Give me your best easy, quick desserts for one person made with stuff I already have in my kitchen.
posted to Ask Metafilter by treehorn+bunny at 7:44 PM on February 2, 2012 (47 comments)

Meryl Streep won the BAFTA Best Actress Award for The Iron Lady. Colin Firth retrieved the slipper she lost on the way up the steps and MC Stephen Fry referred to them as Prince Charming and Cinderella.
posted to MetaFilter by Anitanola at 4:00 PM on February 12, 2012 (49 comments)

After a string of projector malfunctions occurred during a screening of Martin Scorsese's Hugo in New York City, the pre-show advertising began playing over the film's climactic scene. Metahilarity ensues.
posted to MetaFilter by alexoscar at 6:41 PM on January 26, 2012 (45 comments)

What's a JavaScript Closure? Ever wonder about some of JavaScript's more advanced and esoteric features? Nathan Whitehead's interactive tutorial explains and walks through each of these concepts one step at a time. At the end of each lesson, you are encouraged to write short snippets of code demonstrating the concepts that you just learned, which are then automatically checked for errors and verified.

Perhaps you're new to JavaScript, or programming in general; CodeAcademy offers similar interactive tutorials that will teach you the basics, and hold your hand along the way. Perhaps you'd rather learn at a more even pace; CodeAcademy's CodeYear will introduce you to one new concept every week throughout 2012.
posted to MetaFilter by schmod at 9:43 AM on January 20, 2012 (42 comments)

I am a lady on a quest to never shop for clothes or shoes again. Help me!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Snarl Furillo at 12:53 PM on January 16, 2012 (34 comments)

What are tasty, low-carb soups and stews that keep and re-heat well?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mercredi at 11:35 AM on January 4, 2012 (23 comments)

"If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud."
posted to MetaFilter by Phire at 9:04 AM on January 3, 2012 (236 comments)

How Film is Made
posted to MetaFilter by beshtya at 5:30 AM on January 2, 2012 (22 comments)

Here (from NPR's All Things Considered, 2008) is Woody Allen's classic stand-up routine, the Moose Story. A few more, from YouTube: Science Fiction Film, Eggs Benedict (unfortunately with distracting animation), on the Jack Paar show. MLYT
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 8:45 AM on December 11, 2011 (9 comments)

On the quest for the Ultimate Nachos!
posted to Ask Metafilter by veryape at 11:28 AM on November 30, 2011 (34 comments)

How do you, as a woman, succeed in the "good ol'" boy's club?
posted to Ask Metafilter by DisreputableDog at 6:44 PM on November 27, 2011 (28 comments)

I get really frustrated with the process at my workplace, particularly meetings. After many details, I have a couple of questions about work (specifically software development and project management decisions) and how to deal with meeting-related frustration.
posted to Ask Metafilter by sarahj at 12:53 PM on November 23, 2011 (30 comments)

A hypnotic little tutorial on 25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made (filmed in her bedroom). (via Already Pretty)
posted to MetaFilter by flex at 10:31 AM on November 15, 2011 (32 comments)

The Strange World of Gurney Slade was a "sitcom" starring Anthony Newley (previously). Airing on British television in late 1960, the show's self-reflexivity, bizarreness, and deep experimentation was truly ahead of its time for television. All six episodes are available on YouTube.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Xanax IV at 11:11 PM on October 17, 2011 (12 comments)

Rescued Owl returns to care for other injured birds (ands one cat)
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 7:56 PM on October 9, 2011 (93 comments)

I'm aware that re-releases of old films (eg, from the 70s, Star Wars I'm looking at you) are common as and when new formats become available, but what is the logic in this other than commercial?
posted to Ask Metafilter by dougrayrankin at 3:39 PM on September 19, 2011 (22 comments)

Floating Worlds is a new book detailing the never-before-seen correspondence between illustrator Edward Gorey and author Peter F. Neumeyer, who collaborated on three children’s books between September 1968 and October 1969. During that period, they regularly sent each other letters and postcards, many of which Gorey embellished with illustrations.
posted to MetaFilter by flyingsquirrel at 8:47 PM on September 15, 2011 (8 comments)

He rides with biker gangs! He shoots whales with a crossbow! He does piano recitals for charity! He bends frying pans with his bare hands! It's Vladimir Putin, Action Man.
posted to MetaFilter by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:23 AM on September 13, 2011 (92 comments)

An unbelievable collection of Roddy McDowall’s never-before-seen silent home movies from the summer of 1965 were uploaded onto YouTube yesterday, featuring impossibly young, impossibly gorgeous stars like Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Hope Lange, and Rock Hudson frolicking on the beach. You simply MUST go to the website and watch them all. The takeaway for me, though, is Sal Mineo slinking out the back door with a guilty-looking blond who may or may not be Bobby Sherman. What were THEY up to? Also mesmerizing: The closeup of Natalie Wood’s freckles, Jane Fonda sticking out her tongue, and Paul Newman’s hunky son.
posted to MetaFilter by BoringPostcards at 2:25 PM on September 5, 2011 (46 comments)

Nancy Wake AC GM, nicknamed "the White Mouse", was an heroic resistance fighter in Occupied France in the period 1940 - 1944 and reportedly the Gestapo's most wanted person. She died yesterday.
posted to MetaFilter by wilful at 12:05 AM on August 8, 2011 (45 comments)

Since 1998, Christian Humor Magazine Ship of Fools has been sending Mystery Worshippers to churches to write reviews.
posted to MetaFilter by Bulgaroktonos at 9:30 AM on July 25, 2011 (30 comments)

“Highbrow critics talk in ornate polysyllables about the ingenuity and art of the German filmmakers. If they condescended to witness the nonsensical genius of a Charley Bowers comedy they could drool dictionaries.” Educational Pictures Press Book for THERE IT IS, January 23, 1928

Charley Bowers is a genius of silent film and animation that never got the level of attention of his peers Buster Keaton or the Fleischer Brothers. You'll have to search hard to find him in film literature. But watching his work—as a bird lays a Ford Model T or a scruffy ghost tortures a Scotsman and his insect sidekick—you can see the inspiration for the later sight gags of Ernie Kovacs, the visual non sequiturs of Looney Toons, the cut paper trickery of Terry Gilliam and surrealist Andre Breton citing one of Bowers' shorts as the most influential film of 1937.
posted to MetaFilter by Gucky at 12:44 AM on July 10, 2011 (18 comments)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library today launched its latest online research tool, the Production Art Database. The database contains records for more than 5,300 items from the library’s collection, including motion picture costume and production design drawings, animation art, storyboards and paintings. Nearly half of the records include images, making this an invaluable online resource for researchers interested in motion picture design.
posted to MetaFilter by Trurl at 7:56 PM on July 2, 2011 (7 comments)

The Avant Garde Project is a series of recordings of 20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. Until now, of course.
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb at 3:31 PM on June 28, 2011 (17 comments)

There's Only One Sun is a gorgeous sci-fi ad/short film by acclaimed director Kar Wai Wong.
posted to MetaFilter by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:27 PM on June 27, 2011 (13 comments)

The World of Jim Henson: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: "An excellent biography of the Muppet master, this 85-minute film from the PBS show Great Performances mixes the history of Henson's projects with plenty of sketches that any fan age 6 and older should enjoy. The film shows the incredible range of Henson's creations, starting in 1955 with "Sam and Friends" then moving on to Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and beyond. It illustrates the breadth of his genius, from creating entirely new worlds in film (The Dark Crystal) to pithy '60s TV commercials that achieved branding and a laugh in less than six seconds. There's footage that most fans haven't seen in years, or at all: a regular bit from The Jimmy Dean Show; tantalizing bits of his 1965 Oscar-nominated short, Time Piece; appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show; his explanation of Wall Street on Nightline; and Miss Piggy's hilarious deconstruction of Morley Safer on 60 Minutes."
posted to MetaFilter by puny human at 7:47 PM on June 21, 2011 (23 comments)

(This Post is NSFW) Marcel Mariën is frequently referred to as Rene Magritte's surrogate son.
Magritte was so surreal he forged himself as well as producing fake Picassos, Braques and Chiricos which Mariën sold in Paris.
Mariën was an artist in his own right being a poet, photographer and publisher.
In 1943 his De Sade a Lenin marked the beginning of an mainly humorous oeuvre that was to continue through to the mid 1980's.
iphotocentral has a large collection of the work of this trickster.
His 1960 film L’Imitation du Cinéma could not be shown in the USA despite having the the support of the Kinsey Institute. A Biography.
posted to MetaFilter by adamvasco at 4:32 AM on June 20, 2011 (1 comment)

The much-beloved Arrested Development was characterized by its complex, multilayered narrative jokes; here the A. V. Club analyzed a 50-second-long clip and tried to map out all its references (including one very subtle three-part joke about eggs). Luckily for you, there’s a very exhaustive web site, The Balboa Observer-Picayune, which documents the show’s obscurest jokes (H. Maddas, Blackstool, GOB’s ice obsession), its cleverest callbacks (Hello’s revenge, ”Mom says”, pilot/finale callbacks), its visual gags (yearbooks, newspapers, cartoons, Amazon), and its longest-running gags (I’ve made a huge mistake”, “Her?”, Cloud Mir, ”Hey, brother!”, and the chicken dance). Complete index of references at the Bluthcyclopedia. Complete transcripts of every episode. Bonus songs! All You Need Is Smiles. Yellow Boat. Big Yellow Joint. Hot Cops. It Ain’t Easy Being White. Discipline Daddy. Motherboy. Balls in the Air. You Here With Me. I Get Up. Finally, Fonzie jumps the shark again.
posted to MetaFilter by Rory Marinich at 7:59 AM on June 16, 2011 (301 comments)

Give me your best homemade beauty concoctions!
posted to Ask Metafilter by geegollygosh at 11:35 AM on May 26, 2011 (32 comments)

Ben Hecht, arguably one of the greatest screenwriters in Hollywood history, started his career in the (sometimes literally) cutthroat world of Jazz Age journalism at the Chicago Daily News. Throughout 1921 he wrote a series of remarkable vignettes collectively titled the Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago: stories of drifters, fops, and artists from Michigan Avenue to Chinatown, but most of all a fond portrait of the city itself. Collected in book form and gorgeously illustrated, the Thousand and One Afternoons are in the public domain and readily available online. Each story is four or five short pages in length, and goes great with coffee.
posted to MetaFilter by theodolite at 12:29 PM on May 31, 2011 (10 comments)

As a follow-up to this question I asked last week... What *practical* things have you done as a loved one of friends or family that were struggling financially or were stuck in a cycle of poverty. Have you loaned money? Paid bills? Helped them write a budget? Let them move in? Bought them groceries? Filled up their gas tank? There must be other things I'm not thinking about. What advice would you give to a parent whose adult child was floundering?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jeffreyclong at 9:43 PM on October 22, 2009 (14 comments)

FinancialFilter: I am going to help out a family member pay off some credit card debt (over the IRS 10K gift limit.) What is the bet way...
posted to Ask Metafilter by cowmix at 1:08 PM on July 22, 2005 (9 comments)

"Even beyond the philosophical wonder of passively sampling our outside environment in a shared, meaningful fashion is the ridiculous sensitivity of our senses."
posted to MetaFilter by Glinn at 2:10 PM on May 11, 2011 (27 comments)

Corgi in a swing don't give a shit.
posted to MetaFilter by kmz at 9:53 AM on May 3, 2011 (78 comments)

Network Awesome has compiled a short history of some of Jim Henson's early muppet work, including his infamously dark Wilson's Coffee commercials: (on YouTube) 1, 2, 3 and the IBM Muppet Show. (Who among us hasn't woken up in the morning and wanted to eat their coffee machine? (Previously) (Via)
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 4:05 PM on April 4, 2011 (21 comments)

Can anyone recommend some good French podcasts? I'm not looking for language-learning programming, Just French language podcasts similar to CBC's Spark on technology & culture, The Moth-style personal stories, gaming a la GiantBomb's Bombcast , or NPR-style in-depth journalism.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grimp0teuthis at 4:37 PM on April 2, 2011 (10 comments)

“Outside In” is a jaw-dropping IMAX film currently in production that uses only photographic images from space probes to create a tour of the solar system in a one smooth, continuous camera shot – no 3D, no models, no matte paintings - by a single filmmaker in his basement. Via
If you find the site overloaded, you can also see the trailer for the film at APOD or on Vimeo. Also of note: some amazing photographs of the Sun and other celestial objects by Alan Friedman, and a shot of Saturn’s moon Dione seen past Rhea, reminiscent of 2001.
posted to MetaFilter by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:25 AM on March 15, 2011 (36 comments)

How would I find my Chicago doppleganger?
posted to Ask Metafilter by rileyray3000 at 11:00 AM on March 7, 2011 (19 comments)

Inception in C
posted to MetaFilter by scalefree at 8:44 PM on February 22, 2011 (57 comments)

Richard Sullivan has posted the 16mm color footage his father shot of the "spontaneous celebrations that broke out upon first hearing news of the Japanese surrender" on Kalakaua Ave in Waikiki on August 14th, 1945.
posted to MetaFilter by zzazazz at 8:04 AM on February 11, 2011 (44 comments)

Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.

These are just some elements of game creation that are gone -- never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we've played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.

As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.

Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis
posted to MetaFilter by timshel at 2:04 PM on February 9, 2011 (44 comments)

Where can I find spoken French with word for word transcripts?
posted to Ask Metafilter by AlexanderPetros at 5:25 PM on February 8, 2011 (7 comments)

Stanford's Visualization Group has produced a data cleanup web app called Wrangler that works like straight up magic.
posted to MetaFilter by chunking express at 8:18 AM on February 4, 2011 (32 comments)

In 1905, a rich French man named Louis Mantin died. He had no children, and had an unusual request in his will: keep his house untouched for 100 years, and then turn it into a museum (English-language link; BBC video). Welcome to the Maison Mantin of Alliers, France (French-language links). If you can't find it, it's right on the Cour des Bénédictins, right next to the surprisingly picturesque former prison (last two links are to images). You have to book ahead by phone.
posted to MetaFilter by flibbertigibbet at 8:58 AM on January 18, 2011 (16 comments)

The division of post-WWII Berlin reached everywhere in the city, even underground, sealing stations throughout the long decades of the Cold War. They were the first “ghost stations”, which can now be found everywhere: the Paris Metro (previously), Los Angeles, the London Underground, New York City, and the aforementioned Berlin, remaining as entombed time capsules that are passed by millions every day.
posted to MetaFilter by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:12 PM on December 29, 2010 (10 comments)

Ted Chiang is perhaps the finest author in contemporary science fiction -- and the most rarefied. A technical writer by trade and a graduate of the distinguished Clarion Writers Workshop, Chiang has published only twelve short stories in the last twenty years, one dozen masterpieces of the genre whose insightful, precise, often poetic language confronts fundamental ideas -- intelligence, consciousness, the nature of God -- and thrusts them into a dazzling new light. Click inside for a complete listing of Chiang's work, with links to online reprints or audio recordings where available, as well as a collection of one-on-one interviews, links to his nonfiction essays, and a few other related sites and articles.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:11 AM on December 27, 2010 (116 comments)

Streets of Fire (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) is a 1984 film directed by Walter Hill and co-written by Hill and Larry Gross. It was described in previews, trailers, and posters as "A Rock & Roll Fable." It is an unusual mix of musical, action, drama, and comedy with elements both of retro-1950s and 1980s. ... The film was promoted as a summer blockbuster but failed critically and commercially, grossing only USD $8 million in North America, well below its $14.5 million budget. Its dynamic musical score by the likes of Jim Steinman, Ry Cooder, and others, as well as the hit Dan Hartman song "I Can Dream About You", however, has helped it attain something of a cult following among fans.
posted to MetaFilter by Joe Beese at 9:27 PM on December 18, 2010 (59 comments)

In Renato Casaro's artwork '100 years of Film' who are the two people in the bottom right?
posted to Ask Metafilter by wannalol at 9:47 AM on December 16, 2010 (7 comments)

Serge Daney (1944 - 1992) is often cited as one of the greatest film critics. After joining the legendary film magazine Cahiers du cinéma (which he would eventually edit) at age 20, Daney wrote extensively on the changing place of movies in culture, on directors new and old and on television, war and even sports. He founded the film magazine Trafic before dying of AIDS in 1992.

Though some of his essays have been officially translated and a small book of his writings has been published in English, the vast majority of his work remains untranslated into English. That hasn't stopped a devoted group of cinephiles from taking matters into their own hands.
posted to MetaFilter by alexoscar at 5:57 PM on December 13, 2010 (12 comments)

One of the greatest movie satires you almost never saw, Norman Lear's first stab at film making sat for two years before its 1971 release. Shot on location in Greenfield, Iowa, it featured a who's who cast of television comedy,
posted to MetaFilter by timsteil at 8:33 AM on November 12, 2010 (25 comments)