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Weekend Recs: Film Awards Season

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

As we embark into the new year, film awards season is upon us in full swing, a time of the year where the “best” movies and all the talented people who made them happen are publicly recognized. By now, several of the major award shows have aired, but one of the most highly anticipated and prolific award looms ahead, the Oscars. This weekend’s recs will help you get caught up on some of this year’s winners and upcoming nominees.

If you have 5 minutes…and think awards season is a bit over-hyped or kooky, read the first part of this New York Times opinion piece. It’s a short yet interesting read on how the Oscars are, in the author Frank Bruni’s own words, “insanity.”

If you have 7 minutes…and want to scroll through a list of the Golden Globe awardees this year, check out this Vanity Fair article. (I’m personally elated that Angela Bassett was recognized for her emotional role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but as an MCU fan, I am a bit biased).

If you have 15 minutes…and are more interested in the celebrity fashion, check out this Elle slideshow of some of the looks from the 2023 Critics Choice Awards. My personal favorite looks came from Janelle Monáe, Jenny Slate, Kate Hudson, and Angela Bassett.

If you have 20 minutes…and are an avid IMDB-appreciator, check out this collection of the IMDB staff’s favorite films and series of 2022. It has some more underrated additions that will likely get overlooked for awards.

If you have 2 hours and 19 minutes…and are into endearingly and comedically corny sci-fi action adventure films (or just into Michelle Yeoh), watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. This movie is practically the darling of this award season (and, as I argue, rightfully so).

If you have 5 hours…and are a diehard fan of shows like The Office, Parks and Rec, and Brooklyn Nine Nine, watch the first season of Abbott Elementary. The show’s second season and its lead Quinta Brunson and supporting Tyler James Williams (yes, Chris) won Golden Globes and Critics Choice awards for this Philadelphia-set sitcom about the highs and lows of being an elementary school teacher, including incompetent administrators, crippling under-funding, and awkward yet well-meaning coworkers.

Bonus: if you were ever a fan of Shameless, check out Jeremy Allen White (yes, Lip Gallagher), who picked up the Male Actor in a Comedy or Musical award, in The Bear, a raunchy dramedy series set in Chicago.


Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library. 


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Summer Movie Nights

By Susan Turkel

Have you watched everything on Netflix? Are you done with Amazon Prime and Hulu? Are you ready for something different? The Library can help!

Falvey Memorial Library provides the Villanova community with access to thousands of videos via our streaming subscriptions. We have an online guide —  Streaming Video at Falvey — that will help you get started in your cinematic explorations.

Read on for a taste of the resources and films that are available to you.

Theater on Video

Theater fans will enjoy viewing a variety of filmed stage performances. On the Boards features contemporary works by both international and U.S.-based artists in dance, theater, music, and more. BBC Shakespeare Plays and the Royal Shakespeare Company Collection offer many interpretations of classic works by the Bard. Broadway HD features filmed productions from the iconic theater capital of the United States.

UK-based Digital Theatre+ includes a wide variety of filmed performances, from 21st century pieces by Eclipse Theatre (the UK’s leading Black-led national touring company) to works by Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and Sophocles. A highlight of Digital Theatre+ is the National Theatre Collection, which includes high quality recordings never previously seen outside of the NT’s Archive. 

Feature Films and Documentaries on AVON

Not into theater? There is something for everyone in Academic Video Online (AVON). Despite its name, AVON offers award-winning dramas, love stories, animated films, and comedies, as well as gripping documentaries. Search by title, actor name, director, or keyword to get started. 

Two excellent collections within AVON are Sony Pictures Classics, mainly for feature films and foreign films, and Film Platform, mostly for documentaries from the U.S. and around the world. See below for a selection of their offerings.

More Great Films on Swank and Kanopy

Packages like AVON are a grab bag; Villanova has no control over which films we can offer you on their platform. The Library also licenses individual films based on faculty requests, for use in specific courses. Once we’ve licensed the film, we are able to offer access via the library catalog to anyone at Villanova for your individual viewing enjoyment. 

These films can be found on two platforms: Kanopy and Swank. There are many great films available to the Villanova community on these platforms in a variety of genres.

Our current Kanopy list includes many foreign films and documentaries, including Rashomon, Stonewall Uprising, YI YI, and Paris is Burning.

You’ll find more popular, “big screen” films on Swank, including Get Out, Black Panther, Dallas Buyers Club, and The Silence of the Lambs.

All of these licenses are limited-term; you’ll see the end date near the access link in the library catalog.

Falvey is happy to help keep you entertained this summer. Pop your popcorn, fluff up your pillows, and settle in for a night at the movies! 


Susan Turkel, MA, MLS, is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Recommended Reading: Remembering the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

Remembering the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, June 6, 1944, Falvey Memorial Library Staff shared their recommended reading on the battle and World War II.

sophie scholl and the white roseGeoff Scholl: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn

Dave Burke: Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Michael Foight: Manzanar by Peter Wright, photography by Ansel Adams

Sarah Wingo: City of Thieves by David Benioff

Linda HauckAll The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Marianne Watson: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand unbroken

Darren Poley: The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany by David Dalin

The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, Day  by Elie Wiesel

On Trial at Nuremberg by Airey Neave

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie

Run Silent, Run Deep by Edward Beach

The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldmann, OFM by Gereon Goldmann

The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis

thirty seconds over tokyoThirty Seconds Over Tokyo by Ted W. Lawson and Robert Considine

Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon

Miracle at Midway by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon

Mister Roberts: Play in Two Acts by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial: A Drama In Two Acts by Herman Wouk

Joanne Quinn: Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin by Leon Uris

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman

Shawn Proctor: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut


Marc Gallicchio, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of History, who was named a winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy for his book Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, recommended American films that deal with aspects of war not normally captured on film. Below he shares his D-Day film recommendations:

 

The Longest Day (1962) “Offers the most comprehensive multi-national look at the different operations and services involved in bringing off the invasion. The Germans receive even-handed treatment and the scene of thousands of GIs moving ahead on Omaha beach outdoes in power similar scenes from Saving Private Ryan.

“Five directors worked on the film and they employed a star-studded international cast. The movie follows the story presented in Cornelius Ryan’s book of the same name. (Ryan also wrote A Bridge Too Far, which became a very good movie but which gave us one of the most vapid and overused clichés in the English language.)”

 

Saving Private RyanSteven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) “Best remembered for its first thirty minutes in which viewers find themselves suddenly thrust into the terrifying experience of the GIs on Omaha Beach.

“The remainder of the movie unfolds like an extended episode of the 1960s television show Combat, except that the guest stars aren’t the only ones who get killed.”

 

Sam Fuller’s memoir/movie, The Big Red One (1980) “Has a brief segment on D-Day. The film shows how Fuller’s unit got to Normandy by way of North Africa and Italy and follows it through the campaign in France and into Germany to the end of the war.

“Although the violence does not come close to reaching the Tarantino levels of Saving Private Ryan,  The Big Red One is more disturbing and thought provoking than Spielberg’s blockbuster.”

 

The dark comedy/farce The Americanization of Emily (1964) “Hollywood’s most subversive movie, takes place in England during the build-up for the invasion but concludes with a memorable scene on Omaha Beach.”

 


Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 


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Last Modified: June 6, 2019

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