In 1969, visionary designers Charles and Ray Eames directed this cinematic ballet of more than 100 spinning tops from around the world. The score is by famed Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Airplane!, etc.). From the Eames Office:

Tops had its genesis in an earlier film produced for the Stars of Jazz television program in 1957. The Eameses decided to make a longer, color version in 1966, which they worked on in spare moments between other projects.

The film is a celebration of the ancient art and craft of top-making and spinning. One hundred and twenty-three tops spin to the accompaniment of a score by Elmer Bernstein. Using close-up, live-action photography, the film shows tops, old and new, from various countries, including China, Japan, India, the United States, France, and England.

Charles’s fascination with spinning tops went back to his childhood; in this film he found a perfect vehicle for demonstrating their beauty in motion and for making visual points about the universality of tops, the physics of motion (MIT physics professor, Philip Morrison, often showed the film to students and colleagues), and the intimate relationship between toys and science.

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In the 1980s, Stuart Swezey was at the epicenter of Southern California's underground culture. The co-founder of Amok Books, Swezey was also known for organizing extreme industrial and avant-garde outdoor happenings in remote locations like the Mojave Desert that featured performances by Sonic Youth, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Minutemen, and many other experimental and transgressive artists. Now, Swezey has made a documentary about those extreme experiences. Above is the trailer for Desolation Center.

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Context is everything, especially when it's missing.

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In the realm of rocket geeks and space nerds, filmmakers MaryLiz Bender and Ryan Chylinski have dream jobs. The pair have the equivalent of "backstage passes" to SpaceX, NASA and ULA rocket launches where they capture and share breathtaking videos that convey the power, risk, and thrill of space exploration. The work of their studio, called Cosmic Perspective, is visceral, wondrous, and inspiring. Now Bender and Chylinski are creating a fascinating art book enhanced with augmented reality along with a companion short film "documenting humanity's grand adventure to space." Titled "Guidance Internal: Lessons from Astronauts," the book, film, and their touring Cosmic Perspective show lies at the intersection of science and art "to inspire hope, elevate empathy, and bring people together." They've launched a Kickstarter to support the project and it looks, well, stellar.

From Kickstarter:

The art and the pages in this book come to life immediately teleporting you to rocket launch pads, directly to our intimate interviews with astronauts and the people sending missions to space. We fuse art with science blending our love of high-dynamic range photography with compelling video to capture the emotion, excitement, and gravity of these events. We also give you a front-row seat to transformative performances by artists inspired by these experiences.

We place autonomous high-resolution and ultra-high speed video cameras at the launchpads of SpaceX, NASA, and ULA. These are cameras we place well ahead of the liftoff, design to survive the elements and, since no humans can be anywhere near the rockets, trigger without any human interaction.

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"I Am Easy to Find" is a short film by esteemed experimental (and Hollywood) director Mike Mills in collaboration with The National. A two-way street, Mills took inspiration from The National's new album, also named "I Am Easy To Find," while the film, starring Alicia Vikander, fueled The National's songwriting. (I've heard the record, to be released on Friday, and it is truly magnificent.)

“The National gave me the stems for their songs, some were sketches some were finished and encouraged and allowed me to create my own versions of the songs to score the film,” Mills said in a statement. “The album then features different versions of these same 7 songs – and 9 new songs which sometimes refer to the themes, texts, ideas from the film – but are their own work, their own piece of art.”

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In 1974, Wyn Cooper, one of Madonna's fellow students at Adams High School near Detroit, invited the 16-year-old pre-material girl to star in his experimental film. The Super 8 short is titled "The Egg." "We developed a friendship and hung out," Cooper, now a poet in Vermont, has said. "I had a Mercury Capri with an eight-track tape player. Madonna and I would hop in the car, drive around and listen to Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars while enjoying a little marijuana." (via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

This might be the best trailer I have ever seen in my life.

Is this teaser trailer for JOKER available as a vape? I want to inhale it nonstop until the movie comes out in October. Read the rest

A seasonal Russian animation from 1966. Directed by Vladimir Degtyarev, it's 10 minutes long and you won't need subtitles 'cause there ain't no dialogue. [via Metafilter] Read the rest

“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Douglas Rain, the actor who performed the voice of the computer Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's film '2001: A Space Odyssey,' has died. He was 90 years old. Read the rest

A Breaking Bad movie will start production this month in Duke City, New Mexico according to the New Mexico Film Office. The film, currently identified as "Greenbrier," "tracks the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom," according to the Albuquerque Journal:

This is the first project for Vince Gilligan – who created “Breaking Bad” and co-created the spinoff, “Better Call Saul” – after signing a three-year deal with Sony Pictures Television in July...

Details on which characters will be returning from the TV series to the film have not been released.

"Yes, there appears to be a movie version of 'Breaking Bad, but I honestly have not even read the script," Bryan Cranston said on The Dan Patrick Show. "I have not gotten the script, I have not read the script. So there's the question of whether or not we'll even see Walter White in this movie. Think about that one." Read the rest

In January 1972, Aretha Franklin performed at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood. The LP of those performances is an absolutely breathtaking celebration of soul gospel. It won a Grammy, became the biggest selling live gospel record in history, and remains the highest selling record of Franklin's career. Filmmaker Sydney Pollack documented the performance and the plan was to release the concert movie as a double feature with Super Fly during the summer of 1972. The problem though is that Pollack hadn't used a clapper board during the filming that would enable him to sync the audio and footage from the five cameras. With no way to properly edit the film, the project was shelved until about ten years ago. And in a few months, the world will finally see it. From the New York Times:

(Alan) Elliott, who had been obsessed with the lost footage since working as a music executive in the mid-1980s, ultimately persuaded Warner to sell him the reels in 2007. (He mortgaged his house.) By 2010, digital technology had evolved to a point that syncing film and sound was finally possible....

As a planned release date approached in 2011, however, Ms. Franklin sued Mr. Elliott for using her likeness without her permission. That started years of legal wrangling, with Ms. Franklin and her lawyers blocking Mr. Elliott and the Telluride Film Festival from showing “Amazing Grace” in 2015 and 2016, even after deals for her compensation seemed to have been worked out.

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It's taken M. Night Shyamalan close to two decades and three films to fully realize his vision of a world full of super-powered heroes and villains, but here we are! Eighteen years after Unbreakable popped and close to two after Split was released, Glass is here. Well, almost. It'll be hitting theaters on January 19th.

I know that M. Night Shyamalan's plopped out a few turds over the years, but I have faith in his vision as a filmmaker and as a writer. Fingers crossed that Glass is just as good as it looks. Read the rest

If you're a Disney-o-phile, say goodbye to the next few hours of your productivity, as you scroll through the thread and then share with your kids or your Disney fandom friends. Read the rest

In the course of my work as a documentary filmmaker, I sometimes find hidden gems. Samuel Fuller’s “The Naked Kiss” is one of them. Read the rest

Darth Vader only appeared on screen for 34 minutes yet is the most visually iconic character of the original trilogy. Nerdwriter's Evan Puschak explains why.

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The long-awaited biopic Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of Freddie Mercury and Queen's incredible story from their formation in 1970 to their outstanding Live Aid performance in 1985 just a few years before Mercury died due to complications from AIDS.

Hitting theaters November 2, the film stars Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury with Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, Allen Leech, and Lucy Boynton. Bryan Singer directed much of the principal photography before he was fired, apparently for repeatedly not showing up to work, and replaced by Dexter Fletcher who completed the movie.

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I saw this trailer for Ghost Stories back in February and it grabbed hold of me immediately. Full of menace, glimpses of gorgeous cinematography and an aura of claustrophobia, it's everything I want in a horror film. I just learned that it'll be available to buy on iTunes, if you're in the United States, on July 17th. I am so stoked. Read the rest