’m singing life.”

Hers was a dif­fi­cult life. The leg­endary singer, who died this morn­ing at the age of 73 after a long strug­gle with leukemia, was born Jame­set­ta Hawkins on Jan­u­ary 25, 1938, to an unwed 14-year-old girl, and her life was marked by drug addic­tion and emo­tion­al volatil­i­ty. Through it all, James rose to become one of the most influ­en­tial and admired singers of the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

“There’s a lot going on in Etta James’ voice,” Bon­nie Raitt told Rolling Stone in 2008. “A lot of pain, a lot of life but, most of all, a lot of strength. She can be so rau­cous and down one song, and then break your heart with her sub­tle­ty and finesse the next.”

Her great­est hit came in 1961, with the soul­ful bal­lad “At Last.” For anoth­er side of James’s ver­sa­tile style, lis­ten and watch above, as she per­forms the gospel-influ­enced “Some­thing’s Got a Hold on Me” in 1962. To learn more about James, and to watch video high­lights from her career, see today’s arti­cle by Ben Green­man on The New York­er’s “Cul­ture Desk” blog. And over at the Guardian, see Richard Williams selec­tion of 10 Clas­sic Etta James Per­for­mances.

In 1997, James summed things up in an inter­view with Rolling Stone: “Life’s been rough,” she said, “but life’s been good. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would live it the exact same way.”

Everything You Wanted to Know About Coffee in Three Minutes

in Random | January 19th, 2012

Cof­fee — it’s the fuel of the mod­ern world and cer­tain­ly this site. And, if you believe this video (appar­ent­ly not made by Star­bucks or the Amer­i­can cof­fee lob­by), it’s the great­est, safest addic­tion around. Take it all with a grain of salt … while you drink your morn­ing (or after­noon) cup of joe.

More Relat­ed Cof­fee Items:

How to Drink Cof­fee at Zero Grav­i­ty

David Lynch’s Organ­ic Cof­fee (Bar­bie Head Not Includ­ed)

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and now Google Plus.

A Rare Interview with Fritz Lang and His 1931 Masterpiece of Suspense, M

in Film | January 19th, 2012

“I made my films with a kind of sleep­walk­ing secu­ri­ty,” says Fritz Lang. “I did things which I thought were right. Peri­od.” Thus begins this fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view with the great Aus­tri­an-born direc­tor.

The inter­view was con­duct­ed by William Fried­kin, direc­tor of The French Con­nec­tion and The Exor­cist, in Feb­ru­ary of 1975, a lit­tle more than a year before Lang’s death. Lang talks about his ear­ly life as a run­away. (“Any decent human being should run away from home.”), his entry into the­atre and film as a young man, his Ger­man mas­ter­pieces Metrop­o­lis and M, and a chill­ing encounter in 1933 with the Nazi Min­is­ter of Pro­pa­gan­da Joseph Goebbels that pro­voked him to flee Ger­many the same day.

The sto­ry of Lang’s escape has all the ele­ments of a cin­e­mat­ic thriller, but biog­ra­phers have cast doubt on its verac­i­ty, cit­ing pass­port records which indi­cate that Lang left Ger­many some time after the meet­ing with Goebbels, and that he returned on brief trips sev­er­al times that year. But the anec­dote, along with Lang’s reflec­tions on his life and on the nature of fate, pro­vide a fas­ci­nat­ing look into the great film­mak­er’s char­ac­ter.

The con­ver­sa­tion above, which runs 50 min­utes, was edit­ed down from a much longer set of inter­views. Accord­ing to the Tori­no Film Fes­ti­val web­site, Fried­kin orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to use the Lang mate­r­i­al for a doc­u­men­tary on hor­ror cin­e­ma, to be called A Safe Dark­ness, but there is no dis­cus­sion of the hor­ror genre in this ver­sion.

As an extra bonus from our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, we present the film Lang most want­ed to be remem­bered for, M. (See below.) The film was made in 1931, and was the first by Lang to incor­po­rate sound. Peter Lorre makes his screen debut as a man guilty of unspeak­able crimes. In its intro­duc­tion to the film, the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion writes: “In his har­row­ing mas­ter­work M, Fritz Lang merges tren­chant social com­men­tary with chill­ing sus­pense, cre­at­ing a panora­ma of pri­vate mad­ness and pub­lic hys­te­ria that to this day remains the blue­print for the psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller.”

M, by Fritz Lang:

The Disney Cartoon That Introduced Mickey Mouse & Animation with Sound (1928)

in Animation, Film | January 19th, 2012

In 1927, The Jazz Singer star­ring Al Jol­son, one of the first great “talkies” to use syn­chro­nized singing and speech, hit Amer­i­can the­aters and thrilled audi­ences. Know­ing that change was afoot, Walt Dis­ney spent $4,986 to cre­ate his first sound car­toon, Steam­boat Willie (1928). Remem­ber­ing the film many years lat­er, Dis­ney said:

The effect on our lit­tle audi­ence was noth­ing less than elec­tric. They respond­ed almost instinc­tive­ly to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kid­ding me. So they put me in the audi­ence and ran the action again. It was ter­ri­ble, but it was won­der­ful! And it was some­thing new!

These tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions make Steam­boat Willie rather leg­endary. But the film retains land­mark sta­tus for anoth­er rea­son. It marked the first pub­lic debut of Mick­ey Mouse and his girl­friend Min­nie, two of the most rec­og­nized car­toon char­ac­ters world­wide. Ub Iwerks, the cel­e­brat­ed Dis­ney ani­ma­tor, first brought Mick­ey to life, and we have been liv­ing with him ever since — although, as you will see, his per­son­al­i­ty has soft­ened over time.

You can see Mick­ey star­ring in two oth­er ear­ly ani­ma­tions: Plane Crazy (1929) where the Mouse imi­tates Amer­i­ca’s hero at the time, Charles Lind­bergh. And The Gal­lopin’ Gau­cho, anoth­er 1928 release.

Steam­boat Willie appears in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion of 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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

The Mak­ing of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Ani­mat­ed Short

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters