Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Film Information Sources

I think most everyone in History 4004 has been able to find information on the top-grossing films for the year of their "Zeitgeist paper" even if the Variety-on-microfilm did not work out quite as we planned. (Isaac and I still plan to complete the 1960s). But here are some other resources:
  • Marilyn from our class found a site called Stats-A-Mania that has yearly top box-office lists back to 1960. It's not clear how complete these are or what they are based on.
  • Check the year index on Internet Movie Database. You can then get a list of films released in a certain year that you can order in various ways, though not by box office receipts, and click the "Box Office/Business" link to confirm how much money the film it brought in. Most of the time.
  • Check the World Almanac and Book of Facts. The MU library has it back to 1923, and if you the check 1-2 years after your target year, you may be able to pick up some information. I plan on trying this myself soon, but it is always nice not to have do everything.
The Variety lists remain the best source because they tell you how much money movies made in that year, no matter when they were actually released.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Captivity narratives background

For my History 4004 students, here are the links to Mary Rowlandson again, plus some other pages that will give you some background on the incidents described in the Brackenridge narratives:

Monday, February 4, 2008

TCM's 31 Days of Oscar

Students starting work on the "Zeitgeist" paper for History and Popular Culture class should check the schedule of Turner Classic Movies this month. There are having a "31 Days of Oscar" program with a different decade's movies showing each night of the week all month. I will be looking for some films that are not available on DVD, which TCM often shows.