Warner Brothers Won't Fight 'Yogi Bear' Video Parody

December 13, 2010, 8:36 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

A video parody of “Yogi Bear” that’s much darker than your average episode of that vintage Hanna-Barbera cartoon – not to mention the coming Warner Brothers film adaptation – isn’t a viral marketing campaign gone awry. But the studio said on Monday that it wouldn’t try to take down the Web satire, either.

The video, which was posted Monday morning on YouTube, appears to be rendered in the same 3-D style as “Yogi Bear,” an animated feature starring Dan Aykroyd (as the voice of Yogi) and Justin Timberlake (as his sidekick, Boo Boo) that Warner Brothers will release on Friday. The key difference is that the parody, which takes its cues from the 2007 Western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” ends with Boo Boo blasting Yogi with a rifle (the violence is implied but not depicted on screen) and turning him into a bearskin rug.

The painstaking accuracy of the satire – as well as closing credits that named the “Yogi Bear” director, Eric Brevig, and producers, Donald De Line and Karen Rosenvelt – had some viewers wondering if it was the handiwork of members of the “Yogi Bear” film team, perhaps trying to win over some grown-up moviegoers before its release, or possibly protesting the dumbed-down content of their own movie.

But as a graphic added to the video now states, the video is “an independently made parody by Edmund Earle with no association to Warner Brothers or the producers, directors and actors of the 2010 ‘Yogi Bear’ film.”

A spokeswoman for Warner Brothers said on Monday evening that the studio had been in contact with Mr. Earle, a 25-year-old animator and graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, who was willing to add the disclaimer to his work. The studio said the video was likely a protected work of parody and it would have required an excessive amount of legal work to have it pulled from YouTube, if that were even possible. Warner Brother said YouTube turned down a request to have viewers input their age before playing the video (to keep impressionable young viewers from seeing it) but that YouTube would monitor the situation.

Watch Edmund Earle’s “Yogi Bear” parody here:

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Pulled from National Portrait Gallery, Video Emerges Elsewhere in Washington

December 2, 2010, 3:14 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Visitors to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington will no longer be able to find the David Wojnarowicz video “A Fire in My Belly” there, but they will not have to travel far to see it. Transformer, a Washington-based arts organization, has been playing it in the front window of its gallery on P Street NW, near Logan Circle, and says it will continue to do so on a 24-hour loop until the National Portrait Gallery reinstates it.

The National Portrait Gallery, which is part of the Smithsonian, took the video out of an exhibition called “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” after the Catholic League and members of the House of Representatives said the work was offensive to Christians. Among the imagery that Mr. Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, uses in the video to depict the suffering of an AIDS patient is a scene of ants crawling on a crucifix.

In a telephone interview on Thursday Victoria Reis, the Transformer executive and artistic director, said the criticism of the video and its removal was “turning back the clock to culture wars that I had thought, in this day and age, in 2010, we were well beyond, but obviously we’re not.”

Ms. Reis said the video currently being shown at Transformer is an abbreviated, four-minute version of “A Fire in My Belly” that can be found on YouTube; she said the gallery had received permission from Mr. Wojnarowicz’s estate to show the full 30-minute version of the film and planned to present it shortly.

Ms. Reis said the gallery was also organizing a protest to start at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in which participants will march from Transformer to the National Portrait Gallery and then to Congress.

The Transformer gallery’s plans were reported in The Washington Post.

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Critics' Picks Video: 'Point Blank'

November 29, 2010, 5:29 pm

By MEKADO MURPHY

This week, A. O. Scott looks at one of the high points in the revenge film genre, 1967’s “Point Blank,” directed by John Boorman. Though many films have focused on a wronged character seeking payback, “there aren’t many characters who embody vengeance as forcefully, as purely, as nastily as Lee Marvin’s Walker,” he says. The film fills the screen with enemies for Walker to confront and take down on his way to retribution, but Mr. Scott sees a deeper side too, calling it “an allegory about the fate of the individual in a world dominated by corporate power.” Have you seen “Point Blank?” Please share your thoughts.

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Video: 'Spider-Man' on '60 Minutes'

November 24, 2010, 1:42 pm

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

“Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” will get some national exposure on Sunday night when “60 Minutes” takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the technologically complex musical, which is directed by Julie Taymor and has music by Bono and The Edge of the rock band U2. Lesley Stahl, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, started following the development of the show 18 months ago; the curtain goes up on the first preview on Sunday at 6:30 p.m., a half-hour before the program is to air on CBS.

As Patrick Healy reports, “Spider-Man” has been nine years in the making, and is now the most expensive show in Broadway history.

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Video: Developing 'Tangled'

November 23, 2010, 5:20 pm

By MEKADO MURPHY

For the 50th animated film from Walt Disney Pictures the filmmakers made the transition from hand-drawn animation to 3-D CG animation, while keeping the traditional look and feel of a Disney movie. Here, the directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard narrate a look at the process of bringing one scene from the film to life. Read more about the journey of “Tangled” to the big screen.

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Critics' Picks Video: 'The Ice Storm'

November 22, 2010, 6:06 pm

By MEKADO MURPHY

“Our Puritan ancestors gave us Thanksgiving,” says A. O. Scott in this week’s Critics’ Picks video. “They also passed down a rich tradition of sin, damnation and guilt.” These elements are present in Ang Lee’s drama “The Ice Storm.” The movie takes place on Thanksgiving weekend in 1973 and follows the intertwining lives and various infidelities of two families in a wealthy New York City suburb. While it is possible to look at these characters as a collection of sinners deserving of punishment, Mr. Scott sees the film a different way. “It’s about what it takes to live in a world where moral authority has collapsed,” he says. Have you seen “The Ice Storm?” Please share your thoughts.

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Video: A First Look at 'Spider-Man'

November 22, 2010, 6:45 pm

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

A video posted today on the Facebook page of the new Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” offers a glimpse of what to date has been one of the season’s biggest secrets: what does the show look like?

The video includes shots of the show’s troubled aerial maneuvers, the superhero’s costume, chorus numbers and rehearsal footage of the 27-year-old actor Reeve Carney, who plays the title character. There are also interview excerpts with the musical’s composers, Bono and the Edge of the rock band U2, and the director Julie Taymor, who describes the show as taking audiences to a “mythic place.”

“We can’t really tell you what this is,” she says to an unseen audience. “But it has rock and roll, it has drama and it has circus.”

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Critics' Picks Video: 'The General'

November 15, 2010, 5:27 pm

By MEKADO MURPHY

In this week’s Critics’ Pick, A. O. Scott looks back at the 1927 silent film “The General,” a movie that “turns the intractable and cruel laws of physics into cinematic poetry,” he says. The film was written by, directed by and stars Buster Keaton. Although Mr. Keaton was usually associated with comedies, Mr. Scott sees “The General” as more of an action movie, “one of the purest and, still, one of the best of its kind,” he says. Have you seen “The General?” Please share your thoughts on this and other Buster Keaton films.

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Critics' Picks Video: 'American Psycho'

November 8, 2010, 5:48 pm

By MEKADO MURPHY

In this week’s Critics’ Pick, A. O. Scott looks at the Wall Street satire “American Psycho,”adapted from the Bret Eaton Ellis novel and directed by Mary Harron. The film follows the Wall Street trader and serial killer Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), from his mundane daily routines to his brutal acts of violence. But Mr. Scott sees the film, in some way, as a comedy of manners. “It’s often very funny,” he says, “though the overall tone is almost as cold and inhuman as the main character himself.”

Have you seen “American Psycho?” What do you think of Patrick Bateman?

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Video of critics picks: "Un Monde Parfait.

October 25, 2010, 6: 27

By MEKADO MURPHY

In choosing the criticism this week, a. o. Scott remembers in Clint Eastwood's 1993 drama, "A Perfect World." The film about the relationship between boy (t. j. Lowther) young and prison escapee (Kevin Costner) who takes him hostage to concentre.Mr.Eastwood police officer pursuit plays.

While "perfect world" has been overshadowed by the Oscar award winning film "Unforgiven" which was released the previous year, Mr. Scott considers that one of the best films of Mr. Eastwood."" Perfect world"is the distance between the ideal and reality," said, "" our world: imperfect and tragic. ""What do you have seen the movie? please share your thoughts.

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Video: New is window on Eldridge Street

Earlier this month, the Museum at Eldridge Street has unveiled a new stained-glass window designed by artist Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans architect for his synagogue in 1887, which reopened in 2007 after a 20-year restoration. Filmmaker Jenny Carchman documented installation window start at the end for a short piece entitled "the window is. Julie Bloom spoke on the subject of the film, watch Ms. Smith and Mrs Gans work and change always Lower East side. Here is the completed film, with edited excerpts from the interview.

(Q).

How the project will do?

(A).

In January, I read a piece in The New Yorker and when Kiki and Deborah Gans had has just won a commission to design the window and it does not yet started, so I wrote an email which is detrimental to the synagogue to ask if I could do a film.Partie what me inspired was that it was a transformation of a genre that I only had never seen before, involving such things as little known-glass, demolition, restauration.Et is the last vestige of a restoration of 20 years for the synagogue; I wanted to see happen.

(Q).

What is - this watch Kiki at work?

(A).

It's funny: this project is so as cinema, because there are so many people who have a critical role and all their their profession and it all meets.Kiki was really the Director – she said people his vision and she was completely will be about it and knew what she wanted to difficult part used for it communicates so that others might find hands - the craftsmen, the engineers who built the cadre.Elle was very inspiring to watch, just like each piece that contribute throughout b.c process ' is what it is like to make a movie.

(Q).

How much time have made process?

(A).

I think that I started filming in March and they just installed two weeks ago.I filmed about 25 hours - more anal and the most interesting things.

(Q).

What it was like being in the synagogue, the window has been installed?

(A).

I am an anxious person and I feel like the synagogue is a non-soucieux of.It is very calm YH ' always contemplated going - he gave me enormous réconfort.Et then his transformation was surprising, because I find synagogues in General to be almost melancholic solemn places, but window is brilliant, is light and it examines weightlessness.

(Q).

What was your hope in film making?

(A).

It's a piece of a workplan film - I want to go back and do a more complete on the synagogue restauration.La piece was protected for 50 years and he fell in complete disorder and decay and they restored each piece the same thing .Quelque must be broken to make something new, and the concept of motivation was that I wanted to see out of the existing wall - I thought that the experience would be violent, breaking of glass and debris, and I photo it of as being in front of the divine.En makes presence, it was very well arranged, the demolition was nothing like that .but what I wanted to see was that people feel when they think that they are in the presence of God.

(Q).

What role play the synagogue in the neighbourhood?

(A).

Headquarters is completely transformed, but it's still a culture of immigrants .lorsque time walking the synagogue was still .c ' is fascinating and it is a piece of New York City that represents a wave of immigrants coming here, and you feel it.

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