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Digest

Tech Top 10

By TIMES WIRES
Published January 29, 2007

SKIP THE CINEMA AND WATCH THESE WEB GEMS

Seems like everyone these days is glued to YouTube or other Web videos. Fred Marion of the Palm Beach Post offers up his top 10 list of Internet cinema found on the popular site www.youtube.com:

BEST SCENE: In Angry Professor, a young instructor gets interrupted when a student's phone rings. He continues with his lecture until he notices the student is curled up, speaking on his phone. Teacher approaches said student and asks, "Can I have that for a second?" He takes the phone from the young man's hands and slams it into the ground. "Angry Professor," 36 seconds.

BEST SCRIPT: An anal-retentive son in sweater and tie wants his T-shirt-wearing brother to pose for a Mother's Day photograph. Neither pose at the same time, and several pictures are wasted while they punch each other in the chest and face. "Mother's Day," 2:08.

MOST OVERRATED: Created as a promo for a British satellite TV network, a re-creation of the introduction on The Simpsons used real people, all the way down to a baby who gets scanned and rung up at a grocery store. "Real Life Simpsons Intro," 59 seconds.

MOST FRIGHTENING: For Connie Chung's cable TV finale on Weekends With Maury and Connie, a short-lived talk show on MSNBC, Chung serenaded her hubby, Maury Povich. "Connie Chung," 2:48.

MOST SHOCKING: Watching the eerily shot cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution that emerged late in 2006 is a stark and harrowing experience. "Saddam," 2:36.

BEST MASH-UP: Why did Doc and Marty put so much faith in one another? The "preview" for Brokeback to the Future - a mash-up of Brokeback Mountain and Back to the Future - puts forth one often-overlooked hypothesis. "Brokeback to the Future," 2:12.

BEST ACTRESS: Jessica Rose, or rather, "Bree," signed on to YouTube as "LonelyGirl15" and started posting her now-known-to-be-fake confessional videos. "I don't really want to tell you where I live because you could like stalk me," she says in the first installment. "All you need to know about my town is it's really boring." "LonelyGirl15," lengths vary.

BEST ACTOR (who isn't really acting): Clocking in at some 80 years old, a sweater-wearing man who goes only by Peter logs on to YouTube as "geriatric1927" and shares his thoughts: tidbits on everything from retirement to old war stories - all told in his soft Mr. Rogers-like voice. "Geriatric 1927," lengths vary.

MOST PERSISTENT: For the past six years, Noah Kalina has photographed himself every day. He stitched the shots into a video, giving each year about one minute's worth of film. The foreboding music, Einstein hairdo and corpselike stare somehow give the video a resonance the others lack. "Everyday Noah," 5:45.

VIDEO OF THE YEAR: From news clips and grainy home video, we watch autistic high school senior Jason McElwain, an assistant/water boy for the school's basketball team get a "senior present" - a chance to play in the last regular-season game of the year. With four minutes left on the board, the coach calls him in, and he scores six three-pointers in a row. "Basketball Miracle," 2:44.

[Last modified January 28, 2007, 22:58:26]