Shark, Vote, Nuke, Avenue, Dialogue
Jaws: When Seeing Isn't Believing
What's So Great About That? | YouTube | 30th October 2020
Fusion, fission, magnification, and horrific metonymy are four basic horror setups; by these metrics, is Jaws a horror film? The shark "doesn't transform or exist in more than one place," and "would make a pretty unimaginative fusion – the head of a shark and the body of a...shark." Somehow, though, Jaws terrifies us by reducing us to "food for a beast, swallowed whole; nothing to show for it" (15m 46s)
How The US Counts Votes
Vox | YouTube | 3rd November 2020
The winding journey of an American vote. "All paper ballots, both from absentee and in-person voting, are tabulated using a machine. The data is stored on a memory card, and the counted ballots go back in their secure box...The individual polling places report these numbers to the county board of elections." Roundabout elucidation of why this week's election has been so laborious (6m 26s)
There May Never Ever Be Another Man As Powerful As Stanislav Petrov
EmpLemon | YouTube | 7th July 2019
Phenomenal mini-doc on the Cold War – particularly Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet lieutenant colonel who saved the world. "On the morning of September 26th, 1983, people around the world woke up to an ordinary Monday...Somewhere in a military bunker near Moscow, Stan Petrov correctly determined that the nuclear warning was a false alarm, and no nukes were launched that day" (41m 37s)
Patision Avenue
Thanasis Neofotistos | Vimeo | 27th October 2020
Greek short film – on her way to an audition for a production of Twelfth Night, a mother learns that her son may be in danger – conveyed with a single tracking shot through a chaotic Athenian district. Prepare for your nerves to be thoroughly racked; Neofotistos's aggressive refusal to reveal the protagonist's face, and increasingly unhinged camerawork, build a truly unrelenting tension (12m 18s)
Funny Video Of The Week
Parody of the excruciatingly contrived exposition that so many movies open with
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