Ambiguous movie endings resolved. Some jokesters have put together imagined endings to some ambiguous film (and TV) endings. Much funnier and better executed than I expected.
posted by meadowlark lime on Nov 12, 2009 - 51 comments

"Long thought to be lost or destroyed, this complete recording of one of the few hour long interviews of Alfred Hitchcock has been found." [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Oct 12, 2009 - 17 comments

Split Screen is a blog about      |   From Edwin S. Porter's Life of an American Fireman
the eponymous film technique    |   to Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls to Michel Gondry's
and its alternatives, with many   |   Sugar Water (the BEST EVER, imo), split screens have
surprising, intriguing examples.  |   encouraged alternate and ideally unlimited perspecitves.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur on Oct 9, 2009 - 28 comments

CGI-brows (link goes to video on Vimeo which contains a naughty word but is otherwise SFW.) A short mockumentary about extreme emoting through SFX by RocketSausage (Dir. Andrew Gaynord) which has won the Virgin Media Shorts People's Choice Award for 2009.
posted by planetkyoto on Oct 1, 2009 - 12 comments

Lernert Engenberts produces tiny, beautiful and exquisitely cruel films. Revenge on an innocent egg. Three ways to melt a chocolate bunny. Teasing the colour blind with colour correction. Abstract artists explain their work to their parents. But this may be the cruelest one of all. See more, including an ode to Alaska via AOL, on his site.
posted by maudlin on Jul 31, 2009 - 23 comments

"Because the camera is so close to the character(s) being followed, we feel that we're physically attached to those characters, as if by an invisible guide wire, being towed through their world, sometimes keeping pace, other times losing them as they weave through hallways, down staircases or through smoke or fog." A video montage and essay by Matt Zoller Seitz. All shots are identified at the end; you may know more of them than you think. (via)
posted by maudlin on Jun 3, 2009 - 15 comments

Clerkdogs works surprisingly well versus other web-based recommendations, partly because paid enthusiasts are involved, and partly for its intuitive interface. [more inside]
posted by hypersloth on Apr 5, 2009 - 51 comments

The Lost Tribes of New York City
posted by miss lynnster on Apr 4, 2009 - 29 comments

The Oscar-nominated "Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello" is an "adventurous tale of a navigator’s journey to save his ailing wife set in a beautiful world of Victorian science-fiction" and one the many fine film shorts and videos available to watch at shortof theweek.com - a site dedicated to "finding those few [video] gems amongst the enormous heap of garbage they're buried in..." [more inside]
posted by taz on Mar 9, 2009 - 7 comments

Accompanied by Aphex Twin's classic Selected Ambient Works II, we have the rarely-seen experimental video Stakker (Westworld) in nine parts: Z Twig / Radiator | Rhubarb | Hankie | Grass | White Blur | Parallel Stripes | Z Twig / Lichen | Blur | Match Sticks [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jan 21, 2009 - 37 comments

Khoda :"What if you watch a film and whenever you pause it, you face a painting? This idea inspired Reza Dolatabadi to make Khoda. Over 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during two years to create a five minutes film."
posted by dhruva on Jan 20, 2009 - 41 comments

Architectural critic and writer Reyner Banham loved Los Angeles. (Last link is a BBC documentary, circa 1972, 52 minutes -- NSFW at 47 minute mark) [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Dec 1, 2008 - 2 comments

"There's something very shabby about a noble grave... Political power and the power of wealth result in splendid graves. Really impressive graves, you know. Such creatures never had any imagination while they lived, and quite naturally their graves don't leave any room for imagination either. But noble people live only on the imaginations of themselves and others, and so they leave graves like this one which inevitably stir one's imagination. And this I find even more wretched. Such people, you see, are obliged even after they are dead to continue begging people to use their power of imagination." - Yukio Mishima via Kashiwagi in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. On this, the anniversary of Mishima's transformation into a headless god, a collection of video links. [more inside]
posted by eccnineten on Nov 25, 2008 - 11 comments

"It's a human drama thing." This is a documentary film about a group of people in Texas who enter a competition to win a new "hardbody" pickup truck, merely by keeping one hand on the truck the longest. (via Kottke via waxy) [more inside]
posted by acro on Aug 25, 2008 - 44 comments

12 Angry Men + Glowing = 12 Glowing Men. An absolutely beautiful film by Martijn Hendriks.
posted by hubs on Jul 30, 2008 - 36 comments

Dog Years. A brief, but touching short. Official site here.
posted by Ufez Jones on Jul 24, 2008 - 11 comments

Home Movies. A 1975 documentary by a young academic folklorist, exploring what it was that people were doing when they made home movies: remembering selectively, creating a "golden age." [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jul 21, 2008 - 20 comments

Jedi Gym
posted by loquacious on Jul 4, 2008 - 34 comments

The Bullitt chase entirely geocoded. (Previously.)
posted by miss lynnster on Jun 30, 2008 - 38 comments

Record player + video camera = Phonographantasmascope, animator Jim LeFevre's extension of the zoetrope. "It is all live action and works by using the shutter speed of the camera rather than the rather irritating stroboscope methods other 3D Zoetropes use."
posted by nthdegx on Jun 23, 2008 - 15 comments

Charlie Chaplin Filter. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on May 26, 2008 - 22 comments

Koyaanisqatsi [more inside]
posted by phrontist on May 10, 2008 - 72 comments

Dressing a dog up as a person is I think not a very good thing. But when I do it, it's fine. William Wegman's Early Videos. Short Films. Trio/Metropolis/Guitar. Clips from his feature, The Hardly Boys.

David Hart's David Hockney meets William Wegman
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur on Mar 24, 2008 - 19 comments

Gravityland. Interactive Web TV series. Watch weekly episodes, respond, contribute. Read blog. Add moves to music video. Play Where in the world is Gravityland? Read comic book. Build FAQ. Somehow, it's all related, and all possibility. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Mar 5, 2008 - 8 comments

When it comes to home theaters, I thought I'd seen it all. But nothing's come close to this. First, I'm going to try to describe the sheer magnitude of Jeremy Kipnis' theater. His Stewart Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen is the biggest I've ever seen in a home, and in the back of the theater, there's a Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector. I'm looking everywhere, jotting down questions, and Kipnis sounds almost giddy talking about his theater's capabilities. He refers to his baby, the Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS), as "The Greatest Show on Earth." And from the looks of it, he may be right. I should hope so, it cost six million dollars.
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar on Feb 14, 2008 - 120 comments

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube" features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.
posted by Soup on Dec 27, 2007 - 21 comments

Weng Weng Rap is a musical tribute to the Philippines's beloved 2' 9" tall superspy, the star of such films as For Your Height Only (audio clips). (Some lyrics mildly NSFW.)
posted by whir on Dec 20, 2007 - 13 comments

Courtesy of Youtube, here are some performances from the 1981 movie Dance Craze: Nite Klub, Too Much Too Young & Concrete Jungle by The Specials; Three Minute Hero & Too Much Pressure by The Selecter; Ranking Full Stop & Mirror in the Bathroom by The (English) Beat; The Prince & Swan Lake by Madness; (Lets do the) Rock Steady & 007 (Shanty Town) by The Bodysnatchers and; Nee-Nee-Na-Na-Na-Nu & Lip Up Fatty by Bad Manners. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch on Dec 5, 2007 - 22 comments

Though not as commonly known, Alfred Hitchcock's late British period is nonetheless an intriguing look at what delights were to come from his later work.

Secret Agent (1936 | Wikipedia | Download)
Young and Innocent (1937 | Wikipedia | Download)
Jamaica Inn (1939 | Wikipedia | Download)

posted by dhammond on Nov 25, 2007 - 15 comments

TV-Links website shut down, site creator arrested. Says David Rock, who awaits charges, "It was just a hobby." [more inside]
posted by SassHat on Nov 7, 2007 - 32 comments

High speed camera.
posted by loquacious on Nov 4, 2007 - 19 comments

A mainstay of the old-timey cinema era, the Photoplayer was a pump organ designed for player piano rolls, sound effects and a human composer. [Courtesy of Huell Howser]
posted by dhammond on Aug 1, 2007 - 11 comments

Burroughs
A 1983 documentary by Howard Brookner on William S. Burroughs. 89 mins, G-vid, a bit more inside...
posted by carsonb on Jul 10, 2007 - 13 comments

Augenblick Studios provide many strange and offensive animated cartoon video films including Superjail. You may be familiar with their work!!! [flash, mayhap quicktime]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Jul 3, 2007 - 7 comments

Mathematics in Movies.
posted by nthdegx on May 6, 2007 - 28 comments

40 years ago, the Vicious Cycles motorcycle club assaulted a construction worker before taking to the road. Fortunately, filmmakers Chuck Menville (father of voice artist Scott Menville) and Len Janson were on hand to film the gang's misdeeds. Menville and Janson's picture would ultimately become part of a trilogy, with Blaze Glory and Sargent Swell of the Mounties produced wit similar eye-catching style. Decades later, the filmmakers' work would be echoed in another tale of conflict, in addition to a product-themed homage to more recent hipster subculture.
posted by Smart Dalek on Mar 19, 2007 - 10 comments

Baraka is an astonishing film voyaging six continents and twenty-four countries. Directed by Ron Fricke, it is a visual tour de force painstakingly shot on Todd AO-70mm film. Information on the film (and its upcoming sequel!) can be found here or you can always watch the making of.
posted by ageispolis on Mar 16, 2007 - 48 comments

UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video holdings to on-demand streaming formats. via WFMU.
posted by treepour on Nov 28, 2006 - 11 comments

Mr. CityMen is a series of five evocative animation/live action Quicktime shorts by Eric Lerner, including Mr. Deja Vu, Mr. Fortune, Mr. Afraid of Anything But Heights, Mr. Sunken and my fave, Mr. Dreamer, bouncing around the beautiful urban decay.
posted by mediareport on Nov 26, 2006 - 13 comments

David Lynch: "Without cows there would be no cheese in the Inland Empire" (via).
posted by JPowers on Nov 10, 2006 - 54 comments

RED ONE is a 12.6 megapixel digital film/HD camcorder developed by Jim Jannard, founder of the Oakley sunglasses company. The camera will retail for $17,500, and is alleged to outperform HD and digital film cameras from established companies like Sony, Arri, Panavision and Dalsa (whose offerings all cost well in excess of $100,000). The general consensus among pundits in media production circles is that Jannard's camera will be a true disruptive technology. Last night, no less than 24 hours after the very first publically available sample images from the camera's "Mysterium" sensor were posted to the RED Digital Cinema website, the company's development offices were broken into. According to Jannard, "Everything they took was camera and camera file related...there is no question all they came for was RED camera stuff." (Additional obligatory and annoying YouTube links: First public demonstration of the RED camera at the IBC convention in Amsterdam and the RED Q & A session that followed.)
posted by melorama on Sep 24, 2006 - 79 comments

Free Movies, Documentaries, Cartoons, TV-Shows, Music & Comedy - 100% handpicked content chosen to inform, educate, shock and entertain you. Most of the old films and cartoons are in public domain: "when a work's copyright or patent restrictions expire, it enters the public domain and may be used by anyone for any purpose." The newer media is probably not in public domain, they are just freely available for some unknown reason. Tomorrow they could be gone.
posted by crunchland on Sep 18, 2006 - 19 comments

Ques ça c'est? Scopitones were film jukeboxes in post-war France. See Jacque Brel and Johnny Hallyday in vivid couleur! (via)
posted by klangklangston on Jun 21, 2006 - 13 comments

The top entry* (turn up the volume) in the Scanner Darkly remix contest is already better than the (turn it back down) official trailer.
posted by Tlogmer on May 21, 2006 - 47 comments

Zanta: The Movie. If you live or work in downtown Toronto, you've seen him. Shirtless, wearing a Santa hat, and most likely doing pushups, he's David "Zanta" Zancai, and one of the city's most enigmatic characters.
posted by Robot Johnny on May 19, 2006 - 38 comments

A Swarm of Angels is about making a £1 million movie and giving it away to one million people in one year. By using the Internet to gather together 50,000 people willing to pay £25 to join an exclusive global online community – The Swarm – the project’s ambition is to make the world’s first Internet-funded, crewed and distributed feature film. (more inside)
posted by slimepuppy on May 12, 2006 - 31 comments

DIVA 2006The Digital & Video Art Fair just opened in New York (nytimes) some highlights if you don’t live in the New York area, or have a better way to spend $10: Martin Sastre’s BOLIVIA 3: Confederation Next (Barney represents Matthew Barney, see here he is slaying Sastre with a lightsaber) part of his Iberoamerican Trilogy; Vincent Goudreau’s Sub-Paradise – about sugarcane farming in Hawaii (excerpted .mov here); My Favorite – ‘Panoscopic’ images by Luc Courchesne. more inside.
posted by jrb223 on Mar 10, 2006 - 11 comments

(Use the torrent.)
Toy Story 2: Requiem
posted by Tlogmer on Feb 25, 2006 - 17 comments

The Steam Tank is a brief visual effects reel by Chris Paul, from the Vancouver Film School. It begins with a somewhat mundane steam powered tank attacking a mounted gun in a downtown building, but then replays the event shot by shot, showing the original filmed plate, and adding on each cgi component, to give a good idea of how cg & reality interface in an effects piece. warning: link goes to direct download of 56MB QuickTime mov
posted by jonson on Feb 7, 2006 - 13 comments

Sometimes movies don't finish the way we'd like. Short, off-beat, animated re-imaginings of selected movie endings, in torrent and .wmv format. The archives are yet young, but might be worth keeping an eye on for future chuckles.
posted by Gator on Jan 25, 2006 - 11 comments