Many films have ascended to legendary status for their troubled productions. Apocalypse Now, Heaven’s Gate, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote all famously far exceeded their budget and production scope. Thanks to the sleuthing and restoration efforts of Alamo Drafthouse, we can add one more name to that pile of terrifying disasters: 1981 safari […]
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See these 100 streaming documentaries before you graduate
AU students get access to our streaming video collection, which includes thousands of hours of great documentaries. We realize that there’s quite a bit to sort through, so finding the best of them (or even knowing to look for them) might be a challenge. To help you navigate the highlights of our collection, we’ve assembled […]
Continue readingVanity Fair celebrates one century of vanity credits
gif via listal Earlier this week, we acknowledged the 100th anniversary of Birth of a Nation and the blockbuster style of filmmaking that create. But as Vanity Fair points out, Birth of a Nation also marked the start of directors declaring authorship for movies. D. W. Griffith was the first director to have a possessive […]
Continue readingWhy are film production deaths on the rise?
Last year, the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones during the filming of Midnight Rider brought attention to issues of film and television production safety. Many people risk their lives while filming large productions; beyond pyrotechnics and stunt performers and so forth, production assistants and crew members find themselves in dangerous or risky situations where […]
Continue readingYour pre-March bracket: What’s the DCy-est film ever?
Many movies take place in DC to make use of its proximity to politics and major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian. Others just happen to take place in the city. It’s fun to see DC represented on the screen in a variety of ways, but the question remains: which is really the DC movie? It’s […]
Continue readingHappy Fair Use Week!
By the declaration of the Association of Research Libraries, this week is Fair Use Week! “Fair use” is one of the most important exemptions in copyright law that allows educators, artists, and journalists to create new works from copyrighted content. Fair use provisions have allowed everything from students editing films for academic assignments to supercuts […]
Continue readingMeet Chuck Workman, the Oscar montage man
There’s really nothing else we have to say about the Oscars last night apart from congratulating Birdman for its big win. Instead, let’s direct your attention to one of the most important people behind the scenes at the biggest award show of the year. He’s Chuck Workman, and he creates the clips played during the […]
Continue readingA radical proposal: what if the Oscars removed nominations?
The Oscars are this Sunday, and although we’re as excited as every year, there’s a certain level of predictability in every ceremony. A few months ago, the current Oscar race was considered one of the most competitive of all time, but the past weeks of tertiary award shows have made it clear who will win […]
Continue readingVulture reflects on Ousmane Sembène, father of African cinema
This year’s Sundance film festival hosted the premiere of Sembène!, a documentary about African filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. You might not know that name, but Sembène is one of the most important figures in the birth of African cinema. He arguably started the entire African film movement with, as Vulture describes, “no film equipment, no professional […]
Continue readingMaking sense of Birth of a Nation, 100 years later
Today is the 100th anniversary of D. W. Griffith’s Civil War epic Birth of a Nation, perhaps one of the most troubling films in the history of the medium. On the one hand, Birth of a Nation is one of the most significant visual works of all time; it was perhaps the first feature-length movie […]
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