Filmed in 1986, Meetin’ WA is a short (26 minute) film that not many have seen. What you get is Godard, one of the driving forces behind La Nouvelle Vague, in conversation with Woody Allen. The trademark Godard approach to film, the expected dose of Woody Allen neuroses — they’re all there. Hat tip to Metafilter for bringing this one to light.
Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia: Diving at the ’36 Games
Produced at the request of the International Olympics Committee (and not at the behest of the Nazi propaganda machine), Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 documentary, Olympia, is considered one of the more important sports documentaries of the 20th century. Below, we have posted a well known sequence that recalls the diving competition at the ’36 Berlin Games.
It Happened One Night: Frank Capra’s 1934 Classic
Today we present Frank Capra’s Academy Award-winning comedy from 1934, starring Clark Gable — It Happened One Night. Grab some popcorn. Dim the lights (even if you’re at work). And enjoy:
The Great Dictator: A Classic Chaplin Moment
It’s 1940. The film is The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin’s famous satire of Nazi Germany. In this celebrated scene, Chaplin dances with a large globe with Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin Overture playing in the background.
Watch Complete Documentary Films For Free (Featuring Super-Size Me)
Joerg, one of our readers, wrote us rather joyfully and declared: “Today I found the site of my dreams: Supposedly most of the greatest new documentaries can be watched online” and they’re “financed by ads.” The site is called SnagFilms, and indeed, it finds “the world‘s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and mak[es] them available to the wide audience these titles deserve.” In exchange for making the films free, you do have to sit through some ads, but it is perhaps a small price to pay. Below we have posted Super Size Me, the 2004 documentary by Morgan Spurlock, which offers some startling commentary on the fast food industry. Other notable titles include the 2004 rock documentary Dig!, Under Our Skin, and Run Granny Run. You can see their full collection here.
NOTE: You can find this film in our collection of free online movies.
Related Content:
YouTube’s New Screening Room (Free Indie Films)
School of Life: An Award-Winning Short Indie Film
Now featured in The YouTube Screening Room: Jake Polonsky’s School of Life. “The film may be set in an elementary school, but it tells a poignantly ironic story that any adult will relate to. School of Life won the 2004 British Independent Film Award for Best Short.” A higher quality version can be watched here. But make sure you have a high speed connection.
The First Unintended Horror Film (1895)
A contribution (which we always welcome) from one of our readers in Romania:
“The brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière created the first publicly shown movies, the first documentaries and, with this 50-second film shot at a Provence railway station, the first horror picture. It is said that as Paris audiences watched the train chug toward the screen, they believed it was about to crash out of the frame and into the auditorium, and ran out screaming. True or not, the story indicates the power the medium would wield over its audience.
The 50-second silent film [L’Arrivée D’un Train En Gare De La Ciotat] captures the entry of a steam locomotive into the train station in the French coastal town of la Ciotat. Like most of the other early Lumière films, L’Arrivée d’un train consists of a single, unedited ‘view’ illustrating an aspect of everyday life.”
“L’Arrivée D’un Train En Gare De La Ciotat” appears in our collection, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, Documentaries & More.
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YouTube’s New Screening Room (Free Indie Films)
YouTube just launched its new “Screening Room,” and there’s a good chance that the Sundance Film Festival will never quite be the same again.
The Screening Room presents high quality, independent films to YouTube users and promises to roll out four new films every two weeks. Given YouTube’s immense reach, these indies will immediately find a vast international audience. Then, to sweeten the deal even further, YouTube will offer filmmakers a major cut of the advertising revenue generated by the viewing of each video. Plus, hard and digital copies of the films can be sold as well. If this new venture gains traction (and you have to think it will), YouTube could suddenly find itself the center of gravity for the indie world, displacing Sundance along the way.
The first four films featured in The Screening Room are hardly duds. The Danish Poet won the 2007 Oscar for best animated short; Love and War won the same award at the Los Angeles Film Festival; Our Time Is Up got an Oscar nomination in 2006; and then there’s Miranda July’s “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?. The next batch of films comes out July 4. For more info, see this piece in the LA Times.
Addendum: I have since stumbled upon this video that promotes/tells you more about the Screening Room.
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