Yesterday in our new acquisitions post, we mentioned The Animation Show of Shows (HU DVD 12101 – 12154), a giant collection of world animation we recently added to our shelves. We want to talk a little before about this series; it’s a remarkable showcase of diverse talent that any animation fan should seek out. The […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – May 2015
Apologies for the radio silence on new acquisitions! It’s been a breathless few months, but now that we’ve hit the summer and campus has cooled down, we’ll start giving you more regular updates about what new titles are coming into the library. Since we last updated you in March, we’ve gotten our hands on a […]
Continue readingVideo of The Exorcist hubbub lets you experience terror by proxy
Even beyond its familiar DC setting, The Exorcist holds a special place in cinematic memory as one of the most successful and – just going from anecdotes – most terrifying horror films ever made. It’s difficult to envision any pop culture event today holding the nation’s full attention and enthusiasm, let along a horror movie, […]
Continue readingWith Letterman’s departure, walk back through the old guard of late night
David Letterman ends his late night talk show career tonight. Although he has certainly settled into a curmudgeonly pattern in the last decade or so – and is probably indistinguishable from Jay Leno for many younger viewers – Letterman’s earlier years behind the desk remain some of the stranger and riskier network television ever produced. […]
Continue readingTCM’s ‘Summer of Darkness” offers free online noir course – and a noir movie marathon!
Turner Classic Movies is preparing for “Summer of Darkness,” a slate of over 100 noir films a commentary that will air throughout June and July. Two months of nearly century-old, dark, black-and-white movies is a hard sell during warm weather and peak movie theater season, but Turner clearly isn’t aiming for a general audience. Their […]
Continue readingSterling Cooper will go out big – but not bigger than Tool Time
AMC’s breakthrough drama Mad Men ends tonight, eight years after its debut that put scripted basic cable television on the map. Despite the show’s cultural ubiquity(some would argue oversaturation) the final episode likely won’t come even close to breaking records for most-watched finales. This has much to do with the ways we now watch television […]
Continue readingWatch a huge chunk of the Criterion Collection for free via DC Public Library
As film buffs know, the Criterion Collection releases the definitive versions of hundreds of classic films, restored and remastered to their original glory. Criterion has recently made much of their catalog available digitally through a subscription database, and we noticed that DC Public Library now provides access to this collection. This is a huge boon […]
Continue readingBeyond Thunderdome, there was Happy Feet
Director George Miller returns to the post-apocalyptic Mad Max franchise this Friday, and early reviews indicate his latest movie is a total triumph, an admittedly surprising outcome given Miller’s thirty years away from action films. That got us wondering: what else was Miller doing in the interim? If you can believe it, George Miller – […]
Continue readingHelp crowdfund Orson Welles’s final unfinished film
In 1970, legendary director Orson Welles began work on The Other Side of the Wind, a film about a filmmaker attempting to fund an experimental comeback film. Welles never intended The Other Side of the Wind to be autobiographical, but his life mirrored the protagonist’s in eerily similar ways. Over the next six years of […]
Continue reading“Lo and behold, there was actually an image in there.” Criterion’s techinical director talks restoration
Restoration is an important component of any film preservation and re-release process, especially the high-quality efforts from the Criterion Collection. Those of us without professional archival training never get a good idea of what happens during this mysterious process. Do they scan the original film? What sort of tools do they use to clean dirt […]
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