The summer blockbuster season is here! “Media Services at the Movies” will look at what big movie is coming out this week, then offer a few movies like it from our collection. Every generation gets the music mockumentary it deserves. This is Spinal Tap remains the definitive send-up of hair metal rockstar excess. Popstar: Never […]
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New Acquisitions – June 2016
There has been an acquisition. Have you felt it? (We have other things this month, too, like Out 1, a twelve-hour odyssey by recently deceased French New Wave director Jacques Rivette. Follow the link to see what else we added.) Home Use Collection: Star Wars: Episode VII, The Force Awakens – HU DVD 1647Star Wars: […]
Continue readingAn intro to double Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach
In a choice that shocked many critics, director Ken Loach won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for I, Daniel Blake, a drama about a carpenter fighting for disability benefits. This is Loach’s second Palme d’Or (a rare feat) after his 2006 Irish War of Independence film The Wind That Shakes the […]
Continue readingNew to the collection: rare car commercials from great filmmakers
Occasionally, we get an unusual item in the collection that we just have to share with everyone. Sometimes it’s just an oddity like Executive Koala (HU DVD 8910), but this time we have a special, unusual DVD with a place in film history. In 2001, BMW commissioned The Hire, an anthology of eight 10-minute short […]
Continue readingMedia Services at the Movies: Neighbors 2
The summer blockbuster season is here! “Media Services at the Movies” will look at what big movie is coming out this week, then offer a few movies like it from our collection. Summer movie season is, at last, finally upon us. Although the likely biggest movie of the year (Captain America: Civil War) is already […]
Continue readingTake film with you over summer break with Kanopy
Three days of finals remain! Summer is close, and we imagine everyone wants to head home as soon as possible. It also means that you won’t have access to our gigantic DVD collection. Fear not: you can still stream a whole bunch of movies through Kanopy. We mentioned Kanopy last year; they have a huge […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – April 2016
As promised, as part of our year-end push, we’re continuing to add huge volumes of classic television shows to our collection. Frasier, The Jeffersons, Get Smart, The Golden Girls, and other famous sitcoms are now available to check out from the library, either for research purposes or just for fun. Huge thanks to our staff […]
Continue readingAfter People v. O. J., a closer look at the Trial of the Century
The People v. O. J. Simpson, the first season of FX’s American Crime Story, ended last night to thunderous reviews. For a generation that didn’t live through the Simpson murder trial and never had to endure a year of Jay Leno monologue jokes, American Crime Story was a sensationalist look at a period of history […]
Continue readingDocumentarians name their 50 favorite documentaries
We’re suckers for any good, contentious list of best films. Whenever a publication puts together their top 300 films or the best horror movies, it inevitably has a few holes, which is an opportunity to talk about what makes art great. (It also give us justification to argue about movies.) The latest “best of” roundup […]
Continue readingAlmost fifty years later, you can finally watch the original Batman
This Friday’s release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice marks the start of Ben Affleck’s new take on Gotham’s caped crusader. Batman’s nearly eighty-year history has allowed for adaptations of his stories with a wide thematic range. For every dark Batman story about justice, there’s another where Calendar Man appears (yes, that’s a real […]
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