The Best of Ken Loach on YouTube

in Film | May 2nd, 2010

Ken Loach is Britain’s most famous – and often con­tro­ver­sial – direc­tor, known for his social real­ist direct­ing style and social­ist pol­i­tics. Giv­en his approach, it’s quite fit­ting that he has made some of his finest films avail­able on YouTube – for free. The Ken Loach YouTube chan­nel gives you access to his ear­ly major films, includ­ing Cathy Come Home, a 1966 BBC docu­d­ra­ma that por­trays a young cou­ple grap­pling with pover­ty, unem­ploy­ment, and home­less­ness, and also Kes, a 1970 movie that’s now ranked sev­enth on the British Film Insti­tute’s list of the Top Ten (British) Films.

But you would­n’t want to miss Loach’s more recent films. And the new YouTube col­lec­tion does­n’t dis­ap­point. It fea­tures Hid­den Agen­da (1990), a polit­i­cal thriller that won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val; Riff Raff (1991), anoth­er prize win­ner that takes a hard look at the work­ing class in the UK; and Ae Fond Kiss (2004), which delves into what hap­pens when a young Pak­istani man enters into a rela­tion­ship with a Cau­casian woman in Glas­gow.

We’re adding the Loach YouTube chan­nel to our Smart YouTube col­lec­tion, and his indi­vid­ual films to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

A big thanks goes to Natal­ie in the UK for this great find. And be sure to check out her tea-lov­ing blog at afternoonteatotal.com.

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Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen

in Comedy, Film | May 1st, 2010

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. You’ll find this gem and 340+ oth­er films (includ­ing many clas­sics) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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Apollo 11 Launch in Very Slow Motion

in History | April 30th, 2010

We take you back to July 16, 1969 and the launch of Apol­lo 11, which land­ed humans on the moon for the first time. The footage slows things down, stretch­ing 30 sec­onds of action to over eight min­utes of view­ing time. Here’s what it looked like in real time.

via @SteveSilberman

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Vermeer with a BiC

in Art | April 29th, 2010

Take  Johannes Ver­meer’s, The Girl with a Pearl Ear­ring, and then try to repro­duce it with a sim­ple BiC pen. That’s what artist James Mylne does here. In 90 sec­onds, we see what took him 90 hours to pull off. Here it goes.

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Truman Capote Reads from Breakfast at Tiffany’s in NYC (1963)

in Audio Books, Literature | April 29th, 2010

We’re bring­ing you some great authors this week. First it was Hem­ing­way, then Orwell, and now Capote.

In 1958, Tru­man Capote put his stamp on the Amer­i­can lit­er­ary scene when he pub­lished his short nov­el, Break­fast at Tiffany’s, in the pages of Esquire mag­a­zine. Authors and crit­ics were quick to rec­og­nize what Capote had accom­plished here. The always opin­ion­at­ed Nor­man Mail­er would say that Capote “is the most per­fect writer of my gen­er­a­tion, he writes the best sen­tences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Break­fast at Tiffany’s which will become a small clas­sic.” About that, Mail­er was exact­ly right. Break­fast at Tiffany’s is now a clas­sic book – not to men­tion a clas­sic film too (watch the trail­er with the icon­ic Audrey Hep­burn here). And now let’s rewind the audio­tape and take you back to 1963, to the great 92nd Street Y in New York city, where Tru­man Capote reads from his lit­tle clas­sic in his own dis­tinc­tive voice. This audio clip runs about 17 min­utes. Have a lis­ten.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

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Ernest Hemingway Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

in Literature | April 26th, 2010

Per­haps Ernest Hem­ing­way was­n’t the best at read­ing lit­er­a­ture aloud. And it’s why A.E. Hotch­n­er once said, “one of Ernest Hem­ing­way’s dead­liest ene­mies was The Micro­phone.”

But even so, it’s worth recap­tur­ing the voice of the Amer­i­can lit­er­ary giant – espe­cial­ly when we can hear him read from his  own work. The read­ing is called “In Har­ry’s Bar in Venice,” and it was record­ed with a pock­et recorder some­time in the late 1950s. You can access the record­ing (thanks to Harper­Au­dio) in mul­ti­ple for­mats here: .au for­mat, .gsm for­mat, .ra for­mat. Or you can buy it as part of a larg­er col­lec­tion called Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads Ernest Hem­ing­way.

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Oscar Wilde in His Own Words

in Art | April 26th, 2010

Click the image two times to take a clos­er look!

It’s a cre­ative take on Oscar Wilde. And Eri­ka Iris Sim­mons does­n’t stop there. You can find more of her cre­ative “paper­work” cre­ations on her web site. Beethoven, Hitch­cock, Ein­stein – they’re all here… (For more of her work, also see Sim­mons’ Flickrstream.)

via Metafil­ter

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Gravity Makes Music

in Film | April 26th, 2010

This short film is best watched in full screen mode. Just click here to expand.

Thanks to Yoni for send­ing this one along. If you have a great piece of open cul­ture to share with your fel­low read­ers, feel free to con­tact us any time.

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James Dean and Ronald Reagan Clash in Newly Discovered Video

in Television | April 26th, 2010

Recent­ly a friend of John Meroney at The Atlantic dis­cov­ered this 1954 episode of Gen­er­al Elec­tric The­ater fea­tur­ing Ronald Rea­gan and James Dean.

Dean’s per­for­mance is superb, and the episode (edit­ed to 6 min­utes) is a para­ble of the cul­tur­al ten­sions of the time — with drugged up, beat­nik delin­quents invad­ing the home of a decent cou­ple to sub­ject them at gun­point to jazz and slang: “man,” “fake it, Dad,” “you dig me,” “that’s crazy,” “don’t goof on me now.” It’s a quite fit­ting scene, espe­cial­ly giv­en that Rea­gan went on to be the icon of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, while Dean became emblem­at­ic of the rebel­lious youth cul­ture to which Rea­gan’s move­ment was a reac­tion. But while the overt moral les­son of this episode is anti-rebel, there’s no doubt that pow­er­ful depic­tions like these–in which Dean’s expres­sive­ness is as charis­mat­ic as it is frightening–only con­tributed to mak­ing rebel­lion cool.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

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The Hubble Celebrates 20 Years of Discovery

in Astronomy, Science | April 24th, 2010

20 years ago (April 24, 1990) the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope was launched, begin­ning a long peri­od of dis­cov­ery. Today, NASA is cel­e­brat­ing the Hub­ble’s 20th anniver­sary by releas­ing one of the many bril­liant pho­tos tak­en by the space tele­scope. The image shows us a small por­tion of one of the largest star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Cari­na Neb­u­la. As NASA goes on to describe it:

“Tow­ers of cool hydro­gen laced with dust rise from the wall of the neb­u­la. The scene is rem­i­nis­cent of Hub­ble’s clas­sic “Pil­lars of Cre­ation” pho­to from 1995, but is even more strik­ing in appear­ance. The image cap­tures the top of a three-light-year-tall pil­lar of gas and dust that is being eat­en away by the bril­liant light from near­by bright stars. The pil­lar is also being pushed apart from with­in, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen stream­ing from tow­er­ing peaks like arrows sail­ing through the air.”

You can down­load NASA’s fea­tured pho­to in var­i­ous sizes and res­o­lu­tions here. You can also look through an amaz­ing gallery of Hub­ble pho­tos spon­sored by NASA, plus a beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s here. Last­ly, NPR has a nice audio slideshow that fea­tures astronomers talk­ing about their favorite Hub­ble images. Thanks @lauraehall for the heads up on that.

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Life: Creeper Plants Climb Trees

in Science | April 23rd, 2010

Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel’s Life series has been receiv­ing a lot of rave reviews for its stun­ning footage of plants and ani­mals.  This excerpt show­ing creep­er plants climb­ing trees lives up to the hype. Leave it to a lit­tle time-lapse video–not to men­tion a voice-over by Oprah Winfrey–to blur the line between plant and ani­mal.

UPDATE: A read­er in Europe informed me that this video is appar­ent­ly being blocked out­side of the US. It’s extreme­ly rare that this hap­pens with YouTube videos (I’ve only seen it hap­pen with full movies), but for some rea­son, it hap­pened here. My apolo­gies. [Dan]

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

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