Popular Science J-5-1
★ 10 · 1935 · 11m · Documentary
Considers marvels of modern science: contact lenses, kitchen gadgets, bubble bath (with cheesecake), diatoms, Boulder Dam.
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Microcosmos
1996 · ★ 7.6
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
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Top Rider
2024
An in-depth look into the isolated sport of Motocross in the much more isolated island of Bermuda.
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Root of All Evil?
2006 · ★ 7.4
In this two-part Channel 4 series, Professor Richard Dawkins challenges what he describes as 'a process of non-thinking called faith'. He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science. In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress to become more enlightened and more tolerant.
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Facts About Film
1948
Shows the harmful effects on 16mm film of improper projector cleaning, film threading, film rewinding, and placement of films in cans. Points out the physical qualities of 16mm film which make it susceptible to damage and demonstrates the way that film may be protected.
More info →The Queen of the Waves
1936
An animated short film that explains in a pedagogical way how the radio transmission works. Created by Czech filmmakers it was commissioned by Argentina Schools. The film tells the story of Curious, an extraterrestrial child that reaches the planet earth attracted by the sound waves. There he meets the Queen of Waves, an ethereal figure who teaches her step by step the process by which sound is captured, amplified, modulated and transformed into electromagnetic vibrations to be transmitted by a radial antenna.
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There Goes a Monster Truck
1995
Monster Truck Drivers Dave and Becky learn all about monster trucks, and learn how to drive one.
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Healthcaring from Our End of the Speculum
1976 · ★ 10
Healthcaring is a short documentary that focuses on the historical and contemporary abuses women have suffered at the hands of mostly male practitioners, and depicts solutions women find to lack of access to comprehensive health care in the 1970s.
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LSD-25
1967 · ★ 7.5
The dangers of LSD are driven home to teenagers in this classroom training film, which is "narrated" by an LSD tab. The "tab" tells kids that he is "a depth charge in the mind!" and various teenagers are shwn babbling about their LSD experiences. "Experts" are presented who warn that LSD makes kids "paint themselves green" and has various other horrible side effects, the most serious of which is that it gives users a police record, and that there is "no known way of getting your fingerprints out of a police file once they're in there."
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Star Trek: The True Story
2013 · ★ 1
Documentary covering the current state of both the theoretical and practical development of the various scientific basic principles that served, as per Gene Roddenberry's dictum, as a believable basis at the time for The Original Series. Several real-world scientists are interviewed, not a few of them unabashedly admitting they went into their chosen field of profession because of Star Trek: The Original Series.
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Einstein's Universe
1979 · ★ 8
A documentary produced in 1979 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Albert Einstein. Narrated and hosted by Peter Ustinov and written by Nigel Calder.
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Rich Media, Poor Democracy
2003
Robert McChesney lays the blame for the US's current state of affairs squarely at the doors of the corporate boardrooms of big media, which far from delivering on their promises of more choice and more diversity, have organized a system characterized by a lack of competition, homogenization of opinion and formulaic programming.
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