
For how long have we been laughing? Are human beings the only ones to laugh? In the past, scientists tended to neglect such questions of laughter, leaving them to the philosophers. Jacques Mitsch's A NATURAL HISTORY OF LAUGHTER explores recent scientific attempts to explicate this most elusive of human faculties, undertaken by scientists who see it as a means of approaching some of the larger mysteries of neurology and human behavior.

For how long have we been laughing? Are human beings the only ones to laugh? In the past, scientists tended to neglect such questions of laughter, leaving them to the philosophers. Jacques Mitsch's A NATURAL HISTORY OF LAUGHTER explores recent scientific attempts to explicate this most elusive of human faculties, undertaken by scientists who see it as a means of approaching some of the larger mysteries of neurology and human behavior.
2011-12-30
6.3
5.7Divers go to work on a wrecked ship (the battleship Maine that was blown up in Havana harbour during the Spanish-American War), surrounded by curiously disproportionate fish.
6.3To earn extra cash, Mickey helps couples break up — but life gets complicated when he falls for Tinni, a career woman with an independent streak.
6.1In answer to an orphan boy's prayers, the divine Lord Krishna comes to Earth, befriends the boy, and helps him find a loving family.
6.7When his sister disappears after leaving their home in hopes of singing stardom, Luis tracks her down and discovers the grim reality of her whereabouts.
6.1A woman signs the verb “fast” in American Sign Language by putting her thumb and index finger together and “zipping” her mouth, which resembles the action of closing one’s mouth to be silent. The speed of the action is slowed down, so the person signs the word "fast" very slowly.
5.6Set in the 1800s, the film is about a "dacoit" tribe who take charge in fight for their rights and independence against the British.
6.4In this prequel to the animated series The King's Avatar, Ye Xiu enters into the pro gaming world of Glory, and competes in the first Pro League series tournament.
6.3A young woman thinks she’s found a path to internet stardom when she starts making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger – until the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.
7.3A thrilling journey through legends, belief and folklore, this film goes behind the scenes with the British Library as they search to tell that story through objects in their collection, in an ambitious new exhibition: Harry Potter: A History Of Magic. J.K. Rowling, who is lending unseen manuscripts, drawings and drafts from her private archives (which will sit alongside treasures from the British Library, as well as original drafts and drawings from Jim Kay) talks about some of the personal items she has lent to the exhibition and gives new insight into her writing, looking at some of the objects from the exhibition that have fired her imagination.
6.4When a plane crashes at sea, dolphins rescue a little boy and raise him as family. He lives a carefree life beneath the waves until an evil monster seizes power over the underwater world. Banished to dry land, the boy is taken in by a kind-hearted captain. With his new companion's help, the boy embarks on a journey to solve the mystery of his true identity.
7.0Léo is the two-year old, son of the acting manager of a factory on the brink of closing. When employees discover the news, Bruno, a more radical Worker who is willing to fight for his job, abducts Léo.
7.1Groot investigates a spooky noise that’s been haunting the Quadrant, which leads to an intense dance off.
5.3Dr Samir is an absolute charmer when it comes to women, but he poses as a married man to keep them at bay. Love becomes a three-ring-circus for him after he ends up tangled in his web of lies with his girlfriend Sonia and pretend wife Naina.
7.1In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
6.5While evil forces descend on Argentina, humanity’s best hope, a once-legendary shaman is confined to an insane asylum, powerless to avert the demonic resurrection.
6.0A female FBI agent holidaying in Eastern Europe with her family gets her life upside down when her daughter is kidnapped. She has to team up with a criminal on the run to save her daughter before time runs out.
5.8"Maine-Ocean" is the name of a train that rides from Paris to Saint-Nazaire (near the ocean). In that train, Dejanira, a Brazilian, has a brush with the two ticket inspectors. Mimi, another traveler and also a lawyer, helps her. The four of them will meet together later and live a few shifted adventures with a strange-speaking sailor (Mimi's client).
6.0Documentary that reconstructs the professional life of the dancer through the thread of his own voice. A work that travels to the fundamental landscapes of the personal history of Gades with unpublished documents and the testimony of those who shared with him many pages of the book of his life and the history of Spanish dance in recent decades.
7.6A documentary about the Synthwave scene, nostalgia and the universe of creating sounds. A love letter to human fascination and the collective memories of a universe, that never existed.
0.0It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.
This documentary tells the story of the brilliant Italian polymath, artist, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, writer, philosopher, scientist, botanist, geologist, cartographer, mathematician, anatomist, paleontologist, architect, urban planner, engineer, and inventor. The legacy of the brilliant Leonardo (1452-1519) to the world came in many forms: in the breathtaking beauty of The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa; in his rich collection of engravings; and in his notes on original thoughts on astronomy, biology, and physiology.
6.8In the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Junta’s Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.
Filmed to praise the work of the Spanish Ministry of Housing in solving the problem of shanty towns in Bilbao, it was made to be viewed by General Franco and not for public screening or distribution through the NO-DO newsreel. Although the short film was commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, director Jorge Grau produced a subtly critical work.
6.0In November 1936, a few months since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the government of the Second Republic moves to Valencia. In this situation, several Valencian artists and intellectuals decide to build four fallas — satirical plasterboard sculptures created to be burnt — to mock fascism.
5.4The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.
A documentary about punk and subculture scene of Pula, Croatia from 1978 to 1991, the city that gave birth to one of the most vivid punk and alternative rock scenes in former Yugoslavia, despite having population of just over 60,000 residents.
4.0Here's a strange one. First, a song on a blackboard: a Polish translation of “I love my little rooster” by American folk writer Almeda Riddle. Then, two men roll around trash bins and lift them to the garbage truck. They do it several times. A woman shouts in the distance. At the end, the picture stops, and the woman sings the song. An early short by Piotr Szulkin.
9.0The majestic Neil Diamond live! Prepare to melt.