Every July, over 100,000 people descend on southern California for San Diego Comic-Con, the world’s biggest event for movies, comics, games, and all things nerdtacular. The convention has grown from its humble origins as a comic book show to a pop culture juggernaut, attracting everyone from small-time comic producers to the cast of The Hunger […]
Continue readingStill a boys’ club? Only 22% of film crew members are women
Much has been written about how the film industry skews male. Significantly more blockbuster films star male leads, and only one woman has so far won the Academy Award for Best Director. It should come as little surprise, then, that other sectors of the film world have similar issues with gender representation. According to a […]
Continue readingNew Acquisitions – July 2014
One of the interesting narratives in the film industry this year has been the dearth of heavy-hitting blockbusters. So far, the two highest-grossing movies of the year were released before the summer, and the biggest long-term success has come from 2013’s Frozen. Even with apes, Godzilla, and Transformers wreaking havoc in multiplexes, fewer people are […]
Continue readingDC’s famous Screen on the Green begins TONIGHT with The Karate Kid
The number of summer film festivals in DC has dramatically grown in the last several years, with seemingly every neighborhood having its own screenings. But there has always been one undisputed king of Washington outdoor movies: Screen on the Green, the HBO- and NBC-sponsored festival that takes place on the National Mall. Since it doesn’t […]
Continue readingTop 10: Remakes That You Probably Never Knew Were Remakes
We’re proud of the variety and depth of the Media Services collection. In the interest of bringing you some highlights and deep cuts from our shelves, we’ll be posting unusual and interesting Top 10 lists of some of our favorite DVDs. Last July, pop culture website Den of Geek estimated that at time time, there […]
Continue readingWatch 2001: A Space Odyssey this Saturday with Buzz Aldrin and a live orchestra. Seriously.
We see a lot of neat film screenings come through DC, usually in the form of early premiers or classic screenings. But once in a while, something truly special comes along, like that time Simon Pegg visited for a preview of The World’s End. But then there’s events like this Saturday’s screening of 2001: A […]
Continue readingCould this (eventually) be the longest film ever made?
Over the years, many films have laid claim to the distinction of being the longest of all time. Whether they’re making documentaries about a building decaying or just stitching random clips together to a feature length, filmmakers have slowly escalated their running times in a battle for this ignoble title. From 2006 to 2011, the […]
Continue readingDC’s only true IMAX theater will soon be Metro-accessible
If you’re a fan of blockbuster movies, you probably know the locations of DC’s IMAX theaters. There’s one in Georgetown, two at the Smithsonians, and another up in Silver Spring. You might’ve even seen a few big movies there, because who can resist the allure of Gravity in all its splendor? We hate to break […]
Continue readingNetflix offers job to watch movies, fulfills your deepest dreams
We don’t know if anyone from the UK reads this blog, but if you’re an ex-pat or for some reason just enjoy reading American library blogs, we want to direct your attention to what may be the greatest job of all time. As we’ve mentioned before, Netflix categorizes movies through a massive tagging project that […]
Continue readingToday in film theory: A thoughtful critique of “Bayhem”
Michael Bay, love him or hate him, is an auteur, a director with a definitive and immediately recognizable style that overshadows every film he produces. Every moment of, say, Transformers or Armageddon is coated in Bay’s fingerprints. His frenetic and explosive style has earned him an ignominious place in the film industry, but even more […]
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