Spoiler Alert!

An hommage to Alfred Hitchcock's second best movie, by one Jeff Desom.



Those who prefer vimeo, look here.

From the Archives of LiberTrash

Via Eric Crampton comes a short 1978 libertarian propaganda film called Libra. It's unknown to imdb, but at the Smithonian, Matt Novak explains:

Produced and distributed by a free-market group based in San Diego called World Research, Inc., the 40-minute film is set in the year 2003 and gives viewers a look at two vastly different worlds. On Earth, a world government has formed and everything is micromanaged to death, killing private enterprise. But in space, there’s true hope for freedom.

The film explains that way back in 1978 a space colony community was formed using $50 billion of private funds. Back then, government regulations were just loose enough to allow them to form. But here in the year 2003, government regulators are trying to figure out a way to bring them back under their oppressive thumb through taxes and tariffs on the goods they ship back to Earth.

The film's fascinating to watch because it's a textbook case of how not to write a screenplay: The film ends just when one would expect the conflict to really get going; until then, it's little plot and lots of exposition - almost all of which is delivered by actors talking. Indeed, listening the agressively educational dialogues reminded me of the film Street Wise, which they made me watch in my first week at Anglia Polytechnic ("Hey, everybody, I won 50 quid at the pub quiz! I'm gonna put it on my desk in my room and not lock the door!"). There is one exception to this, however: Right at the beginning of the film, we see that New York City in 2003 looks exactly like New York City in 1978. We instinctively understand that this is due to guv'ment regulations stifling innovation in cars, clothing, and even hairdressing.

The entire film can be watched here. Recommended for fans of 70s trash and liberals who like making fun of the enemy.

Two Great Cover Versions of "I'll Try Anything Once"

Great eyebrow work from Jodie Makin:



And here's proof pandas have a good taste in music:



Nice weekend, everyone!

Paranoid Android: X-Files Version as Produced by Disney

No time for original content, so here's one of the countless cover versions of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" on YouTube that I really like.



You probably already know the "YouTube Artist Mix", right? In case you don't, it's here.

Oily Marks Appear on Walls / Where Pleasure Moments Hung before

To commemorate the parting of Holland and the 2012 European Football Championships, here's a great version of a great song about going separate ways. The singer's Dan Wright, but it's funnier if you imagine it's sung by Arjen Robben.

Maybe this isn't exactly news, but there's more good a capella stuff to be found on YouTube. This is pretty good, too, but points off for facial antics.

How to Write a Negative Referee Report

Put differently, you should present clearly the reasons for recommending rejection, but there's no need to exploit your anonymity in order to go medieval: at the other end of your report, there are real live people with vulnerable souls who put a lot of work into their text and almost certainly acted in good faith.

Short Friday: Tairiki Taro No Mucha Shugyo (1928)

Another one from Japan. Manages to pack a lot of violence into 90 seconds, and a killer soundtrack, too!


And with that one, this series concludes. It may resume at some point in the future, but before, I'll have to watch a few more public domain shorts.

Short Friday: Manhatta (1921)

Even to call this short a documentary would be misleading. It is, rather, a moving picture in the literal sense of the word, to be looked at as though it were a photograph. The cards show quotes from Whitman's Leaves of Grass (10 mins.).

Short Friday: Opus I (1921)

Another abstract short, this one by Walter Ruttman, of Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt fame. 10 mins. (with music).

Short Friday: Herzoperation

Below is weird silent footage I stumbled upon, showing "some surgery on the heart. It is then cut out and connected to a machine." Indeed. I can't tell you anything else about this. Readers with a knowledge of heart surgery are encouraged to leave a comment and tell us what we see.

Some people may find the video gross.

Short Friday: The Original Movie (1922)

The eternal struggle between creative people and moneybags (8 mins.). If you think this is the first depiction, you haven't read your Faust.

Short Friday: Le songe d'un garçon de café (1910)

Bit late, I know, but here is the film that, strangely, is known as The Hasher's Delirium in the English-speaking world, although it is clearly about the effects of alcohol. Someone write a thesis about the pro-alcohol bias in the Anglosphere, or something! Anyway, the one-minute film goes like this (and don't miss the bit where he kicks himself in the arse):



All the benefits of drug consumption without the negative health effects. Only at the CoR!

Short Friday: The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

No time for blogging proper, but here's the 1928 Fall of the House of Usher (13 mins.), not to be confused with the film of the same name from the same year by someone else whose name escapes me right now. It's from the abstract/expressionist school of storytelling, so some people say that it's best to brush up on the plot of Poe's story that it is based on. Fair enough, you otherwise won't know what's going on. But then, do you really have to?

Short Friday: Le mélomane (1903)

By Georges Méliès, who clearly smoked a lot of dope in his day.

Wheeeeeeee!

I guess it's considered lame to simply repost videos you found at someone else's blog, but I'm doing it to combat stereotypes! Everyone says the Swedes are sissies, with their feminism and their socialism and all of their assorted isms. But look what they do to toughen up their kids:



Man, if I were a parent living nearby, I'd be up in arms against this thing. But my eight-year-old self would certainly try to sneak out at every opportunity to take another ride on The Magic Wheel.

Short Sunday: Entr'acte (1924)

More dada nonsense!

Short Friday: Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909)

Directed by J. Stuart Blackton and starring the wonderfully-named Paul Panzer, the version below has music and sound effects added by Matthew Hawes. You might think that sound is one of the rare cases of something that's so bad it's good, or you might prefer to turn the volume down, though for those in the latter group, there is a silent version online that has better picture quality.

Let me warn our younger readers in particular, though, that nicotine isn't nearly as psychoactive as the film suggests. If you absolutely must get addicted to a drug, at least choose one that does something for you!

Short Friday: Ballet mécanique

Ah, Friday, it's a vague concept . . . and days of the week, they're all social constructions anyway, right?

O.k., maybe not. But to make up for the lateness, here's an extra-long short, Ballet mécanique, directed by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy and scored by George Antheil. The visuals are pretty standard dadaist fare, but the music! I don't work out, but if I did, this is the music I'd put on.

Short Friday: Mephisto Waltz (2008)

Hey, if the comments I'd already written reappear, I'll post them, but for now it seems that The Great Blogger Timeout ate them. And I'm not going to write them again. The artist's name is Eric Lindell.

Short Friday: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)

As promised two weeks ago, here's a film about what happens to you when you drink too much, kids! Nine minutes long, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend was apparently more or less a ripoff of a French film called Rêve à la lune, which I haven't seen (I have been unable to determine whether it's lost). Anyway, the first two minutes or so are exposition and not all that interesting, but after that things take off and you can learn where William Friedkin got his ideas for The Exorcist from. Great soundtrack, lots of fun!