Of all the pages here on Candlelight Stories, the page devoted to the tales of the Arabian Nights is the single most popular. I love to post about these fantastic and free-wheeling adventures. Here’s a wonderful BBC documentary that communicates not only the far-flung and enduring history of the tales, but also the wild sense [...]

Here’s an excellent BBC documentary on the origins of punk, hip hop and disco in the New York City of the 1970s. It was a hard time in the city but it held a wild energy that kept pressing up and inventing new things. What hit me about this film is how good Patti Smith [...]

If this photo upsets you or offends you, then kiss my ass.  Facebook appears to have deleted a page set up to organize a protest over two gay men who were thrown out of a British pub for kissing at their table.  (Update: It turns out that the protest organizer made the page private.  But [...]

Mature Content and Language This is another episode in the art documentary series, This is Modern Art, by Matthew Collings.  In this episode, Collings explores the place of beauty in modern art.  How does beauty fit into art that tries to shock?  What is the purpose of beauty in art?  Doesn’t most conceptual art try [...]

This is a five-part documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis about the rise of nuclear energy in the United States. These sections make up A is for Atom which is a 1-hour segment of a much longer science and politics television series called Pandora’s Box.  It chronicles the development of the nuclear power industry and [...]

An episode of Sticks by the Brothers McLeod for BBC Comedy.

Adam Curtis makes fascinating documentary films for the British Broadcasting Corporation. This one is about the manipulation of memory, or the attempt to manipulate it, by governments during the Cold War era. It features several scientists and psychology experts who worked for either the U.S. or Soviet governments trying to figure out how to control [...]

If you live in Los Angeles you’ve probably seen it many times: the caravan of white trucks parked along the block and around the corner, diesel generators roaring, cables strung along the gutters, piles of lights, rolls of cables, racks of costumes, makeup trailers, bored extras, bored crew members, bored motorcycle police, and fascinated passersby. [...]

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales was a BBC television series of the 1990s that produced 30-minute versions of Shakespeare’s plays with animation done by well-known Russian animators at the Christmasfilms studio.  This version of ‘The Scottish Play’ stars Brian Cox. Click the continue reading link for parts 2 and 3.

This is a film made in a workshop run by Quirky Pictures for the BBC Children in Need at the Downsview Special School in the U.K. It’s just insanely beautiful. These kids are learning to be free with various artistic modes and they have made something that is mysterious, magical and wonderful. They are 9 [...]