lifeasdaddy

The funeral of the Red Baron

A bigger mystery than The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was the question of who was responsible for the downing of the Red Baron's plane on 21 April, 1918.

In a venture into new forms of disseminating history, the Australian War Memorial has put up rare footage of the funeral of Baron Manfred von Richthofen on You Tube here, and even embedded the youtube video into their website here.

The AWM notes, "Within a day of being recovered from its crash site, most of Richthofen’s plane had been souvenired, leaving little more than a frame "  Interestingly there is footage of the crashed plane at the start of the video, and various men can be seen happily examining it and probably souveniring.

Von Richthofen was accorded full military honours, and you will see in the film.

I dips me lid to Matthew Harding

Matt went around the world and danced with lots of people in lots of places.  This video is a lot more interesting than you think.

"He realized his bad dancing wasn't actually all that interesting, and that other people were much better at being bad at it. He showed them his inbox, which, as a result of his semi-famousness, was overflowing with emails from all over the planet. He told them he wanted to travel around the world one more time and invite the people who'd written him to come out and dance too."

.

I felt good after I watched it.  You will too.

http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

If your video is jerky, turn off the HD (button on the screen).

Wow. Just wow.

It's Friday afternoon.  Some of you may have had a hard week at work.  This will put a bit of a spring in your step:

So, what did Bill Murray whisper into Scarlett Johanson's ear during the final scene from Lost In Translation?

Lost In Translation is one of my favourite movies of all time, and certainly my no. 1 of the last decade.

Some dude has done some work to clean out the background noise to detect the previously unknown snippet which the Bill Murray character whispered in Scarlett Johansson's ear during the final scene of the flic. Do not click if it's going to spoil the ending for you. Here it is on Youtube.  Look and listen.

A mystery solved.

[ pointer from Kottke ]

You may also like to know that the result from the audio analysis is NOT the line in Sofia Coppola's shooting draft script for the movie.

And here's a verbatim transcript of the movie dialogue.  Of course the inaudible line is not included.

lifeasdaddy - Eli Wallach on acting.

"How do you do a play every evening?" One thing changes every evening: It's the audience, and I'm working my magic. I'm always learning from it.

Read the brief interview here.

Eli Wallach is the oldest old-time Hollywood actor still working as an actor.

I recently watched The Holiday (2006) wherein Wallach plays Arthur, a scriptwriter.  Wallach turns in a fine performance, mainly underacting, although it was certainly no stretch for his acting muscles.

Jude Law appeared too as Graham.  First time I'd seen him in a movie, and I can see what the fuss is about.  He's a really good actor.  A much more natural presence than co stars Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black.

I don't know how the movie ended since my flight finished before the movie did.  I'll have to rent it.

lifeasdaddy - What happens when a bunch of famous dead people get together?

They get CMG Worldwide to be their agent. 

And a few of the living famous and talented too.

lifeasdaddy - U.S. historical films on Google Video

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administraion has put up a small portion of its' historical film holdings on Google Video.

Here's the National Archives catalog notes of the 101 videos.

Here's the Google Video listing.

There's 19 NASA films, 61 United Newsreel motion pictures (1942-1945), and 24 Department of the Interior films. 

My favourites?  Man landing on the Moon in 1969, Signing of the Instrument of Surrender ending World War II,  and the construction of the Boulder Dam.

For something closer to home here, see highlights from the Film Australia archives on Google Video.

lifeasdaddy - Bravo! Bravo, Roger Ebert!

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote a recent column about his cancer and related surgery which has left him without a voice:

"I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what?

I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers."

He's still going to go to his annual Overlooked Film Festival.

Bravo, Roger Ebert!

[ tip from kottke again ]

lifeasdaddy - Seminal photographer Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore takes wonderful photographs.  Here's a documentary film about him.  I found the movie very enlightening about his cognition and his process of creating art.  He is amazingly articulate about how he does what he does and he attributes his articulateness to his teaching experience.

[ tip from Colberg ]

lifeasdaddy - A curator's critique of David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia

I've indicated here and here that David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia is a masterful work.

Australian War Memorial curator and blogger Mal Booth has recently viewed the film, and has some illuminating comments about it.  He sees it through the prism of someone who has recently pored over many source documents about T. E. Lawrence's military career.

Booth's comments enriched my background knowlege about the film, and I'll have to view it again soon to check the points he's made.