Airing in 1979,
The New Sound of Music was a BBC documentary which depicted and demonstrated the history of recorded and manipulated music, from the earliest paper rolls to electronic synthesizers and the cutting and manipulation of tape.
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posted by Pope Guilty
on Nov 19, 2012 -
13 comments
Korean high school. What's life like for a Korean student? In one of the most competitive societies in the world, how does one find their place? What does it take to achieve your aspirations and goals?
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posted by hellomina
on Nov 18, 2012 -
55 comments
Obama won Ohio by two points, and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won by five, but Democrats emerged with just four of Ohio’s 16 House seats. In Wisconsin, Obama prevailed by seven points, and Democratic Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin by five, but their party finished with just three of the state’s eight House seats. In Virginia, Obama and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine were clear victors, but Democrats won just three of the commonwealth’s 11 House seats. In Florida, Obama eked out a victory and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won by 13 points, but Democrats will hold only 10 of the Sunshine State’s 27 House seats. The Revenge of 2010:
How gerrymandering saved the congressional Republican majority,
undermined Obama's mandate,
set the terms of the sequestration fight, and
locked Democrats out of the House for the next decade. It's
not a new problem. But if the Supreme Court guts the
Voting Rights Act, it could get
a whole lot worse. And the electoral college
may be
next.
(What's gerrymandering, you ask? Let the animals explain. Meet the Gerry-mander. Peruse the abused. Catch the movie. Or just play the game. Previously.)
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 14, 2012 -
137 comments
For some, it's a document examining a pivotal point in rock history with one of the biggest bands. For others, it is a eulogy marking the transformation of a vibrant force in music into ironic self-importance. Either way, David Guggenheim's 2011 film
From The Sky Down [in
two parts, ~90m total,
trailer] is an interesting, somewhat historical, definitely hagiographic documentary about the struggles U2 faced between the end of the Joshua Tree tour and during the recording and release of
Achtung Baby.
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posted by hippybear
on Nov 7, 2012 -
70 comments
An interactive
web documentary (mostly in Italian with French subtitles) takes a look into Predappio - the city where Mussolini was born and where neofascists assemble yearly to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Rome and to
pray over the Duce's tomb. Ironically, the town has been left wing ever since the end of the war and the current mayor, Giorgio Frassinetti, is exasperated :"We have to work on the image of the town, on the prejudices against it... but these marching imbeciles are not helping!". Frassinetti participated in the Difficult Heritage conference, part of
Contemporary History Days in Braunau am Inn, Hitler's birthplace, and reflected on how easier it is to attempt to recover a town's honor when there is no
dead body to be worshipped but his performance and town strategy is still being criticized.
posted by Marauding Ennui
on Oct 31, 2012 -
1 comment
"In an effort to outwit raccoons, are we pushing their brain development and perhaps even sending them down a new evolutionary path? Using high-definition, infrared cameras that turn pitch dark into daylight ...
Raccoon Nation [
alt link] achieves something that has never been done before: it intimately follows a family of urban raccoons over the course of six months as the young – under the watchful eye of their mother – grow, develop, and begin to find their way in the complex world of a big city." "Raccoon populations have grown twenty-fold in North American cities over the last seventy years. And as this documentary will show, city life is changing raccoons in remarkable ways." (45:08 min. video)
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear
on Oct 13, 2012 -
42 comments
In 1968,
William Greaves conducted a filmmaking experiment in Central Park, wherein a film crew (directed by himself) filmed the non-existent movie "Over The Cliff", while a documentary film crew filmed the filming of the film, and another documentary film crew filmed the filming of the film of the film. The result was
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, [1h15m, NSFW (language and situations);
trailer] an experimental film wherein the observers are observed observing of the observed, with Greaves attempting to capture real moments in contrived circumstances.
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posted by hippybear
on Oct 13, 2012 -
20 comments
Moyers & Company
presents “United States of ALEC,” a report on the most influential corporate-funded political force most of America has never heard of — ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge. [previously]
posted by troll
on Oct 6, 2012 -
21 comments
In February, PBS and AOL launched
Makers, a video archive containing personal stories and anecdotes told in the first person by women, many of whom have sparked groundbreaking changes in American culture.
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posted by zarq
on Oct 4, 2012 -
3 comments
Copyright Criminals , the 2009 PBS Documentary, discusses the complex artistic and legal history of sampling in music, featuring interviews with both the samplers (Chuck D, De La Soul, Shock G, El-P, DJ Qbert) and the sampled (George Clinton and Clyde Stubblefield).
via egotrip
posted by chrchr
on Oct 1, 2012 -
15 comments
Johnny Cash once called 1968 the happiest year of his life. It was the year his masterpiece At Folsom Prison came out, the year he was named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year, and the year he married the love of his life, June Carter. So it was a fortunate time for a young filmmaker named Robert Elfstrom to meet up with Cash for the making of a documentary. Elfstrom traveled with Cash for several months in late 1968 and early 1969. The resulting film,
Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, is a revealing look at Cash, his creative process and his ties to family. [
via]
posted by netbros
on Sep 28, 2012 -
14 comments
In 2005, the Discovery Channel aired
Alien Worlds, a fictional documentary based on Wayne Douglas Barlowe's graphic novel,
Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV." Depicting mankind's first robotic mission to an extrasolar planet that could support life, the show drew from NASA's
Origins Program, the NASA/JPL
PlanetQuest Mission, and ESA's
Darwin Project. It was primarily presented through CGI, but included interviews from a variety of NASA scientists and other experts, including Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, John Craig Venter and Jack Horner. Oh, and George Lucas, too.
Official site.
Previously on MeFi. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 21, 2012 -
12 comments
Why We Fight is a series of seven documentary films commissioned by the United States government during World War II whose purpose was to show American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war. Each of them is in the common domain having been produced by the US government, available online, and linked below the fold:
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posted by Blasdelb
on Sep 16, 2012 -
24 comments
Two short documentaries about voguing - 1989 and 2011. An evolution of a dance form and a subculture.
Voguing: The Message traces the roots of this gay, Black and Latino dance form, which appropriates and plays with poses and images from mainstream fashion. Voguing competitions parody fashion shows and rate the contestants on the basis of movement, appearance and costume. This tape is a pre-Madonna primer that raises questions about race, sex and subcultural style. [Dir. Jack Walworth, David Bronstein & Dorothy Low 1989 13 min.]
VOGUE: A Twist on the Dance Floor is an intimate look into modern day voguing and how it's leaving a big impression even today. Starring legendary vogue fem Dashaun Evisu. [Dir. Danilo Parra, Produced by Dashaun Wesley; 2011 11 min.]
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posted by stoneweaver
on Aug 19, 2012 -
12 comments
On July 22, 2012,
Herb Vogel passed away. Herb worked his entire life for the US Postal Service, while his wife Dorothy worked for the Brooklyn Public Library. In spite of their
humble backgrounds,
the couple were renowned in art circles for amassing over the course of decades a deeply personal collection of over 2500 pieces of 20th C. contemporary American art, a collection so vast that it could not be housed in the
National Gallery of Art. A traveling exhibition entitled
Fifty Works in Fifty States was set up to share the Vogel's treasures with the American public in museums across the country, as well as online. The wonderful story of the deep love that the Vogels shared for each other and their passion for art, beauty and human creativity was told in the eponymous documentary
Herb and Dorothy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Aug 7, 2012 -
21 comments
"
James Cameron narrates this documentary on the classic film 2001. It includes archival footage of the late Arthur C. Clarke in the 1960s touring spacecraft manufacturing facilities, footage of designers putting together models, snippets of archival footage of Kubrick, interviews with various luminaries, and various other amazing stuff I’ve never seen. It also features interviews with Doug Trumbull and others who did special effects for the film. If you’re a 2001 fan, this is 43 minutes of candy.
Skip to 7:00 to find out how they did the floating-pen trick — including an interview with the actress who played the “Space Hostess” who grabbed the pen seemingly from midair. Skip to around 11:00 to meet the guys who played the apes ... . Around 13:45, Clarke explains how the monolith originally was to have a movie screen on it ... ."
posted by SpacemanStix
on Aug 4, 2012 -
34 comments
Orlando, FL - 10 ac, 90K sq ft, 13 bed, 30 bath, 20 car garage, 3 pools, 2 tennis cts, bowling alley, skating rink -
$100M [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen
on Jul 28, 2012 -
140 comments
