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Why do we spend so many precious hours of our lives watching films? What is it about cinema that it should occupy a place of such prominence in our lives? And why do we even need movies? It is as though we are trying to fill a gap in our lives - a void, an emptiness within ourselves. So to even begin on the path of our Truth Quest, we have to see the broader picture of how film correlates to life, and life to film. To find this higher perspective, it is helpful to look towards the other arts, as well as philosophy.
Cinema Seekers: Searching for truth in cinema and in life. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 11:49 PM PST - 26 comments

Tul Karem’s refugee camp, the time, if I remember correctly, Chanukah 2003, it was to execute there about 9 people. Sorry, I don’t remember the pretense we were given for the mission.

From Shovrim Shtika or Breaking the Silence where Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron
posted by adamvasco at 11:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Max/MSP is a graphical programming environment primarily used for music, video and multimedia. Max/MSP has sometimes been described as a digital erector set. David Tinapple describes Max in this way: "it's like you're drawing a diagram of what you want the program to do, and then when you're done drawing the diagram you've also sort of accidentally programmed it". [more inside]
posted by Crumpled Farm at 11:43 PM PST - 28 comments

Poor localization causes a simple, if slightly inflammatory, text message to go awry.
posted by adamdschneider at 10:04 PM PST - 21 comments

"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett. [SLYT post]. Strangely compelling.
posted by LarryC at 9:04 PM PST - 23 comments

Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor dismissed. A judge has thrown out the charges against Steve Kurtz. Finally. Kurtz's case was previously discussed here and here. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:45 PM PST - 29 comments

In 1987, the Caltech biomagnetist and paleomagnetist Joe Kirschvink gave undergraduate Dawn Sumner a rock sample [from South Australia] to study for her senior thesis. The apparent glacial origin of this rock lead directly to the theory that periodically the Earth has been thoroughly glaciated from the poles to the Equator: the so-called Snowball Earth events. A website dedicated to this theory includes detailed teaching slides, a FAQ, and many other resources on this interesting period in Earth's history.
posted by Rumple at 7:29 PM PST - 7 comments

The Replacements on KFAI FM Minneapolis 1983.
posted by vronsky at 6:15 PM PST - 25 comments

Former 'poster boy for Scientology,' Jason Beghe, OTV, Class V auditor, and seasoned character actor speaks out in a two hour interview about his experience as a celebrity in the CoS. [more inside]
posted by brain cloud at 5:35 PM PST - 37 comments

Ricky Flores photographs of B-Boys in the 80s. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 5:19 PM PST - 14 comments

Arthur de Pins. Cheeky French illustrations and animations. Some mildly NSFW.
posted by klangklangston at 4:43 PM PST - 11 comments

"So I hit up a garage sale over the weekend and bought a genuine, working-condition Atari 2600, with a huge stack of games nearly mint in their boxes, for a song. I thought I’d scan the box covers and give you all a look back into the fun of yesteryear."
posted by sveskemus at 3:19 PM PST - 74 comments

The self-proclaimed "most trusted name in news", CNN, has launched its beta t-shirt store. Finally, for $15 plus shipping and tax you can buy direct from CNN branded t-shirts with such wonderful headlines as: "Dad mistakes son for prey, shoots" and "Free prom dresses honor girl's memory." If that's not enough, yes, you can share your new purchase on Facebook, and grab your 15 minutes of fame by posting pictures of yourself in your newly acquired apparel on CNN's quasi-news ireport system (link not yet live, but I'm waiting with much anticipation). [more inside]
posted by Muddler at 12:45 PM PST - 71 comments

Performance Artist Killed on Peace Trip. Pippa Bacca, performance artist, and friend wearing white wedding dresses, planned to hitchhike from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.” After three weeks on the road, Pippa Bacca was killed by a driver who offered her a ride. Her naked body was found and local authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.
posted by semmi at 12:25 PM PST - 106 comments

Ennio Marchetto : Italian quick-change papercraft drag queen does musical medley. [more inside]
posted by Dave Faris at 12:16 PM PST - 5 comments

New England's best metal site has now gone national.

Thrash out!
posted by auralcoral at 12:14 PM PST - 75 comments

Kids-in-mind "provides parents and other adults with objective and complete information about a film's content so that they can decide, based on their own value system, whether they should watch a movie with or without their kids." Informative AND unintentionally hilarious! From the somewhat kid-friendly Ratatouille (A rat smokes a mushroom over a chimney, and with another rat they are struck by lightning, thrown from the roof and to the ground (they have electrified fur but are otherwise OK).) to more decidedly non-kid-friendly fare, and everything in between. [more inside]
posted by (bb|[^b]{2}) at 12:02 PM PST - 81 comments

"On 5 May 1958 the three women climbed into their long-wheelbase Land-Rover in London, and drove through ten countries in six weeks, then walked for 21 days to Padam, the capital of Zanskar, in the highest inhabited region in the world."
posted by SixteenTons at 11:39 AM PST - 25 comments

The Magic Hour: The Roy Sterling Story.
posted by bunnytricks at 10:47 AM PST - 8 comments

Soviet Museum has some great retro photography, industrial, postcards, propaganda, "Soviet Union" magazine, aspects of moscow, red army, etc [did I mention erotic too?]. It even has 'Vladimir Putin Favourite Places' (which as far as I can tell, is one place). Set aside some time if this sort of thing interests you.
posted by tellurian at 10:10 AM PST - 20 comments

The hills of other earths might not be green...The Color(s) Out of Space. [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 7:54 AM PST - 23 comments

The BBC's Stephen Fry follows the trail of Johannes Gutenberg to France and Germany, and attempts to reconstruct a working replica of Gutenburg’s first press. (YouTube version)
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:27 AM PST - 27 comments

Cello Hero? Have a go at bowing Saint-Saëns' The Swan.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:18 AM PST - 20 comments

Happy birthday, firehouse pole.
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:59 AM PST - 24 comments

Jack London wrote about it before the 20th century, then it was Austin Powers, and even more recently Eric Cartman. But because most portrayals of cryonics are used in the sci-fi or humor genres, we often forget that the practice is very real, and has some very real consequences.
posted by aheckler at 6:53 AM PST - 28 comments

High-Tech Noon. What makes a classic Western even more classic? Blasters and force-fields, that's what. (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:17 AM PST - 25 comments

It hasn't been updated in a few months, but the Cocteau Twins Podcast is a treasure trove of rare and never-before-heard recordings. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 4:17 AM PST - 17 comments

The Video Nasty Project seeks to watch and review all 74 "video nasties" effectively banned in the UK in the 1980s in a moral panic over the subversive new video cassette technology. 39 videos were successfully prosecuted, initally under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, then the Video Recordings Act 1984.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:38 AM PST - 56 comments

A Rage In Dalston [BBC Radio 4 documentary, 1hr, streaming RealMedia] "For four years after 1945, London and the South East witnessed vicious confrontations between the remnants of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and Jewish ex-servicemen organised in the 43 Group." Interviewees include Vidal Sassoon, by day mild-mannered teenage hairdresser of talent, by night militant anti-fascist. Documentary maker Alan Dein was unable to get any surviving Moseleyites to talk for the programme but there's contributions from Trevor Grundy, author of Memoir of a Fascist Childhood.
posted by Abiezer at 1:17 AM PST - 34 comments

"When I get the time when I'm not raking, whenever I'm near water, I'll beach comb for bits of wood, feather or anything else that appeals and make some boats."
posted by nthdegx at 1:14 AM PST - 13 comments