Best of the Web - Videos For Your Soul

Videos For Your Soul.com - This is actually a project by a friend of mine (Randall Curtis - The Holy Geek.  I'm pretty sure you're going to run into him again later in this series).  It began as a spiritual practice during Lent.  He gathered together some of the best and most inspiring videos on YouTube.  Then he offered up a comment or a question with each one and opened it up to discussion.  The framework for the progression is the Christian practice of Lent but the videos are not especially Christian or even religious in nature.  He uses them to open a wider discussion of who we are and what we are doing in our lives.  Randall even notes in his description of the site that his goal is beyond the walls of the church:

 I hope that some of these videos and reflections might even turn in discussions at Sunday school classes, at coffee shops and at bars.

 You can come at this website from a variety of angles.  Certainly you can approach it from a faith based direction.  Or you can simply appreciate the effort to sift through the enormous number of videos out there (48 HOURS of new video is loaded per minute on YouTube) to find ones that will make you laugh, make you think, make you cry or make you want to change the world.  Or maybe a little of both.

It's a faith based site that isn't preachy or condemnatory or designed to make you feel bad.  It's intent is to lift you up.  Nice to find out here on the Wild Wild Web.

I know there's a whole new series coming for Lent 2014 (Lent begins this year on March 5.  I wanted to give you time to enjoy what's already there before the new ones start flowing)

Best of the Web - The Hunt for Gollum

The Hunt for Gollum - (2009) - This is a low budget, independent and unofficial prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies.  It tells the story of Aragorn's pursuit and capture of Gollum.  This story is told primarily in the appendices of the Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books.

No, that's not Viggo.
And yes, it looks a LOT like him!

Made by a group of fans on a budget of about $5,000 (US).  Writer/Producer/Director Chris Bouchard acknowledges the inspiration of the Peter Jackson major motion pictures.  This is really an astounding piece of fan video.  The production crew consisted of 160 volunteers as they shot in parts of England and Wales.  The final version debuted in 2009 and is well past 12 million views.  An awful lot of fan produced media is simply awful.  This shows the potential of work created by people who truly love the original material.

What's really astounding is the quality of the cinematography and the direction.  With all the tacky, poorly shot video out there it's wonderful to run into something that has some quality to it.  It's not perfect but it stands head and shoulders above most.  Bouchard has a feel not only for the material but also the medium in which he is creating.

The movie runs 38 minutes long and can be viewed for free on YouTube.  View it HERE
Take a look at the production home page HERE

Best of the Web - Indie, Bikes & Beer

Indie, Bikes & Beer -   OK, looking for the first site to include in this feature, I really wanted it to be a special one, something that would give a feel for where I think I'm headed.

So a web site devoted to three of my favorite things in the world (outside of my lady wife and daughter, of course)?  How could I resist?

I stumbled on them because of a link featuring a young man from right here in my backyard who has moved to their backyard, Max Garcia Conover.  Their backyard is most of New England, working from a base in Boston.  What's not to love about the first line in their description of who they are:

We’re an indie music blog comprised of drunken cyclists.

Musically they like a lot of things but seem to centered more in the singer/songwriter folk kind of thing.  Then add in reviews of beers they have tried and enjoyed.  Finally add in some serious bicycle chops and you've discovered the magic formula for Indie, Bikes & Beer.

You're going to find videos of lots of indie musicians to discover.  You'll find some good writing and videos about the passion for cycling.  The beer reviews include a cool concept where they do a monthly "six pack" of beers (or were, nothing after Thanksgiving this year.  C'mon guys!).

This is exactly what I think the Internet at its best looks like.  People who are passionate about something doing a great job of creatively sharing that passion.

Nice.

And On to a New Year

So this is 2014?
Nice.
So far, at least.

Let's get started this year with some thought about why we do what we do and what we are going to do this.

This blog will continue to be "home base" for my radio show "The View From the Phlipside" (now airing M-F at 8 AM and 5 PM on WRFA-LP, Jamestown, NY).  I haven't noted in a while that what you see is the relatively rough scripts that I write each week.  I spend a little time cleaning them up but I just don't have the time and energy to turn them into proper essays.  When I record them I count on my ability to shape them as I go along.  This results in some convoluted sentence structure in the scripts and some missing punctuation and grammar points.  They are what they are and they are written to be spoken aloud.

I will continue to offer some reviews of movies and books.  My focus will be more on older materials.  The reason for this is that there is plenty of contemporary reviews of new media.  The hope of these reviews has always been that I can point people to things that they may not know or may know but aren't sure if they would like.  For all the media that is created new in this age there is still a massive backlog of things too good to simply fall away.  Because I don't get to see as many new movies in the theater as I'd like I'll still watch and review newer stuff too.  But the focus will be on older materials.

There is something new that I hope to explore this year.  That's the highest quality material available on the web.  This will NOT be a review of dog/cat videos and the like.  I believe that there is some real quality material out there that doesn't get the attention it deserves.  I want to be part of fixing that.  If I'm wrong then the Internet is really nothing more than a children's toy and we need to face that if true.

Over the next couple weeks I hope to take some time to fiddle with the site, re-arrange things, maybe remodel the place a bit.  For the moment I am unemployed and so I have the time to go a little deeper.  I also hope to do some writing that looks a little deeper that I can spread across at least the next couple months along with the usual suspects (Great movie, by the way, "The Usual Suspects".  It's the movie that made me say "Kevin Spacey?  Gotta keep my eyes open for this guy").  These posts will appear (assuming I find something worth including) as "The Best of the Web".  I'm kind of looking forward to exploring all this.  If you have a suggestion feel free to pass it along via the comments.