Sometimes the twist ending is all that remains in the memory once the screen stops flickering. Some people revel in knowing that ending just to spoil the whole thing for other people. For them, there’s Movie pooper, wherein can be found quick synopses as well as tell-all endings for a great deal of current (and not so current) movies.
To call the collection of the Library of Congress exhaustive is understatement of the highest degree. Charged with maintaining and continuing to build on the world’s greatest treasury of recorded (and copyrighted) human knowledge, the Library has a mind-boggling amount of information and data accessible to Congress, the government, and the public at large. ‘Accessible’ is the key word there, since the public at large largely isn’t anywhere near D.C. to drop by the Library for a quick browse.
Fortunately those wishing to have their minds boggled can do it using a web browser, as a great deal of the collections are digitized and placed online. Furthermore much of the materials about American history and culture have been organized into over a hundred American Memory collections, cross-linked and searchable, and all readable and watchable online. Early animation shorts coexist with advertising broadsides and ethnographic study summaries all together in a massive store of primary source information. In addition, lesson plans and other educator resources are also provided to stimulate interesting teaching of America’s unique heritage. It’s all there to see and free to do so.
Ever kept an email because the attachment was funny? Or reached quota from having too many Flash games stored? Now there’s a better way. Lycos UK maintains a repository of all those meme files floating around in a categorized and rated database, free for all and much easier than sending actual files. Every potential attachment can be downloaded, viewed, linked and emailed directly from the site. Everything from childish flash games to photoshopped celebrity photos and raunchy
movies can be found and done with what will. So stop sending those huge files to each other.
DVDs are just as easy to collect as their round-and-shiny brethren compact discs. Unfortunately, they’re just as easy to lose and get disorganized. Organization among DVDs in no simple task either, as every collector and casual buyer has individual ideas for sticking the cases next to each other. Some group by significance, others by date or director, and many just stick to plain alphabetical order.
That’s on the shelves, of course. On the web, there is a raft of possibilities for organizing a DVD collection. Lists of DVDs owned and lusted after can be collected, cataloged, sorted, published and re-sorted all with the click of a mouse. Pay sites offer incredibly detailed services with front and back cover images, related film links and more, but for a price. One free site is DVD Aficionado, which stays current with new releases and is extensible enough to handle any collection. DVDaf users (who apparently can’t consistently spell ‘aficionado’) have the ability to create heirarchical lists of DVDs owned, wanted, on order and out for loan. Adding new titles is as easy as typing them in, and image submissions for covers are readily accepted, if not encouraged. For a site developed by one guy for fun, it’s amazingly usable and eminently useful.
TV guides have long condensed tv shows and movies to half-sentence capsule summaries. While for some shows (and even some films) like Seinfeld half a sentence is more
than enough to capture the essence of the plot, generally it is lacking sufficient detail to describe a movie. What, then, is the atomic “size” of a movie? A couple pages? The entire screenplay? It is this very question that Rod Hilton seeks to answer with The Editing Room: Abridged Scripts for Movies, though he doesn’t know it yet. On his site he publishes distilled screenplays for popular movies, ranging from a mere one word of dialogue (for Guy Richie’s
href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007ELEP/mikelietdotor-20/”>Lock, stock and two smoking barrels) to comparably long discourses (as for Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence). They’re pretty funny.
He of course would explain the scripts, few longer than a page, to be some sort of humorous discourse. He claims to be writing them as screenplay practice, but in the ratings system lies the truth about his (subconscious) research. He rates scripts lower that offer less meat, such as the aforementioned Lock, stock and two smoking barrels and he gives high marks to brilliant abridgements such as his version of Being John Malkovich, excerpted below.
JOHN CUSACK finds a portal into the mind of JOHN MALKOVICH.DIRECTOR SPIKE JONZE Look, this film is bizarre. It is, therefore, good!
JOHN CUSACK Wow, this creates so many questions about the essense of self. (pause) Audience, please take notice of all of these thought-provoking questions raised by the film.
AUDIENCE This film must be brilliant. I mean, to just consider the notion that a human could enter the mind of another hu–
Suddenly, the AUDIENCE’S PROVOKED THOUGHTS are interrupted by something EXTRAORDINARILY BIZARRE.
Indie bands don’t just get no respect, they usually get no exposure as well. Many a band has come and gone without any notice from the listening public, nor any play on MTV or anything ClearChannel controls. It’s up to the fans to spread the word about a band deserving ear time.
Fortunately, with mass media and the internet, tech-savvy bands have a better time of it than yesteryear’s one hit wonders. Such a band (tech savvy, that is) is Grandaddy. Respected more across the pond than in native America–they hail from Modesto, California–Grandaddy has momentum like few others, consistently producing complex, layered masterpieces few enjoy and fewer even hear in passing.
Don’t make the same mistake those others do. Go to Grandaddy’s latest official website and get a decent full preview of their latest album, and read about their entire discography, and (when it works) chat with other happy fans. Then become one.
Computer gamers long ago stopped merely playing their games. Underground programmers and hackers (in the good sense, that is) found ways to change and expand their favorite games. First it was changing a few sprites here and there (precursor to Nude Raider), then new levels and new additional technologies, to un-game-like results altogether. Nowadays game engines are being used for other entertainment: movies. Dubbed ‘Machinima’, it’s an art form like none other. Transcending computer animation and video games at the same time, Machinima utilizes technologies from both up-and-coming as well as classic games, presenting complex dramas and physics demonstrations.
The site offers downloads of the popular films, tutorials and articles about their creation, links to artists and coders, and more. Even non-gamers will find something interesting to watch. But only watch, since these ‘games’ are strictly hands-off.
Though the site’s maintainer has left it a little bit derelict, the unofficial web site of the Saturday morning cartoon/political spoof Lil’ Bill & Hill that ran for eight years contains a wealth of information about the show. It chronicled the (mis-) adventures of the pupils at White House Elementary on 1600 Pencilvania Avenue. All of the real Bill’s pals and cronies appear in kid form, including little George, Al, Janet and Messy Monica. The site has episode summaries for some of the show’s eight seasons (that’s 97 episodes!), fun facts about each of the main characters, and a gallery of collectibles from the show.
Which is fine and dandy, except that site creator David Friedman wrote everything. From scratch. There never was any show, despite his obvious devotion to it and extensive research. And despite the rumors, Charlie Brown never made a cameo appearance. That’s just not true.
As a constantly changing medium, the world wide web naturally has its share of works in progress. In the early days, the omnipresent “under construction” gif in all its forms indicated not only that a page or site was not yet ready, and also that it would likely never be. Innumerable sites still “under construction” remain stagnant, some not unchanged from before Y2K. Often this doesn’t matter, as most were superseded by better, newer pages that were maintained, but occasionally an unfinished page tragically remains incomplete.
Such a page Jim Emerson’s The Dark Room (le chambre noir). Still proclaiming an upcoming Grand Opening in September 1999, The Dark Room was only partially completed before its abandonment. It was to be a composite picture, representative of the noir aesthetic, with specific elements explained and illustrated. Some of the items in the picture are indeed clickable, such as the blinds in the upper right. Others are yet incomplete such as the tough guy. Which is unfortunate, since the analysis presented is quite perceptive and understandable.
Though it will likely never Open (Grandly or otherwise), The Dark Room nevertheless contains a raft of good information about great films about (somewhat) bad people.
The page’s parent site, Cinepad, is Jim Emerson’s tribute and homage to all things filmed. He’s written reviews and a whole bunch more drawing from a lifetime of enjoying movies. He’s even got the annotated list of the Vatican’s film recommendations. The Dark room’s the best page on the site, but all of it is worth seeing.
Focus groups may well be the end of all creativity and art, but that doesn’t mean they should be avoided at all costs. Music Research (a west coast company) has been surveying and polling music listeners for long enough to have earned the ear of major musicians as well as Clear Channel and the other giant gorillas of the airwaves.
Membership is free, and offers the possibility of sharing opinions with those who make decisions (i.e. get boy bands off the air!). Also, occasional free downloads and other incentives are offered. Every survey has a song sample, and they’re short enough to knock out several in a lunch break.
