One of the many offerings AU Library Media Services has to provide is our extensive group of curated media collections! From recent acquisitions to animation to musicals, our collections showcase a range of interesting movie categories. The most recent one we’ve added to our Home Use Collection Highlights page is LGBTQ+ films. This collection offers […]
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A lament for DVD commentary
When Fox decided to stop publishing The Simpsons on DVD, one thing we lamented (apart forcing you to get a cable subscription to watch the show) was the fate of the show’s audio commentary. The creators of The Simpsons recorded in-depth, insightful discussions for every episode of the show, and although you can still access […]
Continue readingSilent Movie GIFs shows the sausage-making behind old special effects
Special effects aren’t usually exciting anymore. Filmmakers can create worlds and human beings from whole cloth now, so digital trickery doesn’t wow like it used to. 100 years ago, though, every difficult shot took a herculean effort. The Twitter account Silent Movie GIFs recently shared a few explanations for how silent films pulled off their […]
Continue readingHorror films had another strong year
For all the jokes about 2016 being terrible, last year was in fact a year of horror – for film at least. As Slashfilm points out, 2016 had an unusually strong showing of horror movies of all stripes, and the site’s Jacob Hall attempted to break down what led to the genre’s success. Hall mentions […]
Continue reading14,000 copies of Jerry Maguire to be built into a desert pyramid, because why not
For several years, the online group Everything is Terrible has searched through ephemeral videotapes to find some truly weird art, much like the Found Footage Festival. But they’ve also had an even stranger side project to collect every known VHS copy of the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire. We still don’t really understand why they’ve undertaken […]
Continue readingNew blood or old blood? What experienced directors bring to big movies
You might have missed that a new Steven Spielberg movie came out this year. The BFG was a bit of a flop, a surprise considering the beloved director at the helm. As movie studios are learning, director choice holds less and less sway over audiences as studios recruit new talent to headline their films somewhat […]
Continue readingA closer look at the realities of an awards bait movie
We’re only two months from the start of awards season, which means all the high-profile Oscar contenders about serious, relevant social issues are hitting theaters. Or, as someone more cynical might put it, all the Oscar bait has finally been released into the waters. Filmmakers want to tell meaningful, engaging movies, but to be frank, […]
Continue readingNo, a silent film of a train probably didn’t cause mass hysteria
You’ve probably heard this one before: back during the dawn of motion pictures, a short movie showing a train heading for the camera caused audiences to freak out and try to run from the theater. It’s a funny anecdote about how much of an impact film made – and it makes those audiences look pretty […]
Continue readingA new lost Méliès was discovered… after it was mislabeled
A Trip to the Moon, not Match de Prestidigitation First there was the lost Hitchcock film. Then, the lost Laurel and Hardy sequence. Now, film conservationists have found a long-list film by Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema. Méliès was one of the pioneers of film as an art form, especially in the […]
Continue readingHow the West was whitened
The Western genre is having something of a mini-comeback between Westworld and The Magnificent Seven. (Or, maybe we all just love Yul Brynner?) This year’s trips to the Old West look a little different than in the past, specifically the actors. Our collective imagined memory of the Western looks white, middle-aged, and male. But if […]
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