Screw CGI, no. 10: Aurora 2012

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

"Last week I was again in Norway for shooting northern lights. This time I was very lucky, there was a lot of activity on the sky especially on the 24 January. The scenes are from Ravnastua, Skoganvarre and Lakselv. The first two days I had a lot of trouble with frozen Cameras. It was -25°C (-13°F) and after 1-2 hours of shooting the lens was frozen."

Related posts:

Screw CGI, no. 9: "My god, it's full of stars!" (plus a gold-coated ant holding a blue widget)

Screw CGI, no. 8: Ice finger of death

Screw CGI, no. 7: Stunning Space Station time-lapse

Screw CGI, no. 9: "My god, it's full of stars!" (plus a gold-coated ant holding a blue widget)

This time it's a two-fer:

A spectacular time-lapse from the Chilean "Astronomer's Paradise":

An Astronomer's Paradise from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo.

Also, because you know you want to see a gold-coated ant holding a blue widget....

Related posts:

Screw CGI, no. 8: Ice finger of death

Screw CGI, no. 7: Stunning Space Station time-lapse

Screw CGI, no. 6: Chilean volcano ash cloud lightning

Max Landis’ "The Death and Return of Superman"

We all know there's a new Superman movie in the works. The cast, at least, has me comfortably jazzed about its prospects. I've been a casual fan of the big blue dude since I was a kid. Over the decades I've picked up the comics so infrequently that I only rarely could say I was up to date on what was happening in the mythos. And yet, largely because of my fondness for the first Christopher Reeve film (now a relic of another age) and my affection for Superman as a character that seems to perpetually regenerate from some deep part of our collective mammalian brain, I still get a fanboy thrill at the notion of the whole Superman thing being reinterpreted for and reintegrated into yet another generation.

But that's one hard row to hoe, and getting harder. Keeping Superman not only relevant but interesting has never been a bigger challenge. (My own fiction spin on that relevance question was published ten years ago.) The very subgenre Superman triggered — superhero adventure — has over 74 years grown so vast and deep and (in its rare best examples) sophisticated that it has outgrown Superman, antiquated him. Keeping him on top of that has proven to be a serious creative challenge.

On film, Bryan Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 is an obvious case in point. While I like the movie and will defend it to its detractors, I concede that some big choices behind it (#1 being its awkward linkage to the Chris Reeve series) resulted in a final product that aimed for worthy ends and was artfully crafted, but landed broken and underpowered. It's to the DC film "canon" what Ang Lee's Hulk is for Marvel: noble aspirations ground between the gears of big-money movie-making.

In the comics, the obvious case is The Death of Superman, DC Comics' 1992 storyline developed through a multi-issue story arc under the title The Death and Return of Superman. Years after missing its initial print run, I tried reading the collected omnibus edition. Instead of being thrilled by the ol' gosh-wow, I was bored bored bored. Couldn't finish it. "Doomsday," the alien super-monstrosity that the DC team created to best Superman once and for all (or not) — brain-jellingly boring. I dropped the book into a donation pile and never thought of it again.

Until this past week, when Max Landis — son of John and screenwriter of Chronicle — released his "educational parody" titled The Death and Return of Superman. He recounts what happened in 1992 when DC  decided to kill, then resurrect, Superman. Landis breaks it down for us hilariously, aided by a justice league of Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Ron Howard, Chris Hardwick, Simon Pegg, and more.

Homer Gump

 

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

"Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor."

That Buster Keaton influence sure is clear, from the look and disposition of the central character to the windstorm that combines Steamboat Bill, Jr. with L. Frank Baum.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is utterly charming, and also one of the five animated short films now up for an Oscar.


The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Hello

Like that last one? Here's another by the same maker. Just thinking about poring through the clips to put this together exhausts me:


Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

Lights! Camera! Ooh aah!

ooh aah from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

Star Wars Uncut: The Director's Cut — May the video editing software suite be with you

Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.


In 2009, Casey Pugh asked thousands of internet users to remake Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from that film however they wanted. Within just a few months, Star Wars Uncut grew into a wild success. In 2010 its creators won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media.

This crowd-sourced project is finally online for your streaming pleasure (or kneejerk disgruntlement). The "Director's Cut" is a feature-length film that contains hand-picked scenes from the entire collection.

This cut is over two hours long, far more than I'm able to stick with it in one go. However, take 15 minutes to jump-click through various scenes. Star Wars itself of course needs no introduction or synopsis, though this time we get it performed by an amateur cast of hundreds, stitched together with Gorilla Glue and paper clips, shot in environments real and animated, presented and reconceived with a low-tech, zero-budget aesthetic. Many of the sequences are filmed in crudely comical fashion, daisy-chaining, for instance, live action college pals wearing paper hats, stop-motion animation using colored paper or Lego Star Wars figurines, Toy Story action figures, kitchen items, cartoon work recalling various nostalgia touchstones, parodies of pop culture subgenres such as anime and grindhouse, the family dog, and so on.

Love it or hate it (or some of both at various points), it's possibly the funniest, most charmingly obsessive-compulsive tribute vid ever slapped online.

TCM Remembers

Esteemed correspondent Glenn Erickson, at his DVD Savant site, points us to the 2011 edition of TCM Remembers, Turner Classics' salute to movie professionals who passed away during the year. Says Glenn, "It's a beauty that concentrates on the many 'lesser' but personally memorable stars and personalities. Plenty of heart-tugs here, in an emotional and respectful presentation."

The music is "Before You Go" by OK Sweetheart.

The rise of the Empire, the fall of Vader, and the victory of the Rebellion, as told by Charlie Chaplin

I love it when someone reminds us that movies exist not just as discrete, isolated things, but as elements of a single big continuum stretching back more than a century. Here we have footage from The Return of the Jedi and The Clone Wars, music from Inception, and audio from the big moment of Chaplin's 1940 The Great Dictator (I write about that one here).

At first I was skeptical about this, but as it went along I became surprisingly moved by it. It struck me that Chaplin's speech could also be used as the cri de coeur for a mashup of conscientiously chosen OWS footage. I posted such a remix, about the Arab Spring, last March.



(Via Big Shiny Robot)

Stephen Colbert interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey hosted a fascinating, one-hour chat between Neil DeGrasse Tyson — Hayden Planetarium director, TV science host, and all-round good guy — with Stephen Colbert in a rare, out-of-character appearance.

"I'm looking at the gun ... Here's the great moment of the sweat running down ... His eyes are popping ..."

Arnold Schwarzenegger illuminates the nuances of Total Recall in a DVD commentary that synopsizes the obvious:



Gabe at Videogum snarks:

How is Arnold Schwarzenegger not recording DVD commentary for all of the movies? Now that we know what a DVD commentary track can actually BE, who on Earth wants to hear what Wes Anderson has to say?

I am sympatico with Brent Rose when he adds:

I've gotta say, this is something I really miss about DVDs. I'd say about 90% of the movies I watch at home these days are streamed. Streaming movies are fantastically convenient, but we lose something that was one of the first big advantages DVDs had over VHS tapes: extras. I love extras. In a streaming-only world, the commentary you hear in the video above would never exist, and that, my friends, would be a tragedy.

Via Andrew Sullivan, Reddit, and The Daily What

Screw CGI, no. 7: Stunning Space Station time-lapse

The Earth at night, as seen by astronauts on board the International Space Station. The video is amazing, eerie, humbling, and jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Watch it full-screen.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

More info here.

Tim Burton montage

I tend to run hot-and-cold when it comes to Tim Burton, though I confess to a certain affinity for his sense of fantastical "vision," or whatever that je ne sais something quoi is he displays when he's at the top of his game.

This supercut by 17-year-old (!) Kees van Dijkhuisen — who has put together nine other supercuts for filmmakers such as Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Ridley Scott, and Pixar — is a two-minute celebration of Burton as one of Hollywood's more distinctively expressive filmmakers, one whose personal stamp is unmistakable. I would have liked more Ed Wood and a bit less of the emo rush, though it's a fine piece of work from young Kees.


[the films of] Tim Burton from Kees van Dijkhuizen jr. on Vimeo.

Also, recently on these pages: Tim Burton's "Vincent"

Movie Line Rhymes

There's been a spate of themed movie clip supercuts lately —

25 Greatest Unscripted Scenes in Films

Before They Were Famous: 25 Actors in 3 Minutes

50 Trippiest Drug Hallucinations in Films 

100 Most Awesome Punches in Films 

The Evolution of Movie Dance (100 Greatest Dance Scenes 1921 - 2010)

— most of them courtesy of the YouTuber mewlists.

However, this one by ScreenWerks on Vimeo is my fave so far:


'Movie Line Rhymes' by Jordan Laws from ScreenWerks on Vimeo.

His Girl Friday - Between The Lines Edit

Says hilowbrow:

In this piece of brilliant editing by Valentin Spirik, His Girl Friday, the Cary Grant vehicle, clocks in at only 8 minutes — exactly what remains when all the dialogue goes missing. It’s worth noting that even in a genre (screwball comedy) defined by its witty repartee, the core remains. How much of language is movement? How much of communication is, literally, embodied?

Via Pullquote

"Every day we are alive there are millions of untold stories...."

One Day on Earth - Motion Picture Trailer from One Day On Earth on Vimeo.

This trailer is the first glimpse of One Day on Earth, an ambitious motion picture shot by thousands of filmmakers in every country in the world on a single day: October 10, 2010. The trailer alone includes footage from 90 individuals and organizations. The producer/director Kyle Ruddick is currently editing down 3,000 hours of film and is asking for help via Kickstarter to complete the project. I don't know about you but it gave me chills.

At Vimeo:

ONE DAY ON EARTH creates a picture of humanity by recording a 24-hour period throughout every country in the world. We explore a greater diversity of perspectives than ever seen before on screen. We follow characters and events that evolve throughout the day, interspersed with expansive global montages that explore the progression of life from birth, to death, to birth again. In the end, despite unprecedented challenges and tragedies throughout the world, we are reminded that every day we are alive there is hope and a choice to see a better future together.

Founded in 2008, ONE DAY ON EARTH set out to explore our planet’s identity and challenges in an attempt to answer the question: Who are we?

via Christopher Jobson

Eastwood & Aliens

The good, the bad, and the extraterrestrial. Via College Humor.

Screw CGI, no. 4: NASA’s Cassini Mission set to Nine Inch Nails

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

Via Gizmodo. The Atlantic interviewed Abbas about the video here.

Because you know you want more, click through to Saturn Fly-Through Progression Using Only Cassini Photographs. It will realign your day in all good ways.

Screw CGI, no. 3

Via Boing Boing