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Broadband Budget Bonanza
E
ffective cheapness means knowing where to spend (dare we say invest?) your money wisely, and broadband Internet access has got to be one of the best values going. There’s so much free entertainment on the web that paying for anything begins to seem downright foolish.
In fact, we’ve gotten so distracted watching free entertainment, that we haven’t had a chance to complete this article yet.
But here’s a fabulous place to start, especially if you’ve a taste for old movies, Film Noir or Kitschy Science Fiction. The Internet Archive is an amazing treasure trove of period entertainment which can be downloaded quickly and for free. (An added hint, this archive spans much more than just films, so explore within the site a bit, you’ll be amazed at what you can find.) The quality of the downloads is very high, and while the artistic value varies, we recently spent an entirely free evening being completely entertained by “Panic in the Streets.”
The value of this really starts to mount if you’ve got kids to entertain. We blanch at the thought of a night at the movies for a family of four or five. What’s more, even the most daring of these public domain movies excel at being subtle enough for children while hinting at a… broader story for older viewers.
Tonight we’re watching “Mambo.” Don’t know if it’ll be any good, but hey, why not make a bowl of (non-microwave) popcorn and join us. It’s free!
Just for a laugh, here’s a sample of the Internet Archive’s more Kitschy offerings (It’s not all this bad/good):
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
Another source of free, Public Domain movies worth browsing is Public Domain Flicks. Unlike the Internet Archive profiled above, this for-profit site needs to earn its keep somehow, so beware of the annoying advertising links they’ve got masquerading as new release block-busters.
—the Editors, on February 24, 2009
