tagged w/ Movie
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“Last Minutes with Oden” is a deeply engaging, extremely heart-wrenching 6-minute documentary short film directed and edited by Eliot Rausch, in association with PhosPictures and Uber Content. The film was named Best Documentary and Best Video at the 2010 Vimeo Awards, chosen from over 6500 film and video submissions.
“Last Minutes with Oden” tells a story about Jason Wood (Woody), an ex-convict who is saying a final farewell to his best friend, of the man’s last minutes with his dog before he has to have it euthanized for health reasons. The documentary is a beautiful elegy that calls attention to certain heartbreaking moments most of us experience, which is an incredibly powerful reminder of the importance of family and friendships in all our lives.
This piece presents a number of colorful photographs and two emotionally touching documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/last-minutes-with-oden-a-powerful-elegy-on-love-loss-and-grief/“Last Minutes with Oden” is a deeply engaging, extremely heart-wrenching... more
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This piece describes Robert Downey Jr's journey through his darker years, to his first return to acting with his appearance in Elton John's 2001 music video “I Want Love,” his 1992 acclaimed performance in “Chaplin” and finally Downey's hugely successful starring role in “The Iron Man” (2008). This article also documents the crucial parts that both Elton John and England's Sam Taylor-Wood played in Downey's recovery.
Robert Downey’s saga easily can lead one to think: “Isn’t this a great country, or what?”
The narrative is accompanied here by five videos (including two music videos).
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/robert-downey-jr-iron-man-thrilled-to-be-back-from-the-dark-side/This piece describes Robert Downey Jr's journey through his darker years, to his... more
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“Curfew,” by writer/director Shawn Christensen, is a tale of redemption and unconditional family love, which won the 2013 Oscar for Best Live-Action Short Film. This year’s Oscar awards program for live-action shorts was hosted by 2011 winner Luke Matheny, writer/director of “God of Love,” one of my all-time favorite short films. Ironically, Matheny’s appearance at the awards program gave a new breath of life to his own wonderful film, prompting me to once again present the humorously romantic short film here.
“God of Love” is a comical, quirky short film by the funny young director Luke Matheny, which won both a 2010 Student Academy Award and the 2011 Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. Matheny is a New York University film school graduate who also plays the lead in his film, which features several pop-jazz standards and a “Woody Allen-type” humor. The film follows the amorous misadventures of Raymond Goodfellow, a lounge-singing championship dart player who is desperately in love with a fellow band-mate, but she only has eyes for his best friend. The crooner prays daily to God for a way for his beloved to fall in love with him. Finally, one evening his prayers are answered when he’s given a box of magical darts with supernatural Cupid-like, passion-inducing powers. Raymond decides to attempt using the darts to make his own love connection, which leads to a comically cosmic questioning of whether even the gods can force love to happen.
This piece includes b&w photographs and the Oscar-winning short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/god-of-love-cupids-semi-tragic-tale-of-magical-darts-and-unrequited-love/“Curfew,” by writer/director Shawn Christensen, is a tale of redemption... more
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“Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” directed and mostly shot by Steven Sebring, is an elegantly impressionistic portrait of the punk godhead, Patti Smith, which was created over a heroic period of 11-years. The film has barely begun before Patti has offered forth a life’s worth of headline news, a strategy that allows Mr. Sebring and Ms. Smith, who is as much a collaborator as a subject, to fill the next 100 or so minutes with fragmented beauty and song.
For the most part, the film is a song of life, alternately joyous and elegiac, warm and vibrantly present, a mosaic of moods and moments from one woman’s richly lived time on earth. Against the odds and other punk rockers’ self-destructive tendencies, Ms. Smith didn’t die young or succumb to the usual rock clichés.
This piece includes photographs, a music video and the documentary film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/dream-of-life-an-elegantly-impressionistic-portrait-of-patti-smith/“Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” directed and mostly shot by Steven Sebring,... more
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“The Maker” is an acclaimed stop-motion animated short film directed by Christopher Kezelos, which has screened and wan major film awards at a number of film festivals. The film has recently been nominated for Best Animated Short Film in the 2013 Short of the Week Awards, with winners to be announced beginning February11, 2013.
“The Maker” is set in a dimly-lit fantasy world, where a strange rabbit-like creature races against time, as he attempts to make the most important and beautiful creation of his life. Freud more than once implied that what is fundamental to our sense of happiness is the ability to love and work. Similarly, director Kezelos describes “The Maker” as an exploration of “the preciousness of our moments on earth, the short time we have with loved ones and the enjoyment of ones life’s work and purpose. In their fleeting existence our characters experience joy, love, hard work, purpose, loss and loneliness.”
This piece includes colorful illustrations and the beautiful animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/the-maker-the-beguiling-preciousness-of-life-and-love/“The Maker” is an acclaimed stop-motion animated short film directed by... more
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“As I Am” is a beautiful, sensitive documentary short film by Emmy-Award winning photojournalist/filmmaker Alan Spearman. The poetic and powerful imagery of the film follows the Memphis landscape of remarkable young Chris Dean, revealing the many lives that have shaped his world. Told in Dean’s own words, the film is a long spoken word poem describing his trenchant observations about life: his thoughts and feelings regarding the places and people that make up his home. “As I Am” portrays Dean’s hopes, fears and, more than anything, his sensitivity and grace. The film has recently been nominated for Best Live Action Short Film in the 2013 Short of the Week Awards, with winners to be announced beginning February 4, 2013.
Chris Dean’s heart stopped when he was two; he died, but he came back. When Chris was five, his father was murdered, shot with more than 20 bullets in a gang shootout. In 2011, at age 18, Chris gained national attention when he introduced President Barack Obama at his high school graduation. Chris is an observer-philosopher who has always had a few things to say about life from his vantage point in South Memphis.
This piece includes color photographs, a video and the emotionally moving documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/as-i-am-we-are-meant-to-find-each-other/#“As I Am” is a beautiful, sensitive documentary short film by Emmy-Award... more
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The movie has actually been completed since August (there was a “World Premiere” at the time), but has just now been uploaded for the public to see, following the presumed go-ahead from Pixar. It’s the culmination of a long process, with Pauley having turned two rooms in his parents’ house into makeshift sets resembling Andy and Sid’s rooms, and the pair of directors literally making some models, like Sid’s mutant toys, from scratch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUThWW8gM-zRxus4XqsEzKnw&feature=player_embedded&v=5G0j_Huv2FgThe movie has actually been completed since August (there was a “World... more
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The nominations for the 2013 Academy Awards have been announced, and it was a huge day for the independent film “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which received four Oscar Nominations: Best Director (for Benh Zeitlin), Best Actress (Quvenzhane Wallis, at just nine years old), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is the award-winning first feature film directed by Benh Zeitlin and co-written co-written with playwright Lucy Alibar, whose play “Juicy and Delicious” provides its foundation. Zeitlin created the movie in collaboration with Court 13, the filmmakers’ collective that moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Previously, the film won the Caméra d’Or award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered, the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Deauville American Film Festival, the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival’s Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and the 2012 Seattle International Film Festival’s Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director.
Part dystopia and part revolutionary utopia, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is a visionary film that celebrates resistance, featuring people living in poverty who come together in interracial, inter-generational harmony. After a flood washes away most of “The Bathtub,” a poor and precarious patch of land south of New Orleans, Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis, five years-old at the time of filming) and her father account for their remaining animals and neighbors, and attempt to survive, rebuild, and repair their world. They band together to create a post-Katrina communal life and they fight the system to avoid getting thrown into the sterile, controlled environment of a state-funded shelter.
This piece includes color photographs, a short film, two documentary shorts and a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/beasts-of-the-southern-wild-receives-four-2013-oscar-nominations/The nominations for the 2013 Academy Awards have been announced, and it was a huge day... more
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“The Night Before Christmas” was originally a 1968 Animated Christmas Television Special, with background music provided by the Norman Luboff Choir. It was shown regularly for about 10 years as a holiday special, but has since disappeared from television. The classic holiday animated short film tells the heartwarming true story of how Clement C. Moore came to write the Christmas poem beloved by generations of children, and includes a joyous retelling of the charming “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
In the film, Clement Moore goes on a short trip just before Christmas to give a series of lectures at a university, and he promises to get his daughter Charity a storybook about Santa Claus for Christmas while he is away. Charity develops pneumonia while he’s gone, and the doctor says she might not survive. When Clement arrives back home, he’s distraught to see his beloved daughter near death. Making things even worse, he hadn’t found any books about Santa Claus when he went shopping, and even through her fever she’s asking for one. Feeling that he had broken his promise, he decides to write a story of his own and read it to her; it is the story which became “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
This piece includes colorful illustrations and the classic animated short film, “The Night Before Christmas.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/it-was-the-night-before-christmas-a-visit-from-st-nicholas/“The Night Before Christmas” was originally a 1968 Animated Christmas... more
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“Tufty” is an amazing, award-winning short film written and directed by brothers Jason Butler and Brendan Butler, which was produced for Warrior Films through the Filmbase/RTÉ Short Film Award Scheme in 2007. With the holiday season upon us, “Tufty” provides a heart-wrenching glimpse into the actual origins of teddy bears.
While we’d all like to think our toys come to life when we’re not around, just as they did in “Toy Story,” “Tufty” takes an opposite and much more disturbing approach: behind the innocent face of a child’s teddy bear lies a dark and bloody secret. At first glance, Tufty is a cute little bear, a transitional object that is an ideal gift for a young child. But if you return the little teddy bear to its natural habitat, you’ll discover that under his velvet fabric beats a sensitive heart that can flourish under more harmonious conditions.
This piece includes a number of color photographs and the acclaimed short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/tufty-an-apocalypto-with-teddy-bears/“Tufty” is an amazing, award-winning short film written and directed by... more
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“Epizootics!” is the new ten-minute short film/music video recently premiered by avant-garde musical mastermind Scott Walker, a track from his forthcoming album “Bish Bosch.” Walker has accomplished the near impossible, showcasing an album that’s more ambitious, experimental and surreal than anything he’s created before. This first taste from his upcoming album is filled with dramatic artistry and shows promise that “Bish Bosch” will be considered one of the most thought-provoking albums released in years.
For those not familiar with Scott Walker’s work, Walker has been described as one of the greatest living avant-garde artists, with hardly any other American musician having had greater influence upon rock music, while at the same time remaining almost completely unknown to his countrymen. Walker grew up in Texas, New York City and Southern California, but he became a celebrity in England during the mid-1960s as part of the Walker Brothers band. The Walker Brothers was a vocal trio, which wed soaring vocal harmonies, lush soundtrack arrangements and a patently somber worldview into a uniquely theatrical package.
Scott Walker’s voice has been described as perhaps the most beautiful male non-soul voice of that era, and an increasingly free-thinking “Beat” attitude was at the core of the group’s appeal. Although the Walker Brothers became huge in Europe, Scott Walker’s eccentricity cast a dark cloud over the band’s public image. Scott began to write increasingly complicated interlaced music, and its sense of bleakness was intensified by his mix of translated Jacques Brel tunes with distinctly arty and pained original numbers. By 1969, his works were failing to appear on music charts at all.
An increasingly elusive Scott Walker slowly withdrew from public view. His voice began to lose some of its former pop-music sense of majesty, a reflection of his new interest in the experimental synth-driven avant-garde, which he helped revolutionize to major critical success, but only minor public attention. Walker seemed to vanish, while artists as diverse as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Julian Cope, Bryan Ferry, Ultravox and Marc Almond became fiercely ardent supporters of his unique body of work, citing him as a primary influence on their careers. Gale Harold (the actor in “Queer as Folk”) served as an Associate Producer, along with David Bowie as Executive Producer, of the acclaimed 2006 documentary about the influential artistic vision of Walker’s experimental musical work, “Scott Walker: 30th Century Man.”
This piece includes a number of photographs, the short film/music video and the documentary, “Scott Walker: 30th Century Man.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/musical-poetry-of-the-dark-unconscious-scott-walkers-epizootics/“Epizootics!” is the new ten-minute short film/music video recently... more
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“Freedom from Want” or “The Thanksgiving Picture” is one of Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” paintings, inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address, known as “Four Freedoms.” “Freedom from Want “was published in the March 6, 1943, issue of “The Saturday Evening Post” and later was included as the cover image of the 1946 book “Norman Rockwell, Illustrator,” written when Rockwell was at the height of his fame as America’s most popular illustrator.
This piece includes a number of color photographs, a music video and a documentary short.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/thanksgiving-norman-rockwells-freedom-from-want/“Freedom from Want” or “The Thanksgiving Picture” is one of... more
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ALL NEW!! If you watch my video interview with Britany Nola -- Playboy's Miss November 2012 -- I think you'll agree with me that's she is beautiful, intelligent and adorable. The conversation was conducted while she sat on her bed in Manhattan; relaxed, chatty, funny. And hey, Tampa Bay: she shot her first film role as the star of Jonathan Leder's "American Ecstasy" in Tampa earlier this year! Hope you'll give this one a look-see and share with friends! (PS--It's completely PG. Totally clean.) http://www.mrmedia.com/2012/11/playboy-youll-fall-in-love-with-miss-november-britany-nola-2012-video-interview/#.UKWU0IXhtiOALL NEW!! If you watch my video interview with Britany Nola -- Playboy's Miss... more
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“Little Boat” is a bittersweet, sometimes heartbreaking minimalist five-minute animated short film by CalArts student Nelson Boles. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in September 2005, Boles enrolled in the Teen Program at The Animation Academy in Burbank. He was a 16 year-old young man from New Orleans, a refugee from the storm. Later, when things got back to semi-normal in New Orleans, he returned home.
Boles’s “Little Boat” is an inspiring story of adventure and perseverance, starring a surprisingly expressive little dinghy. The short film went viral a while back, charming thousands of viewers and winning a number of festival prizes, but it feels particularly relevant while people all up and down the East Coast braced themselves for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy.
“Little Boat” imbues life into an obstinately mundane object, as the little red the dinghy steadfastly pushes forward through storms, floods and wars. One shot, at the 2:10 mark in the film, shows the little boat resolutely thrusting forward upon the stormy seas, only to have its mast shattered in half; it’s as heartbreaking a moment as anything that could happen to a more conventional animated character with eyes, hands and legs.
This piece includes pictures and the memorable animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/weary-of-hurricane-sandy-watch-this-cute-tiny-boat-weather-the-storms/“Little Boat” is a bittersweet, sometimes heartbreaking minimalist... more
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“The Green Ruby Pumpkin” is a wonderfully terrifying short film created by visual F/X effects artists Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma. This inspired short film perfectly captures the enchantment of the frightening Halloween holiday season.
This piece includes color photographs and the magical short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/a-magical-halloween-the-green-ruby-pumpkin/“The Green Ruby Pumpkin” is a wonderfully terrifying short film created by... more
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Gabby Birkman tries to give a review of Joaquin Phoenix's performance in The Master. She really tries!Gabby Birkman tries to give a review of Joaquin Phoenix's performance in The... more
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“As I Am” is a beautiful, sensitive documentary short film by Emmy-Award winning photojournalist/filmmaker Alan Spearman. The poetic and powerful imagery of the film follows the Memphis landscape of remarkable young Chris Dean, revealing the many lives that have shaped his world. Told in Dean’s own words, the film is a long spoken word poem describing his trenchant observations about life: his thoughts and feelings regarding the places and people that make up his home. “As I Am” portrays Dean’s hopes, fears and, more than anything, his sensitivity and grace.
Chris Dean’s heart stopped when he was two; he died but he came back. When Chris was five, his father was murdered, shot with more than 20 bullets in a gang shootout. In 2011, at age 18, Chris gained national attention when he introduced President Barack Obama at his high school graduation. Chris is an observer-philosopher who has always had a few things to say about life from his vantage point in South Memphis.
This piece includes color photographs, a video and the documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/imagine-your-dreams-as-i-am/“As I Am” is a beautiful, sensitive documentary short film by Emmy-Award... more
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When she was only 11 years old, Malala Yousafzai stood up to the Taliban by giving voice to her dreams. As turbaned Taliban fighters swept through her town in northwestern Pakistan in 2009, the tiny schoolgirl spoke out about her passion for education. She wanted to become a doctor, she said, and became a symbol of defiance against Taliban subjugation.
On Tuesday, masked Taliban gunmen answered Ms. Yousafzai’s courage with bullets, singling out the 14-year-old on a bus filled with terrified schoolchildren and shooting her in the head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack. All three survived, but on Wednesday a neurologist said Ms. Yousafzai was in critical condition at a hospital in Peshawar, though doctors had been able to remove a bullet. Arrangements have been made to send Ms. Yousafzai abroad for treatment, but she could not be moved for now. The two other wounded girls were reported to be in stable condition.
A Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, confirmed by phone Tuesday that Ms. Yousafzai had been the target, calling her crusade for education rights an “obscenity.” Mr. Ehsan added that if she survived, the militants would certainly try to kill her again. “Let this be a lesson.” That Ms. Yousafzai’s voice could be deemed a threat to the Taliban, that they could see the young schoolgirl’s death as desirable and justifiable, is being seen as evidence of both the militants’ brutality and her courage.
Ms. Yousafzai first came to public attention in 2009, when the Pakistani Taliban swept through Swat, a picturesque valley once famed for its music, tolerance and honeymoon destinations. Her father ran one of the last schools to defy Taliban orders to end female education. As an 11-year-old, Malala wrote an anonymous blog documenting her experiences for the BBC. Later, she was the focus of documentaries by “The New York Times” and other media outlets. “I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban,” she wrote in one blog post titled “I Am Afraid.”
A government reward of more than $100,000 has been announced by the provincial information minister for information leading to the arrest of Malala’s attackers. “Whoever has done it is not a human and does not have a human soul,” he said. Across the rest of the country, Pakistanis reacted with outrage to the attack on Malala, whose eloquent and determined advocacy of education for girls had made her a powerful symbol of resistance to Taliban ideology.
This piece includes color photographs, a video and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/taliban-shoots-pakistani-schoolgirl-advocate-of-education-for-girls/When she was only 11 years old, Malala Yousafzai stood up to the Taliban by giving... more
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