November and December are the peak release months for prestige films. Academy Award nominees are announced in January, and the big hopefuls have a habit of popping up right before the deadline. We’ve been fortunate enough to share passes to a few of these movies, but we’re saving the biggest for the end of the […]
Continue readingRaise awareness of film censorship by making a censor watch paint dry
Still from Paint Drying via Charlie Lyne There’s a lot of insightful talk about the role film boards play in censorship – why do these unaccountable groups get to decide what can practically be released? – but sometimes it’s more fun just to be a jerk about the whole process. This is one of those […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – November 2015
Another month has passed, we’ve added another hundred titles to our collection. The obvious big highlight is the first season of Empire, the massively successful hip-hop drama that has been a boon to television in more than one way. You might also spot Going Clear, the famously damning exposé of the Church of Scientology, and […]
Continue readingTelevision directing is still not very diverse
Behind the scenes of Empire, one of the few shows with a strong track record for diversity in directing talent Much ink has been spilled about the changing face of television, with new shows (and their showrunners) finally expanding the diversity of experiences and characters on television. But even at a time with different people […]
Continue readingHow big movie franchises are bypassing the critics
Last year, we mentioned the idea of a post-plot movie, where property-driven movies transcend the need for strong narrative drive. Bryan Bishop at The Verge has noticed an odder, more troubling trend: the post-critic movie. Films have historically depended on advance screenings for critics to generate positive buzz. This is especially true for smaller or […]
Continue readingSee The Night Before a week early! (Yes, Christmas in November, sorry.)
So here’s the deal: we absolutely do not want to contribute to the early glut of pre-Thanksgiving Christmas and holiday celebration. Thanksgiving is a great holiday, and November deserves to be its own month. That said, holiday-themed movies are coming out early this year, and since we have advance passes to one, we are obliged […]
Continue readingYour new podcast recommendation: You Must Remember This
Via our collections coordinator Molly Hubbs, we have a podcast recommendation for wonky film history types. You Must Remember This is a weekly hour-long program about secret tales from the classic film era. Every season, host Karina Longworth covers one major topic of Hollywood history across a dozen or so episodes. Earlier this year she […]
Continue readingFarewell (again?) to Betamax
It’s the end of an era that we thought had already ended. After nearly three decades of stubborn persistence, Sony has finally chosen to discontinue the Betamax videotape. For those who missed out on the 80s, Betamax tapes were the main rival for VHSes before it was clear which videocassette format would be most popular. […]
Continue readingBrave Wired blogger binges the entire Bond series for your benefit (and amusement)
From Moonraker, one of the Bond movies on the “Nah” list James Bond’s latest adventure, Spectre, hits theaters tomorrow. Reception on this one is decidedly mixed (Daniel Craig’s Bond seems to get it right every other movie), but it will no doubt be a box office sensation here as it has been in the United […]
Continue readingIntroducing Kanopy, now streaming the Criterion Collection
Cinema fans and students rejoice: you can now stream a huge chunk of the Criterion Collection through Kanopy. Kanopy is a digital video service the AU Library just subscribed to that offers access to full-length films – and in our case, that means hundreds of the titles available through the Criterion Collection, the go-to brand […]
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