The Froghall View: April 2010

Charlie Brooker's Newswipe

▼ Watch Newswipe Series One

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▼ Watch Newswipe Series Two

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The Short Films of Jan Švankmajer: 1988-1992

Czech film-maker Jan Švankmajer (1934-Present) is one of the great surrealist artists of the 20th century. His work combines animation, claymation and other cinematic wizardry into films that are evocative, emotionally resonant, beautiful and occasionally disgusting. These are his most recent short films, including some of his most accomplished work. It is a period where his art and technique are informed by the younger artists whose own careers had been inspired by Švankmajer - Terry Gilliam, Shinya Tsukamoto, David Lynch and Tim Burton to name but a few.

His cult classic early feature films, Alice (1988) and Faust (1994) come from this period. Švankmajer continues to produce stunning movies, Conspirators of Pleasure (Spiklenci slasti) (1996) was followed by Little Otik (Otesánek) (2000) and Lunacy (Šílení) (2005), and this year he will be releasing his latest - Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010)

▼ 1988: The Male Game (Mužné hry)

▼ 1988: Another Kind of Love - music video for Hugh Cornwell

▼ 1988: Meat Love (Zamilované Maso)

▼ 1989: Darkness/Light/Darkness (Tma, světlo, tma)

▼ 1989: Flora

▼ 1990: The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (Konec stalinismu v Čechách)

▼ 1992: Food (Jídlo)

Ben Goldacre: Placebo, Nocebo

The good doctor Goldacre recently posted these videos on his wonderful website badscience.net.
The first is a short discussion of the placebo effect made for the NHS choices website (a great website btw, especially the Daily Mail debunking "behind the headlines" section).
The second is Goldacre's contribution to Robin Ince's Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, where he discusses the amazing nocebo effect - "placebo's evil twin".

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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Nobel prize winning quantum physicist Richard Feynman discusses his life, work and passions.

▼ Watch The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Jeremy Paxman Interviews Nick Clegg

From the BBC Parliament channel.

All of a sudden, the Lib Dems are looking quite plausible, aren't they? Clegg is starting to look rather appealing, Prime Ministerial even, especially when you stand him next to the other two. Something in the air? With some current polls putting Conservatives on 31%, Labour on 27% and Lib Dems on 29%, this looks like it will be a far more exciting election than I was expecting.

Filmed a few days before the first Prime Ministerial debate, Paxman's comments about the impossibility of Clegg being Prime Minister now seem pretty off the mark. If, like me, you're feeling a bizarre pull towards voting Lib Dem, watch Clegg confidently dance the dance with Paxman and learn a bit about their policy, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Both Cameron and Brown have confirmed that they will also sit for a half hour interview with Paxman in the coming weeks. However, I will be neither strong stomached enough to watch them or sadistic enough to post them. Apologies for quality - the first section is much worse than the rest. Watch it on iPlayer instead before Monday 19th April 2010 for a slightly longer and much prettier version.

The video below uses YouTube's fancy new embedded playlist player, which automatically loads the next parts. Use the left and right arrows to manually flick between parts.