Alright, everyone gather ’round, we have another Top 100 list to fight over. This time, Rolling Stone put together its list of what it considers the greatest television shows of all time . The top of the list is pretty much what you’d expect – The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Simpsons, et al. […]
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What does Netflix’s shrinking library mean for film history literacy?
Even with our collection of 14,000 DVDs, we’ll all admit to watching things on Netflix and Hulu all the time. Streaming subscriptions are convenient, and we’re realizing that it’s their primary way that many incoming students watch movies and television now. But we’re concerned about how that narrows what movies and television people can watch. […]
Continue readingHelp a beloved LA film library preserve their old VHSes
If you read this blog, you know we have an affinity for digital preservation and weird, niche films that aren’t available anymore. We do our best to serve the university community in those areas, but there are other groups with their own missions. Take Vidiots, a video rental store that’s served Los Angeles film nerds […]
Continue readingThe Toronto Film Festival had “its blackest edition ever”
As we saw at this weekend’s Emmy Awards, we’re finally seeing what happens when diversity in film goes from being a challenge to an asset. Diversity expands the possibilities of storytelling and filmmaking, and NPR saw that in effect at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Normally, the author Bilal Qureshi points out, film festival […]
Continue readingIf you want to understand the Emmys, start with Mad Men
The Emmys are tonight! We love a celebration of the best of television as much as anyone, but as with any award show, remember that the nomination process is highly political and probably reflects the tastes and temperament of the voting body more than an objective measure of quality. It’s interesting to see what Emmy […]
Continue readingWhat does a filmmaking class from Werner Herzog look like?
We just love this picture so much. Credit to sarkos on Tumblr. Last year, the startup company MasterClass began offering six-hour online video lectures hosted by luminaries in their fields. You can learn about acting from Kevin Spacey or signing from Christina Aguilera, complete with assignments to complete on your own. We don’t know how […]
Continue readingCan someone give Mr. Robot a lamp?
from the trailer for season 4 of The Americans Current great television dramas are dark. We don’t just mean in terms of content, like Mr. Robot or the extremely tense The Americans. They are, literally, dark. Vulture‘s Kathryn VanArendonk wrote a great column about this phenomenon and how this impacts our perception of the shows. […]
Continue readingHow do you adapt an unfilmable novel?
Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini has a reputation for adapting scripts from books that could never translate into films. His screenplays for The Wings of the Dove and especially Drive took novels that would be incoherent if adapted literally and made them natural fits for the screen. So how does one go about writing something […]
Continue readingThe New York Times looks at the confusing work of film preservation
Still from Decasia Welcome back! The fall 2016 semester is underway now, and we’re happy to see students back. You can come to us to watch any films you need to watch for class… but as we’re often reminded, there are some things we just can’t get our hands on. Last week, The New York […]
Continue readingBBC critics poll names the top movies of the century
Time for another list of great films as decided by critics! This time, the BBC asked critics to name the best films of this century. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive tops their selections, and it gets more eclectic the deeper you look. Compared with similar lists about the golden age of Hollywood, BBC’s list has an […]
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