Saturday Hot Links
Today: The Recording Session Outtakes You REALLY Need To Listen To Edition.
We begin with radio personality Casey Kasem losing it in the studio:
“Arrested Development”: The best running jokes.
“Arrested Development”’s 20 most meta meta-moments.
The complexity of greatness: Beyond talent or practice.
Sony board weighs break-up proposal.
Did the world almost end in 1983.
10 American movies that won the Palme D’Or at Cannes.
A linguistic dissection of 7 annoying teenage sounds.
What probably happened after these 9 movies ended.
5 fascinating reasons why cockroaches will outlive us all.
Superman comic worth $100K found in walls of abandoned house.
Is it possible to think without language.
36 comedy threequels graded from meh to offensively terrible.
Does early academic prowess predict later success.
Tom Cruise drops out of Man from U.N.C.L.E.
18 year-old’s breakthrough invention can recharge cell phones in seconds.
Study finds film criticism dominated by men.
Using your new Commodore 64 [1982 video].
“Girls” porn parody pretty much writes itself.
Jonathon Gold’s 101 best restaurants in L.A.
How Robert Evans really got his Paramount job.
12 exceptionally long or extremely special words.
Leonardo DiCaprio space voyage auctioned for $1.5M.
10 house built around trees.
Why does Hollywood hate the future?
Incredible photos of a melting ice hotel.
Short retirement: Steven Soderbergh to direct and produce a TV series for Cinemax.
What happens when two ancient galaxies smash into each other.
Inside L.A.’s best designed $2M screening room.
5 geniuses who denounced their work.
Sony head Amy Pascal on women directors: The whole system is geared for them to fail.
Is NYC the next Silicon Valley.
Alexander Payne explains why he shot Nebraska in black-and-white.
Why the “10,000 Hour Rule” isn’t actually a rule.
50 most embarrassing movie moments.
How to stop a charging buffalo.
Think Jerry Lewis is obnoxious today? Check out his schtick with Dean Martin from decades ago:
You can find out the approximate cost of The Hangover holiday here.
15 of the greatest celebrity commencement speeches.
Hollywood blockbusters should kill off some of their main characters.
A drive around London in 1926 [video].
Chuck Wendig with 10 questions for videogame writer Rich Dansky.
The origins of 9 great British insults.
5 Coen brothers’ motifs that show up in Inside Llewyn Davis.
How to keep a celebrity sex tape off the Internet.
17 tattoos inspired by TV shows.
10 absolutely amazing tipping stories.
Damon Lindelof responds to STID ‘underwear scene’ criticism.
Film School Rejects: J.J. Abrams is using the mystery box all wrong.
Tips for keeping your tenement tidy in 1911.
5 brilliant clues hidden in the background of movies.
How an Apple affiliate made $30B and paid no taxes.
Spielberg to produce “Halo” series for Xbox.
38 wonderful foreign words we could use in English.
Minorities, women underrepresented in Canadian writing rooms.
9 inspiring kids who are saving the world.
50 strangest censored movie lines.
Are we on the cusp of a solar energy boom.
Female directors to watch out for in 2013.
The backstory of the Slurpee.
The Doors’ Ray Manzarek 1964 UCLA student film [video].
12 things we’ve enhanced with caffeine.
Before Sunrise/Sunset A-Z conversation guide.
12 words English got from the Aztecs.
FilmmakerIQ: Hitchcock’s storyboards from 13 classic films.
Croatia’s land-mind detecting honey bees.
MSN to bankroll ‘micro-episodic’ video series.
What is the most complex Chinese character.
5 books with awful original titles.
Finally you can listen to all of the compositions my son Will did at the New England Conservatory here.
The famous “Worst Job I Ever Had” bit from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore:
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: I will be offering a brand new 1-week online Craft class beginning June 3. It’s called Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling. I consider this to be a companion course to my extremely popular Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling. If Pixar has been the most successful studio in terms of producing four-quadrant mainstream movies, arguably Joel and Ethan Coen have been the masters of creating independent movies.
Needless to say, I am a huge Coen brothers fan. For this class, I have studied, broken down and analyzed all of the movies the Coen brothers have written and directed. In that process, I have discerned 7 narrative dynamics and motifs that recur in their stories including the Dynamism of Violence, the Morally Complicated Universe, Grand Schemes and others.
Consider this amazing set of movies they’ve written and directed: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit , and the upcoming Inside Llewyn Davis which debuted to strong response at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Check out this video tribute to the Coens:
That is an amazing array of movies. And in this class, we will dive into them and see how the Coen brother’s story-crafting instincts can inspire us in our creative process.
This is the very first time I will be offering this class and it’s only on my schedule one time in 2013, so do yourself a favor and join me on June 3rd for Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling. You may find out more about the class here.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!