Welcome back from spring break! Since you’ve been gone, we’ve been very busy. The AU Library is now home to many of the year’s biggest award nominees, including Captain Phillips, Blue is the Warmest Color, 12 Years a Slave, Lee Daniel’s The Butler, Prisoners, and Gravity. And if you’re feeling something lighter, we now also […]
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New Acquisitions – February 2014
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? After a relaxing winter break, we’re back in at full steam with a bounty of great DVDs. Looking for something critically acclaimed? Fruitvale Station, Behind the Candelabra, and Breaking Bad will itch that scratch. Mindless entertainment? Pacific Rim and Man of Steel. Need some AU pride? History professor Peter […]
Continue readingThis Thanksgiving, avoid these insane television recipes
With Thanksgiving only a week away, we’re quickly approaching perhaps the single most gluttonous month of the year. We’ll take any opportunity to fill ourselves up with delicious food, but the stretch from now until to the end of the calendar year will be particularly hazardous for our health. We’re not explicitly going to recommend […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – November 2013
Boy, has it been a busy month. We’re in the process of acquiring DVD copies of films only previously available as VHSes in our collection. While we probably won’t be buying Celebrity Deathmatch or Dance Workout with Barbie again, we’re hope you enjoy our expanding collection of old and forgotten gems. But we certaintly didn’t […]
Continue readingIs it time to leave “cinematic” behind?
Film culture has created an aura around the term “cinematic.” A piece of media described as “cinematic” carries with it certain qualities – pace, staging, cinematography, and weight – that are typically seen as ideal or enviable. But as digital distribution democratizes film and television, should directors still chase the same feeling as the cinema? […]
Continue readingTired of Michael Myers? Try scary television
Halloween is approaching in three weeks, and with the weather outside finally feeling appropriately fall-y, we’re getting into the spirit! Normally at this point we would tell you about the scary movies in our collection that you can find through our Pinterest page, but we want to take a second to look at the less-examined […]
Continue readingNetflix overshadows Emmy nominations; the future of television is here to stay
Remember how excited we were about the Oscars? After a few months, we finally managed to get over it and stop talking about Argo. But now award fever has hit once again: this morning, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced its nominees for this year’s primetime Emmys. Many of the nominees are exactly what […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – July 2013
The summer rolls on, and in-between our trips to the theater and the beach, we’ve picked up some new movies. There are a few big crowd-pleasers, like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Pitch Perfect, and the first season of The Newsroom. But also a number of interesting smaller titles. Learn about youth chess prodigies […]
Continue reading“Slow TV” will test your patience, calm your nerves
When we think about critically acclaimed and popular television, we usually turn to gripping procedurals like Game of Thrones and Mad Men. Compared to other popular sitcoms or dramas, these shows tend to be tense but protracted, using their episodic nature to develop characters and events with chess-like methodology. Many complain that these shows tend […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – May 2013
After a month-long hiatus, we’ve once again started receiving new movies. We’re in the process of playing catch-up. In addition to rounding out our collection of Best Picture nominees (now including Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained), we’ve updated our collection of Frontline and 30 for 30 episodes, added the last of the Twilight movies, […]
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