Category: Uncategorized

Apologies for the late random movie, friends. We had a snow day on Monday, and we were too busy frolicking in the snow and napping to post a random movie.

This week’s random movie is DVD 677 — Punch-Drunk Love. Here’s our summary:

Struggling to cope with his erratic temper, novelty toilet plunger salesman Barry Egan spends his days collecting frequent-flyer-mile coupons and dodging the insults of his seven sisters. The promise of a new life emerges when Barry inadvertently attracts the affections of a mysterious woman named Lena. But their budding relationship is threatened when he falls prey to the swindling operator of a phone sex line and her deranged boss.

And this summary doesn’t even mention the pudding. Check it out!

On March 6, Susan Zirinsky, an alum of AU’s School of Communications, will become the President and Senior Executive Producer of CBS News: the first women in that position. Zirinsky comes to the role with an impressive resume. During her decades-long career at CBS, she’s covered the Watergate Scandal, the White House, and won one Emmy and two Peabody Awards for her work.

Zirinsky also served as the inspiration for Jane Craig, the news producer protagonist in Broadcast News. Zirinsky had an incredible amount of input on the creative direction of the film, and she also served as its executive producer. She even gave Holly Hunter, the actress who portrayed her in the film, some of her own clothes to wear as costumes.

We want to congratulate Zirinsky for her most recent achievement, and we know she’ll do well as the President of CBS News. For all you aspiring journalists and producers out there, we highly recommend Broadcast News, which you can borrow from Media Services. Just ask for DVD 3504.

Ever hear the phrase “there’s an app for that?” Well, the Media Services version of that is “there’s a filmography for that.” We have over a hundred filmographies available on the library website, covering everything from Swedish cinema to LGBTQ films. We recently updated our African Feature Films filmography. We break down, country by country, all of the African feature films we have in our physical and digital collections. Twenty-nine of Africa’s fifty-four countries are represented, and our collection is growing. You can check it out here, and find films from Algeria to Guinea-Bissau to Zimbabwe.

Campus Use

• Paywall: The Business of Scholarship
• White Right: Meeting the Enemy (DVD 16148)

Home Use:

• Strange Victory (DVD 16149)
• We The People 2.0 (DVD 16150)
• Hare Krishna! (DVD 16152)
• The Last Laugh (DVD 16153)
• Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (DVD 16154)

More DVDs! In this batch, I think I’m most excited for Won’t You Be My Neighbor? All my friends who have seen it cried while they watched it. I teared up just searching for a gif of Mister Rogers. I am so, so ready. 

The library may be closed all next week, but we have some final new acquisitions to brag about before 2018 comes to a close. Today we added to the shelves…

Campus Use:

• Twenty Years Later (DVD 16140)

Home Use

• Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Criterion Collection (DVD 383)
• The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo (DVD 16136)
• Gifted (DVD 16137)
• Dark Money (DVD 16138)
• Weighed But Found Wanting (DVD 16139)
• Women He’s Undressed (DVD 16141)
• Smithereens (DVD 16142)
• Women in Love (DVD 16143)
• White Sun (DVD 16144)
• You Were never Really Here (DVD 16145)
• VA: The Human Cost of War (DVD 16146)
• Zama (DVD 16147)

I have my eye on three of these. Gifted, which starring my second-favorite Hollywood Chris. Women He’s Undressed, which is a documentary about the life and work of Orry-Kelly, a legendary Hollywood costume designer. He designed the costumes for Casablanca, An American in Paris, Some Like it Hot, and Oklahoma! If I get through those, I’ll watch Women in Love, because I’m a sucker for period dramas.

Today’s random movie is DVD 14740, I Saw What You Did. This 1965 horror movie will have you on the edge of your seat. Here’s our description:

A prank phone call leads to a night of pure terror. With her parents away on an overnight trip, Libby amuses herself by joining her friend Kit, in calling up strangers and whispering, ‘I saw what you did.’ When Libby dials Steve Marak, a psychopath who just murdered his wife, his jealous neighbor listens in on the call, a conversation that ends with the panicky killer determined to silence them all.

It’s movies like this and When a Stranger Calls that made me swear off horror movies forever.

Another documentary for your viewing pleasure this chilly Monday! Today we present you with DVD 8185, The Homeless Home Movie. Released in 1996, this documentary seeks to empower the homeless by giving them a voice and a platform.

Our midweek gift to you: new DVDs to enjoy. This week we have:

• The Other Side of Hope (DVD 16121)
• Super Troopers (DVD 16123)
• Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (DVD 16124)
• The Death of Stalin (DVD 16125)
• Seed: The Untold Story (DVD 16126)
• Mully (DVD 16127)
• Leave No Trace (DVD 16128)
• The Rider (DVD 16129)
• Once Were Warriors (DVD 16130)
• The ballad of Lefty Brown (DVD 16131)
• The Beguiled (DVD 16132)
• Sleeping beauty (DVD 16133)
• Razzia (DVD 16134)
• Drunken Master II (DVD 16135)

I saw The Death of Stalin in theaters, and believe me when I say that it’s one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely a great movie to watch when you have need to take a break from finals. Jason Isaacs as Field Marshal Zhukov was a particularly brilliant casting choice.

We have a lot of creative types here at Media Services, and one of our student assistants, Julia, hasI a lot of fun with the whiteboard behind our desk. Look at this Grinch she drew!

You know our favorite holiday monster is smugly hatching some evil plan! She also drew this incredible skeleton, which graced our desk for the entire month of October.

Julia and our other student assistants also write up the movie recommendations that accompany the drawings. They have great taste, so watch this blog for their other recommendations and thematic creations!