Free Movies Online: Now Expanded with Many Classics

in Film | November 11th, 2009

Two weeks ago, I post­ed a col­lec­tion of 20 sites where you can watch free movies online. Thanks to your help, the page now fea­tures 30 Places to Watch Free Movies Online, and I hope to keep it grow­ing. Below, I have fea­tured five of the new addi­tions, which includes many impor­tant clas­sics. Please feel free to share the full col­lec­tion with friends, and keep send­ing your sug­ges­tions my way:

Inter­net Archive — Fea­ture Films: When you’re look­ing for free movies online, the Inter­net Archive should be your first stop. It fea­tures large col­lec­tions of come­dies, film noir and sci-fi/hor­ror flix. You will also find some for­eign films here, along with impor­tant clas­sic films, includ­ing Elia Kazan’s Pan­ic in the Streets, John Hus­ton’s Beat the Dev­il, Fritz Lang’s Scar­let Street, Howard Hawks’ His Girl Fri­day, Sergei Eisen­stein’s Bat­tle­ship Potemkin and The Kid with Char­lie Chap­lin. You can access the Archive’s full movie library here.

Babel­gum Films: Babelgum’s goal is to act as an inter­na­tion­al ‘glue’, bring­ing a huge range of pro­fes­sion­al and semi-pro­fes­sion­al films to a glob­al audi­ence – like a mod­ern-day Tow­er of Babel. They’re also mak­ing an effort to get their con­tent to smart­phones. They have an iPhone app now and apps for oth­er phones on the hori­zon. Get more detail on the mobile apps here.

FMO: FreeMoviesOn­line fea­tures a large selec­tion of pub­lic domain films. Here, you’ll find films fea­tur­ing John Wayne (Par­adise Canyon, Humphrey Bog­a­rt (Beat the Dev­il), Cary Grant (The Amaz­ing Quest of Ernest Bliss), Fred Astaire (Roy­al Wed­ding), Hitch­cock­’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and many oth­ers.

Fan­cast: This site fea­tures a long list of free movies. Some notable films include Lau­rence Olivi­er and Kirk Dou­glas in Spar­ta­cus, John­ny Depp in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Cary Grant and Audrey Hep­burn in Cha­rade, Gary Coop­er in The Pride of the Yan­kees, Robert DeNiro in Ronin, and Bil­ly Wilder’s The Pri­vate Life of Sher­lock Holmes. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I think this site restricts films to an Amer­i­can audi­ence. But please let me know if I am wrong about that.

Google Video: For some time now, major clas­sics have appeared on Google Video. Take for exam­ple: the 1922 Ger­man silent film Nos­fer­atu, The Phan­tom of the Opera (1925), Sergei Eisen­stein’s 1918 film Alexan­der Nevsky, Howard Hugh­es’ The Out­law (1943), Aki­ra Kuro­sawa’s Rashomon (1950), Night of the Liv­ing Dead (1968), 1984 (based on the Orwell nov­el) and three films by the great Frank Capra — It Hap­pened One Night (with Clark Gable), It’s a Won­der­ful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton (both with Jim­my Stew­art).

Indie Movies Online: Just as it sounds. A good place to watch full-fledged indie films on the web.  Right now, you can find Peter Greenaway’s film, Rem­brandt’s J’ac­cuse and The Future We Will Cre­ate — Inside the World of TED. The site seems to be avail­able in the US, UK, Cana­da and Aus­tralia, but per­haps also beyond.

For many more free films, please vis­it 30 Places to Watch Free Movies Online

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Moving Images

in History | November 10th, 2009

When I trav­eled to East Berlin in 1988, my first time as a young­ster, I read reports of a split between the hard­line East Ger­man regime and the open­ing Sovi­et gov­ern­ment. But nobody real­ly paid much atten­tion to that news. Less than a year lat­er, the Iron Cur­tain and the Berlin Wall would be gone, all of it. Above, you can watch footage that shows how East Ger­mans expe­ri­enced that moment, and here, cour­tesy of @courosa, you can find a series of vivid his­tor­i­cal images that com­mem­o­rate the events that took place 20 years ago.

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World War I Remembered in Second Life

in History, Literature | November 9th, 2009

Excel­lent find by Stephen Grant… You can now expe­ri­ence the bat­tle lines of World War I in Sec­ond Life, thanks to The First World War Poet­ry Dig­i­tal Archive and the Learn­ing Tech­nolo­gies Group at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty. WWI shocked the West­ern world with its land­scape-chang­ing war­fare and high tech car­nage. Remem­brances of “The Great War” live on in some remark­able poet­ry and lit­er­a­ture. And now Sec­ond Life too. Find more infor­ma­tion on this project here.

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Lawrence Lessig Speaks Once Again About Copyright and Creativity

in Law | November 9th, 2009

Last year, Lawrence Lessig, a law pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford, gave what was sup­posed to be his last talk on the mod­ern copy­right regime that once ben­e­fit­ed cre­ativ­i­ty but now sti­fles it and brings big bucks to cor­po­ra­tions. But, at EDUCAUSE last week, he came back as the keynote speak­er and returned to these still-burn­ing issues once again. Lessig has post­ed his art­ful­ly pre­sent­ed talk online, and you can now watch it above.

PS Once you start the video, it will take a lit­tle while for you to see any­thing.

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Philosophers Don’t Die Pretty

in Philosophy | November 9th, 2009

Cour­tesy of Simon Critch­ley, who teach­es phi­los­o­phy at The New School for Social Research…

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Jonathan Lethem on Art & The Digital Future

in Books, Literature | November 9th, 2009

Jonathan Lethem, the writer behind Moth­er­less Brook­lyn (one of my faves) and Fortress of Soli­tude, has a new book out, Chron­ic City. Above, he talks about the sur­re­al qual­i­ty of his work, the future of dig­i­tal books, and the per­son­al guide­lines that deter­mine what he writes, and won’t write. With­in this last point, you will find a good les­son for all of us. Find your unique tal­ent, ded­i­cate your­self to it, avoid the work com­mon­ly done by oth­ers, and you can achieve some­thing notable and worth­while.

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A Smart Guide to Free Magazines

in Media | November 8th, 2009

A good find via Life­hack­er. Mag­g­wire is a rel­a­tive­ly new site that will do two things for you. It will direct you to free mag­a­zine con­tent online (a good thing). And (per­haps even bet­ter) it will learn what you like to read, and then start feed­ing you con­tent based on your pref­er­ences. If Mag­g­wire can deliv­er on this promise, it will help you nav­i­gate the very large vol­ume of con­tent that you encounter every day. To get start­ed with Mag­g­wire, check out this video.

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SNL Shames Goldman Sachs

in Comedy | November 8th, 2009

Man, I love plu­to­crat humor in the morn­ing…

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.