Streaming Video Alert: Ephemeral Films on Archive.org

From their website:Ephemeral films are non-fiction films usually made for educational, industrial, or promotional purposes. The two classic ephemeral film collections found on the Archive are the Prelinger Archives and AV Geeks. In addition to these classic collections, you may view guidance films from the post-World War II British government, drive-in movie intermission ads, and […]

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Disneyland Dream: Classic home movie now on DVD

54 years ago Robbins Barstow made Disneyland Dream about his family’s trip to Disneyland after winning a nationwide contest sponsored by Scotch tape. He now makes it available on DVD. From Boing Boing–“This is the most delightful historical Disneyland movie I’ve seen — including the old TV shows where Walt tours the park. Young Master […]

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A bad idea gets worse…

Disney to remove all extras from rental DVDs as well Following in Fox’s footsteps, Disney has announced that it will become the second studio to release two different “classes” of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, a “premium” version, and a bare-bones rental version. Starting in June with the movies Morning Light, Confessions of a Shopaholic and […]

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Cool website of streaming documentaries: Folkstreams.net

This wonderful site currently has just over 100 documentaries on American roots cultures. It’s a site loaded with classics including films by Les Blank, Tom Davenport, and Alan Lomax. It’s indexed by film, filmmaker, region, subject, and featured individual. If you’re interested in Dewey Balfa, for instance, you can quickly discover he’s included in Les […]

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National Archives Video on Google

This is a link to about 100 public domain newsreels produced by NASA,United Newsreel, and Department of the Interior. They range in length from 10-30 minutes. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here. Examples include 1930s titles from the Dept of Interior, 1940s war newsreels, and “Who’s out there?” a 1975 film narrated by Orson […]

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CIA 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 […]

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