Maigret cover with photos by Chris Marker (director of Sans Soleil)

I’ve found all the Safdie films super tedious, but giving Kevin O’Leary any screen time seems particularly reprehensible.

New issue of Canadian Journal of Film & Media Studies recently dropped. Issue is devoted to Crawley Films, Canada’s largest sponsored film company in mid-20th century. With essays by Charles R. Acland and Liz Czach (issue editors) + seven other brilliant scholars! utppublishing.com/toc/cjfms/34...

A new adventure In which I touch on my thoughts about a follow-up to Magic Rays of Light, on the notion of "useful television", and on a pioneering application of television in an operating theatre at Guy's Hospital in 1949. Click here to read: www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/a-new-advent...

This weekend was filled with all kinds of nonsense and bother, but I did manage to make this fake 70s educational film featuring my cats.

Joining the Bong squad

Vincent Gasparro needs to resign. www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/ontario/cbsa...

I really like the new K-Lone LP: pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

I want to read a history of Duralex. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

We love a good #amateurcinema story! "Could a box of 8mm amateur film reels change Irish film history?” via @irishfilminstitute.bsky.social www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...

Here’s some very cool ephemera with extremely niche appeal: American Magazine insert advertising S. S. Van Dine’s THE SCARAB MURDER CASE

My book came out in 2019, so I am sure I will be fine. 😬

This is such a great film. Highly recommend.

Now available online! A CENTURY IN 16MM: THE REMAKING OF CINEMA (eds. Gregory A. Waller + Haidee Wasson) from @oxfordacademic.bsky.social. Featuring 23 essays on diverse uses and applications of the small gauge format worldwide! Available in print in early 2026. academic.oup.com/book/61621

The WAC campaign to date More from me with details of progress (or lack thereof) in the campaign against the shutting down of access at the Written Archives Centre, and a summary of quite why this policy shift is, simply and straightforwardly, wrong. cstonline.net/defending-th...

New Order released Movement on this day in 1981. Peter Saville's beautiful cover was based on Fortunato Depero's Futurismo design from 1932

This new Lynne Sachs picture sounds like my kind of film. festival.idfa.nl/en/film/50b2...

Not sure why the IDFA in Amsterdam is showing a late 1970s NFB film on government bureaucracy, but I love that they are: festival.idfa.nl/en/compositi...

This is the stupidest and most embarrassing way to phrase this. Universities really just want to be sports owners or something now, boarding about signings and transfers. www.utoronto.ca/news/new-con...

Toronto friends! Mark your calendars for this TIFF Lightbox screening on December 3rd of some magical films from the Winnipeg Film Group: tiff.net/events/heart...

Montreal friends! If you want to experience some of Winnipeg's madness, you must not miss Daniel Barrow's WINNIPEG BABYSITTER! en.dazibao.art/session-40-d...

Great writing in here, esp from William Prince and Bob Stanley. I am a Neil conventionalist, I suppose, cause I would go with “After the Gold Rush.”

not to be all "oh yeah well what about the OTHER awesome old timey-sounding '70s canadian shipwreck folk song" but if you pay attention to the lyrics of "The Mary Ellen Carter" it is surprisingly detailed and precise about marine insurance underwriting and drysuit salvage operations

I never realized that the cover of Sloan's Navy Blues was based on a Polish film poster from 1959: posteritati.com/poster/35428...

WAC wrong-headedness (that's the BBC Written Archives Centre) I've brought together the key links for the campaign against the changes which now make independent and exploratory research at WAC impossible - and why this matters. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/wac-wrong-he...

TONIGHT! A YEAR IN A FIELD screens at Winnipeg's Dave Barber Cinematheque at 5:15pm as part of the Gimme Some Truth Documentary Festival. See the trailer below: youtu.be/37-oipXz2WE?...

Being John Smith available this week via Le Cinéma Club: www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/...

I just watched Undercurrent and loved it. This Lincoln Center season of films by Kōzaburō Yoshimura looks so good. www.filmlinc.org/daily/flc-an...

the budget, in all its emphasis on (and funds for) recruiting assistant professors internationally, seems completely oblivious to the fact that there are any number of candidates domestically who are as strong as anyone else. it is an interesting kind of national self-loathing.

Reading up on the Listers and Letterboxd controversy, which invites all kinds of questions about the drive for cinematic big years, the desire for lifers, what counts as a film, the politics of platform moderation, and a whole bunch of other things.

Wow I never knew the original subtitle

The BBC Archives have uploaded Ken Russell's The Lonely Shore, which he made for Monitor in 1962, to YouTube. I have always wanted to teach it alongside Marker's La Jetée, since they are nearly contemporaneous and complement each other in intriguing ways: youtu.be/c8yEIe69M4k?...

An incredible clip. youtu.be/0qvtAVvfAGU?...

The power of synchronicity when doing research. I randomly purchased the April 1952 "Popular Photography" from eBay for a project where I'm tracking the number of companies that were selling commercial films to the home market. This issue is not digitized as far as I can tell.

Watched the Barney Miller episode with Kenneth Tigar in it last night and since learned that he is a translator (Brecht, Wedekind) as well. www.imdb.com/name/nm08630...

Mr Keyes, I’m a Medford man, Medford,Oregon. Up in Medford we take our time making up our minds.

I do like the new Cate Le Bon, but do I sound old if I admit that Cyrk remains my absolute favourite? www.newyorker.com/culture/pop-...

Super excited to see Rose of Nevada. Not sure if anyone picked it up for distribution in Canada, but I am hoping that Mongrel or Films We Like might have grabbed it. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

I do highly recommend Hlynur Pálmason's NEST, which is up for free at Le Cinéma Club this week: www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/...

An incredible cover. That yellow.

It's the 40th anniversary of the release of @throwingmuses.bsky.social's "Doghouse Cassette", the blueprint for their debut album that was recorded with the help of Gary Smith and Geoff Patterson. #TMDoghouse40 Every cassette inlay was colored by hand.

Remembering Kris Kristofferson (1938-2024) ....Kris Kristofferson parks his bike at Oxford University, where he studied English literature as a Rhodes Scholar.

News via @sabzian.bsky.social that Hartmut Bitomsky has died. I've, embarrassingly, seen only a few of his works, but there's no doubt he's central to the history of the essay film. sabzian.be/news/hartmut...

Cold Journey is a remarkable film and this new Blu comes with important extras like Defalco’s Bird of Passage as well. Essential.

Happy 40th birthday to Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain - released as a single on this day in 1985

Today I am loving this 1968 cover of Jazz Journal

A semi-regular reminder that all our photos on Flickr Commons are public domain - you don't need to ask us to use them in any way you can imagine! Though we do love hearing about how you've used them, so you can let us know if you want https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/

i'm starting to suspect that we very wrongly assume people who run for & are elected to political office have some understanding of the expectations, procedures, and legalities of their position.

The transistor and its applications by Wim van Bussel (1969)