For three days this fall, Bloomington, Indiana will be transported to Pordenone, Italy as the IU Cinema, the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive, and the Music Scoring for Visual Media program in the Jacobs School of Music host a variety of highlights from Pordenone’s world-renowned silent-film festival Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. As if that… Read more »
Entries by Michaela Owens
Female Ambition and Friendship in Dance, Girl, Dance
An underappreciated pioneer with a knack for crafting wonderfully feminist fare, Dorothy Arzner is a filmmaker all cinephiles should know. A successful woman director and openly gay, Arzner was, in many ways, a rarity in classic Hollywood. She became the first woman to direct a sound film, as well as the first to be in… Read more »
A Brief Appreciation of Van Johnson
I fell in love with Van Johnson on a summer day in 2008. It wasn’t a moment I was expecting, but as I watched an underrated romantic comedy called Three Guys Named Mike, I felt my eyes lighting up the moment a freckle-faced scientist named Mike Lawrence appeared on the screen. Lost in a book… Read more »
Four Favorite Film Discoveries From This Summer
After surviving my first year as a grad student, most of this summer has been about lazing around, binge-watching shows like Veronica Mars and Love It or List It, and, best of all, catching up on the many films that have accumulated on my DVR. To be honest, I have never felt more stressed about… Read more »
A Tribute to the Peerless Ms. Doris Day
“I love to laugh. It’s the only way to live. Enjoy each day — it’s not coming back again!” — Doris Day May 13, 2019 became the day I had been dreading for years when, after 97 years of sharing her impossibly bright light with the world, Doris Day passed away. All I wanted to… Read more »
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Random Harvest
In 1918, an amnesiac soldier named Smith is still recovering at an English asylum after months of dealing with shell shock. No family has claimed him; in one agonizing scene, an elderly couple are shown Smith to see if he’s their son, both sides horribly disappointed that he isn’t. Taking a walk in the foggy… Read more »