“From Dictatorship to Democracy.” Open Text Changes Face of Egypt.

in Current Affairs, Politics | February 17th, 2011

There’s some­thing won­der­ful about this .… unless you’re a dic­ta­tor. Today, The New York Times shines a good light on Gene Sharp, a shy Amer­i­can intel­lec­tu­al who has spent decades writ­ing on the art of non-vio­lent rev­o­lu­tion. Back in 2002, Sharp pub­lished “From Dic­ta­tor­ship to Democ­ra­cy: A Con­cep­tu­al Frame­work for Lib­er­a­tion,” a 93-page guide to upend­ing auto­crats. Then, he had the text trans­lat­ed into 24 lan­guages and made freely avail­able online, with all copy­right restric­tions removed.  The man­u­al has since inspired dis­si­dents in Bur­ma, Bosnia and Esto­nia, while giv­ing strate­gic direc­tion to the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. Ideas have pow­er. But good ideas have more pow­er when they’re open. You can down­load Sharp’s man­u­al here (PDF), and learn more about his mis­sion through his non­prof­it, The Albert Ein­stein Insti­tu­tion.

Speak­ing of good ideas that are open, feel free to down­load 35o free online cours­es and teach your­self any­thing and every­thing.

via @philosophybites

NASA Zooms into Spiral Galaxy

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | February 17th, 2011

Cour­tesy of NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope, we’re zoom­ing into a “majes­tic disk of stars and dust lanes” and get­ting a stun­ning view of the spi­ral galaxy NGC 2841, which lies 46 mil­lion light-years away in the con­stel­la­tion of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). But wait, it gets even bet­ter. This high res­o­lu­tion still pho­to shows the spi­ral galaxy in all its beau­ty and splen­dor…

The First Talk Radio Show on the Net (1993)

in Radio, Technology | February 16th, 2011

Back in the ear­ly 1990s, while most of us were still try­ing to wrap our heads around this new thing called the inter­net (don’t miss this amus­ing bit), NPR’s Sci­ence Fri­day start­ed push­ing the enve­lope and host­ing the first inter­net-based radio talk show. This marked the first time that lis­ten­ers could “phone into” a pro­gram via the web and talk togeth­er – in this case about the cre­ative uses of this emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy. The broad­cast, which sin­gle­hand­ed­ly brought the inter­net to a crawl, has now resur­faced online. You can lis­ten below (or here).

via @Alyssa_Milano and Extreme­Tech

100 Greatest Posters of Film Noir

in Art, Film | February 11th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s and 50s, Hol­ly­wood entered a “noir” peri­od, pro­duc­ing riv­et­ing films based on hard-boiled fic­tion. These films were set in dark loca­tions and shot in a black & white aes­thet­ic that fit like a glove. Hard­ened men wore fedo­ras and for­ev­er smoked cig­a­rettes. Women played the femme fatale role bril­liant­ly. Love was the surest way to death. All of these ele­ments fig­ured into what Roger Ebert calls “the most Amer­i­can film genre” in his short Guide to Film Noir. (Also find 23 noir films right here.)

Accom­pa­ny­ing noir films were visu­al­ly engag­ing movie posters, and Where Dan­ger Lives (a noir blog) now gives you the “100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir.” They’ve been work­ing through this “best of” list for the past three months, and they con­clude this week with the Top 10 …  the best of the best.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne Films

60 Free Film Noir Movies

in | February 11th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s and 50s, Hol­ly­wood entered a “noir” peri­od, pro­duc­ing riv­et­ing films based on hard-boiled fic­tion. These films were set in dark loca­tions and shot in a black & white aes­thet­ic that fit like a glove. Hard­ened men wore fedo­ras and for­ev­er smoked cig­a­rettes. Women played the femme fatale role bril­liant­ly. Love was the surest way to death. All of these ele­ments fig­ured into what Roger Ebert calls “the most Amer­i­can film genre” in his short Guide to Film Noir. In this grow­ing list, we gath­er togeth­er the noir films avail­able online. You can stream all of the films, from start to fin­ish, in the playlist above. They also appear in our big col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

• A Life at Stake — Free — Direct­ed by Paul Guil­foyle, this Amer­i­can noir film stars Angela Lans­bury and Kei­th Andes. (1954)
• Beat the Dev­il – Free – Direct­ed by John Hus­ton and star­ring Humphrey Bog­a­rt, the film is some­thing of a com­ic and dra­mat­ic spoof of the film noir tra­di­tion. (1953)
• Behind Green Lights — Free — Stars Car­ole Lan­dis, John Ire­land. Police lieu­tenant Sam Car­son inves­ti­gates a polit­i­cal mur­der after the vic­tim is dumped at the door of police head­quar­ters. (1946)
• Big Bluff - Free — Direct­ed by W. Lee Wilder. When a schem­ing for­tune hunter finds his rich wife is not going to die as expect­ed, he and his lover make oth­er plans to get her mil­lions. (1950)
• Blonde Ice - Free — A soci­ety reporter keeps her­self in the head­lines by mar­ry­ing a series of wealthy men. They all die mys­te­ri­ous­ly after­wards though. (1948)
• Bor­der­line — Free — Fred Mac­Mur­ray and Claire Trevor are caught in Mex­i­can dope-smug­gling ring, fear­ing each oth­er is involved, but both under­cov­er agents. Alter­nate ver­sion. (1950)
• Cause for Alarm! — Free — Ellen (Loret­ta Young) nar­rates the tale of “the most ter­ri­fy­ing day of my life”, how she was tak­ing care of her bedrid­den hus­band George Z. Jones (Bar­ry Sul­li­van) when he sud­den­ly dropped dead. (1951)
• Club Par­adise — Free — The film, also known as Sen­sa­tion Hunters, was direct­ed by Christy Cabanne. The sto­ry: a touch­ing sto­ry of girl who like many oth­ers makes the wrong choice in life – and pays for it. (1945)
• Con­vic­t’s Code — Free — An ex-con is employed by the man who framed him for bank rob­bery. Direct­ed by Lam­bert Hilly­er. Star­ring Robert Kent and Anne Nage. (1939)
• Demen­tia — Free — Also called Daugh­ter of Hor­ror, this film by John Park­er incor­po­rat­ed ele­ments of hor­ror film, film noir and expres­sion­ist film. About the film, Cahiers du cin­e­ma wrote “To what degree this film is a work of art, we are not cer­tain but, in any case, it is strong stuff.” (1955)
• Detour - Free — Edgar Ulmer’s cult clas­sic noir film shot in 6 days. (1945)
• D.O.A. — Free — Rudolph Maté’s clas­sic noir film. Called “one of the most accom­plished, inno­v­a­tive, and down­right twist­ed entrants to the film noir genre.”
• Fear in the Night — Free — Low bud­get noir film direct­ed by Maxwell Shane & star­ring Paul Kel­ly and DeFor­est Kel­ley. It is based on the Cor­nell Wool­rich sto­ry “And So to Death”. (1947)
• Five Min­utes to Live — Free — Amaz­ing bank heist movie stars John­ny Cash, Vic Tay­back, Ron Howard, and coun­try music great, Mer­le Travis. (1961)
• Guest in the House — Free — Direct­ed by John Brahm, the noir film stars Anne Bax­ter, Ralph Bel­lamy, Aline MacMa­hon. (1946)
• He Walked by Night – Free – Film-noir dra­ma, told in semi-doc­u­­men­­tary style, fol­lows police on the hunt for a resource­ful crim­i­nal. This move became the basis for “Drag­net,” and stars Jack Webb. (1948)
• Impact — Free — Arthur Lubin’s well reviewed noir flic. Con­sid­ered a lit­tle known clas­sic you need to watch. (1940)
• Inner Sanc­tum — Free —  A grip­ping noir film about “a mur­der­er who is on the lam and hid­ing out in a small town. Unbe­knownst to him, he is not only hid­ing in the same board­ing house as the only wit­ness to his crime, he is shar­ing the same room.” (1948)
• Jig­saw - Free — Direct­ed by Fletch­er Markle, and star­ring Fran­chot Tone, Jean Wal­lace and Marc Lawrence, the film fea­tures cameo appear­ances by Mar­lene Diet­rich and Hen­ry Fon­da. (1949)
• John­ny O’Clock — Free — Direct­ed by Robert Rossen, based on a sto­ry by Mil­ton Holmes. The dra­ma fea­tures Dick Pow­ell, Eve­lyn Keyes, and Lee J. Cobb, with Jeff Chan­dler mak­ing his film debut in a small role. (1947)
• Kansas City Con­fi­den­tial – Free – A film noir gem that inspired Quentin Tarantino’s “Reser­voir Dogs.” (1953)
• Key Lime Pie — Free – A zany ani­mat­ed film in the noir tra­di­tion. (2007)
• Lady Gang­ster — Free — Warn­er Bros. B pic­ture direct­ed by Robert Flo­rey based on the play Gangstress, or Women in Prison, by Dorothy Mack­aye, Stars: Faye Emer­son, Julie Bish­op, Frank Wilcox, Roland Drew, and Jack­ie C. Glea­son. (1942)
• Man in the Attic — Free — Jack Palance as Jack the Rip­per! (1954)
• Parole, Inc. — Free — Parole offi­cers fight against gang­sters try­ing to infil­trate the parole sys­tem. (1948)
• Please Mur­der Me – Free – Lawyer Ray­mond Burr  bril­liant­ly defends Angela Lans­bury in 1950s noir film. (1956)
• Port of New York - Free — Two nar­cotics agents go after a gang of mur­der­ous drug deal­ers who use ships dock­ing at the New York har­bor to smug­gle in their con­tra­band. First film in which Yul Bryn­ner appeared. (1949)
• Quick­sand - Free — Peter Lorre and Mick­ey Rooney star in a sto­ry about a garage mechan­ic’s descent into crime. (1950)
• Scar­let Street — Free — Direct­ed by Fritz Lang with Edward G. Robin­son. A film noir great. (1945)
• Shock - Free –This film noir tells the sto­ry of psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Cross (Vin­cent Price), who is treat­ing Janet Stew­art (Anabel Shaw), a young woman who is in a cata­ton­ic state. The coma was brought on when she heard loud argu­ing, went to her win­dow, and saw a man strike his wife with a can­dle­stick and kill her. (1946)
• Shoot to Kill — Free — Gang­ster framed by crooked DA. Wife and news­pa­per reporter team up. (1947)
• Strange Illu­sion — Free — B‑movie update of “Ham­let” has trou­bled teen Jim­my Lydon doubt­ing smooth-talk­er War­ren Williams who is woo­ing his moth­er. (1945)
• Sud­den­ly — Free — Buy DVD — Noir film with Frank Sina­tra and James Glea­son. The sto­ry line influ­enced The Manchuri­an Can­di­date, which again starred Sina­tra. (1954)
• The Amaz­ing Mr. X - Free — Noir film direct­ed by Bernard Vorhaus with cin­e­matog­ra­phy by John Alton. The film tells the sto­ry of a pho­ny spir­i­tu­al­ist rack­et. (1948).
• The Bas­ket­ball Fix — Free — A col­lege bas­ket­ball star col­lab­o­rates with orga­nized crime and becomes involved in ‘point shav­ing.’ A sports­writer tries to get him back on the right track. (1951)
• The Big Com­bo - Free — Direct­ed by Joseph Lewis, this film is today con­sid­ered a noir clas­sic. Crit­ics like to focus on cin­e­matog­ra­phy of John Alton, a noir icon. (1955)
• The Cap­ture — Free - Lew Ayres is an oil man who guns down a thief who may have been inno­cent. (1950)
• The Chase — Free — An Amer­i­can noir film direct­ed by Arthur Rip­ley, based on the Cor­nell Wool­rich nov­el The Black Path of Fear.
• The File on Thel­ma Jor­dan - Free — This noir direct­ed by Robert Siod­mak fea­tures Bar­bara Stan­wyck and Wen­dell Corey.  At the time Vari­ety said, “Thel­ma Jor­don unfolds as an inter­est­ing, femme-slan­t­ed melo­dra­ma, told with a lot of restrained excite­ment.” (1950)
• The Great Fla­mar­i­on — Free — Vaude­ville star Erich von Stro­heim entan­gled with mar­ried assis­tant. Direct­ed by Antho­ny Mann. (1945)
• The Green Glove - Free — A World War II vet­er­an in France, played by Glen Ford, gets mixed up in mur­der while inves­ti­gat­ing a stolen trea­sure. Direct­ed by Rudolph Maté. Alter­nate ver­sion on YouTube avail­able here. (1952)
• The Hitch-Hik­er - Free — Buy DVD — The first noir film made by a woman noir direc­tor, Ida Lupino. (1953)
• The Hood­lum — Free — Lawrence Tier­ney (“Reser­voir Dogs”) plays an unre­formed, hard­ened crim­i­nal who has just been released from prison. While work­ing at his broth­er’s gas sta­tion, he becomes very inter­est­ed in the armored car that makes reg­u­lar stops at the bank across the street. (1951)
• The Limp­ing Man - Free — Stars Lloyd Bridges and Moira Lis­ter. A WWII vet­er­an goes back to Eng­land after the war only to dis­cov­er that his wartime sweet­heart has got mixed up with a dan­ger­ous spy ring. (1953)
• The Man Who Cheat­ed Him­self — Free — Some call it “an under-appre­­ci­at­ed and lit­tle known gem.”  Stars Lee J. Cobb, John Dall, Jane Wyatt, and Lisa Howard.  YouTube ver­sion here. (1951)
• The Naked Kiss - Free — Con­stance Tow­ers is a pros­ti­tute try­ing to start a new life in a small town. Direct­ed by Sam Fuller. (1964)
• The Red House — Free — A noir psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller star­ring Edward G. Robin­son. Here’s the gist of the plot: “An old man and his sis­ter are con­ceal­ing a ter­ri­ble secret from their adopt­ed teen daugh­ter, con­cern­ing a hid­den aban­don farm­house, locat­ed deep in the woods.” (1947)
• The Saint Louis Bank Rob­bery – Free – Steve McQueen stars in a “grit­ty, down­beat, and some­times sav­age heist movie.” (1959)
• The Scar (aka Hol­low Tri­umph) — Free — Just released from prison, John Muller (Paul Hen­reid) mas­ter­minds a holdup at an ille­gal casi­no run by Rocky Stansy­ck. The rob­bery goes bad, and the mob­sters cap­tured some of Muller’s men and force them to iden­ti­fy the rest before killing them.
• The Sec­ond Woman — Free — Direct­ed by James Kern and star­ring Bet­sy Drake, this less­er known noir film gets some good reviews. (1951)
• The Strange Love of Martha Ivers – Free – Noir film start­ing Bar­bara Stan­wyck, Van Heflin and Kirk Dou­glas. Entered into 1947 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. (1946)
• The Strange Woman — Free — Edgar G. Ulmer’s femme fatale film star­ring Hedy Lamarr. (1946)
• The Stranger - Free — Buy DVD — Direct­ed by Orson Welles with Edward G. Robin­son. One of Welles’s major com­mer­cial suc­cess­es. (1946)
• They Made Me a Crim­i­nal — Free — Box­er John Garfield flees believ­ing he has com­mit­ted a mur­der while he was drunk. Pur­sued by Claude Rains, he meets up with the Dead End Kids. (1939)
• They Made Me a Killer — Free — A fugi­tive receives help from a vic­tim’s sis­ter (Bar­bara Brit­ton) as he tries to clear his name of rob­bery and mur­der charges. (1946)
• Three Steps North — Free — After a prison sen­tence an Amer­i­can GI sta­tioned in Italy (Lloyd Bridges) dis­cov­ers that his hid­den loot has dis­ap­peared and goes search­ing for it. Direct­ed by W. Lee Wilder. (1951)
• Time Table — Free — After the theft of $500,000 in a care­ful­ly exe­cut­ed train rob­bery, an insur­ance inves­ti­ga­tor (Mark Stevens, who also dou­bled as direc­tor and pro­duc­er) is forced to can­cel a planned vaca­tion with his wife to assist a rail­road detec­tive in iden­ti­fy­ing the cul­prits and recov­er­ing the mon­ey.  (1956)
• Too Late for Tears – Free – Direct­ed by Byron Haskin and based on a nov­el by Roy Hug­gins, Too Late for Tears is pure noir. (1949)
• Trapped - Free — Star­ring Lloyd Bridges and Bar­bara Pay­ton, the plot of this B noir film turns around a coun­ter­feit­ing ring. (1949)
• Walk The Dark Street — Free — An Army offi­cer and a hunter engage in a sim­u­lat­ed man­hunt with one using real bul­lets in Los Ange­les. (1956)
• Whis­per­ing City — Free — A Cana­di­an noir, direct­ed by Fyo­dor Otsep, star­ring Paul Lukas and Mary Ander­son. (1947)
• Whis­tle Stop - Free — Buy DVD – A noir flic with Ava Gard­ner. Love tri­an­gle leads to mur­der. (1946)
• Woman on the Run - Free — After Frank John­son (Ross Elliott) is the sole wit­ness to a gang­land mur­der, he goes into hid­ing and is trailed by Police Inspec­tor Fer­ris (Robert Kei­th), his wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheri­dan), and news­pa­per­man, Dan­ny Leggett (Den­nis O’Keefe). (1950)

For more free films, please vis­it our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Tall Painting

in Art | February 10th, 2011

If I have this right, you’re look­ing at the drip­ping, flow­ing art of Holton Row­er, a New York-based artist, who also hap­pens to be the grand­son of Alexan­der Calder. The film itself was direct­ed and edit­ed by Dave Kauf­man. Enough said, I will let you sit back and watch grav­i­ty, paint and Holton do their thing…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Cirque Calder

James Dean at 80

in Film, Television | February 8th, 2011

James Dean starred in only three major films – Rebel With­out a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant – before per­ish­ing in a car acci­dent on Route 466, near Cholame, Cal­i­for­nia in Sep­tem­ber 1955. (A free doc­u­men­tary cov­ers that.) A star died at 24. Mean­while, a leg­end for­ev­er embody­ing youth was born.

Jim­my Dean would have turned 80 today. Amaz­ing to say it. And, to mark the occa­sion, we’re fea­tur­ing a slide show show­cas­ing the pho­tog­ra­phy and voice of Den­nis Stock, the Mag­num pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took many icon­ic pho­tos of Dean, includ­ing Dean’s famous walk through a rainy Times Square with a cig­a­rette propped in mouth and hands in pock­ets. Stock­’s images shaped Dean’s pub­lic per­sona, and the work you’re see­ing here fig­ures into a more com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tion of Stock­’s oeu­vre on the Mag­num web­site.

PS Today is also Jules Verne’s 183rd birth­day. If you’re look­ing for his clas­sics – Around the World in 80 Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – you can find them in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Discovering Sherlock Holmes

in Books, History, Literature, Stanford | February 7th, 2011

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first con­ceived of Sher­lock Holmes in 1887, he prob­a­bly did­n’t antic­i­pate that the “con­sult­ing detec­tive” would become the world’s favorite fic­tion­al inves­tiga­tive logi­cian and even­tu­al­ly infil­trate every­thing from aca­d­e­m­ic cur­ric­u­la to Hol­ly­wood. Just last year, the BBC pro­duced a fan­tas­tic three-part mod­ern­iza­tion of the clas­sic, which accord­ing to many crit­ics eclipsed Guy Ritchie’s effects-dri­ven block­buster of the same name, released sev­er­al months ear­li­er.

So mas­sive and wide-reach­ing is the cult of Holmes that Stan­ford ded­i­cat­ed an entire project to the study of Sher­lock Holmes. Dis­cov­er­ing Sher­lock Holmes fea­tures 12 of the great­est sto­ries of the Sher­lock Holmes canon from The Strand Mag­a­zine, where Sher­lock first made his appear­ance, down­load­able as free anno­tat­ed, illus­trat­ed PDF’s. A his­tor­i­cal essay on Holmes’ epoch con­tex­tu­al­izes the sto­ries and fea­tures rare vin­tage art­work by Sid­ney Paget, the orig­i­nal Sher­lock illus­tra­tor.

Note: You can also find The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes in Open Cul­ture’s col­lec­tions of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks. Plus, the Free Movies col­lec­tion hous­es three vin­tage Sher­lock Holmes films — Dressed to Kill (1941), Sher­lock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943) and Ter­ror by Night (1946).

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

875 TEDTalks in a Neat Spreadsheet

in TED Talks | February 6th, 2011

A quick fyi for TED heads in our audi­ence: Right here, you can find an online spread­sheet that lists 875 TEDTalks, with handy links to each indi­vid­ual video. This evolv­ing Google doc will give you access to more than 265 hours of “riv­et­ing talks by remark­able peo­ple.” Because the page is updat­ed on a reg­u­lar basis, you’ll def­i­nite­ly want to book­mark it and keep tabs on the new addi­tions.

On a relat­ed note, TED has also just rolled out TED­Books, a new dig­i­tal book series that deliv­ers pow­er­ful ideas in 20,000 words or less. That’s about 1/3 the length of a tra­di­tion­al book. TED­Books are cur­rent­ly being sold for $2.99 through Ama­zon as “Kin­dle Sin­gles.” You can learn more about the ini­tia­tive on TED’s blog or via Brain­Pick­ings, or sim­ply vis­it Ama­zon to pre­view the first three books in the series:

• Homo Evo­lu­tis by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gul­lans
• The Hap­pi­ness Man­i­festo by Nic Marks
• Beware Dan­gerism! by Gev­er Tul­ley

Get more great bits of Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter and Face­book!

Star Wars is a Remix

in Art, Film | February 3rd, 2011

Kir­by Fer­gu­son is back. Last Sep­tem­ber, the writer/director released the first of a four-part film series – Every­thing is a Remix – that teas­es apart the long his­to­ry of artis­tic “remix­ing.” This first short film con­cen­trat­ed on the artis­tic bor­row­ings of musi­cians and writ­ers, with Led Zep­pelin and the Beat writ­ers get­ting the major focus. Now, with his sec­ond film, the atten­tion turns to film, and par­tic­u­lar­ly to the homages and bor­row­ings of George Lucas’ Star Wars. Aki­ra Kuro­sawa films, Spaghet­ti west­erns and John Wayne west­erns, clas­sic wartime movies, Leni Riefen­stahl pro­pa­gan­da films, Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis – they’re all remixed into the epic space dra­ma. The film wraps up with Fer­gu­son look­ing at Quentin Taran­ti­no and his own remix­ing ten­den­cies. And that sets the stage for parts 3 and 4 – a project that you can help finance in your own mod­est way. I’m sure Kir­by will appre­ci­ate your gen­eros­i­ty…