Watch this year's Oscar nominees

The Oscar nominees for 2017 are out!

Keep in mind that awards are political and determined by the arbitrary makeup of whichever group is voting for them. That said, this year's nominations already seem richer and more varied than usual. There's far greater diversity, led not just by Moonlight and the recent hit Hidden Figures but across the board in acting and production categories. Most shocking for us, at least, was the Best Documentary nomination for O.J.: Made in America, the first Oscar nod for ESPN Films.

As always happens, most of the Oscar nominees were released late last year. You'll have to go to the theaters to see La La Land, but we have a few of the nominated films available to check out.

Hell or High Water – HU DVD 13629
Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay

Captain Fantastic – HU DVD 13625
Best Actor

Kubo and the Two Strings – HU DVD 13637 and HU BLU 13637
Best Animated Feature, Best Visual Effects

Zootopia – HU DVD 13259
Best Animated Feature

O.J.: Made in America – HU DVD 13289 and HU BLU 13289
Best Documentary Feature

Life, Animated – HU DVD 13661
Best Documentary Feature

Hail, Caesar! – HU DVD 13258
Best Production Design

The Lobster – HU DVD 13642
Best Original Screenplay

See off the Obama presidency with Southside with You

Today is the last day of the Obama presidency, so we have a special recommendation from our latest batch of new titles.

Southside with You is a pretty risky concept – a romantic drama based on Barack and Michelle Obama's first date in Chicago. Casting the young Obamas while they're still in the public eye must have been extremely intimidating, but by all accounts, the film pulls it off pretty well. Critical reviews suggest that it's a great romance movie, even ignoring the fact that it happens to be about the current president.

If you want to get wistful, now is the chance. Southside with You is now available for checkout (HU DVD 13639). Grab it now, because the AU Library will be closed tomorrow in observance of Inauguration Day. If you're looking for something more timely for post-inauguration, consider Paul Verhoeven's movies about violence, capitalism, and mass media instead.

New Acquisitions - December 2016

The library is closing up for winter in about three hours, and much like a student submitting a paper on Blackboard at 11:59, we're going to publish our final new acquisitions for the year!

You might notice a ton of new television shows this month. We've been catching up on television shows – recent (like HBO's Enlightened) and much older (the original Mission: Impossible series and Columbo). Our favorite oddity is the full run of The Munsters, which includes an unaired pilot filmed in color.

On the front for big movies, Captain America: Civil War and How to Train Your Dragon 2 are also both now available.

If you can read this in the next few hours, you can check out any of these films until we re-open on January 3rd. Get to it!

Home Use Collection:

Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – HU DVD 37
More Business of Being Born – HU DVD 216
Higher Learning – HU DVD 5748
How to Train Your Dragon 2 – HU DVD 7802
How to Train Your Dragon 2 – HU BLU 7802
One-Eyed Jacks – HU DVD 10236
Underground New York – HU DVD 13490
Captain America: Civil War – HU DVD 13538
Bayou Maharajah – HU DVD 13547
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar – HU DVD 13548
Code : Debugging The Gender Gap – HU DVD 13556
Food Choices – HU DVD 13558
The Gunman – HU DVD 13559
Céline Et Julie Vont En Bateau – HU DVD 13560
Ella Enchanted – HU DVD 13562
Ella Enchanted – HU BLU 13562
Dracula Untold – HU DVD 13563
Dracula Untold – HU BLU 13563
Choice 2016 – HU DVD 13565
School Of The Future – HU DVD 13566
Subprime Education – HU DVD 13567
Hooligan Sparrow – HU DVD 13568
The Day Of The Jackal – HU DVD 13582
The Deadly Affair – HU DVD 13584

Television:

Nurse Jackie, Season 1 – HU DVD 14350
Malcolm in the Middle, Season 1 – HU DVD 14351
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Season 1 – HU DVD 14485
Vicious, Season 1 – HU DVD 14486
Columbo, Season 1 – HU DVD 14487
Enlightened, Season 1 – HU DVD 14488
Enlightened, Season 2 – HU DVD 14489
Big Love, Season 1 – HU DVD 14490
The Fall, Season 1 – HU DVD 14491
Mission: Impossible, Season 1 – HU DVD 14492
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 1 – HU DVD 14493
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 2 – HU DVD 14494
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 3 – HU DVD 14495
Everybody Hates Chris, Season 4 – HU DVD 14496
The Munsters, Season 1 – HU DVD 14497
The Munsters, Season 2 – HU DVD 14498
F Troop, Season 1 – HU DVD 14499
That Girl, Season 1 – HU DVD 14500

In-Library Titles:

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy – DVD 13484
Just A Gigolo – DVD 13557
From These Roots – DVD 13561
The Last Colony – DVD 13583

The Breakfast Club rounds out this year's surprising National Film Registry additions

Yesterday, the Library of Congress named 25 new films to add to the National Film Registry, a permanent archive of the most "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" American films. As usual, the selections span almost a century of film, including drama, horror, comedies, documentaries, and animation.

We're pleasantly surprised by some of the popular movies added this year. The Lion King was inevitable given its legendary stature in animation, but The Breakfast Club, The Princess Bride, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? are unexpected newcomers. Deadline's write-up has good descriptions of each movie, including a breakdown of the unusual history behind the 1903 short Life of an American Fireman.

The National Film Registry will take care of these movies for generations hundreds of years from now, but if you just want to watch them right now, we have copies of most everything on this list available for checkout. In fact, you can watch Life of an American Fireman via streaming right now!

Happy Birthday Kirk Douglas!

December 9th was the 100th birthday of Kirk Douglas.

According to TCM:

"The archetypal Hollywood movie star of the postwar era, Kirk Douglas built a career with he-man roles as soldiers, cowboys and assorted tough guys in over 80 films. His restless, raging creations earned him three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and one Golden Globe win for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in "Lust for Life" (1956). But besides his lasting mark as a seething strong man with a superhero-like head of hair and the most famous dimpled chin this side of Shirley Temple, Douglas was a Tinseltown innovator and rebel. As one of the first A-listers to wrest further control of their career by founding an independent production company, Douglas also effectively ended the 1950s practice of blacklisting Hollywood talent suspected of communist ties when he insisted on crediting famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for his script adaptation of "Spartacus" (1960). Douglas maintained his position as a perennial favorite - often opposite fellow tough guy Burt Lancaster - in Westerns and World War II films until the early 1970s, when changing tastes edged the timeworn genres into the wings. He began a second career as a writer and focused on the philanthropic efforts of The Douglas Foundation, occasionally surfacing throughout the 1980s and 1990s to portray irrepressible old firecrackers in made-for-TV movies and the occasional feature."

Unfamiliar with his work? Check out one of his films from the Media Services Home Use Collection:

20,000 leagues under the sea - HU DVD 10179

Arrangement - HU DVD 2212

Bad and the beautiful - HU DVD 7257

Champion - HU DVD 211

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - HU DVD 7576

Is Paris burning? - HU DVD 12861

Last train from Gun Hill - HU DVD 7569

Lonely are the brave - HU DVD 12168

Lust for life - HU DVD 5808

Out of the past - HU DVD 2403

Paths of glory - DVD 3271

Seven days in May - HU DVD 326

Spartacus - HU DVD 3272

Strange love of Martha Ivers - HU DVD 11357

New Acquisitions - November 2016

The AU Library previously didn't own The Karate Kid. This month, we fixed that.

Our collection now also includes a slew of highly anticipated titles that you might have wanted to see, like Weiner, the startlingly intimate documentary about the downfall of Anthony Weiner. You can also now check out the second season of Outlander, the wildly popular Starz fantasy series.

History scholars and fans might also want to seek out the Robert Drew documentary collection, includes titles like the death row politics film The Chair and high school sports story Mooney vs. Fowle.

And we'd be remiss not to mention Miss Sharon Jones!, an unfortunately newly relevant documentary about the late singer's battle with cancer.

Home Use Collection:

Micmacs a Tire-larigot – HU DVD 13456
Richard II – HU DVD 13458
Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 – HU DVD 13459
Henry V – HU DVD 13460
On the Road with Duke Ellington – HU DVD 13486
Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel – HU DVD 13496
Weiner – HU DVD 13499
Mr. Holmes – HU DVD 13500
Dark Side of the Full Moon – HU DVD 13501
Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – HU DVD 13502
A Sinner in Mecca – HU DVD 13503
Quakers: That of God in Everyone – HU DVD 13504
Poverty, Inc. – HU DVD 13505
We are the Ones – HU DVD 13511
Fantastic Planet = La Planéte Sauvage – HU DVD 13512
Carnival of Souls – HU DVD 13513
The Dresser – HU DVD 13514
Meru – HU DVD 13516
Shrek 2 – HU DVD 13518
Gang Ren Bo Qi = Paths of the Soul – HU DVD 13519
Stephen King's It – HU DVD 13520
Brilliant but Cancelled: EZ Streets – HU DVD 13521
Brilliant but Cancelled: Crime Dramas – HU DVD 13522
Miss Sharon Jones! – HU DVD 13523
Tokyo Fiancée – HU DVD 13524
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella – HU DVD 13525
Moms Mabley – HU DVD 13526
The Karate Kid – HU DVD 13527
The In-Laws – HU DVD 13528
Muriel, or, The Time of Return = Muriel, ou, Le Temps D’un Retour – HU DVD 13529
Zangiku Monogatari = The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum – HU DVD 13530
Hunt for the Wilderpeople – HU DVD 13531
All the Way – HU DVD 13532
Outlander, Season 2 – HU DVD 14337

In-Library Titles:

Given a Chance – DVD 13451
Fly by Light – DVD 13457
Primary – DVD 13475
Mooney vs. Fowle – DVD 13476
On the Pole: Eddie Sachs – DVD 13477
Susan Starr – DVD 13478
Happy Birthday, Captain Blackburn – DVD 13479
The Chair – DVD 13480
Jane – DVD 13481
Storm Signal – DVD 13482
Man Who Dances – DVD 13483
A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy – DVD 13484
On the Bowery – DVD 13488
The Prosperity of Wibisana: A Performance of Javanese Wayang Kulit – DVD 13497
The Prosperity of Wibisana: A Study Guide and Analysis of Javanese Wayang Kulit – DVD 13498
Rabin in His Own Words – DVD 13506

Music Library DVDs:

Dance for Camera 2 – MUSIC LIBRARY DVD 269

Watch some cyberpunk movies for Cyber Monday

Today is the increasingly dated-sounding Cyber Monday, an online sales day commemorated when people still had to use their workplace computers to get online. For an event with a name as silly as Cyber Monday, the only appropriate film genre to watch today is cyberpunk.

If you haven't seen any such movies before, cyberpunk is a loose subgenre of science fiction and crime set in near-future dystopias; films in the genre use overwhelming technology and huge corporations as a sounding board for social issues and exploring the idea of consciousness. That sounds vague – and elements have seeped into almost all modern blockbusters – but as consumer electronics exploded in the 80s through the early 2000s, it was a dominant genre.

We come not to taunt Cyber Monday's name but to praise it: like cyberpunk, it reflects a time of uncertainty and expectation about the future of technology. And decades later, they both sound pretty ridiculous.

A few recommendations:

Akira – HU DVD 433
Blade Runner – HU DVD 1064
Dark City – HU DVD 1992
Ghost in the Shell – HU DVD 5155
The Matrix – HU DVD 10154
RoboCop – DVD 8164
Strange Days – HU DVD 584
Total Recall – HU DVD 2040

Kanopy Highlights: Ajami

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on Ajami, a 2009 nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Ajami is a mixed-religious neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel, where tensions understandably run high. The film tells a crime story in those streets, intercutting between five different stories told from Jewish and Arab perspectives. The film doesn't use its interleaving and grittiness just for show; it reveals and humanizes the tensions of a community divided by religion and class.

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

Kanopy Highlights: Smash & Grab

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on Smash & Grab, an experimental documentary about international jewel thieves.

Smash & Grab follows The Pink Panthers, a gang that has reportedly stolen billions in jewelry around the world. Director Havana Marking blends reality and fictional filmmaking techniques in startling ways. The film uses real surveillance footage of The Pink Panthers (we don't understand how she obtained it) to ratchet the tension, and her interviews with the gang members (which, again, we're baffled as to how she arranged) are presented as rotoscoped animation. This a documentary that gets close to its subjects – through the heightened lens of a partially-animated heist film.

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

Kanopy Highlights: Wild Style

Still from Wild Style

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on Wild Style, a 1983 film credited with bringing hip-hop to the big screen.

Here's Kanopy's description...

Wild Style follows the exploits of maverick tagger Zoro (real life graffiti artist Lee Quinones), whose work attracts the attention of an East Village art fancier (Patti Astor) who commissions him to paint the stage for a giant Rapper's Convention. A document of the earliest days of hip-hop in the boroughs of New York, everything in Wild Style is authentic - the story, style, characters, and most of the actors, are drawn from the community. It features a pantheon of old-school pioneers, including Grandmaster Flash, Busy Bee, The Cold Crush Brothers and more.

"Charlie Ahearn's groundbreaking film about hip-hop, graffiti, break dancing, and rap in eighties." -Sarah Cardace, New York Magazine

"It's a fascinating time capsule, worth examining for anyone interested in the cultural roots of hip hop." -Keith Phipps, AV Club

"Wild Style is a cult classic - indisputably the most important hip hop movie, ever." - David Mattin, BBC

Wild Style was a community breaking through into film, and its impact made its way back. Artists like Nas, MF Doom, and Jurassic 5 have referenced Wild Style. As the film makes its way to museum and retrospectives, it continues to shape perceptions of hip-hop culture.

It's also a really good movie – and a must-watch if you haven't already seen it!

You can follow this link to watch the film instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

The new great directors of horror share their favorites

The horror genre has had a bit of a resurgence in the last few years – not the stereotypical jump-and-scare horror movies, but a wave of subtler, creeping horror like The Witch. All their filmmakers draw on a rich history of horror film for their personal style. So for a look into what the new face of genre loves to watch, The A.V. Club asked these directors to program a 24-hour scary movie marathon.

As you might expect, their picks range from classics to unusual but terrifying gems. Wolf Creek director Greg McLean picked Jaws, for instance, and raved about how animatronics can be special in the CGI era. Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl's A.D. Calvo went weirder and picked Burnt Offerings, a haunted house film starring "late-period Bette Davis."

Their selection add up to a pretty solid 24 hours, from tired-and-true scares to horror that will claw its way into your brain for days. If you want to follow along at home, we have many of the films on this list available to check out!

The Conjuring – HU DVD 11358
The Night of the Hunter – HU DVD 1235
Black Moon – HU DVD 12544 and streaming
Eraserhead – HU DVD 1491 and streaming
Jaws – HU DVD 98
Alien – HU DVD 885
The Exorcist – HU DVD 2002

New Acquisitions - October 2016

October was a sleepy month for new acquisitions, but we've added a few new documentaries and films from around the world. The most recognizable name might be Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which we added well in advance of Thanksgiving.

But the most interesting addition might be The Legacy of I. F. Stone, a documentary about the impact of the famous investigative journalist. This film comes to us by way of the I. F. Stone Papers, a collection of materials relating to Stone donated to the University Archives by his son Jeremy. We're excited to house a little part of that collection!

Home Use Collection:

Bhopali – HU DVD 1343
A Letter to True – HU DVD 10310
Los Laberintos de la Memoria = The Labyrinths of Memory – HU DVD 13409
Being Mick: You Would If You Could – HU DVD 13415
Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War – HU DVD 13416
Kingdom of Shadows – HU DVD 13417
Hopscotch – HU DVD 13438
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – HU DVD 13444
Crashing the Party – HU DVD 13446
Big Trouble – HU DVD 13447
Destination: Planet Negro! – HU DVD 13448

In-Library Titles:

Harry Smith: Selected Films – DVD 13249
Hababam Sinifi – DVD 13414
Milou en Mai = May Fools – BLU 13418
The Legacy of I. F. Stone – DVD 13445

Music Library DVDs:

Florence Foster Jenkins – MUSIC LIBRARY DVD 250

Kanopy Highlights: Film canon classics

Still from Seven Samurai

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on classics from the film canon.

You can click the link on any of these films to watch them instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

The Battle of Algiers – "One of the most influential political films in history, The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s."

City Lights – "City Lights, the most cherished film by Charlie Chaplin, is also his ultimate Little Tramp chronicle. The writer-director-star achieved new levels of grace, in both physical comedy and dramatic poignancy, with this silent tale of a lovable vagrant falling for a young blind woman who sells flowers on the street and mistakes him for a millionaire."

El Norte – "Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. The personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism."

Eraserhead – "In David Lynch's 'dream of dark and troubling things,' Henry is left alone in his apartment to care for his deformed baby and has a series of strange encounters with the beautiful girl across the hall and the woman living in his radiator."

M – "In his harrowing masterwork M, Fritz Lang merges trenchant social commentary with chilling suspense, creating a panorama of private madness and public hysteria that to this day remains the blueprint for the psychological thriller."

Man with a Movie Camera – "This dawn-to-dusk view of the Soviet Union offers a montage of urban Russian life, showing the people of the city at work and at play Considered one of the most innovative and influential films of the silent era." Includes accompaniment by the Michael Nyman Band.

Seven Samurai –  "One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits."

Stagecoach – "John Ford's smash hit and enduring masterpiece Stagecoach revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list and establishing the genre as we know it today. The quintessential tale of a group of strangers thrown together into extraordinary circumstances, Stagecoach features John Wayne's first starring role for Ford."

#BlackLivesMatter documentary now available streaming

Films on Demand is a useful database for finding documentaries on a range of subjects, from the environment to teaching math. Now you can add timely social issues to that list as well: you can now stream #BlackLivesMatter, one of the first feature-length documentaries produced about the ongoing protests of racial inequality and police violence.

This is (at least as far as I know) the first documentary in our collection about the Black Lives Matter protests. Although there have been countless critical essays and videos on the topic, this succinct, powerful documentary captures snapshots of the protests around the country and and contextualizes them with history and stories from protestors.

We recommend previewing this film if you're teaching, learning, or just curious about the movement. Video can chronicle social change better than any words, and a well-produced documentary like #BlackLivesMatter is an especially great example.

Kanopy Highlights: Social justice documentaries

Still from Concerning Violence

About a year ago, we rolled out Kanopy, a streaming service that includes hundreds of films from the Criterion Collection and more. We're happy to see classes and students taking advantage of this great video resource, and we want to spotlight some of the most popular titles from this collection.

This week, we're focusing on powerful documentaries for social justice.

You can click the link on any of these films to watch them instantly, in your browser, for free with your AU login.

5 Broken Cameras – "5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005."

Body Typed series – "Body Typed is series of award-winning short films that uses humor to raise serious questions about the marketplace of commercial illusion and unrealizable standards of physical perfection."

Concerning Violence – "From the director of The Black Power Mixtape comes a bold and fresh visual narrative on Africa, based on newly discovered archive material covering the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the late ’60s and ’70s, accompanied by text from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth."

In Whose Honor? – "What’s wrong with American Indian sports mascots? This moving, award-winning film is the first of its kind to address that subject. In Whose Honor? takes a critical look at the long-running practice of "honoring" American Indians as mascots and nicknames in sports."

Screaming Queens – "Screaming Queens tells the little-known story of the first known act of collective, violent resistance to the social oppression of queer people in the United States - a 1966 riot in San Francisco’s impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood, three years before the famous gay riot at New York’s Stonewall Inn."

Come learn about Boyz n the Hood, "a film that changed America"

The AU Library's ongoing Books that Shaped America series has highlighted some critical pieces of literature from American history. And now, finally, movies are getting their turn, too!

Tomorrow, communication librarian Derrick Jefferson will host a discussion of Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton's 1991 film about youth life in South Central LA. We're excited to see what Derrick has to say about this "film that changed America." Event information is available here; the discussion runs 12-1pm tomorrow in the library's Training and Events room.

It'd probably help if you've seen the movie in advance, so come to the Media Services desk to check out our copy! (Call number HU DVD 327*)

Halloween nears! Check out our horror movie collection

Halloween weekend is but two weeks away, and like most film nerds, we're ready for horror movie season. Because it would be weird to watch Halloween in April, right?

Almost 100 years have passed since Nosferatu and some of the earliest feature-length horror films, and they're still as terrifying as ever. If you're looking for a horror movie to watch, you have nearly a century of choices that still hold up. So where do you start?

Our horror-themed Pinterest board includes 200 movies in our collection, from The Babadook to the old Phantom of the Opera. You might recognize a few classics like The Evil Dead, but if you're looking to jump off the usual path, you could try something like zombie drama Maggie or the extremely descriptive Slumber Party Massacre.

You could watch 10 horror movies from the AU Library every day until Halloween and still not make it through everything. It's a deep genre! You should probably start on that today.

RIP Andrezj Wajda, a voice for Poland in film

Yesterday, Polish director Andrezj Wajda died at age 90. He was among the most distinguished Polish filmmakers of his generation or in general: his accolades include a Palme d'Or for his labor rights film Man of Iron and a 1999 honorary Oscar for his lifetime body of work.

As with Man of Iron, many of Wajda's works were influenced by his lifetime in Poland during its occupation in World War II and rule over the Soviet Union. Many of his films were challenged or banned by Soviet authorities; he was not able to produce Katyń, a film about a 1940 massacre of the Polish, until after Poland's independence.

If you want to watch some of Wajda's impactful, distinctly Polish cinematic vision, we have a number of his films available in the library, including two through streaming.

Ashes and Diamonds – HU DVD 2583 
Danton – HU DVD 5758
Everything for Sale – HU DVD 2626 
A Generation – HU DVD 2581
Kanal – HU DVD 2582 and Streaming
Katyn – HU DVD 6135
Korczak – HU DVD 10546
Man of Iron – HU DVD 3145
Man of Marble – DVD 2014
Penderecki: Paths Through The Labyrinth – Streaming
Promised Land – HU DVD 2655

New Acquisitions - September 2016, Part 2

Yes, part two! A steady stream of DVDs continues to flow into the library, and we're getting them on the shelves for you. This month in particular had a focus on international films, so let's talk about those.

Pictured above is A Town Called Panic, the first stop-motion film ever screened at the Cannes Film Festival. We've added a number of movies nominated for the Goya Award (Spain's equivalent of the Oscar), like Marshland, Living is Easy With Eyes Closed, and the animated foosball comedy Underdogs. We've also expanded our collection of Arabic films with My Father is on the Tree and Ghazal Al Banat.

If you want to expand your film appetite beyond our shores, this is a great month to start. Follow on to see what else we have...

New Acquisitions - September 2016

With the first week of classes almost in the bag, we have the Labor Day weekend to look forward to. And with a tropical storm possibly bearing down on us, what better way than to escape a long, stormy weekend than grabbing a few movies?

We're continuing to add new films to our collection that classes are using this semester, but we're also getting more blockbusters, critical favorites, and historically significant movies – like BellaDonna of Sadness, a Japanese animated film that has never been available since 1973.

Other interesting titles this month include ESPN's riveting documentary series OJ: Made in America; Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead; and The Mermaid, the highest-grossing Chinese movie ever. (And we also got the extended cut of Batman v Superman, which runs a whopping three hours.)

We could go on and on this month, but we'll just let you read the list. Follow the link to see what's new for September...