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 […]
Continue readingA grueling look at making The Simpsons, start to finish
Digital techniques have greatly sped up the rate at which animation is produced. South Park can turn out a full episode in a week, and some topical YouTube videos can be cranked out even faster. But the producers of The Simpsons have opted to keep things slow, spacing our production over nearly a year to […]
Continue readingGrab more passes for two weeks of free advance movies
Our steady stream of advance passes for films continues this week with two new release movies that you can see before they hit theaters! If you need a pre- or post-Halloween film happening, we have you covered. First up is My All American, an Aaron Eckhart-fronted drama about the University of Texas’s football team from […]
Continue readingThe ultimate guide to movies with really big worms
There are some recurring hazards in movies that we should be glad not to deal with in real life. Quicksand, for one. Also high on that list are massive, carnivorous worms. For some reason, science fiction and fantasy films love giant worm monsters. We understand that fairly big worms do exist somewhere out in the […]
Continue readingHitFix hunts for the top 100 horror movies
What is the greatest horror film of all time? Is that too broad? How about a top 10 or even a top 50? With enough aggregated stats and expert opinion, you can probably make a killer list of the best in the genre. The editors at HitFix have done just that, polling horror directors, writers, […]
Continue readingNight of the Living Dead is getting longer
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead established many of the zombie tropes we still know and love today, like lumbering speed, the importance of beheading, and parallels to contemporary social issues. Though films before it had undead monsters, Night of the Living Dead might be the first (and arguably still most) culturally significant zombie […]
Continue readingDC rings in the official arrival of The Future
At long last, 26 years after the film’s release, today is the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrive in the future in Back to the Future Part II. Despite occupying only a fraction of the running time of the entire trilogy, the futuristic 2015 is one of the most iconic and memorable depictions […]
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