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 readingLove British TV? See where those shows are meant to take place
Have you ever seen one of those experiments where people from other countries try to identify the United States? Let’s admit that we’re just as bad with the United Kingdom. Unless you’ve spent some time over there, everything that ends in “-shire” sounds interchangeable. And when it comes to television and movies, we just sort […]
Continue readingWatch HBO documentaries for free through Films On Demand
from Citizen U.S.A. You probably know HBO for Game of Thrones and their other hit shows, but they’re also known as a powerhouse of prestigious documentaries, like the Academy Award-winning Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1. Films On Demand just signed a deal with HBO to stream their collection of documentary films, and as part of […]
Continue readingAlternative programming: Getting real about Rio
from Rio de Janeiro: Urban Future The 2016 Rio Olympics start tomorrow, and this year seems particularly fraught. Every Olympic event has some enormous, costly, potentially negative impact on its host – remember the broken hotels in Sochi and the wasted construction in Athens? – but Rio has it worst in recent memory. The Zika […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – August 2016
One month left in summer! Everyone panic! Well, don’t actually panic. We’re getting everything set for the fall semester, and we’re stocking up on more new acquisitions. As before, we’re in the process of replacing as many of our VHSes with DVDs as possible. But we’re also plugging other holes in our collection. We’ve added […]
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 readingDirector Edgar Wright names is favorite 1000 movies (Yes, 1000)
Edgar Wright is one of the most distinctive, stylized directors working in film right now. If you’ve seen Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, you’ll recognize his unmistakable, kinetic energy. We’re all ears when he wants to share his thoughts on the art of filmmaking. As it turns out, Wright was happy to […]
Continue readingGet a DC Library card to get InstantFlix for free!
DC Public Library’s Tenley-Friendship branch is just down the road from us, so we get excited when we can promote their services too. Like audiobooks! AU doesn’t have a collection, but the Tenley-Friendship library is just a few blocks away. Now DC Public is expanding its streaming video collection, which we’re happy to promote too! […]
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 […]
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