More New Dylan

in Music | April 8th, 2009

Women in Film

in Film | April 8th, 2009

Eggman913 on YouTube has a pret­ty neat schtick. He takes artis­tic images, then morphs them togeth­er in pret­ty cre­ative ways.  The piece above plays with images of famous actress­es from dif­fer­ent moments in Amer­i­can film his­to­ry. Eggman913 has also cre­at­ed a mon­tage called Women in Art, which we’ve fea­tured here before. (It has only 9.2 mil­lion views on YouTube.) Then there are pieces that have fun with the art of Picas­so and Mon­et, plus a com­pan­ion clip called Men in Film. The actress­es shown in the video above include:  

Mary Pick­ford, Lil­lian Gish, Glo­ria Swan­son, Mar­lene Diet­rich, Nor­ma Shear­er, Ruth Chat­ter­ton, Jean Har­low, Katharine Hep­burn, Car­ole Lom­bard, Bette Davis, Gre­ta Gar­bo, Bar­bara Stan­wyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Gar­son, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hay­worth, Gene Tier­ney, Olivia de Hav­il­land, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Craw­ford, Gin­ger Rogers, Loret­ta Young, Deb­o­rah Kerr, Judy Gar­land, Anne Bax­ter, Lau­ren Bacall, Susan Hay­ward, Ava Gard­ner, Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, Grace Kel­ly, Lana Turn­er, Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hep­burn, Dorothy Dan­dridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natal­ie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bar­dot, Sophia Loren, Ann Mar­gret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tues­day Weld, Jane Fon­da, Julie Christie, Faye Dun­away, Cather­ine Deneuve, Jacque­line Bis­set, Can­dice Bergen, Isabel­la Rosselli­ni, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Saran­don, Jes­si­ca Lange, Michelle Pfeif­fer, Sigour­ney Weaver, Kath­leen Turn­er, Hol­ly Hunter, Jodie Fos­ter, Angela Bas­sett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, San­dra Bul­lock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kid­man, Cather­ine Zeta-Jones, Angeli­na Jolie, Char­l­ize Theron, Reese With­er­spoon, Halle Berry.

The Original Spider-Man TV Series Now Online

in Television | April 5th, 2009

A light (and, for me, nos­tal­gic) way to ease into the week­end…

Over at Marvel.com, they’re stream­ing episodes from the orig­i­nal Spi­der-Man TV series that hit the air­waves back in 1967. A new episode will be post­ed every Thurs­day. Above, you’ll find Episode 1, and see where it all began.

What Did Shakespeare Really Look Like?

in History, Literature | April 5th, 2009

“Over the cen­turies a num­ber of images have been put for­ward as life por­traits of our great­est writer, but at present none of them is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed as such. Up until now… With the emer­gence of the Cobbe por­trait, we are pre­sent­ed with a con­tem­po­rary por­trait that has strong claims to rep­re­sent the drama­tist as he appeared to his con­tem­po­raries.”

These lines from shakespearefound.org.uk (asso­ci­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick) set the stage for a 20 minute video/film that fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare, the tow­er­ing author we still know lit­tle about today. You can watch the video above, or find it on iTune­sU, where it’s among the most down­loaded videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

Shake­speare and the Uses of Polit­i­cal Pow­er

Classic Oscar Moments

in Film | April 5th, 2009

The Gates of Hell

in Art | April 1st, 2009

Let me bring this to your atten­tion. Erwan Bom­stein-Erb, the founder and direc­tor of Canal Edu­catif in Paris, has released a doc­u­men­tary (in Eng­lish) about The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal project that Auguste Rodin worked on, not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­sis­tent­ly, for 37 years. On its own, this video is worth your time. But you should also know that this is one of ten films about major art­works that Bom­stein-Erb plans to pro­duce in HD. Canal Edu­catif is all about using the inter­net to pro­vide glob­al access to “cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.” A goal that we can whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port. This kind of phil­an­thropic ven­ture is hard to fund, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times. So Bom­stein-Erb is look­ing for spon­sors and part­ners to sup­port his mis­sion. If you would like to get in touch, you can drop him a line through Canal Edu­cat­if’s web site. Last­ly, you should check out the Canal Edu­catif chan­nel on YouTube. Good luck Erwan.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

The Gates of Hell

in Art | March 31st, 2009

Mike Wallace Interviews Ayn Rand (1959)

in Literature, Philosophy, Television | March 31st, 2009

I’m no fan of Ayn Rand, but I found this footage intrigu­ing. Back before 60 Min­utes, Mike Wal­lace had his own TV inter­view show, The Mike Wal­lace Inter­view, which aired from 1957 to 1960. And what you get is Mike Wal­lace ask­ing prob­ing ques­tions to celebri­ties of the day (and ped­dling cig­a­rettes). An archive of the tele­vi­sion series is host­ed by The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, and fea­tures talks with Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roo­sevelt, Sal­vador Dali and many oth­ers. In the mean­time, I leave you with Ayn Rand. You can get Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Rewind the Video­tape: Mike Wal­lace Inter­views 1950s Celebri­ties

John Hope Franklin on Obama

in History | March 29th, 2009

Art Inspired Poetry

in Art, Poetry | March 29th, 2009