37 Hitchcock Cameo Appearances Over 50 Years: All in One Video

in Film | September 2nd, 2011

Ear­ly in his career, Alfred Hitch­cock began mak­ing small appear­ances in his own films. The cameos some­times last­ed just a few brief sec­onds, and some­times a lit­tle while longer. Either way, they became a sig­na­ture of Hitch­cock­’s film­mak­ing, and fans made a sport of see­ing whether they could spot the elu­sive direc­tor. From 1927 to 1976, Hitch­cock made 37 appear­ances in total, and they’re all nice­ly cat­a­logued by Hitchcock.TV and the clip above.

If you’re hun­gry for a good film over the long Labor Day week­end, then don’t miss our col­lec­tion 22 Free Hitch­cock Films Online, which includes The 39 Steps, The Lodger, The Man Who Knew Too Much and oth­er ear­ly clas­sics. Or sim­ply dive into our meta col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. You’re bound to find some­thing you like…

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:

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

Hitch­cock on Hap­pi­ness

Santiago de Compostela: A View From the Octocopter

in Art, Technology | September 2nd, 2011

Micro­copter­video is a Span­ish com­pa­ny that spe­cial­izes in shoot­ing videos using small remote-con­trol heli­copters called “octo­copters.” (You can see the one used in this video here; and if you want to build one your­self, you can find instruc­tions here.) Since these small heli­copters go places where nor­mal cam­eras can’t, these new­fan­gled cam­eras can offer views that are sim­ply out of this world.

The lat­est video gives you a tour of the medieval San­ti­a­go de Com­postela Cathe­dral locat­ed in north­ern Spain. It starts with beau­ti­ful views of the exte­ri­or, but the most impres­sive shots are saved for inside the cathe­dral, espe­cial­ly when the octo­copter soars high above the chamades of the organ, giv­ing us an incred­i­ble look at the choir.

Some of these views have been cap­tured as stills and can be seen at Flickr. And don’t for­get to enjoy some more of those won­der­ful octo­copter videos on this Vimeo page.

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.

Mr. Deity: The Everyday Life of the Creator

in Comedy, Religion | August 30th, 2011

Not long after the dev­as­tat­ing tsuna­mi of 2004, Bri­an Kei­th Dal­ton began work­ing on a skit that mor­phed into Mr. Deity, a satir­i­cal look at our Cre­ator and his every­day strug­gle to man­age his new cre­ation. The first episode (above) aired on iTunes and the web in ear­ly 2007, and straight­away, we encounter Mr. Deity and his side­kick Lar­ry bum­bling their way through the Gen­e­sis sto­ry and relat­ed the­o­log­i­cal ques­tions. (Also don’t miss the pair try­ing to fig­ure out how to light their new world.) By the sec­ond episode, we’re already skip­ping for­ward to the New Tes­ta­ment and Mr. Diety recruit­ing a skep­ti­cal Jesus for an impor­tant job. Talk about awk­ward.

57 episodes have since fol­lowed, includ­ing the most recent install­ment — Mr. Deity and the Philoso­pher — released just last week. You can find all episodes eas­i­ly on iTunes. When it comes to the web, Sea­sons One, Three and Four appear offi­cial­ly on YouTube, and Sea­son 2 can be best viewed via this infor­mal col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steve Mar­tin Writes Song for Hymn-Deprived Athe­ists

Woody Allen and the Rev­erend Bil­ly Gra­ham In Con­ver­sa­tion

Sweet Jane: Then and Now

in Music | August 29th, 2011

The Vel­vet Under­ground first released “Sweet Jane” in 1970, and a cool ver­sion it was. But, soon enough, Lou Reed launched his solo career, put out a live ver­sion of “Sweet Jane” on Rock n Roll Ani­mal (1974), and made the song his own. That same year, Reed per­formed anoth­er funk-laden ver­sion in Paris, with Prakash John play­ing bass and Steve Hunter on gui­tar. And that’s what the vin­tage video gods are serv­ing up today.

All these years lat­er, Sweet Jane still fires the rock ‘n roll imag­i­na­tion. In 2009, Reed per­formed the anthem with Metal­li­ca at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ben­e­fit Con­cert at Madi­son Square Gar­den, and it laid the foun­da­tion for a project now com­ing to fruition — a col­lab­o­ra­tive album called Lulu that will drop on Octo­ber 31st in the US, and Novem­ber 1 abroad. Reed orig­i­nal­ly wrote the songs for a play called Lulu, then he brought Metal­li­ca into the some­times emo­tion­al project and things just rolled along. In a recent inter­view with New York Mag­a­zine, Reed said, “the ver­sion of the Lulu music I did with Metal­li­ca is awe-inspir­ing. It’s maybe the best thing done by any­one, ever. It could cre­ate anoth­er plan­e­tary sys­tem. I’m not jok­ing, and I’m not being ego­tis­ti­cal.” The bar is now offi­cial­ly set high…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Warhol’s Screen Tests: Lou Reed, Den­nis Hop­per, Nico, and More

The Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion Revis­it­ed: Hav­el at Colum­bia

The Decemberists’ New Video Inspired by Scenes from Infinite Jest

in Books, Literature, Music | August 26th, 2011

Michael Schur, the co-cre­ator of NBC’s Parks and Recre­ation, has had a long-run­ning fas­ci­na­tion with David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s sprawl­ing mag­num opus, Infi­nite Jest.  So when his favorite band, The Decem­berists, asked him to shoot a video for their new track “Calami­ty Song,” he knew the cre­ative direc­tion he want­ed to take. And so here it is — the new­ly-pre­miered video that makes “Escha­ton” its cre­ative focus. Fans of DWF’s nov­el will remem­ber that Escha­ton — “basi­cal­ly, a glob­al ther­monu­clear cri­sis recre­at­ed on a ten­nis court” — appears on/around page 325. The New York Times has more, and you can also find anoth­er ver­sion of the video if you’re hav­ing prob­lems view­ing it here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The David Fos­ter Wal­lace Audio Project

The Best Mag­a­zine Arti­cles Ever, Curat­ed by Kevin Kel­ly

Richard Feynman: The New Graphic Novel

in Art, Books, Physics | August 24th, 2011

Last week, we high­light­ed The Last Jour­ney Of A Genius, a doc­u­men­tary that record­ed the final days of the great physi­cist Richard Feyn­man and his obses­sion with trav­el­ing to Tan­nu Tuva, a state out­side of out­er Mon­go­lia.

Now here is what next week will bring — a new “sub­stan­tial graph­ic nov­el biog­ra­phy” that “presents the larg­er-than-life exploits of the Nobel-win­ning quan­tum physi­cist, adven­tur­er, musi­cian and world-class racon­teur.” The book writ­ten by Jim Otta­viani and illus­trat­ed by Leland Myrick runs a fair­ly hefty 272 pages. The video clip on Youtube will give you a good feel for the art­work that tells Feyn­man’s per­son­al tale.

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:

Richard Feynman’s Physics Lec­tures Online

The Plea­sure of Find­ing Things Out

Extreme Photography: Shooting Big Climbs at Yosemite

in Art | August 19th, 2011

When you think pho­tog­ra­phy and Yosemite Nation­al Park, you think of Ansel Adams shoot­ing “Moon and Half Dome” or “El Cap­i­tan.”

But today we’re think­ing about some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent — about the ver­ti­go-induc­ing pho­tog­ra­phy of Renan Ozturk. Work­ing on behalf of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, Ozturk heads to Yosemite to shoot a fea­ture sto­ry on the climb­ing cul­ture that thrives in this val­ley sur­round­ed by 3000-foot rock walls. The park fea­tures extreme A5 climbs that con­stant­ly push climbers to new lim­its, and nat­u­ral­ly it takes a spe­cial pho­tog­ra­ph­er to record the action. How Renan does it? We’ll let him tell the rest of the sto­ry … H/T Curios­i­ty Counts

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and we’ll deliv­er great cul­ture right to your vir­tu­al doorstep, day in, day out.

The DIY Tornado Machine

in Science, Video - Science | August 18th, 2011

Bob Smer­beck, a senior mete­o­rol­o­gist for AccuWeather.com, has fig­ured it all out — how to let loose a tor­na­do in the com­fort of his own home. Using a hair dry­er, plas­tic tubes, and a light switch, Smer­beck can recre­ate the basic dynam­ics of super­cell thun­der­storms that pro­duce tor­na­does — except his tor­na­does are inch­es, not miles, wide.

As Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can explains it, tor­na­does take form when winds occur­ring at dif­fer­ent lev­els of the atmos­phere vary in direc­tion caus­ing thun­der­storms to rotate, and when the rota­tion with­in the thun­der­storm extends down to the ground. Smer­beck­’s DIY machine sim­u­lates these move­ments, and you can do the same. You will just need to fol­low a series of videos cre­at­ed by the Tor­na­do Project on YouTube. Start with Part 1 here, and then pro­ceed to Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. 

More fas­ci­nat­ing videos can be found in our new col­lec­tion: 125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics & Psy­chol­o­gy

h/t  @sheerly

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and we’ll deliv­er great cul­ture right to your vir­tu­al doorstep, day in, day out.

Hiroshima After the Atomic Bomb in 360 Degrees

in History | August 17th, 2011

In ear­ly August 1945, the world offi­cial­ly entered the atom­ic age when the Unit­ed States dropped two dev­as­tat­ing bombs on Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, killing 200,000 peo­ple. The destruc­tion is hard to put to words. But when words fail, images begin to fill the void.

Last week, 360Cities gave view­ers one very stark reminder of what hap­pened 66 years ago when the site post­ed a panoram­ic view of Hiroshi­ma. When you click here, you can look north, south, east and west at the wide­spread destruc­tion. Noth­ing was left untouched. This panora­ma is the byprod­uct of sev­er­al images tak­en by dif­fer­ent pho­tog­ra­phers — three from the Unit­ed States and one from Japan. The 360Cities blog tells you more about the project here. H/T Giz­mo­do

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hiroshi­ma Atom­ic Bomb­ing Remem­bered with Google Earth

Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshi­ma After­math, 1946

David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay

in Animation, Film | August 17th, 2011

David Lynch spent five years work­ing on his sur­re­al­ist film Eraser­head, and when it final­ly hit cin­e­mas in 1977, crit­ics panned the film. (Vari­ety called it a “sick­en­ing bad-taste exer­cise.”) Then, adding insult to injury, the film was reject­ed by the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

Time has cer­tain­ly been kinder to Eraser­head. Over the years, Stan­ley Kubrick, George Lucas, and John Waters have count­ed them­selves as major fans of the film. Charles Bukows­ki claimed that his love affair with cable tele­vi­sion start­ed when he first tuned in and start­ed watch­ing Eraser­head. Rock bands have named them­selves after the film. And now the lat­est hon­or: Lee Hard­cas­tle has remade the film in clay­ma­tion, and the plot unfolds in pret­ty much 60 sec­onds flat. H/T ope­dr

More Clay­ma­tion Films:

Chess in Clay­ma­tion

William S. Bur­roughs’ Clay­ma­tion Christ­mas Film

Down to the Bone

Pla­to’s Repub­lic … in Clay