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 […]
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A 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 readingWatch 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 readingSee 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 readingNew 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 readingThe 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 readingHappy 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 readingNew 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 readingWatch 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 readingKanopy 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 […]
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