Obit: Dennis Weaver, 81

Most widely known for television roles on Gunsmoke, Gentle Ben, and McCloud, Weaver also delivered riveting performances in two extraordinary films. In Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958, DVD 163), he is unforgettable as the quaking-in-his-boots night manager of the desert motel where Janet Leigh is being held captive by Mercedes McCambridge and her gang. […]

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Forgotten classic: A Day with Timmy Page

Aspiring filmmakers can probably learn a thing or two from young auteur Timmy Page. From the paneled basement of his home in Connecticut, he explains how he came to be a movie producer/director, his philosophy of film making, his view of other more established film makers (Charlie Chaplin, etc.), and the art of plot development. […]

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Interested in finding film reviews online?

There are two free film-review databases you’ll want to know about, Movie Review Query Engine and Metacritic. MRQE is the more undisciplined of the two, including a wide variety of sources from the credible to the somewhat bizarre. It also includes several precomputed lists of films, the most interesting of which are the listings of […]

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Must-see video: Punishment Park

Peter Watkins’s Punishment Park was made and released in 1970. Watkins had set out to make a film about the Chicago Seven but instead wound up making a fictional film about a civilian tribunal hearing the cases and passing sentences on anti-war protesters. In lieu of long prison sentences, those found guilty are given the […]

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The 1000 greatest films

A site that you will want to browse at least once is They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? if for no other reason than to marvel at their 1000 greatest films project. The list has been compiled by using the lists of over 1,000 individual critics’ and filmmakers’ top-tens from numerous film polls conducted by many […]

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Open Campus Screenings and Copyright

There is a common misconception of permissible uses of copyrighted videos on campus that I thought should be mentioned. On a fairly regular basis a student group or academic department asks for permission to use a library copy of a feature film for an open screening, believing they are permitted to without acquiring public performance […]

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A visit from Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon will be speaking this week at a screening of Sweet Honey In the Rock: Raise Your Voice, a documentary by filmmaker Stanley Nelson. The event, presented by the Center for Social Media and the American University Honors Program, will be at 6:30pm on Thursday, Feb. 23, in the Wechsler Theater in Mary […]

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A visit from filmmaker Adrian Cowell

One of AU’s treasures that everyone should know about is the The Center for Social Media. The Center champions films and filmmakers that bring to light issues of injustice and inequality in society. It’s a project of the School of Communication and is directed by faculty member Pat Aufderheide. Among the events on their current […]

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