No newsletter to promote, wanted to highlight good options for free or low cost entertainment for people who might be fortunate enough to have a surfeit of time at home(1). Lots of amazing stuff in the world, lots to check out. Email me if you’re into anything on this list or want further recommendations (or have some to share, I’d love to check out something new). Future emails will cover things to listen to, to read, etc. with an emphasis on free/donation-based entertainments.
Bird cams:
Become a birder by watching some live bird cams. Cornell Lab has some (YouTube channel link). The hawk cam is especially amazing because the mic is on and you hear the wind (it’s on the campus there and you can hear cars). The Osprey cam is very lively. All are good and on all the time. Donations taken.
Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage to Italy:
Someone put this long out of print 1990s documentary Martin Scorsese directed about Italian cinema on archive.org a while ago. Scorsese guides the viewer through his favorite Italian films and in so doing lays out his philosophy of cinema and indirectly explains his movies. The subtitles on this video are in Spanish, so if you’re an Anglophone it’ll be hard to understand what’s going on in the films Scorsese walks us through. It’s not a hindrance though: the doc is as much about Scorsese as the films he highlights, and as much about their mood and visuals as their plot points. Scorsese mentions watching severely edited versions of these films on TV when he was a kid, butchered versions, and getting something out of it. So if you don’t know Spanish you can console yourself in having a similar cinematic experience as Scorsese. If you know some Spanish it’s great, and if you’re fluent, well … this one’s for you. Scorsese’s documentary is generous and open with its expertise, and plain and thoughtful. Most things aren’t all three. The best and most successful artist working is also the least proprietary: pretty amazing. This is no good on a laptop, so if you can swing it, get a Chromecast to watch this on a TV if you have one. Thelma Schoonmaker edits.
https://archive.org/details/Il.mio.viaggio.in.Italia.1999.CD1.angeeParaZoowoman.website
https://archive.org/details/Il.mio.viaggio.in.Italia.1999.CD2.angeeParaZoowoman.website
https://archive.org/details/Il.mio.viaggio.in.Italia.1999.CD3angeeParaZoowoman.website
Kundun (by Scorsese):
Someone put Scorsese’s Kundun on YouTube and someone else put the documentary In Search of Kundun (about the making of the movie, directed by some other guy) on YouTube too. Kundun is something, a long, still simple study of the Lama as a child, then a man, the story taking place over decades though no big curves or obstacles, just drift and becoming. The documentary is good too, especially the shot where one monk reads TIBET Magazine between takes. Both are worth watching. Maybe watch the movie first. Scorsese reveres Tenzin more than any character in his movies, I think. He is the he simplest and best of Scorsese's characters. Morally I mean. A perfect aesthetic understanding of Buddhism.
V/A Complete Death Live:
Integral and important classic live video of Japanese hard-core bands from 1989, great footage of Tetsu Arrey (among the best ever) and Death Side, and one of the guys from Poison Arts has slicked back hair and a mustache, so even if you don’t vibe with the music, you can get something out of it (it’s why I’m including it here, I’ll have a music one later). Systematic Death, the last band on the video, played Greenpoint a couple of summers ago on a weeknight and their anniversary shirt they sold that night was drawn by the same guy who did the Burning Spirits flyers in the ‘80s. Really chic video.
Online fashion shows:
This one YouTube channel has a number of important and beautiful runway shows on there. Most of the shows are about 15 minutes, so perfect if you’re eating a sandwich but not if you’re eating a steak. Photos of runway shows are great, but live video has a little extra to it. If you aren’t a big fashion person, watching some of the best ones will help you understand that ultimately all this stuff is art. Some great shows here are Margiela fall 2000-1, Hermes s/s 98 and Next Step Up live in Baltimore in 1993.
Ken Burns Baseball:
Baseball (the sport) is postponed but Ken Burns and PBS have made their 1994 documentary available for free. I re-watched the documentary in February and it’s something: Burns elevates the sport here on several levels. He covers it from the 1800s to the ‘80s, and is light on the father-son schmaltz that plagues most movies and books about the sport. Burns mostly stays away from interviewing beat writers, focusing instead on intellectuals, artists and athletes. The athletes are precise, the artists are thoughtful, and the intellectuals are helpful, and together they save the film from veering towards dim melodrama, which happens when baseball writers wax on the past. There’s a lot of substance here. Burns also justly splits the film’s focus between Major League Baseball, and the Negro Leagues and black baseball, framing one against the other from just about the start. He explains the sport and its origins, and lets it unfold, and flower as a narrative vehicle, very simply, setting it against what happened in the country here, allowing people in baseball to properly explain how baked in racism is to America, and how much of a failure it is, and how so much galling injustice still continues, simply by framing the sport against America. There’s a one-off line about how Jim Crow laws influenced the Nazis; another about white flight. It’s brisk, short and clear.
The film could be a bit more complete: there’s not much time spent on post-war owners, or labor issues — Marvin Miller seems to be in this thing for about 30 seconds — or stadium financing, or on George Brett. But it is pretty much it(2). Most of the interviewees dress well enough here — repp ties, Brooks Brothers oxfords and all that — except for Billy Crystal. The camera is tight on him because of his terrible outfit, this cheap black shirt and tie. Burns let Crystal talk forever, but he stayed on his face. What an offense that he is in this movie. His repulsive and prolonged presence is inexcusable. I almost turned it off when he imitates the kids arguing over which 1950s New York center fielder was the best one. But hey, it’s free. About 18 hours, it’s the length of four regular season Red Sox games.
Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912):
Like twenty people each have put this whole movie online (it’s short), a story about Lillian Gish and her tuba-playing husband and money being exchanged. I love this movie because even though it takes place 100 years ago it is basically a modern story. If you take away the mustache wax, it could have happened last week. Someone out there said that you can learn how to make a movie by watching this one and I think that is true. It is technically perfect but also very brutal. It’s very emotional, even though no one talks and everyone is wearing suits—and some people have waxed mustaches. Usually when everyone’s formally dressed the emotion is kept at bay. Not here. This is the good stuff.
Other good shit for free:
Peter Bogdanovich’s “Directed by John Ford” (2006 version)
Multiple Buster Keaton movies | a good interview
Decent PBS George Nakashima video
Playlist of full Antiques Roadshow episodes (the best show on the planet)
etc
Thanks for reading, be safe.
Snake
(1) I don’t want to mention movies on Criterion or other pay services like Prime right away since not everyone has the cash laying around. Obviously, if you do, you should get it—so much good stuff on there, it’s a no-brainer. Kanopy is also available in some cities and has a great collection of Japanese and Hong Kong action; Prime has a bunch of that stuff and some really great Westerns too. I’ll write about these down the line.
(2)The two later innings, produced last decade, aren’t free on PBs’ website, which is fine since they miss the mark set by the original series and aren’t really a part of it. (The talking heads are worse, the film’s understanding of labor is worse, the pacing is worse, and it is schmaltzy and whiny. George Will is more thoughtful on labor in the original films than the narrator is in Innings 10 & 11.)