Science of Watchmen, War Films, plus Mira Nair, from YouTube EDU

Film Studies For Free is grateful to Peter Suber of Open Access News for the tip-off that YouTube has launched a new channel to facilitate access to video material submitted by universities and colleges: YouTube EDU.

The new channel makes it much easier than before to search for and access high-quality scholarly material related to film and media studies, FSFF has found. As Wired Campus also reports, 'The new section makes it possible to find out which college-produced video is most popular'.

The winner in the popularity stakes so far just happens to be an interview [embedded above] with a University of Minnesota [physics] professor discussing the science behind the new movie Watchmen.' In the video, Professor James Kakalios discusses how he was asked to add a physics perspective to the upcoming Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. Kakalios explores how quantum mechanics can explain Dr. Manhattan's super human powers in the film, and how he came to become an expert on the topic of the physics of superheroes (click here to read an excerpt from Kakalios's book on this topic).

Film Studies For Free has browsed further Film Studies highlights from YouTube EDU and embedded two more of its top quality educational videos below:

1. University of California Television Presents 'My Dinner with Alain: War Cinema' (56 mins 41 secs):

Alain J. J. Cohen is a Professor of Comparative Literature at UCSD who specializes in film history. In this program presented at the UCSD Faculty Club, Cohen examines the challenges of war films as a genre. Clips from various films about World Wars I & II, Vietnam, space wars, etc., illustrate how the filmmakers battle with issues of world history, order and chaos, studio budgets, editing techniques and conflicts of interpretation to realize their vision of combat.

2. University of California Television Presents 'Cinema Diaspora: Discussion with Mira Nair' (57 mins 35 secs):

Mira Nair's films, Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake, illuminate the ambiguities of the immigrant experience and highlight the conflicts between modern and traditional cultures. She is joined for a discussion of modern cinema by Gayatri Gopinath and Juli Wyman, both of UC Davis.

Assorted recommendations

Thanks for some very nice email responses to Film Studies For Free's last posting. Today, FSFF brings you a round up of links to some great online resources.

• First of all, a very good, film-related, online, Open Access journal that I didn't have in my earlier list: Limina, a refereed academic journal of historical and cultural studies based in the Discipline of History at the University of Western Australia. For a good sample article, please try Tama Leaver's 'Rationality, Representation and the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful'.
• Next, please check out a great website run by the International Documentary Association (IDA) which has lots of items of academic Film-Studies interest: documentary.org. The best features (from FSFF's point of view) are lots of freely accessible, online video clips, and a very good selection of magazine articles drawn from the IDA's print publication Documentary (link to latest issue on documentaries related to elections HERE, and to the magazine archive HERE).
• Via ConvergenceCulture.org, a great link to audio and video recordings of the 2006 and 2007 Futures of Entertainment (1 & 2) conferences at MIT, including papers given by Henry Jenkins (see also HERE), Jason Mittell (see also HERE), and Danah Boyd ( see also HERE). I do hope that lots of other conference organisers will note just how great it is to be able to access international conference papers in this way, from anywhere in the world, albeit only with the right technology, of course. See the Convergence Cultures Consortium weblog for updates about Futures of Entertainment 3.
• Somewhat tardily, I just discovered that you can subscribe to a truly excellent weblog by Moving Image Source (now added to Film Studies For Free's blogroll). FSFF has previously commented on the parent site's great resources (including wonderful podcasts). The weblog has very high quality material, indeed: for example, see this great posting 'This Way, Myth' by Jonathan Rosenbaum (also see HERE).
• Finally, for today, my recommendation of two of the most useful weblogs (for Film Studies academics, at any rate) that I've yet come across with a focus on film industry research.
• The first is Bigger Picture Research - a 'A no-nonsense look at film biz research from around the world' - which is expertly run by Jim Barratt (also author of a soon to be published study of Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (1987) by Wallflower Press). Bigger Picture Research has fantastic links, is frequently updated, and is beautifully (and most unfussily) set out. It does what it says on its tin, and more: in other words, it has an admirably global focus and reach. There is no better website that critically and concisely examines the commercial and industrial discourses of film. Please do subscribe (get the feed HERE)and support this blog!
• The second is a link I've only just thought of adding to FSFF's lengthy blogroll, which is r a t h e r strange; as a researcher into contemporary cinema and the impact of new technologies on old film practices and discourses (like auteurism), it's the blog I've been following the longest (since its inception in May 2005). The aforehinted-at website is CinemaTech, a blog that focuses precisely on 'how new technologies are changing cinema - the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen'. It's run by Scott Kirsner, a prolific film journalist and digital film commentator. It's not as 'links-oriented' as Bigger Picture Research, but (like that blog) does give good opinion, as well as accurate news coverage, in very rapid response to film-industry developments. FSFF apologises profusely for waiting until now to link to CinemaTech. Please help to assuage its guilt by (co-)adopting this wonderful blog (get the feed HERE). Thank you.

Now, back to the global financial crisis... Have a good weekend, won't you.