Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Fuck Netflix, The Internet Archives Is Where It's At

I like music, I like to read, I like movies, I like free shit... I fucking love the Internet Archives (I.A.) site.

I.A. is a not-for-profit internet "library" collecting public-domain media and making it available for free streaming and download. It is probably the single coolest content site I've ever found yet.

They have everything:
Audio - Including a load of full-length live shows (including a good collection of Minutemen sets).
Web Archives - Searchable websites from the birth of the web (including dead pages).
Texts - Plenty of classic novels, and (even better) an unending collection of obscure antiquated tomes.
Where the I.A. really shines in in the Moving Images section. They have everything from old-tyme educational films, to news, to cartoons, to music videos - Sweet.

The best part is that there's a load of great movies up on the I.A. site (everything from Little Lord Fauntleroy to Triumph of the Will). There's a bunch of great B-movies available, and a lot of great old films. It was really hard to narrow down the list, but these are my top fifteen recommendations:

1) Akira Kurosawa's Roshomon -1950
One of my top 20 favorite films.

2) F.W. Munarau's Nosferatu - 1922
Great "extended" cut of this expressionist masterpiece.

3) Buster Keaton's The General - 1927
The 18th best American-made movie of all-time (according to the American Film Institute).

4) Preston Sturges' The Sin of Harold Diddlebock - 1947
Preston Sturges and Harold Lloyd team up for this "sequel" to The Freshman.

5) Fritz Lang's M - 1931
Everyone loves a happy little film about a serial child-murderer.

6) John Houston's The Battle of San Pietro - 1945
The world would be a much better place if every elected official was forced to watch this movie.

7) Charlie Chaplin's One A.M. - 1916
Chaplin + Booze = Awesome.

8) Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much - 1934
Hitchcock's breakout film (the original, not his 1956 remake).

9) George King's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - 1936
Before you go see the new Tim Burton version this winter, check out this original film adaptation.

10) Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou - 1929
It's not weird-assed nonsense; It's art.

11) W.C. Fields in The Fatal Glass of Beer - 1933
Field's cornball parody of 1930's melodramas. Not his best, but good stuff nonetheless.

12) Johnny Cash in Five Minutes to Live - 1961
The Man in Black as a door-to-door psycho killer menacing lil' Ronnie Howard - What's not to like?

13) Sex Hygiene Millitary Training Film (Directed by John Ford) - 1942
If you go out whorin' you'll get boils the size of Buicks all up on your junk. When that happens, this film could save your life. Bonus: loads 'o' footage of infected penises. NSFW, obviously.

14) Superman in Japoteurs (animated) - 1942
A bunch of the great Max Fleisher toons are available on I.A., but this one is wonderfully offensive.

15) The Little Rascals in Dogs of War (featuring Harold Lloyd) - 1923
I'm just glad I found this here so I didn't have to buy a sub-par Harold Lloyd DVD set just to get this.

P.S. - It's FREE, FREE, FREE!!!
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Update: Due to the overwhelming traffic from this post, the I.A. site has crashed (or possibly due to the new BinLaden video). It should be back up again once the flood dies down.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, great website. We just watched School's Out with the Little Rascals and Miss Crabtree.

edP said...

I can't believe I spent $1 at fucking WalMart for the Fleischer Bros Superman DVD with that title on it!!!!

DAMN ME!

Chris B. said...

"'tis not a fit night out for man nor beast!"

Great stuff. Check out the live concert of Dub Trio from earlier this year. They are pretty damn good.

Chris B. said...

I don't remember if the archive has audio books, but Librivox does. They're great on a road trip. I love the Sherlock Holmes stuff.

edP said...

I thought it was "'taint fit night out for man nor beast"

Michael K said...

For free content check out www12.alluc.org