Down and Nerdy: The Hunt for Gollum and The Monty Python Channel

IN WHICH amateur cinema turns out to be really quite good, and in other news, it is Owl-Stretching Time!

Briana's recommendation: The Hunt for Gollum

Being a fan of the 1950’s epic Tolkien fantasy-fiction trilogy The Lord of the Rings now-a-days does not exactly make you an underground deviant or even, truth be told, a nerd. It just means you enjoy a classic tale of good vs. evil, told in a vivid narrative—truly beautiful language, by one of the most imaginative authors of our time. The popularity of the books and the impact of them on the popular culture is vast. Even Led Zeppelin wrote a “Lord of the Rings-esque” song. “T’was in the darkest depth of Mordor, I met a girl so fair. But Gollum, the evil one crept up and slipped away with her.” It’s called “Ramble On.” Ever heard of it?

Fast forward 50 years, three blockbuster films later and the tales live on. This time in the form of an absolutely incredible, high-quality, low-budget film called The Hunt for Gollum. Available for viewing only online, the short film is based on elements from the The Fellowship of the Ring (the first novel in the trilogy) and inspired by the Peter Jackson’s “Rings” film trilogy.

It’s a fan film—by fans for fans and produced on a budget of just over $5,000. It is mind-blowingly well done and visually stunning considering the budget and technology used in the making of the 30-minute film. The Hunt for Gollum is truly an incredible example of DIY film-making.

Check it out online at www.thehuntforgollum.com.

James'  recommendation: The Monty Python channel on YouTube

In my arsenal of Guaranteed Bad Mood Killers, you will find a bunch of Louis Armstrong CDs, some board games, a tricked-out Xbox 360, some comic books … and the complete Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD.

If you don't feel like buying all those DVDs – or, perish the thought, if you've never watched the Flying Circus before – the Monty Python YouTube channel is just the thing. It consists of a bunch of sketches selected by the Pythons themselves, along with some fan requests and exclusive interviews. Goodbye, chance of getting any work done today!

I love their rationale, which has been the thinking behind public radio all along:
For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube ... No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault. But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.
That's exactly our business model – give away great content, and the people that get it will pay you for it. And it works – just days after the Pythons launched the channel, sales of their DVDs increased 16,000% on Amazon. (Yes, that's sixteen thousand, with three zeros. Incredible.)

A personal favorite is below (my hovercraft is full of eels), and here's the link to the whole channel.

[podcast]http://archive.wfpk.org/Podcasts/20090731-nerdy.mp3[/podcast]