Film Studies

Tracking the country's oldest beauty contest - from its inception in 1921 as a local seaside pageant to its heyday as one of the country's most popular events - Miss America paints a vivid picture of an institution that has come to reveal much about a changing nation. Combining rare archival footage, with a host of intimate interviews with distinguished commentators including Gloria Steinem, Margaret Cho, Isaac Mizrahi, former contestants and behind-the-scenes footage and photographs, the film reveals why some women took part in the fledgling event and why others briefly rejected it, how the pageant became a battle ground and a barometer for the changing position of women in society."

"A revelatory four-part series from behind the scenes of The New York Times during the first year of the Trump Administration. Through extraordinary access and exclusive interviews, this series chronicles the tenacity of editors, journalists, and reporters who fight every day for the freedom of the press in their tireless pursuit of the truth, no matter the political cost or personal sacrifice."

The sun will sneak by a rooster before sports promoter Mike Conovan lets the opportunity pass him by. So the first time he sees genteel Pat Pemberton swing a five-iron, he decides to ink her to a pro contract.

Matt Sesow was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 10, 1966, and is the second of three siblings. In 1974 at the age of 8, he was playing a game of 'spud' in an airfield near his home and was struck by a landing airplane. Matt's arm was severed by the propeller and reattached at the hospital. He lost his dominant left hand. In 1994 he began painting, Short films by Sesow were shown by the Washington Project for the Arts and were selected for the D.C. Psychtronic Film Society exhibition.

Director Nabil Ayouch drew on his own experience opening a youth cultural center in Casablanca for this story of a former rapper named Anas who takes a job teaching hip hop in an underprivileged neighborhood. Despite differences in identity, religion, and politics, Anas encourages his students to bond together and break free from the weight of restrictive traditions in order to follow their passion and express themselves through the arts. Featuring a dynamic ensemble of first-time actors, many of them students of the real-life cultural center where the film was shot, Casablanca Beats is a vibrant and inspiring coming-of-age hip hop musical with a decidedly feminist edge. Mixing intimate yet high stakes drama with infectious musical sequences, the film transports audiences to a lively and contemporary Casablanca, far from the clichés about the Arab world.

"Code of the Freaks presents a radical reframing of the use of disabled characters in film. Using hundreds of clips spanning over 100 years of moviemaking, and a cast of disabled artists, scholars and activists, it's a scorching critique of some of Hollywood's most beloved characters. This revelatory documentary investigates the power of movie imagery to shape the beliefs and behaviors of the general public toward disabled people, and of disabled people toward themselves. Drawing its title from a line from Tod Browning's notorious 1932 film, Freaks, Code of the Freaks debunks well-worn tropes-- the miracle cure, the blind guy driving a car, the magical little people, the face-feelers, the sexless, the better off dead-- and brings an entirely fresh perspective. It dares to imagine a cinematic landscape that centers the voices of a disabled people." -- Publisher's Description.

An alien creature that breeds within a human host terrorizes the crew of a spacecraft after they answer a distress call that brings them to a desolate planet.

A story of first love between Maren, a young woman learning how to survive on the margins of society, and Lee, an intense and disenfranchised drifter. It's a liberating road odyssey of two young people coming into their own, searching for identity and chasing beauty in a perilous world that cannot abide who they are.

An Australian cartoon targeted at preschool-age children and has become very popular and beloved in the U.S. Bluey follows the adventures of a lovable and inexhaustible six-year-old Blue Heeler puppy who lives with her dad, mum, and four-year-old little sister, Bingo. In every episode, Bluey uses her limitless Blue Heeler energy to play elaborate games that unfold in unpredictable and hilarious ways.

"Bluey is a loveable, inexhaustible little six-year-old Blue Heeler dog, who lives with her Mum, Dad and her four year old little sister, Bingo. Like every kid her age, the thing Bluey likes to do best is play games that unfold in unpredictable and hilarious ways, bringing her family and the whole neighborhood into her world of fun".

Escape to a deserted island and create your own paradise as you explore, create, and customize in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game. Your island getaway has a wealth of natural resources that can be used to craft everything from tools to creature comforts. You can hunt down insects at the crack of dawn, decorate your paradise throughout the day, or enjoy sunset on the beach while fishing in the ocean. The time of day and season match real life, so each day on your island is a chance to check in and find new surprises all year round.

Fight against opponents in this mixed martial arts game.

"UFC 4 brings the action, emotion and intensity inside the Octagon to life in ways that were never before possible."--Amazon.com

Martha Is Dead is a dark first-person psychological thriller, set in 1944 Italy, that blurs the lines between reality, superstition and the tragedy of war.

When filthy rich video store magnate Johnny Rose, his soap star wife Moira, and their two kids suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to live in a small, depressing town they once bought as a joke. With their pampered lives now abandoned, they must confront their newfound poverty and discover what it means to be a family, all within the rural city limits of their new home.

A binge-drinking flight attendant wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room beside a dead body and sneaks back to her work, telling a series of lies that complicate her ability to figure out what really happened. The events cause her to sober up, and her cover allows her to work for the CIA, but witnessing an international murder doesn't seem to get any easier even when you're being paid for it.

Ripley, only survivor of the Nostromo, wakes up from a fifty-seven-year hypersleep only to find that a colony has disappeared on LV-426, forcing her to return where she must once again deal with the Alien.

Ellen Ripley crash lands on a planet inhabited by former inmates of a maximum-security prison, but when the inhabitants of the weaponless society begin to be killed off, she realizes an alien stowaway was the reason for her crash.

Ellen Ripley is successfully cloned two-hundred years after her death in order to retrieve the alien queen inside her and create the ultimate weapon, but when some of the queen gets left behind, Ripley begins taking on alien characteristics and teams up with band of smugglers to fight the cloned aliens.

Explorers have discovered a clue that brings them to the origins of mankind on Earth. This leads them on a journey that takes them to the darkest corners of the universe.

When a ship carrying two thousand humans setting out to colonize a distant planet encounters a system failure, they land on a moon and discover a race of hostile aliens.

Play along with the Heroes of Light on their hunt for the Crystals; part of the Bravely series.

In search of inspiration for their current filmmaking projects, Chris and her partner travel to the remote island of Fårö, Sweden, where Bergman lived and worked for decades. There, the spirit of the cinema master looms as Chris confronts her complicated relationships with work, men, motherhood, and her artistic influences.

The trailblazing Joan Micklin Silver one of only five women to direct a film for a Hollywood studio in the 1970s digs fearlessly into the psychology of a thorny relationship in this anti-romantic comedy, based on Ann Beattie's best-selling novel, about lovelorn civil servant Charles and his married-but-separated coworker Laura. Months after their affair has ended, Charles is haunted by memories as he desperately attempts to rekindle a love that perhaps never was. Switching deftly between past and present, Micklin Silver guides this piercing deconstruction of male wish-fulfillment fantasy beyond standard movie-romance tropes into something more complicated and cuttingly truthful.

A satire on the ups and downs of being a black actor in Hollywood. Bobby Taylor, a young black actor whose attempts to find work are dashed when told that he's not "black enough" for the roles being offered. With jobs limited to stereotypes (gang-bangers, pimps and Uncle Toms'), Bobby's struggles are told through a series of comic fantasies and dreams.

"Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Its iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations".

Franco Zeffirelli's sublime adaptation starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting and featuring a score by Nino Rota and Oscar-winning costumes and cinematography is Shakespeare at its most deeply felt and passionately alive.

With a poet's eye for place, light, and the spiritual dimensions of everyday existence, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese crafts a meditation on the concept of homeland and a transcendent elegy for what is lost in the name of progress. Grieving and alone following the deaths of her husband and children, elderly Mantoa (Mary Twala Mhlongo, in a soul-shaking end-of-life performance) prepares for her death and to be buried alongside her ancestors. When plans for a new dam near her village in the landlocked kingdom of Lesotho threaten to wash away all she holds dear, Mantoa takes a last stand, mobilizing her neighbors to fight for their land and their way of life. The experience of watching Mosese's visionary, much-lauded This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection is as timeless and elemental as the land itself.

"This four-disc set showcases more than fourteen hours of rarely-seen silent films about feminist protest, slapstick rebellion, and suggestive gender play. These women organize labor strikes, bake (and weaponize) inedible desserts, explode out of chimneys, electrocute the police force, and assume a range of identities that gleefully dismantle traditional gender norms and sexual constraints. The films span a variety of genres including slapstick comedy, genteel farce, the trick film, cowboy melodrama, and adventure thriller. Cinema's First Nasty Women includes 99 European and American silent films, produced from 1898 to 1926, sourced from thirteen international film archives and libraries, with all-new musical scores, video introductions, commentary tracks, and a lavishly illustrated booklet.".

It is the missing sixth serial of the fifth season of Doctor Who, which was the first broadcast in six weekly parts from March to April 1968. The story concerns a colony of sentient, parasitic seaweed, last seen in the eighteenth century, returning to attack several gas installations in the North Sea in an attempt to take over humanity.

Season 1 of this intense HBO drama focuses on 17-year-old Rue Bennett, a drug addict fresh from rehab who's struggling to stay clean. Ahead of the second season, the Emmy-winning series returns with two special episodes set over the Christmas holiday. Season 2 continues to follow Rue's dynamic group of friends as they enter a new year and question their choices.

"Moises, a ten-year-old immigrant from Mexico who speaks no English, struggles to fit in at his new school in the U.S. Using untrained child actors from public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, 'Immersion' plunges its audience into the visceral experience of a child who cannot understand his teacher. 'English-only' initiatives are becoming increasingly popular in states across the U.S. But can they meet the needs of kids like Moises? 'Immersion' will get you thinking about immigration and education in a way you might not have before."--from container.

In Jubilee (1977), Queen Elizabeth I travels 400 years into the future to witness the appalling revelation of a dystopian London overrun by corruption and a vicious gang of punk guerrilla girls led by the new Monarch of Punk.

In Space is the Place (1974), legendary jazz prophet Sun Ra returns to earth in his spaceship to rescue his people.

Follows the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, under constant attack by those it borders--land developers, an Indian reservation, and America's first National Park. It is an intense study of a violent world far from media scrutiny--where land grabs make developers billions, and politicians are bought and sold by the world's largest oil and lumber corporations. Where drinking water poisoned by fracking wells and unsolved murders are not news: they are a consequence of living in the new frontier. It is the best and worst of America seen through the eyes of a family that represents both.

Amid shifting alliances, unsolved murders, open wounds, and hard-earned respect, Dutton family patriarch John Dutton is determined to protect his ranch and his family's legacy by any means necessary.

In the most explosive season of Yellowstone yet, John Dutton and his family must protect their land from new and old enemies, led by Wall Street maverick Roarke. Threatened by betrayals, bad blood, and lucrative business deals, the Duttons form unexpected alliances and confront dangerous measures to safeguard their legacy. This season includes extended content and bonus features, making-of featurettes, behind the scenes clips, never-before-seen interviews with cast and crew, and much more.

Who shot John Dutton? That's the burning question that left fans reeling in the explosive season three finale. Following the brutal attacks on Kayce, Beth, and John Dutton, and with their fates unknown, Rip and the other wranglers wield their own brand of justice to take revenge and defend the Dutton legacy. This season digs deeper than ever into the rich Yellowstone history with flashbacks featuring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill (stars of the Yellowstone prequel 1883). Includes all ten hour-long episodes of the Emmy-nominated series, plus behind-the-scenes featurettes, an extended making-of piece, and never-before-seen interviews with cast and crew.

'Strange, what love does.' The role of a lifetime, a Hollywood mystery, a woman in trouble...David Lynch's first digitally shot feature makes visionary use of the medium to weave a vast meditation on the enigmas of time, identity, and cinema itself. Featuring a tour de force performance from Laura Dern as an actor on the edge, this labyrinthine Dream Factory nightmare tumbles down an endless series of unfathomably interconnected rabbit holes as it takes viewers on a hallucinatory odyssey into the deepest realms of the unconscious mind.

Unable to defend himself and his family from a ruthless enemy, Kao hires two swordsmen who needed the money for wine and women. They soon discover Kao has an evil plan of his own as their friendship and trust are tested through challenges.

Based on Michael Ausiello's best-selling memoir "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies," The story of Michael Ausiello and Kit Cowan's relationship, which takes a tragic turn when Cowan is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Conrad and Sally Walden are home alone with their pet fish. It is raining outside, and there is nothing to do. Until The Cat in the Hat walks in the front door. He introduces them to their imagination, and at first it's all fun and games, until things get out of hand and the kids wreak havoc in the home their mother has neatly prepared for an upcoming party. So The Cat must go, go, go, before their parents get back.