1927 ‘Metropolis’ with 25 Minutes of Lost Footage

by Editor

The TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles is hosting the North American premiere of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction classic, Metropolis, with 25 minutes of newly discovered footage.

Metropolis is the story of a mechanized future city with rulers who live atop high towers and masses of slave workers that operate the giant machines below.  A rebellion is incited when a robot version of a young woman who works to help the poor is set out to inflame the oppressed workers.  The setting of the film is just astounding and has not been matched for beauty by any film since.  This is one of the great classics of world cinema and finding 25 minutes of lost footage is incredible.  Several years ago, I went to the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to see a newly restored version that had still photos inserted where footage was missing.  I suspect that many of those missing scenes are now included!

The film was discovered in a museum storage room in Argentina.  So not only did Argentina hide escaped Nazis, but it has also been hiding a German science fiction treasure… unwittingly of course.  And if you look at Metropolis carefully, you can see the Nazis coming.  The film is permeated with it.  If you don’t believe me, consider that the screenwriter, Thea von Harbou did in fact become a Nazi.  Another Fritz Lang classic, Spies, is so riddled with antisemitism that it is almost impossible to watch.  So there it is.  Great classic yes, but also profoundly threatening.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times article about the restoration.

Here’s a link to the prior restoration: Metropolis (Restored Authorized Edition)

Film: Rockbois Documentary

by Editor

Ryan Dooley, street artist, made this little documentary about his group of painter friends working in Italy. They are painters who paint on walls. They have nothing to do with what we know as ‘taggers,’ who are simply imbeciles who like to write their names on things. Painters are people who make art. This group seems to find walls in Italy that need some paint applied. It’s beautiful.

Newsreel Film From 1947: Making Books

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“This man is an author. He writes stories. He has just finished writing a story. He thinks many people will like to read it.” So begins this 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica film about how books are printed and bound. Almost none of what you see in the film, with the possible exception of the book trimming blade, exists anymore. It’s fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Fascinating because we get to see the mysterious process of making a book. Horrifying because we see how machines dictate the movements of human beings in an assembly line environment.  It’s so dreadful that I may never want to read an old book again.  Perhaps e-books are some kind of salvation after all.

Are Children Philosophers?

by Editor

The Philosophers’ Magazine has an interesting article about teaching philosophy to children.  There is research that suggests teaching philosophy extends benefits across the primary school curriculum.

Philosophical intelligence is the capacity of the mind to solve the recurrent problems of human existence. Some of those problems stem from the activity of the mind contemplating its own existence, others stem from the challenges humans face living in the world. Philosophical intelligence is our ability to organise our ideas and concepts into mental maps and models of the world. It involves processing information and trying to find meaning at a conceptual level, for example, by asking questions such as What is love? What is truth? What is beauty? But can children engage in this kind of questioning?

I think it’s a natural fit for kids to think philosophically.  They love asking big important questions that seemingly have no answer.  It’s the best of all games to play with a kid.  Big questions and even bigger answers!

Read the article: Can Children Philosophize: The Case For

Avatar’s James Cameron Interviewed by L.A. Times Blog

by Editor


The Los Angeles Times Blog has an interview with James Cameron, the director of Avatar.

“We’re working on finishing an additional six minutes of the film — which includes a lot of Weta work — for a theatrical re-release in August. We were sold out of our Imax performances right up to the moment until they were contractually obligated to switch to “Alice in Wonderland,” so we know we left money on the table there. And the 3-D really helped “Avatar” right up until the moment that it hurt it. And it hurt it at the moment “Alice” and then “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Clash of the Titans” came in and sucked up all the 3-D screens. We went from declining 8% a week to declining 50%. Clearly, it wasn’t market forces directly; it was the availability of theaters. So we’re going to wait until there’s a time to come back in, inject the new footage into the mix and see if we can interest people in the “Avatar” experience in theaters.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am so sick of hearing people talk about this silly 3-D trend.  It’s just a clever scam to raise ticket prices.  I don’t care what Cameron says.  Fortunately, however, the new DVD appears to be in regular 2-D.

James Cameron: The ‘Avatar’ sequel will dive into the oceans of Pandora | Hero Complex | Los Angeles Times

Science Fiction Animation: Fard

by Editor | 1 Comment

Fard is a 2009 French animated short by Luis Briceno and David Alapont. The story is quite visual, but my limited French tells me that the main character is part of a colorless corporate world and he’s just done a good presentation at work. However, he gets a package that contains something which allows him for a brief time to see what really lies underneath the surface of things.

Via SF Signal

Poetry: Azeem

by Editor

It’s National Poetry Month and here is my favorite poet of the month.   Azeem.  We see a lot of writing about cute poets with education credentials and then someone like this brilliant Azeem fellow comes along and says a few things into a camera and reminds everybody that poets can shoot word bullets. I watch this video and my heart starts pumping and I get fidgety and I want to leave my chair and get to know words as well as this guy knows them.  I noticed Azeem because he is one of the few subscribers to my YouTube film channel and so I checked him out.  I’m extremely impressed.  You want people to be interested in poetry?  Show them this guy and they’ll be interested in about 5 seconds flat.  I think what makes most poets uninteresting to the American reading public is that they all secretly have an image of a bookshelf in mind.  Bookshelves are fine if you are browsing for a book, but they are death for anyone who’s making something.  Azeem is also working with some hugely talented filmmakers who make fantastic imagery and do it with ease.  If he comes to Los Angeles, I want to know about it and go see him play.

Set a Blaze:

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Film: Yellow Plastic Raygun

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Well I’m just very pleased about this. The Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles has given my film, Yellow Plastic Raygun, the award for Best Experimental Film. I was having quite a nice week attending various parties and screenings at the festival. Its use of multiple locations in the heart of downtown Los Angeles gives one a real sense of taking part in the life of the city and being involved with something that’s helping to foster the exploding art and film scene in downtown. Most of the short films were screened in the new Civic Center Theater at the intersection of First and Main Streets, in the shadow of the famous City Hall tower that has appeared in so many crime shows and film noir classics. I attended the screening of my own film this past Saturday evening and was amazed at seeing it large since I had put so much work into it on small monitors. What’s great about the Downtown Film Festival is that it shows a wide range of filmmaking styles, crew sizes and budgets. They show films made with lots of production resources right alongside films made by individual artists working with inexpensive HD cameras and even cell phone cameras. I am very proud to have won this and I look forward to more great festivals in downtown Los Angeles from the people who put this together.
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Alice In Wonderland For iPad

by Editor

I’ve got lots of grumps against Apple’s iPad, like the lack of support for Flash, one of the greatest web technologies in existence. But this Alice in Wonderland eBook looks fantastic. I’d love to make all the pictures move around and I think kids will too. This must be right because when I was a kid I fervently wished for every illustration to wake up and start moving.

All the Paintings in the Museum of Modern Art

by Editor | 1 Comment

Someone at YouTube named Chrspck went into the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on April 10 and shot a photograph of every painting.  Museums and galleries have no business forbidding photography as long as it doesn’t use a flash or get in the way of visitors.  I love seeing all the paintings go by.  It makes me want to go to the museum.

William Blake: Songs of Innocence

by Editor | 2 Comments

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’
So I piped with merry cheer.
‘Piper, pipe that song again.’
So I piped: he wept to hear.

‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

‘Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.’
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience was written and illustrated by English poet, painter and printmaker, William Blake in 1794.  This poem is the introduction to the book.  Seems pretty simple when you read it.  But if you stare at it long enough, it gets really interesting.

Is Stealing eBooks Ethical?

by Editor | 2 Comments

Is it ethical to steal an eBook if you’ve purchased the hardback version?  Sure.  Stealing the hardbacks themselves is much more fun though.  Is it ethical for a publisher to charge what they charge for hardbacks?  No way at all.  Sorry publishers, your pricing sucks and you know it.  So, certainly it’s ethical to steal an eBook if I’ve been robbed by the hardback price already.

Now of course all the minimum wage proof readers in New York City will pounce on me and call me terrible names because they dread being turned into temp workers.

But stealing books is a real talent.  You need a big army jacket that has lots of giant pockets inside and out.  It’s best to steal them from large grocery and discount stores.  eBooks are too easy to steal and you never really know what’s waiting for you on the other end of a download link anyway.  The photo is of me demonstrating my own book-stealing technique.  I have amassed quite the respectable library this way.  But I never lend books out because they seldom make their way back home.

Here is an effort by a New York Times writer to answer the question of whether stealing ebooks is ethical or not if you’ve already bought the hardback.

But here’s a better piece at The Millions about an eBook pirate who’s pretty clear about what he likes.

Also, if you want to see how stealing books actually improves the world and culture, read The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño.