Weekend Reads (Dec 17): Christmas Movies, Angelo Badalamenti, Nuclear Fusion, AM Radio
Recommended weekend reading for December 17, 2022.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
Originally released in 1964, Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is one of the most beloved Christmas specials of all time, thanks in part to its endearing stop-motion animation. But here’s a fun bit of trivia: the man responsible for that animation was a Japanese communist who was critical of American cinema.
As World War II raged, [Tadahito Mochinaga]’s home in Japan was destroyed. His health was deteriorating. And so, in June 1945, he and his family went to live in China — seeking better conditions in an area occupied by the Japanese.
Doing the work in front of him again, Mochinaga got a job at a local film studio. He started to animate. Less than a month later, things took another turn. “Japan’s defeat … took us by complete surprise,” Mochinaga’s daughter Noriko wrote a few years ago. “It meant that we ended up getting caught up in the Chinese Civil War, between the nationalists and communists.”
For Mochinaga and his family, the end of World War II was only the start of a new period of chaos and terror. But his animation skill was rare in China, and he stood out. Within a few years, he was making animated propaganda for the communists against the right-wing faction — venturing into puppet animation for the first time, and breaking ground in China. Here, he developed his skill for stop-motion.
The article also contains some fascinating behind-the-scenes info on Rudolph’s production, like the creation of the puppets themselves.
Speaking of Christmas specials, Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas might not be as well-known as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but it’s developed quite the following since its debut on Canadian TV on 1977.
For the project, Henson brought over a relatively small band of his Muppeteers, including Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz, Richard Hunt, Eren Ozker, and various technicians, including special effects whiz Faz Fazakas, to bring the special to life. While the story was sweet and gentle, Henson wanted the techniques and scope of the visuals to be groundbreaking and assist the storytelling in subtle but impressive ways. The special was also an unofficial audition for singer/songwriter Paul Williams, who wrote all of the film's original songs and the score. The success of this project led to his hiring by Henson to score and write the songs for The Muppet Movie.
To celebrate its 45th anniversary, SYFY WIRE collected stories from several of the film’s key players, including Paul Williams (songwriter/composer), Frank Oz (performer of Ma Otter and voice/performer of Chuck), Dave Goelz (voice and performer for Wendell Porcupine/Catfish/Will Possum), Marilyn Sokol (voice of Ma Otter), Cheryl Henson, the daughter of Jim and president of the Jim Henson Foundation, along with Timothy Allen McDonald, the producer/co-book writer for the live stage adaptation, to reminisce about the special which remains a career highlight for each of them.
I love reading how Henson et al. cleverly used video technology (some of it quite simple) to achieve the effects they wanted for the puppets.
Alissa Wilkinson has been watching made-for-TV Christmas movies for the last month or so, and noticed something odd: for all their talk of Christmas miracles, the truly miraculous is rarely seen.
The miracles served up by the original Christmas story are messy and scary and threatening to the Hallmark ideals of comfort and safety and not rocking the boat. They might threaten the wealthy, spendy Christmas showcased in the genre, even when the movie is set in what’s meant to be a small town. Actual Christmas miracles, if you take the religious origins of the story to be true, are uncomfortable and frightening and weird. They’re the exact opposite of a Christmas movie.
Last year, however, K.B. Hoyle came to the defense of Christmas rom-coms:
I think that while some people watch rom-com Christmas movies out of idle curiosity, the real popularity of the films stems from the darkness of the season. These stories tap into something deeper — some felt spiritual needs people have during Advent to know that everything is going to be alright, that the darkness is not going to last. Am I about to over-spiritualize cozy Christmas romance films? Yes — maybe a little. Bear with me.
The National Film Registry has announced their 2022 list of inductees, which includes Super Fly (1972), Carrie (1976), The Little Mermaid (1989), When Harry Met Sally (1989), and Iron Man (2008). Films are selected based on “their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance.”
Related: My review of Iron Man, the film that kicked off the MCU, which has become a cultural juggernaut in the ensuing years.
Composer Angelo Badalamenti, whose moody arrangements were a perfect accompaniment for the surreal visuals of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Lost Highway, died earlier this week at the age of 85. In addition to his acclaimed work with Lynch, Badalamenti collaborated with a truly eclectic range of artists including Anthrax, Shirley Bassey, David Bowie, LL Cool J, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, and Nina Simone. He also composed the opening theme of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
Related: Matt Zoller Seitz reflects on just how important Badalamenti was to the success of Lynch’s films. “Badalamenti’s music confirmed the sincerity of Lynch’s belief that there is good and evil in all of us, that the very good people are indeed very good and the evil people deeply evil, and that, for all his droll and sometimes perverse humor, Lynch is not kidding about anything, much less mocking his characters.”
Watch: Badalamenti describes how he composed Twin Peaks’ iconic “Laura Palmer’s Theme” with Lynch’s input.
Scientists at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved one of science’s holy grails: a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it used.
The facility used its set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. The pulse of energy caused the capsule to collapse, creating temperatures only seen in stars and thermonuclear weapons, and the hydrogen isotopes fused into helium, releasing additional energy and creating a cascade of fusion reactions. The laboratory’s analysis suggests that some 3.15 megajoules of energy was released — roughly 54% more than the energy that went into the reaction and more than double the previous record of 1.3 megajoules.
You can read the Department of Energy’s official announcement here.
We may be decades away from commercial applications — e.g., owning the fusion-powered house you’ve always dreamed about — but this is still an impressive first step towards a truly clean, and nigh-unlimited, source of energy.
If you’re planning to buy an electric vehicle and you enjoy AM talk radio, then you might have to choose between the two.
When the BMW i3 landed in the States more than 8 years ago, it did so without an AM radio. A year after arrival, hackers had figured out how to tweak the hatchback's software to restore AM radio and extend range in the i3 REx model. When Green Car Reports asked BMW that same year, 2015, about the lack of an amplitude modulation band, BMW responded, “AM is not offered due to negative performance influences of the electromagnetic interference of the electric drivetrain. Electric motors cause interference on AM which is why BMW decided to remove this option.” Today, the number of EVs and hybrids omitting AM radio has got so large that U.S. Senator Ed Markey is asking carmakers to retain it, noting in a letter that “any phase-out of broadcast AM radio could pose a significant communication problem during emergencies.”
Members of ArtStation, one of the world’s largest online artist communities, staged a protest against the proliferation and promotion of AI-generated art.
On Tuesday, members of the online community ArtStation began widely protesting AI-generated artwork by placing “No AI Art” images in their portfolios. By Wednesday, the protest images dominated ArtStation's trending page. The artists seek to criticize the presence of AI-generated work on ArtStation and to potentially disrupt future AI models trained using artwork found on the site.
Some artists have taken their critique of AI-generated art one step further: using AI generators to create art featuring copyrighted characters.
In response to concerns over the future of their craft, artists have begun using AI systems to generate images of characters including Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Given Disney’s history of fierce protection over its content, the artists are hoping the company takes action and thus proves that AI art isn’t as original as it claims.
Over the weekend, Eric Bourdages, the Lead Character Artist on the popular video game Dead by Daylight, urged his followers to create and sell merchandise using the Disney-inspired images he created using Midjourney.
“Someone steal these amazing designs to sell them on Mugs and T-Shirts, I really don’t care, this is AI art that’s been generated,” Bourdages wrote. “Legally there should be no recourse from Disney as according to the AI models TOS these images transcends copyright and the images are public domain.”
Casey Newton, one of my favorite tech journalists, reflects on 2022 and makes some tech predictions for 2023, like the media’s increasing abandonment of Twitter:
Elon Musk’s continued promotion of right-wing causes and personalities will push away more and more high-profile users, who find themselves increasingly put off by his shock-jock antics and whim-based approach to content moderation. Alternative platforms like Mastodon, while smaller and less intuitive to use, offer a safe haven to more and more people — particularly journalists — looking for off-ramps. By the end of 2023, Twitter no longer sets the daily news agenda by default for the entire US press. This will come as an enormous relief to many publishers, who have long wished their reporters wouldn’t spend so much time tweeting anyway.
Speaking of Twitter, I’ve tried to not think too much about what Elon Musk is doing over there, but this last week has seen a spate of decision-making that’s almost fascinating in its erratic-ness:
An account sharing publicly available data about his private jet’s location was permanently suspended despite Musk’s previous pledge to not do so.
The accounts of several prominent journalists were permanently suspended after Musk claimed they were endangering his family.
Twitter began blocking links to Mastodon (Twitter’s primary competitor).
Twitter is reportedly considering requiring users to share personal data in order to keep using Twitter. (This latter decision may put him at odds with both Apple’s privacy policies and EU privacy laws.)
Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, so he can obviously do whatever he wants with it. But can we stop pretending he’s some great champion of free speech?
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