Every Frame a Painting continues to be one of the best online film criticism video series. Usually the channel looks at editing and composition, but this time, creator Tony Zhou turned his sights to a very difficult film question: why are modern film soundtracks so uninspiring? Zhou puts forward a cohesive argument, with the Marvel […]
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How do you adapt an unfilmable novel?
Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini has a reputation for adapting scripts from books that could never translate into films. His screenplays for The Wings of the Dove and especially Drive took novels that would be incoherent if adapted literally and made them natural fits for the screen. So how does one go about writing something […]
Continue readingThe New York Times looks at the confusing work of film preservation
Still from Decasia Welcome back! The fall 2016 semester is underway now, and we’re happy to see students back. You can come to us to watch any films you need to watch for class… but as we’re often reminded, there are some things we just can’t get our hands on. Last week, The New York […]
Continue readingThe Media Services Pop-up Library hits the quad on Wednesday!
Our pop-up library from Spring 2015 with desk attendant Micah Welcome Week is underway! We’re happy to see campus buzzing again after the summer. We also know that there’s a whole lot of new people on campus who haven’t had a chance to explore the library yet. So we’re bringing the library to you! On […]
Continue readingWhen happens when film crews lack diversity, too?
We know that the film industry has visible diversity problems, from directing to acting. We can point to the lack of racial diversity among the Oscar acting nominees as a glaring problem, but less obviously, behind-the-camera craft roles like sound and editing suffer from both subtle and overt racism. Variety recently ran a cover story […]
Continue readingTake a look inside our old U-matic player
If you’ve never had to deal with a U-matic player, consider yourself lucky. These beasts from the 70s were the ancestors of VHS players, and they are sort of a nightmare to use. We have a few on-site still so we can transfer out-of-print U-matic videos to a new format. We think this one might’ve […]
Continue readingMatt Damon in The Great Wall sadly isn’t unprecedented
Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu Manchu Last week, a trailer debuted for Matt Damon’s new film, The Great Wall, set during the Song dynasty in China. Matt Damon basically has no business being in that movie, and the fact that he’s the star at all sadly capitalizes on how international audiences associate white […]
Continue readingWould you work for a fictional company? (Don’t mind us, we’re very tired.)
Alright, listen, we’re drained. The weather has been hovering near 100 degrees all week, and after a few weeks of inescapable political talk, we just need something fun and not-heady today. Maybe you do too. So here’s a silly infographic from Euroffice, a British office supply company, rating fictional corporations by how great they’d be […]
Continue readingChecking your perspective on making a documentary
SOC’s great film program often has AU students creating their own documentaries and heading out into the local community to capture a slice of life (take the Community Documentary class!). We love that AU students get to collaborate with DC to tell their stories, but there’s a potentially fraught dynamic with having college students marching […]
Continue readingSee where Hollywood films around DC
DC pops up in the movies for good reason: if you want to show the halls of power, you go to Washington. And sometimes, when you’re showing the halls of power, your characters have to go for a walk or get a drink. This is how places like Adams Morgan ended up in movies like […]
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