Watch Selected Cannes Films for Free (For A Limited Time Only)

in Animation, Film | May 26th, 2011

We’ve already writ­ten about the excel­lent film blog MUBIdai­ly, which is pub­lished by the online screen­ing room Mubi.com. We’ve nev­er real­ly pushed Mubi itself, even though the site fea­tures a wide selec­tion of inde­pen­dent and for­eign films. It’s a sub­scrip­tion site, and we pre­fer to focus on cul­tur­al offer­ings that you can access free of charge.

Still, for the next month, you can watch cer­tain films on Mubi free of charge — specif­i­cal­ly, selec­tions from mul­ti­ple years of Cannes’ La Semaine de la Cri­tique (Crit­ics’ Week), one of the fes­ti­val’s most con­sis­tent­ly inter­est­ing side­bars. Each year a pan­el of inter­na­tion­al crit­ics selects a cur­rent crop of shorts and fea­tures from first and sec­ond time direc­tors, and now MUBI has made a num­ber of past selec­tions freely avail­able online. The selec­tion is a lit­tle uneven, but still often inspir­ing. Of the choic­es offered at Mubi’s mini-ret­ro­spec­tive, we rec­om­mend the Japan­ese film Chick­en Heart, the clever Swedish short Seeds of the Fall, and espe­cial­ly Round Da Way  (Las­cars), a live­ly French ani­mat­ed fea­ture about life in the projects. You can watch Round Da Way above.

The full selec­tion is avail­able for free on Mubi until June 30th, with a caveat or two: Each film is only free for its first 1,000 view­ings, you do need to reg­is­ter to watch, and there may be some geo­re­stric­tion at work (though we can’t say for sure since we’re based in the US).

And final­ly, of course, don’t miss our big curat­ed col­lec­tion of 380 Free Movies, which includes a few major films from Cannes too.

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.

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…

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…

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

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.

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…)

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

Lars von Trier Expelled from Cannes

in Film | May 19th, 2011

Lars von Tri­er stepped on the third rail Wednes­day when he called him­self a Nazi and Hitler sym­pa­thiz­er in jest. The joke did­n’t go over so well, and, his apolo­gies (some­times sound­ing sin­cere, some­times not so much) did­n’t win peo­ple over. Today, Cannes offi­cials took an unprece­dent­ed step, declar­ing him per­sona non gra­ta at the fes­ti­val. This marks the first time Cannes has exiled a direc­tor in its 64 year his­to­ry. What will Lars do next? The prova­ca­teur sug­gests that he will return to his native Den­mark and shoot porn films:

I want to be sur­round­ed by porn peo­ple who love me for what I am, who say, ‘Where do you want the erec­tion, where do you want the pen­e­tra­tion.’ Where it’s not com­pli­cat­ed. There would­n’t be a porn star run­ning out there say­ing ‘Lars said this or Lars said that.’

He also might want to add hir­ing a few good han­dlers to the to-do list. Mean­while, if you’re look­ing for a few clas­sic Dan­ish films, we have Vampyr and La Pas­sion de Jeanne d’Arc, both by Carl Theodor Drey­er, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

3D Street Art

in Art | May 19th, 2011

The title says it all. The art­work is pret­ty mind-blow­ing. The sound­track? Not so much. But you can’t have it all. Thanks to anony­mous user for send­ing…