Free Vintage Cartoons: Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop and More

in Art, Film, Television | May 17th, 2011

Don’t vis­it Vin­tage Toon­Cast (or its iTunes chan­nel) at the begin­ning of a busy work­day. You’ll start by promis­ing your­self to watch just one, like, say, “The Wab­bit Who Came to Sup­per,” which we post­ed above. But then, of course, you’ll want to check out the famous Bet­ty Boop episode, “Min­nie the Moocher,” fea­tur­ing Cab Cal­loway, which will lead you to “Cas­par the Friend­ly Ghost,” “Pop­eye,” and final­ly 16 glo­ri­ous episodes of “Super­man.”

The site hosts more than 80 videos, most of them stel­lar, which means you could end up killing the whole day. Don’t say we did­n’t w‑w-w-arn you (sor­ry).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orig­i­nal Super­man Car­toon Series Now Online

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Fan­tas­magorie: The First Ani­mat­ed Film

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.

Jon Stewart & Bill O’Reilly Debate Rapper’s Visit to the White House

in Current Affairs, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | May 17th, 2011

The cul­ture wars wage on. Almost twen­ty years after the great Mur­phy Brown debate, we’re still going at it. But now, instead of debat­ing the pros and cons of sin­gle moth­er­hood, the focus has turned to whether Michelle Oba­ma erred in invit­ing the rap­per Com­mon to the White House Poet­ry Night last week. (See his actu­al per­for­mance here.) Crit­ics point to this 2007 YouTube video, A Let­ter to the Law, though they don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly lis­ten until the very end. And they also flag his sym­pa­thet­ic words direct­ed toward Joanne Ches­i­mard (aka Assa­ta Shakur), an ex-Black Pan­ther, con­vict­ed of killing a New Jer­sey police offi­cer in 1973. This all built up to the lat­est Jon Stew­art — Bill O’Reil­ly face­off, which drilled down to the ques­tion: Did the First Lady make a major gaffe? Or is this anoth­er case of selec­tive out­rage? Part 1 is above; Part II is here…

via @Frauenfelder

Free Short Films by Osamu Tezuka aka “The Japanese Walt Disney”

in Art, Film | May 16th, 2011

Over at Metafil­ter, Kári Tulin­ius has a post­ed a nice selec­tion of exper­i­men­tal short films by the great Japan­ese ani­ma­tor and man­ga artist Osamu Tezu­ka. Tezu­ka died in 1989, and although he’s most famous in the US for chil­dren’s car­toons like Astro-Boy and Kim­bo the White Lion (bet­ter known to every­one but the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny’s lawyers as The Lion King), his achieve­ments extend­ed well beyond those two US hits. In his home coun­try, The God of Man­ga is right­ly con­sid­ered a nation­al trea­sure, and his mas­sive body of work includes a man­ga adap­ta­tion of Crime and Pun­ish­ment, a 12-vol­ume fan­ta­sy saga about immor­tal­i­ty, and the world’s first fea­ture-length ani­mat­ed porn movie.

These shorts pro­vide an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to Tezuka’s many moods and styles, from the inno­cent whim­sy of Mer­maid (1964), about a boy who falls in love with a mer­maid at sea.…

… to the caus­tic humor of Mem­o­ry (1964), a bit­ing med­i­ta­tion on our rose-tint­ed view of the past:

…to the light exu­ber­ance of Jump­ing (1984):

… and final­ly the full-blown apoc­a­lyp­tic dark­ness of Push (1987), as rel­e­vant now as it was 25 years go — if not more so:

See also: Male (1962), Bro­ken Down Film (1985), The Drop (1965), Sto­ry of a Street Cor­ner (1962), Gen­e­sis (1968), Mura­masa (1987), and this inter­view, in which the Tezu­ka dis­cuss­es his short exper­i­men­tal films…

via @brainpicker

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

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Ori­gins of Ani­me: Watch Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions (1917 to 1931)

The Art of Hand-Drawn Japan­ese Ani­me: A Deep Study of How Kat­suhi­ro Otomo’s Aki­ra Uses Light

Watch the Old­est Japan­ese Ani­me Film, Jun’ichi Kōuchi’s The Dull Sword (1917)

A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

in Life, Music | May 15th, 2011

Play­ing in Toron­to last week, Paul Simon did some­thing, well, awe­some. A fan asks him to play “Dun­can,” his 1972 clas­sic, and lets him know that she learned to play gui­tar to that song. So Simon agrees. And, even bet­ter, he invites her on stage to take over gui­tar and vocals. Ner­vous, almost hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, she hes­i­tant­ly gets going, as does the crowd. From there, a big feel­in’ groovy moment unfolds, and it just gets bet­ter as it goes along. Kudos to NPR’s All Songs Con­sid­ered for mak­ing this great find …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Paul Simon’s Christ­mas Gets Ani­mat­ed in April

1956 Home Movie: Laurel & Hardy Together for the Last Time

in Comedy, Film | May 13th, 2011

There is no exact date for this silent home movie shot at the Rese­da, CA home of Stan Lau­rel’s daugh­ter, Lois. But the year must have been 1956, because, dur­ing that year, Oliv­er Hardy, the oth­er mem­ber of the great com­ic duo, lost more than 150 pounds, result­ing in a com­plete change of his out­ward appear­ance. Hardy had a mild heart attack in 1954 and start­ed look­ing after his health. But let­ters by Stan Lau­rel indi­cate that Oliv­er was also suf­fer­ing from can­cer. In Sep­tem­ber 1956 — prob­a­bly not long after this movie was made — Oliv­er suf­fered a major stroke, which left him unable to speak and con­fined to bed for sev­er­al months. Then, at the begin­ning of August 1957, he had two more strokes and slipped into a coma from which he nev­er recov­ered. He died on August 7 that year.

Exact­ly one week after Oliv­er’s death, Stan gave a rare radio inter­view and recount­ed the moment when he and Oliv­er met for the first time. The full, one-hour inter­view can be enjoyed here. Stan died on 23 Feb­ru­ary 1965 after suf­fer­ing a heart attack of his own. He was buried at For­est Park Memo­r­i­al Park in Bur­bank. Footage from the funer­al shows celebri­ties such as Dick Van Dyke, Buster Keaton and George Chan­dler in atten­dance. Stan’s friend Dick Van Dyke deliv­ered this mov­ing eulo­gy.

The City Limits: Beautiful Time Lapse of Five Cities

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | May 13th, 2011

In this superb time lapse video, Dominic Boudreault presents five urban cities — Mon­tre­al, Que­bec City, Chica­go, Toron­to, and New York City — and what he calls the “the dual­i­ty between city and nature.”

Most fas­ci­nat­ing is the high van­tage point from which much of the footage was shot: watch the col­or­ful lights adorn­ing the Empire State Build­ing, and just a minute lat­er, cars shoot­ing down the free­way next to Lake Michi­gan in snowy Chica­go. The City Lim­its was shot in late 2010, ear­ly 2011.

Relat­ed: if you’re a fan of time lapse videos, don’t miss this one of the Big Apple.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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.

Keith Richards Interviewed at The New York Public Library

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 13th, 2011

For a cer­tain kind of per­son (that means you, Dan C.), a straight hour of Rolling Stones gui­tarist Kei­th Richards expound­ing on the rock n’ roll life is about as close to heav­en as one can get with­out mag­i­cal­ly trans­form­ing into Richards’ favorite gui­tar. Here is the 66-year old leg­end being inter­viewed at the New York Pub­lic Library, fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of his crit­i­cal­ly-acclaimed mem­oir Life, which no less severe a judge than Michiko Kaku­tani called “elec­tri­fy­ing.”

In the inter­view (see the remain­ing parts here, here and here) Richards comes off as wit­ty, artic­u­late, and espe­cial­ly elo­quent when speak­ing about his pas­sion for Amer­i­can blues, but one of the most charm­ing ear­ly moments comes thanks to his inter­locu­tor, Antho­ny DeCur­tis. DeCur­tis is some­thing of a rock star in his own field, but he fights a los­ing bat­tle with his nat­ur­al fan­dom for the first 15 min­utes of the con­ver­sa­tion, then final­ly starts to implode at about the 22:2o mark. His mini-melt­down is imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by Richards’ hilar­i­ous riff on the Stones’ ear­ly Bea­t­les-envy, and it all just gets bet­ter from there, cul­mi­nat­ing in the expect­ed wild applause at the end of the hour.

A foot­note: Richards’ col­lab­o­ra­tor on Life is the respect­ed British jour­nal­ist named James Fox. Fox spent five years work­ing with the gui­tarist, or rather, chas­ing him from con­ti­nent to con­ti­nent, record­ing hun­dreds of hours of their con­ver­sa­tions, and then shap­ing those hours into a book that is not mere­ly coher­ent or inter­est­ing but gen­uine­ly lit­er­ary. He deserves a round of applause as well.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thomp­son Inter­views Kei­th Richards

John Lennon and The Rolling Stones Sing Bud­dy Hol­ly

Pat­ti Smith at the New York Pub­lic Library

via NYPL

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

The Legend of Bluesman Robert Johnson Animated

in Animation, Film, Music | May 12th, 2011

Robert John­son, the leg­endary blues­man, would have turned 100 this week. That’s well beyond the age he actu­al­ly lived to – a very young 27. Dur­ing his short life (1911–1938), John­son record­ed 29 indi­vid­ual songs. But they could not have been more influ­en­tial. Songs like Cross Road Blues, Sweet Home Chica­go, and Kind Heart­ed Woman Blues (all found in this new­ly-released Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lec­tion) had a remark­able influ­ence on musi­cians grow­ing up gen­er­a­tions lat­er. Kei­th Richards, Eric Clap­ton, Robert Plant – they all acknowl­edge a deep debt to John­son.

Speak­ing of debts, you can’t talk about Robert John­son with­out talk­ing about the famous dev­il leg­end. The leg­end holds that John­son made a Faus­t­ian bar­gain with the dev­il, sell­ing his soul in exchange for bound­less musi­cal tal­ent. It’s a great tale, and it all gets brought back to life in “Dev­il­ish Detail,” a new ani­mat­ed film (above) fea­tur­ing illus­tra­tions by Christo­pher Dar­ling. You can view it in a larg­er for­mat on Nowness.com…

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!

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

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | May 11th, 2011

In one of his very best ear­ly essays, David Lynch Keeps His Head (1996), the late nov­el­ist and essay­ist David Fos­ter Wal­lace did his best to pin­point exact­ly what it is that makes Lynch such an odd and won­der­ful direc­tor. The arti­cle is pure plea­sure (and a reminder of just how fresh and orig­i­nal Wal­lace was, and how rarely his imi­ta­tors ever do him jus­tice). One line in par­tic­u­lar stands out — the writer’s now-famous com­par­i­son between Lynch and Taran­ti­no: “Quentin Taran­ti­no,” wrote Wal­lace, “is inter­est­ed in watch­ing some­one’s ear get cut off. David Lynch is inter­est­ed in the ear.”

We’re not quite sure what that line has to do with the direc­tor’s lat­est pro­duc­tion (a com­mer­cial adver­tis­ing his new cof­fee line and star­ring a sev­ered Bar­bie head) except that we could­n’t stop think­ing of either the quote or the essay as we watched it — appalled, dis­mayed, per­plexed, and, as always with the films of Mr. Lynch, com­plete­ly inca­pable of look­ing away.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch on his Favorite Movies and Film­mak­ers

Ear­ly David Lynch Films

via David Lynch

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

Short Film: “Nuit Blanche” Mixes Romance with Matrix-Style Visuals

in Film | May 10th, 2011

If you’ve ever had doubts about the impact of videogame aes­thet­ics on con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma — not just action movies, but video and inde­pen­dent film as well — this roman­tic short from Spy Films might well dis­pel them. The plot is basic: A man and a woman lock eyes in the street, and dream of what might have been, while sweet notes fill the air. But direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Arev Manoukian updates the famil­iar sto­ry with a com­pelling visu­al style which seems inspired by equal parts Matrix tril­o­gy and PlaySta­tion 3. For more infor­ma­tion about the spe­cial effects, there’s a “mak­ing of” video for your view­ing.

Francophones/francophiles of more lud­dite ten­den­cies might find them­selves imme­di­ate­ly rush­ing to play Georges Brassens’ ode to ephemer­al street romance, “Les Pas­santes.” We strong­ly encour­age you to do so, prefer­ably at sun­set, while sip­ping a hot cup of long­ing-infused tea.

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.