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Watch this year’s Oscar nominees

The Oscar nominees for 2017 are out! Keep in mind that awards are political and determined by the arbitrary makeup of whichever group is voting for them. That said, this year’s nominations already seem richer and more varied than usual. There’s far greater diversity, led not just by Moonlight and the recent hit Hidden Figures … Continue reading “Watch this year’s Oscar nominees”

The Oscar nominees for 2017 are out!

Keep in mind that awards are political and determined by the arbitrary makeup of whichever group is voting for them. That said, this year’s nominations already seem richer and more varied than usual. There’s far greater diversity, led not just by Moonlight and the recent hit Hidden Figures but across the board in acting and production categories. Most shocking for us, at least, was the Best Documentary nomination for O.J.: Made in America, the first Oscar nod for ESPN Films.

As always happens, most of the Oscar nominees were released late last year. You’ll have to go to the theaters to see La La Land, but we have a few of the nominated films available to check out.

Hell or High Water – HU DVD 13629
Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay

Captain Fantastic – HU DVD 13625
Best Actor

Kubo and the Two Strings – HU DVD 13637 and HU BLU 13637
Best Animated Feature, Best Visual Effects

Zootopia – HU DVD 13259
Best Animated Feature

O.J.: Made in America – HU DVD 13289 and HU BLU 13289
Best Documentary Feature

Life, Animated – HU DVD 13661
Best Documentary Feature

Hail, Caesar! – HU DVD 13258
Best Production Design

The Lobster – HU DVD 13642
Best Original Screenplay

See off the Obama presidency with Southside with You

Today is the last day of the Obama presidency, so we have a special recommendation from our latest batch of new titles. Southside with You is a pretty risky concept – a romantic drama based on Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date in Chicago. Casting the young Obamas while they’re still in the public eye … Continue reading “See off the Obama presidency with Southside with You”

Today is the last day of the Obama presidency, so we have a special recommendation from our latest batch of new titles.

Southside with You is a pretty risky concept – a romantic drama based on Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date in Chicago. Casting the young Obamas while they’re still in the public eye must have been extremely intimidating, but by all accounts, the film pulls it off pretty well. Critical reviews suggest that it’s a great romance movie, even ignoring the fact that it happens to be about the current president.

If you want to get wistful, now is the chance. Southside with You is now available for checkout (HU DVD 13639). Grab it now, because the AU Library will be closed tomorrow in observance of Inauguration Day. If you’re looking for something more timely for post-inauguration, consider Paul Verhoeven’s movies about violence, capitalism, and mass media instead.

New Acquisitions – December 2016

The library is closing up for winter in about three hours, and much like a student submitting a paper on Blackboard at 11:59, we’re going to publish our final new acquisitions for the year! You might notice a ton of new television shows this month. We’ve been catching up on television shows – recent (like … Continue reading “New Acquisitions – December 2016”

The library is closing up for winter in about three hours, and much like a student submitting a paper on Blackboard at 11:59, we’re going to publish our final new acquisitions for the year!

You might notice a ton of new television shows this month. We’ve been catching up on television shows – recent (like HBO’s Enlightened) and much older (the original Mission: Impossible series and Columbo). Our favorite oddity is the full run of The Munsters, which includes an unaired pilot filmed in color.

On the front for big movies, Captain America: Civil War and How to Train Your Dragon 2 are also both now available.

If you can read this in the next few hours, you can check out any of these films until we re-open on January 3rd. Get to it!

Home Use Collection:

Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – HU DVD 37
More Business of Being Born – HU DVD 216
Higher Learning – HU DVD 5748
How to Train Your Dragon 2 – HU DVD 7802
How to Train Your Dragon 2 – HU BLU 7802
One-Eyed Jacks – HU DVD 10236
Underground New York – HU DVD 13490
Captain America: Civil War – HU DVD 13538
Bayou Maharajah – HU DVD 13547
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar – HU DVD 13548
Code : Debugging The Gender Gap – HU DVD 13556
Food Choices – HU DVD 13558
The Gunman – HU DVD 13559
Céline Et Julie Vont En Bateau – HU DVD 13560
Ella Enchanted – HU DVD 13562
Ella Enchanted – HU BLU 13562
Dracula Untold – HU DVD 13563
Dracula Untold – HU BLU 13563
Choice 2016 – HU DVD 13565
School Of The Future – HU DVD 13566
Subprime Education – HU DVD 13567
Hooligan Sparrow – HU DVD 13568
The Day Of The Jackal – HU DVD 13582
The Deadly Affair – HU DVD 13584

Television:

Nurse Jackie, Season 1 – HU DVD 14350
Malcolm in the Middle, Season 1 – HU DVD 14351
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Season 1 – HU DVD 14485
Vicious, Season 1 – HU DVD 14486
Columbo, Season 1 – HU DVD 14487
Enlightened, Season 1 – HU DVD 14488
Enlightened, Season 2 – HU DVD 14489
Big Love, Season 1 – HU DVD 14490
The Fall, Season 1 – HU DVD 14491
Mission: Impossible, Season 1 – HU DVD 14492
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 1 – HU DVD 14493
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 2 – HU DVD 14494
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 3 – HU DVD 14495
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 4 – HU DVD 14496
The Munsters, Season 1 – HU DVD 14497
The Munsters, Season 2 – HU DVD 14498
F Troop, Season 1 – HU DVD 14499
That Girl, Season 1 – HU DVD 14500

In-Library Titles:

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy – DVD 13484
Just A Gigolo – DVD 13557
From These Roots – DVD 13561
The Last Colony – DVD 13583

The Breakfast Club rounds out this year’s surprising National Film Registry additions

Yesterday, the Library of Congress named 25 new films to add to the National Film Registry, a permanent archive of the most “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” American films. As usual, the selections span almost a century of film, including drama, horror, comedies, documentaries, and animation. We’re pleasantly surprised by some of the popular movies … Continue reading “The Breakfast Club rounds out this year’s surprising National Film Registry additions”

We’re pleasantly surprised by some of the popular movies added this year. The Lion King was inevitable given its legendary stature in animation, but The Breakfast Club, The Princess Bride, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? are unexpected newcomers. Deadline‘s write-up has good descriptions of each movie, including a breakdown of the unusual history behind the 1903 short Life of an American Fireman.

The National Film Registry will take care of these movies for generations hundreds of years from now, but if you just want to watch them right now, we have copies of most everything on this list available for checkout. In fact, you can watch Life of an American Fireman via streaming right now!

Happy Birthday Kirk Douglas!

December 9th was the 100th birthday of Kirk Douglas. According to TCM: “The archetypal Hollywood movie star of the postwar era, Kirk Douglas built a career with he-man roles as soldiers, cowboys and assorted tough guys in over 80 films. His restless, raging creations earned him three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and one … Continue reading “Happy Birthday Kirk Douglas!”

December 9th was the 100th birthday of Kirk Douglas.

According to TCM:

“The archetypal Hollywood movie star of the postwar era, Kirk Douglas built a career with he-man roles as soldiers, cowboys and assorted tough guys in over 80 films. His restless, raging creations earned him three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and one Golden Globe win for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in “Lust for Life” (1956). But besides his lasting mark as a seething strong man with a superhero-like head of hair and the most famous dimpled chin this side of Shirley Temple, Douglas was a Tinseltown innovator and rebel. As one of the first A-listers to wrest further control of their career by founding an independent production company, Douglas also effectively ended the 1950s practice of blacklisting Hollywood talent suspected of communist ties when he insisted on crediting famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for his script adaptation of “Spartacus” (1960). Douglas maintained his position as a perennial favorite – often opposite fellow tough guy Burt Lancaster – in Westerns and World War II films until the early 1970s, when changing tastes edged the timeworn genres into the wings. He began a second career as a writer and focused on the philanthropic efforts of The Douglas Foundation, occasionally surfacing throughout the 1980s and 1990s to portray irrepressible old firecrackers in made-for-TV movies and the occasional feature.”

Unfamiliar with his work? Check out one of his films from the Media Services Home Use Collection:

20,000 leagues under the sea – HU DVD 10179

Arrangement – HU DVD 2212

Bad and the beautiful – HU DVD 7257

Champion – HU DVD 211

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – HU DVD 7576

Is Paris burning? – HU DVD 12861

Last train from Gun Hill – HU DVD 7569

Lonely are the brave – HU DVD 12168

Lust for life – HU DVD 5808

Out of the past – HU DVD 2403

Paths of glory – DVD 3271

Seven days in May – HU DVD 326

Spartacus – HU DVD 3272

Strange love of Martha Ivers – HU DVD 11357

New Acquisitions – November 2016

The AU Library previously didn’t own The Karate Kid. This month, we fixed that. Our collection now also includes a slew of highly anticipated titles that you might have wanted to see, like Weiner, the startlingly intimate documentary about the downfall of Anthony Weiner. You can also now check out the second season of Outlander, … Continue reading “New Acquisitions – November 2016”

The AU Library previously didn’t own The Karate Kid. This month, we fixed that.

Our collection now also includes a slew of highly anticipated titles that you might have wanted to see, like Weiner, the startlingly intimate documentary about the downfall of Anthony Weiner. You can also now check out the second season of Outlander, the wildly popular Starz fantasy series.

History scholars and fans might also want to seek out the Robert Drew documentary collection, includes titles like the death row politics film The Chair and high school sports story Mooney vs. Fowle.

And we’d be remiss not to mention Miss Sharon Jones!, an unfortunately newly relevant documentary about the late singer’s battle with cancer.

Home Use Collection:

Micmacs a Tire-larigot – HU DVD 13456
Richard II – HU DVD 13458
Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 – HU DVD 13459
Henry V – HU DVD 13460
On the Road with Duke Ellington – HU DVD 13486
Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel – HU DVD 13496
Weiner – HU DVD 13499
Mr. Holmes – HU DVD 13500
Dark Side of the Full Moon – HU DVD 13501
Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – HU DVD 13502
A Sinner in Mecca – HU DVD 13503
Quakers: That of God in Everyone – HU DVD 13504
Poverty, Inc. – HU DVD 13505
We are the Ones – HU DVD 13511
Fantastic Planet = La Planéte Sauvage – HU DVD 13512
Carnival of Souls – HU DVD 13513
The Dresser – HU DVD 13514
Meru – HU DVD 13516
Shrek 2 – HU DVD 13518
Gang Ren Bo Qi = Paths of the Soul – HU DVD 13519
Stephen King’s It – HU DVD 13520
Brilliant but Cancelled: EZ Streets – HU DVD 13521
Brilliant but Cancelled: Crime Dramas – HU DVD 13522
Miss Sharon Jones! – HU DVD 13523
Tokyo Fiancée – HU DVD 13524
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella – HU DVD 13525
Moms Mabley – HU DVD 13526
The Karate Kid – HU DVD 13527
The In-Laws – HU DVD 13528
Muriel, or, The Time of Return = Muriel, ou, Le Temps D’un Retour – HU DVD 13529
Zangiku Monogatari = The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum – HU DVD 13530
Hunt for the Wilderpeople – HU DVD 13531
All the Way – HU DVD 13532
Outlander, Season 2 – HU DVD 14337

In-Library Titles:

Given a Chance – DVD 13451
Fly by Light – DVD 13457
Primary – DVD 13475
Mooney vs. Fowle – DVD 13476
On the Pole: Eddie Sachs – DVD 13477
Susan Starr – DVD 13478
Happy Birthday, Captain Blackburn – DVD 13479
The Chair – DVD 13480
Jane – DVD 13481
Storm Signal – DVD 13482
Man Who Dances – DVD 13483
A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy – DVD 13484
On the Bowery – DVD 13488
The Prosperity of Wibisana: A Performance of Javanese Wayang Kulit – DVD 13497
The Prosperity of Wibisana: A Study Guide and Analysis of Javanese Wayang Kulit – DVD 13498
Rabin in His Own Words – DVD 13506

Music Library DVDs:

Dance for Camera 2 – MUSIC LIBRARY DVD 269

Watch some cyberpunk movies for Cyber Monday

Today is the increasingly dated-sounding Cyber Monday, an online sales day commemorated when people still had to use their workplace computers to get online. For an event with a name as silly as Cyber Monday, the only appropriate film genre to watch today is cyberpunk. If you haven’t seen any such movies before, cyberpunk is … Continue reading “Watch some cyberpunk movies for Cyber Monday”

If you haven’t seen any such movies before, cyberpunk is a loose subgenre of science fiction and crime set in near-future dystopias; films in the genre use overwhelming technology and huge corporations as a sounding board for social issues and exploring the idea of consciousness. That sounds vague – and elements have seeped into almost all modern blockbusters – but as consumer electronics exploded in the 80s through the early 2000s, it was a dominant genre.

We come not to taunt Cyber Monday’s name but to praise it: like cyberpunk, it reflects a time of uncertainty and expectation about the future of technology. And decades later, they both sound pretty ridiculous.

A few recommendations:

Akira – HU DVD 433
Blade Runner – HU DVD 1064
Dark City – HU DVD 1992
Ghost in the Shell – HU DVD 5155
The Matrix – HU DVD 10154
RoboCop – DVD 8164
Strange Days – HU DVD 584
Total Recall – HU DVD 2040

Kanopy Highlights: Ajami

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We’re happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection. This week, we’re focusing on … Continue reading “Kanopy Highlights: Ajami”

This week, we’re focusing on Ajami, a 2009 nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Ajami is a mixed-religious neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel, where tensions understandably run high. The film tells a crime story in those streets, intercutting between five different stories told from Jewish and Arab perspectives. The film doesn’t use its interleaving and grittiness just for show; it reveals and humanizes the tensions of a community divided by religion and class.

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

Kanopy Highlights: Smash & Grab

This week, we’re focusing on Smash & Grab, an experimental documentary about international jewel thieves.

Smash & Grab follows The Pink Panthers, a gang that has reportedly stolen billions in jewelry around the world. Director Havana Marking blends reality and fictional filmmaking techniques in startling ways. The film uses real surveillance footage of The Pink Panthers (we don’t understand how she obtained it) to ratchet the tension, and her interviews with the gang members (which, again, we’re baffled as to how she arranged) are presented as rotoscoped animation. This a documentary that gets close to its subjects – through the heightened lens of a partially-animated heist film.

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

Kanopy Highlights: Wild Style

Still from Wild Style About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We’re happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection. This … Continue reading “Kanopy Highlights: Wild Style”

Still from Wild Style

This week, we’re focusing on Wild Style, a 1983 film credited with bringing hip-hop to the big screen.

Here’s Kanopy’s description…

Wild Style follows the exploits of maverick tagger Zoro (real life graffiti artist Lee Quinones), whose work attracts the attention of an East Village art fancier (Patti Astor) who commissions him to paint the stage for a giant Rapper’s Convention. A document of the earliest days of hip-hop in the boroughs of New York, everything in Wild Style is authentic – the story, style, characters, and most of the actors, are drawn from the community. It features a pantheon of old-school pioneers, including Grandmaster Flash, Busy Bee, The Cold Crush Brothers and more.

“Charlie Ahearn’s groundbreaking film about hip-hop, graffiti, break dancing, and rap in eighties.” -Sarah Cardace, New York Magazine

“It’s a fascinating time capsule, worth examining for anyone interested in the cultural roots of hip hop.” -Keith Phipps, AV Club

“Wild Style is a cult classic – indisputably the most important hip hop movie, ever.” – David Mattin, BBC

Wild Style was a community breaking through into film, and its impact made its way back. Artists like Nas, MF Doom, and Jurassic 5 have referenced Wild Style. As the film makes its way to museum and retrospectives, it continues to shape perceptions of hip-hop culture.

It’s also a really good movie – and a must-watch if you haven’t already seen it!

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.