Stuck in Washington this summer and in need of a mental escape? Try this site. I’ve never surfed but I have a weakness for watching surfers at work, gliding along through crashing walls of water. This kinda primitively designed site includes frequently updated “session” videos compiling footage of surfing conditions at the major surf beaches […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Streaming Video
MIT World – on-demand video of significant public events at MIT
An extensive set of lectures, events, readings – heavy on the science topics but there’s probably something here for everyone. Things that caught my eye included readings by Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, Robert Pinsky, Maurice Sendak, and Seamus Heaney. Lectures by Noam Chomsky, Eric Foner, Thomas Friedman, Frank Gehry, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Dean Kamen, […]
Continue readingMust-see film: Powers of Ten now viewable online
This is a really cool film that illustrates the size of the universe in powers of ten – starting with a couple having a picnic in Chicago zooming out to 100 million lightyears away – and then all the way back in to the man’s hand and on down to a single proton, .000001 angstroms. […]
Continue readingA few cult movies now in the public domain and on Google video
Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968)Reefer Madness (Gasnier, 1936)Plan 9 from Outer Space (Wood, 1959)
Continue readingCold War Classic – Duck and Cover (1951) on Google Video
This 9 minute film was made by the U.S. Federal Civil Defense Administration to instruct children on how to react when an atomic bomb was detonated nearby. The film was used extensively in Kevin Rafferty’s Atomic Cafe (1982, DVD 536), a documentary surveying the U.S. government’s propaganda promoting the atomic bomb. link
Continue readingMax Schreck is just a click away
Yes, given that F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) is now in the public domain, Google video is hosting a digital copy. For those who may not know about this film, it is the first popular telling of the Dracula story on film. Though a silent film, its haunting gothic imagery and the other-worldly creepiness of […]
Continue reading2006 Sundance Shorts – 47 titles available online
The online collection though extensive represents just a sample of the entries and includes just a couple of the prize-winners. The Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking ended in a tie between BUGCRUSH, directed by Carter Smith and THE WRAITH OF COBBLE HILL (video unavailable online), directed by Adam Parrish King. The Jury Prize in International […]
Continue readingCIA Films at the National Archives
The CIA, like many other government agencies, declassifies documents (including films) occassionally and relocates them to the National Archives. Freedom-of-Information-Act sleuth Michael Ravnitsky was able to obtain the list of CIA films currently in the Archives. It contains many, many titles with historical import such as Brainwashing, How Free Should the Press be?, Psychology of […]
Continue readingThe J Marimba Ponies
I couldn’t resist noting this guilty pleasure – my favorite piece of streaming video from the last couple of weeks. The Ponies perform the Sabre Dance. For those old enough to remember, this piece of music, composed by Aram Khachaturian, was used on the Ed Sullivan show to accompany spinning plate acts and more recently […]
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