As movie theaters search for new technology to drag people into theaters, the latest promise comes from Barco Escape, a three-screen technology designed for “immersive cinema” with a panoramic view or, potentially, action on three different screens at once. But as Dennis Duffy once said, technology is cyclical. These ideas have come up before – […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – April 2016
As promised, as part of our year-end push, we’re continuing to add huge volumes of classic television shows to our collection. Frasier, The Jeffersons, Get Smart, The Golden Girls, and other famous sitcoms are now available to check out from the library, either for research purposes or just for fun. Huge thanks to our staff […]
Continue readingBig-budget independent television is still a dream
This year, Louis C. K. debuted Horace and Pete, an original dramedy television show that he independently produced and released exclusively through his website. The show itself is apparently very good, but its production model caught much of the attention: C. K. financed the entire thing himself, something never attempted for a show with production […]
Continue readingNew infographics break down gender in screenplays… and it’s about what you’d expect
Late last week, Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels released a study on Polygraph breaking down the dialogue of over 2000 major screenplays by the gender and age of the actors. If you’ve followed any of the other news about representation in film for the last few years, the results should come as no surprise: it’s […]
Continue readingAfter People v. O. J., a closer look at the Trial of the Century
The People v. O. J. Simpson, the first season of FX’s American Crime Story, ended last night to thunderous reviews. For a generation that didn’t live through the Simpson murder trial and never had to endure a year of Jay Leno monologue jokes, American Crime Story was a sensationalist look at a period of history […]
Continue readingSee horror’s John Carpenter in DC… at a concert?
Master horror filmmaker John Carpenter is beloved for directing Halloween, They Live, and The Thing. Many people don’t know that he scored many of this movies as well. Carpenter composed the famous Halloween theme song, and since largely setting aside his film career, he has continue to dabble in the minimalist, terrifying synthesizer music that […]
Continue readingA new site can find movies by describing them… for the most part
Every once in a while, we get stumped trying to remember a certain movie starring a certain actor. Usually those questions can be answered with a quick search (or by asking your librarian!), but there are trickier ones too: how do you find a movie by the subject matter? Today, we stumbled across a new […]
Continue readingStealthy challenging censorship in China with film
Film has always been an instrument for pushing back against media censorship. The need is less visible and more subtle in America than it was during the years of the Hays Code (see This Film is Not Yet Rated, HU DVD 2414), but in other countries, overt suppression of creative content continues to be the […]
Continue readingDocumentarians name their 50 favorite documentaries
We’re suckers for any good, contentious list of best films. Whenever a publication puts together their top 300 films or the best horror movies, it inevitably has a few holes, which is an opportunity to talk about what makes art great. (It also give us justification to argue about movies.) The latest “best of” roundup […]
Continue readingPardon the silence. We’re extra-busy!
We’ve been a little quiet recently, but not to worry! In the past few weeks, we’ve received an absolute mountain of DVDs for classic television shows, everything from I Dream of Jeannie to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. We’re working hard to get them to you as quickly as we can. In the meantime, while […]
Continue reading