Well, we’ve been dreading this moment for years now: the VHS is officially obsolete. Funai, the last company that still manufactures VHS players, will end their production at the end of the month. This comes less than a year after Betamax tapes were also discontinued. As of August 1st, the VHS will be a format […]
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 […]
Continue readingIt’s okay: Scorsese has guilty pleasures, too
Ingmar Bergman apparently loved Ghostbusters. He’s not alone among great directors. Even some of the most storied names in film loved popcorn junk once in a while; Film Comment magazine has been collecting lists of directors’ favorite guilty pleasure movies for years now, and The A.V. Club rounded up some of their favorite examples. John […]
Continue readingMore big movies streaming through the AU Library
Our streaming video collections got even better this month with a few additions we want to share with you – including a rotating collection that’s only up for a limited time. Firstly, we have two big new titles available to stream. When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee’s documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is […]
Continue readingEven reviews of media for women are more hostile
Gender-targeted abuse and harassment have long made comment sections on the internet borderline unreadable, but those same nasty attitudes have been poisoning the digital well for years in subtler ways. As a recent exposé from FiveThirtyEight shows, online reviews for television shows geared towards women have been artificially lowered by axe-grinding men. By analyzing a […]
Continue readingFandor spotlights twenty acclaimed films by women
Fandor has established itself as the premier digital film service for cinema buffs: in addition to their streaming library, they run Keyframe, a daily film essay and video blog. If you haven’t followed them already and like film, you probably should. For one of their videos (embedded above), Keyframe polled fifty film critics about their […]
Continue readingWhat’s it like to be a woman in cinematography?
via Variety Much has been made about the unfortunately small pool of women directing in Hollywood and lack of the opportunities they are given. Things are even more dire for women in cinematography. According to Vulture, only 2% of cinematographers for major films are women, and none have ever been nominated for an Oscar in […]
Continue readingWho run the world? Ghostbusters. It’s Women in Film Week on the blog
Haters be warned: the new Ghostbusters movie comes out this Friday, and we are extremely excited. It looks like a whole load of fun, and we’re glad to see a big-budgeted action comedy in theaters. But it’s impossible to talk about Ghostbusters in a vacuum, because the discussion around the movie has been dominated by […]
Continue readingMeet the Media Services guide collection
When we buy new items for the collection, sometimes they come with bonus guides full of interviews, essays, and commentary. These are super useful for anyone researching film or wanting to learn more about film history. We keep these guides stashed on shelves in the back corner of Media Services, and we realized that we […]
Continue readingRIP Abbas Kiarostami, defining voice of Iranian cinema
Over the weekend, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami died at age 76. Kiarostami was perhaps the greatest and most renowned Iranian filmmaker; he is the only to win a Palme d’Or, had an outsized influence on world cinema, and brought international attention to the Iranian film industry. His admirers include Martin Scorsese and Jean-Luc Godard, who […]
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