Last year, director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott teamed up for an ambitious, globe-spanning undertaking. They challenged people all over the world to film a video snapshot of their life on a specific day — July 24, 2010 — and submit it via YouTube for potential inclusion in what would become the feature-length Life in a Day. More than 80,000 clips were sent in for the documentary, with 1,125 chosen for inclusion in the final product.
The result is a breathtaking overview of existence on Earth in the 21st century, spanning cultures, countries, and individual outlooks. Following its Sundance premiere this January, the film is going into limited release in theaters starting July 29; but prior to that, it will receive a one-night only premiere in cinemas all over the country this Sunday, July 24. Click through to watch the trailer, learn more about the film, and find where Life in a Day is screening near you.
1. The sale of Borders was officially approved yesterday, and as Gizmodo says, reading the 40-year-old book retailer’s goodbye email “is like watching Old Yeller in slow motion.”
2. Some exciting news for music lovers who hate to travel: YouTube announced today that it’s planning to live stream both Lollapalooza (August 5-7) and Austin City Limits (September 16-18). [via Billboard]
3. Should we take it as a bad sign that Warner Bros. has moved the release date of Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot — which stars Henry Cavill as the famed superhero and Amy Adams as Lois Lane — from December 2012 to June 2013? [via LAT]
4. Glee star Darren Criss is in talks to replace Daniel Radcliffe as the lead in Broadway’s How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying beginning in January. Considering how well Criss spoofed Harry in A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel, this sounds like a smart casting decision to us. [via Deadline]
5. Today is Bon Iver Day! — at least if you live in Milwaukee. Celebrate accordingly. [via Vulture]
Over the years Worth 1000 has challenged designers to Photoshop modern products into vintage ads in a series of contests, and for some reason we’re just stumbling upon a few of the fantastic submissions now. Luckily, they still hold up today. Click through to see how old-school ad men may have hawked everything from YouTube to the Nintendo Wii — if only the technology had existed way back then. Is it just us, or could you see some of these faux advertisements working better for companies than their modern-day counterparts?
1. Feminist punk legend Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex (aka Marianne Elliot Said) has died after a battle with breast cancer. She was only 53. [via NME]
2. Flavorpill favorite Sam Lipsyte has a new short story in this week’s New Yorker. Read it in full here.
3. In other New Yorker-related news, after entering for years, Roger Ebert has finally won the magazine’s weekly cartoon caption contest. Check out his winning entry here.
4. Do not believe the vicious rumor that the last company still making typewriters recently shut down its plant in Mumbai. There are still plenty of other typewriter manufacturers in the world, and that plant actually shuttered way back in 2009. [via Gawker]
5. Interesting news: Marisa Tomei may be the female lead in Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming pilot for HBO, and Olivia Munn is in talks to join the project as well. [via Deadline]
For anyone who’s ever wondered what’s behind their favorite websites – no, really, behind, like on the opposite side, comes irreverent new Tumblr Back of a Webpage, which aims to show off, well, the backs of webpages. Some designs are more literal than others, but we have to say we like the cheeky ones the best (obviously). The entire project is an interesting comment on the lack of physicality in the digital world, and what we might think of to try and ground it in our desire for 3D consciousness. Click through to see some of our favorites, and they take submissions, so get to designing your own!
That’s the question posed by Viktor Hertz, a Swedish graphic design freelancer and student, in his fantastic series Honest Logos. (If the name sounds familiar, we featured his pictogram movie posters not too long ago.) “Some are cheap, some might be a bit funny, some will maybe be brilliant,” Hugo explains. Admittedly, he totally has us pegged with his re-designed Facebook logo. Click through to check out a few more of our favorites.
Ever play that game where you stab the table between each of your fingers, moving as fast as possible without hurting yourself? Well, it’s a thing. Bad guys do it in movies. It’s meant to show off your steely nature and sharp reflexes. Don’t worry, Mom, we always used butter knives. Now, to be even safer, you can play it digitally, with this ingenious little quasi-program by Fiona Mompean. Ultimately, the video/program is pretty simple, but that’s not the point. We love the way Mompean pushes the boundaries of the YouTube platform, manipulating existing, free technologies to create art. Watch out for your fingers after the jump.
Forget TV, movies, and music — Billboard’s Artist of the Year and the top-grossing film of 2010 aren’t what define us as a culture. Much more telling is YouTube’s list of most-watched clips (excluding major label music videos), which the company revealed on its blog yesterday. We post the top ten and muse about what they say about us as a society after the jump.
For the inaugural installment of YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video, a curatorial team from the Guggenheim weeded through more than 23,000 submissions from 91 countries to come up with the 125 videos on the shortlist (which you can view now on the YouTube Play channel). “We focused on works that really were conceived from the start for an online medium, so not necessarily works that were to be projected in a museum space or works that simply documented a performance,” explains Joan Young, associate curator of contemporary art at the Guggenheim. “The idea really is working with the medium.”
Beginning today, their selections will play at the various Guggenheim museums around the world; a jury that includes Darren Aronofsky, Animal Collective, and Takashi Murakami will narrow down the list to 20 videos that will be presented at a special celebration the Guggenheim in New York on October 21. These finalists will be on view to the public October 22 through the 24th, as well as online. Click through to check out our top picks.
