Everyone knows “Reservoir Dogs” is Quentin Tarantino’s first movie. What “My Best Friend’s Birthday” presupposes is…maybe it isn’t? Made in 1987 but now mostly lost due to the ravages of time (and, more accurately, a film-lab fire), the once-70-minute film can now only be seen in its incomplete, 36-minute form. Watch what remains of it below.
Read More: Lost & Abandoned: 10 Movies That Were Shot, But Eventually Scrapped
Tarantino co-wrote, co-produced, directed, edited and starred in “My Best Friend’s Birthday,” which concerns a man (Tarantino) trying — and repeatedly failing — to pleasantly surprise a buddy on his birthday. He made the black-and-white comedy while working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. Roger Avary, who later went on to co-write “Pulp Fiction,” is one of four credited cinematographers.
Read More: George Lucas’ ‘Freiheit’: Watch the ‘Star Wars’ Creator’s Student Film from 1966
Avary and those other...
Read More: Lost & Abandoned: 10 Movies That Were Shot, But Eventually Scrapped
Tarantino co-wrote, co-produced, directed, edited and starred in “My Best Friend’s Birthday,” which concerns a man (Tarantino) trying — and repeatedly failing — to pleasantly surprise a buddy on his birthday. He made the black-and-white comedy while working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. Roger Avary, who later went on to co-write “Pulp Fiction,” is one of four credited cinematographers.
Read More: George Lucas’ ‘Freiheit’: Watch the ‘Star Wars’ Creator’s Student Film from 1966
Avary and those other...
- 9/25/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
After winning an Academy Award for her performance in last year’s “Room,” Brie Larson is one of the most sought-after performers in Hollywood. In addition to increasingly high-profile roles onscreen, she’s also leveraging her status by directing the upcoming comedy “Unicorn Store.” Her step behind the camera isn’t exactly unprecedented — Larson has has co-written and -directed two short films already, the first of which, “Weighting,” played at South by Southwest in 2013. Watch it below.
Read More: Brie Larson Sets Directorial Debut With Indie Comedy ‘Unicorn Store’
Larson also starred in the short, which she made with Dustin Bowser. A staff pick on Vimeo, “Weighting” comes with a simple premise — “She wants to go. He wants her to stay. Neither gets quite what they want” — and lasts a scant four minutes. The relationship drama gives the appearance on unfolding in one single take as Larson and co-star Satya Bhabha,...
Read More: Brie Larson Sets Directorial Debut With Indie Comedy ‘Unicorn Store’
Larson also starred in the short, which she made with Dustin Bowser. A staff pick on Vimeo, “Weighting” comes with a simple premise — “She wants to go. He wants her to stay. Neither gets quite what they want” — and lasts a scant four minutes. The relationship drama gives the appearance on unfolding in one single take as Larson and co-star Satya Bhabha,...
- 9/18/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Before he was conducting space operas or spraying graffiti across American movie screens, George Lucas was a student at the University of Southern California — one of the first schools in the country with a devoted film program. While there he made a three-minute short called “Freiheit,” humbly introduced onscreen as “a film by Lucas.” Watch the film below.
Read More: Christopher Nolan’s First Released Short Film ‘Doodlebug’: Watch His Twisted 1997 Debut
Opening on the image of a man (Randal Kleiser, who went on to direct “Grease”) running through a field, clearly afraid of something we’ve yet to see, “Freiheit” (German for “freedom”) takes on the divide between East and West Germany. The man’s journey isn’t especially successful, but it does inspire a series chorus of voiceover narrators: “Animals are free. Why shouldn’t man be free?” “Freedom is definitely worth dying for. It’s the only thing worth dying for.
Read More: Christopher Nolan’s First Released Short Film ‘Doodlebug’: Watch His Twisted 1997 Debut
Opening on the image of a man (Randal Kleiser, who went on to direct “Grease”) running through a field, clearly afraid of something we’ve yet to see, “Freiheit” (German for “freedom”) takes on the divide between East and West Germany. The man’s journey isn’t especially successful, but it does inspire a series chorus of voiceover narrators: “Animals are free. Why shouldn’t man be free?” “Freedom is definitely worth dying for. It’s the only thing worth dying for.
- 8/21/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Good triumphed over evil in George Lucas’ Star Wars series, but the battle wasn’t yet won in the director’s 1966 student film Freiheit (German for “freedom”). Lucas shows us a young man (Randal Kleiser, who would go on to direct Grease) running from unknown assailants and quickly being shot to death. Different voiceovers discussing freedom take us to the brief credits. All accounts tell us that the character is attempting to cross the Berlin border. During the time Lucas made Freiheit, the draft for the Vietnam War was in full effect, and gruesome footage from the frontlines was being broadcast to American televisions. The Holocaust was still fresh in the minds of the public. A number of films made at that time dramatized the terrors of...
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- 1/9/2014
- by Alison Nastasi
- Movies.com
As the “Star Wars” films enter their period of new storylines, recurring characters, and calendar domination over the next decade, George Lucas only stands now to distance himself from his creation, and reportedly get to work on more intimate, experimental ventures. While we wait to see the results of those efforts, an older documentary on the man provides a close look on his life leading up and into his life-changing franchise. Commissioned to coincide with the 1997 “Star Wars” Special Editions, the BBC Omnibus “George Lucas: Flying Solo,” profiles the director as he discusses his formative years, as well as clips and insight into his 16mm short films, “Look at Life,” “Herbie,” and “Freiheit.” His experimental roots are indeed a large element of the documentary (directed by James Erskine), as an interview with Francis Ford Coppola poses Lucas' alternative path if the trilogy never happened. Interviews with his actors and collaborators.
- 6/12/2013
- by Charlie Schmidlin
- The Playlist
The Star Wars Blu-ray release may have broken sales records, but what extras could have been included on the discs? Here’s Cameron’s list of annoying omissions…
Although I am perfectly happy with my Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray box set (and boy, am I happy), the word "complete" has slightly irked me. Though there are over forty hours of juicy space opera goodness in the extras, I still think it isn’t quite complete.
Apart from essentials, such as trailers and TV spots, there are also a wealth of materials from previous DVD releases missing, such as the deleted scenes from the prequels and numerous documentaries. So, it’s probably best to hang on to those older discs.
Anyway, included below are five slices of Star Wars ephemera that would have been much appreciated if they had been included – maybe we’ll see them next time on the 3D box set…...
Although I am perfectly happy with my Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray box set (and boy, am I happy), the word "complete" has slightly irked me. Though there are over forty hours of juicy space opera goodness in the extras, I still think it isn’t quite complete.
Apart from essentials, such as trailers and TV spots, there are also a wealth of materials from previous DVD releases missing, such as the deleted scenes from the prequels and numerous documentaries. So, it’s probably best to hang on to those older discs.
Anyway, included below are five slices of Star Wars ephemera that would have been much appreciated if they had been included – maybe we’ll see them next time on the 3D box set…...
- 9/26/2011
- Den of Geek
George Lucas' experimental short student film, Freiheit, is extremely rare. In fact, most people have only seen about 1 minute of footage from it which is available from the USC website.
The deceptively simple 3 minute film (credited simply to "Lucas" it's hilarious to note) shows a German student escaping across the Berlin Border and being shot to death while on the soundtrack various platitudes about dying for freedom can be heard. While obviously shot in the forests of California and not on location, the film is nonetheless an interesting relic from a giant's early career. See, Lucas is often criticized as being less a director than a technician and his early films (particularly Electronic Labyrinth Thx 1138 4Eb, but also Freiheit) prove that, even early on, Lucas had a fondness for the mechanics of cinema - particularly intense sound design and montage editing techniques.
I love having a look at...
The deceptively simple 3 minute film (credited simply to "Lucas" it's hilarious to note) shows a German student escaping across the Berlin Border and being shot to death while on the soundtrack various platitudes about dying for freedom can be heard. While obviously shot in the forests of California and not on location, the film is nonetheless an interesting relic from a giant's early career. See, Lucas is often criticized as being less a director than a technician and his early films (particularly Electronic Labyrinth Thx 1138 4Eb, but also Freiheit) prove that, even early on, Lucas had a fondness for the mechanics of cinema - particularly intense sound design and montage editing techniques.
I love having a look at...
- 9/10/2009
- QuietEarth.us
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