Happy Intersession, and happy Monday!!! Today’s movie at random is The Snake Pit (HU DVD 8513), a true classic from 1948 starring Olivia de Havilland. Here’s our summary: Following an emotional collapse a woman is placed in a mental institution by her husband. The severity of her depression causes her sympathetic doctor to try electric shock, […]
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Movies At Random: Nanking
Today’s movie at random is the documentary Nanking (HU DVD 4367), which won a 2008 Peabody award. This well-regarded anti-war film is one of many crucial documentaries in our collection. The use of film storytelling to document, witness, and communicate plays such an important role in our history. It’s definitely worth checking out. Here’s our […]
Continue readingGoodbye!
There are a lot of sad goodbyes in the history of cinema. From Toy Story 3 (HU DVD 7770) to Casablanca (HU DVD 150), a good goodbye on screen can absolute destroy you. Through the magic of scheduling, you’ll see a few more random movie posts under my name, but I’m sad to say: this […]
Continue readingThank You For Playing
One of the new DVDs we’ve gotten in Media Services looks just heartbreaking: Thank You For Playing (HU DVD 15330 and streaming) is a story about using an unusual medium to document a human experience. From our summary: When Ryan Green, a video game programmer, learns that his young son Joel has cancer, he and […]
Continue readingRotoshopping Is Creepy And Cool
There’s a really specific look to rotoshopped movies that sits right in that uncanny valley for animation. They’re just slightly too real, and so they look really creepy. The two films best known for this, A Scanner Darkly (HU DVD 2416) and Waking Life (HU DVD 364), are just unbearably creepy. So what is rotoshopping? […]
Continue readingMovies At Random: Before the Nickelodeon
Yay Monday! The last Movie At Random of July is Before the Nickelodeon: the early cinema of Edwin S. Porter (HU DVD 13148). Here’s our summary: Between the years 1894 to 1908, Edwin S. Porter was the leading American filmmaker. Follows his movie career, from his first job installing Thomas Edison’s Vitascope machines in New […]
Continue readingHappy Birthday William Powell!
Today, July 29th, is William Powell’s birthday! I think I’ve suggested The Thin Man (HU DVD 4971 – 4977) about to death, so I’d like to encourage you to check out: The Great Ziegfeld (HU DVD 1979) Manhattan Melodrama (HU DVD 12753) Mister Roberts (HU DVD 5171) and My Man Godfrey (HU DVD 5850) Happy Birthday to the man […]
Continue readingSessue Hayakawa
I’m not sure why, but the zeitgeist seems to want me to think a lot about Sessue Hayakawa these days. It’s funny, but on his Wikipedia page one of the things that’s remarked about him is that it’s weird how he was a huge sex symbol when later Asian men in Hollywood were so desexualized. In fact, he […]
Continue readingA Chorus Line
On July 25th, 1975, A Chorus Line opened on Broadway. You can read a bit more about the play in this article about the playbill, or on Wikipedia. This musical is particularly interesting for capturing the real experiences of broadway dancers. It was developed out of workshops with dancers, and at least at first, the […]
Continue readingMovies At Random: The Wrong Man
Happy Monday! Today’s Movie At Random is Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (HU DVD 3530). For some reason I’ve been really into Henry Fonda lately after seeing Mister Roberts (HU DVD 5171), and I adore Hitchcock, but I’ve actually never seen this one! I’ll have to remedy that, if you don’t beat me to it. Here’s our summary: […]
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