29 April 08 | tags: music, video | add a comment
Used Kids
From Columbus's own Earwig. Also, Donewaiting has a interesting remix.
20 April 08 | tags: video | add a comment
Kari Byron's McGyver Girl Tricks
So I was watching the Mythbusters mini-marathon this Sunday and decided I want to cut my hair like Kari's. I went searching online for a picture of said haircut. Whereupon I discovered that her legions of geek fans have some very, very disturbing internet shrines to her. However, I also turned up this not un-charming video of her discussing the tips and tricks of a girl in the shop:
1 April 08 | tags: skepchick, video | 2 comments
Skepchick Video Contest
Are you into hot, smart, critically-thinking girls? Then maybe you should make a short video about how awesome Skepchick is and win some prizes. The lovelies Elyse and Jill dish the details in the video below.
22 January 08 | tags: apple, documentary, tech, video | add a comment
MacHeads
"I've never knowingly slept with a Windows user. Ever. Ever. That would never, ever happen." - Violet Blue
21 January 08 | tags: video | add a comment
Bang a Drum, 1-100
Simple concept: a short film of a hundred people, ages one to one hundred, each banging on a drum. Give it a watch:
(Hat tip: Snarkmarket.)
14 January 08 | tags: feminism, video | 4 comments
Teeth
Last month, I received an email from a friendly film publicist who sounded like he actually might have read at least a bit of my blog and forwarded press info on a movie appropriately relevant to my feminist/film slant: Teeth.
In case you haven't heard the rumblings about this indie horror flick yet, it caused a bit of a stir at last year's Sundance with its subject matter - a reworking of the vagina dentata myth. Brush off your Latin, and, yes, that means what you think it means: toothed vagina. The myth is often seen as a warning to men about having relations with strange women, and a symptom of dread about women's sexual power.
As for Teeth itself, it goes something like this: "High school student Dawn (Jess Weixler) works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group's most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad's increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth." (from publicist email).
Reports about the film paint it as extremely violent, appealing to women, and disturbing to men. And although it has "strong feminist undertones" (also from publicist email), it also seems to have a current of dark comedy running through it. This is definitely a film impossible to call worthwhile or worthless until it's actually viewed - and I think, if only for curiosity's sake, I'm anxious to do that.
Update: I just came across an IFC interview with the director of Teeth Mitchell Lichtenstein, and it makes clear he approached this with the intent of twisting the vagina dentata myth around from the subjugation women to the empowerment of them. Also interesting is his description of some men's intense reactions to the film:
There are often guys who storm out at some point in the movie, which I usually find satisfying. We were at a film festival recently, and I came back for the last 15 minutes. After the dog incident, these two guys stood up and walked out, saying, "Thanks for that." It was really funny that they would last that long, and then five minutes before the end, that was the last straw and they couldn't take it anymore. Men react differently to certain parts of the movie more viscerally than women do, and I've heard about men who were disturbed about just how into the movie their girlfriends were.
So, looking at this through the lens of torture-porn apologists who think extreme horror featuring on the sexualized destruction of women is harmless - maybe the harm comes more clearly into focus for them when the violence has a different gender target? Maybe this film will at least convince those men who never understood before why some women object to those films why they in fact do.
14 January 08 | tags: video | add a comment
Tales of Passion
Isabel Allende's TED talk about passionate lives and the need for feminism has been passed around a bit by now, but I hadn't seen it before and it brightened my morning. So I thought I'd share.
25 December 07 | tags: music, video | add a comment
Christmas with the Devil
From Nigel Tufnel's family to yours. Happy holidays, everyone.
27 November 07 | tags: animation, video | add a comment
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
7 November 07 | tags: buddhism, ohio, punk, video | add a comment
Cleveland's Screaming
Akron native, Zen Buddhist master, punk band member, columnist for Suicide Girls, and director of the doc Cleveland's Screaming, Brad Warner, is going to be back in Ohio soon to talk about hardcore meditation and punk in NE Ohio.
1 November 07 | tags: video, writing | add a comment
That Novel You're Workin' On?
Yes, it's the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. Good luck.
18 October 07 | tags: scifi, video | add a comment
Vintage Russian Animation Does Ray Bradbury
Thanks to SciFi Scanner, two trippy animated shorts from the good ol' USSR of two Ray Bradbury stories: "Here There Be Tygers," and "There Will Come Soft Rains."
3 October 07 | tags: activism, video, world | add a comment
The Miniature Earth Project
This has been online for a while now, but it's been making the rounds of the blogs again just recently, so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. I think I linked to it before but, a) I'm too lazy to find it, and b) I didn't actually embed it. So, behold! The embedded video of the Miniature Earth Project:
2 October 07 | tags: tv, video | add a comment
The IT Crowd: Season Two, Episode Six
I neglected to mention the release of the season finale of The IT Crowd last week. And it's too good to go without mention, so here's the first part.
30 July 07 | tags: video | add a comment
Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007
From The Seventh Seal. More information about Bergman's life and death at Greencine.
24 July 07 | tags: video, wes-anderson | 1 comment
The Darjeeling Limited
I understand why someone would not like the films of Wes Anderson. Sometimes it may seem as if the hip irony is in danger of crashing in on itself. But it never quite does, at least for me. He saves himself with the charm of his quirkiness and his genuine sincerity.
Therefore, I'm very excited about the upcoming The Darjeeling Limited.
11 May 07 | tags: video | add a comment
Great Public Domain Movies Online
I've been floundering with Filmtalk a bit recently, mostly because my movie intake has suffered from extra work and rent-by-mail issues. Turner Classic Movies naming of Katharine Hepburn their star of the month has helped considerably (Stage Door one night + Woman of the Year the next = great happiness). But to keep up somehow, I've put together a list of movies in the public domain you can watch free online. Of course, quality is a lot better if you get the remastered DVDs, but these will do in a pinch.
The Third Man - Do I talk about this movie enough? For all intents and purposes, it's my favorite. I've known it was in the public domain, because in high school the only copy of it I could afford was a generic VHS tape. This video file looks like it was taken from that same tape. But it's such a fantastic movie, it doesn't matter as much. And if you like it, you can snap up the new release of it that's coming out shortly.The copyright on this was renewed and its no longer in the public domain. Buy or rent a copy anyway - it's worth it.- Meet John Doe - From probably my favorite movie to probably my favorite director. This is the first of Frank Capra's "social justice" trilogy that rounded out with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I've always loved Meet John Doe because of Barbara Stanwyck's spirited performance.
- His Girl Friday - Perfect, smart, fast-paced screwball comedy. It's all good.
- M - This one's a German movie about a pedophilic serial killer stalking the streets of Berlin. So, in other words, not exactly light viewing. It's worth it, though. There's also a lot of interesting backstory about the Nazi atmosphere in which Jewish director Lang made the film, if you're so inclined to look it up after watching.
- Freaks - This is the very definition of a "cult classic," not to mention a pretty good example what a true horror film is.
- Detour - This is often called the first proper "film noir." First or not, it's a pitch-perfect example of the genre. Film noir just happens to be my absolute favorite genre. Therefore, I enjoy this film immensely.
The compendium I've from which I've linked all these choices is here, and there are a lot of other selections. However, some of these are not explicitly public domain, such as Monty Python and Sid and Nancy, so they could be pulled at any time. But it's an useful resource nonetheless. It's also a good way to check out some classics without investing a lot or time or money. Then you can name-drop the titles of what you've been watching lately, and, at the very least, I'll be impressed