Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini has a reputation for adapting scripts from books that could never translate into films. His screenplays for The Wings of the Dove and especially Drive took novels that would be incoherent if adapted literally and made them natural fits for the screen. So how does one go about writing something […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: August 2016
Gene Wilder and his triumphant Mel Brooks comedies
As with everyone else, we’re saddened by the news of the death of Gene Wilder. He was Willy Wonka, of course, but he was also one of the greatest comedic actors of the 20th century. His collaborations with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor are all-time classics, and hearing that someone with such a sharp mind […]
Continue readingThe New York Times looks at the confusing work of film preservation
Still from Decasia Welcome back! The fall 2016 semester is underway now, and we’re happy to see students back. You can come to us to watch any films you need to watch for class… but as we’re often reminded, there are some things we just can’t get our hands on. Last week, The New York […]
Continue readingBBC critics poll names the top movies of the century
Time for another list of great films as decided by critics! This time, the BBC asked critics to name the best films of this century. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive tops their selections, and it gets more eclectic the deeper you look. Compared with similar lists about the golden age of Hollywood, BBC’s list has an […]
Continue readingThe Media Services Pop-up Library hits the quad on Wednesday!
Our pop-up library from Spring 2015 with desk attendant Micah Welcome Week is underway! We’re happy to see campus buzzing again after the summer. We also know that there’s a whole lot of new people on campus who haven’t had a chance to explore the library yet. So we’re bringing the library to you! On […]
Continue readingWhen happens when film crews lack diversity, too?
We know that the film industry has visible diversity problems, from directing to acting. We can point to the lack of racial diversity among the Oscar acting nominees as a glaring problem, but less obviously, behind-the-camera craft roles like sound and editing suffer from both subtle and overt racism. Variety recently ran a cover story […]
Continue readingTake a look inside our old U-matic player
If you’ve never had to deal with a U-matic player, consider yourself lucky. These beasts from the 70s were the ancestors of VHS players, and they are sort of a nightmare to use. We have a few on-site still so we can transfer out-of-print U-matic videos to a new format. We think this one might’ve […]
Continue readingLove British TV? See where those shows are meant to take place
Have you ever seen one of those experiments where people from other countries try to identify the United States? Let’s admit that we’re just as bad with the United Kingdom. Unless you’ve spent some time over there, everything that ends in “-shire” sounds interchangeable. And when it comes to television and movies, we just sort […]
Continue readingWatch HBO documentaries for free through Films On Demand
from Citizen U.S.A. You probably know HBO for Game of Thrones and their other hit shows, but they’re also known as a powerhouse of prestigious documentaries, like the Academy Award-winning Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1. Films On Demand just signed a deal with HBO to stream their collection of documentary films, and as part of […]
Continue readingAlternative programming: Getting real about Rio
from Rio de Janeiro: Urban Future The 2016 Rio Olympics start tomorrow, and this year seems particularly fraught. Every Olympic event has some enormous, costly, potentially negative impact on its host – remember the broken hotels in Sochi and the wasted construction in Athens? – but Rio has it worst in recent memory. The Zika […]
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