Massiah has joined the faculty of the School of Communication. Much of Massiah’s work covers subjects related to social activism. He produced and wrote Power!: 1967-1968 (VHS 7409) and A Nation of Law?: 1968-1971 (VHS 7412), both part of the Eyes on the Prize II series, which is soon to be released on DVD. Another […]
Continue readingOnline video discovery: AIR: America’s Investigative Reports
I’ve been captivated by the above-mentioned series on PBS in case you hadn’t yet discovered it. What I like about it is the focus is on the craft of journalism using ground-breaking current stories, such as the system-wide mismanagement of FEMA, as the context. It’s largely about following leads, digging up sources, and the collaboration […]
Continue readingNotable new addition to AU Faculty: Activist journalist and filmmaker Saul Landau
Landau is teaching international relations and politics in the School of International Service (SIS). To date, he has made forty films and authored ten books on a wide range of domestic and international political issues covering areas such as Cuba, Chile, Chiapas, and Iraq. He was also a longtime host of “Hot Talk”, an interview […]
Continue readingObit: Glenn Ford, 90, star of Blackboard Jungle, Gilda, and The Big Heat
The films of Glenn Ford available in Media Services: The Big Heat DVD 758Blackboard Jungle DVD 1232Gilda DVD 1604 Ford always struck me as a likable journeyman. With a few exceptions, including his role in Gilda, he usually found himself playing easy-going sympathetic characters. Of the 85 or so films he made, only the above-mentioned […]
Continue readingObit: Naguib Mahfouz, 94, Egyptian Novelist
Mahfouz is the only Arab to have ever been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and was also the oldest living recipient of the award. A critic of Egyptian society and Islamic Fundamentalism, in 1994 Mahfouz, then 82, was stabbed in an assassination attempt over perceived blasphemy in his 1959 novel Children of Gebelawi. Media […]
Continue readingPortal to public domain videos online
This website provides nice orderly links to streaming videos of old films that reside at Google Video, Dumpalink, iFilm, and YouTube. The collection is a combination of works that are out-of-copyright (public domain), orphaned (obscure videos that are still under copyright but probably forgotten by their owners), and some that are more recent and possibly […]
Continue readingAppreciate old-time radio? Here’s a site with 11,000 programs online
The quality ranges from good to microphone-to-a-radio-speaker bad, but on balance this is a remarkably rich resource. If you’ve ever listened to comic geniuses Bob and Ray, represented here with a scant seven programs, you’ll recognize many of the programs they satirized in their skits. A few of the nuttier titles include Mr. Keen: Tracer […]
Continue readingNeed to bluff your way through a conversation about Iranian New Wave cinema … say no more.
Green Cine, a DVD review site, has a handy set of film primers ranging from Dogme 95 to Zombies. They’re relatively short and intended as an entertaining introduction to genres and movements. Each essay is accompanied by a short list of recommended titles. link
Continue readingObit: Mickey Spillane, 88, creator of detective Mike Hammer, hence also the writer of film noir classic, Kiss Me Deadly
No Mickey Spillane, no Quentin Tarantino. Spillane’s writing had an edgy toughness, some might say sadism, that seemed to dovetail with the alternately explosive and nonchalant method acting of Marlon Brando, James Dean, Dennis Hopper, Lee Marvin, and Jack Nicholson to create a new anti-hero archetype. A handful of his novels were made into movies […]
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