Now go outside and look at the sky.
Ephemeral but not Forgotten
The Internet Archives hosts a great collection of movies, among them a slice of the Prelinger Archives.
This archive is one of the biggest collection of eqhemeral films from the early decades of the last century. It contains many industrial movies and old educational and amateur material. Currently there are more than 1900 movies you can download for free.
I've been raiding the section about historical San Francisco pretty regularily and it contains an amazing amateur movie from 1941, done in crisp, clean color.
The street scenes in this movie are spectacular because of how fresh the movie looks. Usually when I look at old black and white films, it is easy to be completely removed from the scenes. But when I see people walking along downtown San Francisco in this color film, it looks so... real.
It's almost a disappointment to walk out the door and everything is back to 2003.