ferrellweb

mr. ferrell's class web site!

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

—Samuel Johnson

Entertainment

  • AMG: All Music Guide
    An incredibly deep site—you can look up just about any artist or album, and you'll probably end up with far more information than you knew you wanted: discographies, reviews, histories, album cover photos.
  • The Internet Movie Database
    An exhaustive database of movies past, present, and (yes, I kid you not) future. Everything is cross-referenced to everything else. Use it to track down actors, writers, directors—even chief electricians or boom operators. They're all here.
  • Rotten Tomatoes
    While we're on the cinema, here's the principal clearinghouse for movie reviews—if you want a quick overview of what the critics are saying, this is the place to look. See a bunch of pithy excerpts all at once, or eread individual reviews in-depth.
  • Internet Archive
    There's much that's collected at the Internet Archive...of special interest here are their movie archive, where you can watch old newsreels, public service announcements, and even certain classic feature films. On the other side of the isle, the audio archive features recordings of certain live band performances (more Grateful Dead than you can shake a stick at) and recordings of presidential speeches and other addresses.
  • BEAM.TV
    This is actually an online repository for facilitating video transfers between folks in the industry, but browsing the showreels (in the Beamreels section) can be fun and sometimes enlightening. Creating an account is free, and there's no charge to look around.
  • Television Tropes & Idioms
    "This 'Wiki' is a catalogue of the tricks of the trade for writing television scripts. Frequently found plots, tropes, idioms, and devices are reposed here. The idea is to provide a resource for writers to spark ideas. Finding a cliché to subvert is always fun."

News Media

  • National Public Radio
    You can search a broad range of audio archives from every NPR program here. Track down interviews with artists, writers, actors, political figures, or listen to feature news stories.
  • The British Broadcasting Corporation
    The BBC's site is truly massive—there's more than I could even begin to summarize. (In fact, the British government has recently warned them that they have too much content. Sheesh.) A good starting point here is the Radio 4 archives, where you'll find audio interviews classified by categories: artists, scientists, filmmakers, etc.
  • Political Cartoon Index
    Cartoonist Daryl Cagle hosts Slate Magazine's collection of political cartoons. There is a section updated daily with cartoons from around the nation, as well as the index, where you can look at cartoons by subject. (It's pretty cool to browse through a bunch of cartoons on the same theme, and see the different viewpoints.) There's also a search feature, if you register.