As much as we enjoy poring over lists of the best films ever made, Aisha Harris and Dan Kois make a good point over at Slate: those lists are overwhelmingly white. And when film buffs follow those recommendations in search of the great art, they’ll watch predominantly white movies. We can lose sight of contributions […]
Continue readingMedia Services at the Movies: Popstar
The summer blockbuster season is here! “Media Services at the Movies” will look at what big movie is coming out this week, then offer a few movies like it from our collection. Every generation gets the music mockumentary it deserves. This is Spinal Tap remains the definitive send-up of hair metal rockstar excess. Popstar: Never […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – June 2016
There has been an acquisition. Have you felt it? (We have other things this month, too, like Out 1, a twelve-hour odyssey by recently deceased French New Wave director Jacques Rivette. Follow the link to see what else we added.) Home Use Collection: Star Wars: Episode VII, The Force Awakens – HU DVD 1647Star Wars: […]
Continue readingWatch AU commencement addresses from years past
AU’s commencement ceremonies this year featured addresses from notable speakers like CNN’s John King and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Luckily, since we live in the era of free high-quality web video, you can watch all those on AU’s official YouTube channel. We’ve had a lot of exciting commencement speeches in the years before that, […]
Continue readingSome of the great, weird things we found while cleaning out our desks
Now that we’re in the slow months of summer, we have a chance to tidy up our department. A big part of that this summer is cleaning out desks that haven’t been emptied in decades and finding all sorts of goodies in them. Most of what we found was old files, but a few wonderful […]
Continue readingYou can own a piece of Mad Men history – even just an ashtray
Prop auctions are so irrationally fun. A pen might be worth a few cents, but if that pen appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy, my god, it’s worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. The chance to own a small piece of a movie or television show is the chance for a connection to art and […]
Continue readingAn intro to double Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach
In a choice that shocked many critics, director Ken Loach won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for I, Daniel Blake, a drama about a carpenter fighting for disability benefits. This is Loach’s second Palme d’Or (a rare feat) after his 2006 Irish War of Independence film The Wind That Shakes the […]
Continue readingNew to the collection: rare car commercials from great filmmakers
Occasionally, we get an unusual item in the collection that we just have to share with everyone. Sometimes it’s just an oddity like Executive Koala (HU DVD 8910), but this time we have a special, unusual DVD with a place in film history. In 2001, BMW commissioned The Hire, an anthology of eight 10-minute short […]
Continue readingMedia Services at the Movies: Neighbors 2
The summer blockbuster season is here! “Media Services at the Movies” will look at what big movie is coming out this week, then offer a few movies like it from our collection. Summer movie season is, at last, finally upon us. Although the likely biggest movie of the year (Captain America: Civil War) is already […]
Continue readingOur final count: 672 new DVDs this semester!
As we wrap up the academic year, we want to brag for a second. In a typical semester, we add about 200 or 300 new DVDs. Our collection grew by over 3000 titles in four years, which is a pretty great pace. According to our stats, during the spring 2016, we added 672 new DVDs […]
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