Known for its distinct animation style and worldbuilding, Studio Ghibli films offer important lessons that still hold up to this day     Watching “Spirited Away” on Disney Channel was my earliest memory of being introduced to the world of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio known for its animated feature films. It was an experience I didn’t completely understand until later in my teenage years when I would revisit the film with my family.  There is such nuance in the stories of Studio Ghibli films that you have to rewatch them to fully understand them. Most of the time, […]...

Keep on reading: Beyond fantasy and nostalgia: 5 life lessons from Studio Ghibli films

John Krasinski on Emily Blunt and 'A Quiet Place' John Krasinski reflected on how working with wife Emily Blunt in the The Quiet Place films made the franchise a success.“It turned out to be incredible,” Krasinski recalled of the “thrilling” experience on the...

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has introduced some reforms since coming to power after the 2016 death of dictator Islam Karimov, but rights groups say the country remains deeply authoritarian

Center of the Storm From Lucas Films Star Wars by Raymond Swanland is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 10 pcs

Through the Fire From Lucas Films Star War by Raymond Swanland is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 10 pcs

Stuff That Dreams From Lucas Films Star Wars by Peter Ferk is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 195 pcs

Stuff That Dreams From Lucas Films Star Wars by Peter Ferk is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 245 pcs

As the Oscars race starts to take shape, here's the ABC (Anora, Blitz, Conclave) of films to watch.

Ed Ball was one of the most significant presences in—and busiest contributors to—the British indie rock scenes of the 70s, 80s, 90s: He ran labels, Whaam! Records and Artpop! Records most notably; he was intimately involved with Alan McGee's Creation Records, home to many of his own recordings, too; and he fronted or toured with perhaps nine dozen different groups. Hyperbole aside, he was certainly active.

I mostly knew him as a member of the cult-fave group Television Personalities, Dan Treacy's band, and for his own, the Times, a garage act normally done up in paisley flowers or melted down into acid-trip lava-lamp ooze.

In the late 70s, however, he had a short-lived project called Teenage Filmstars, and he released a few rinky-dink mod singles under that name. In the early 90s, after a string of Times LPs, he revived it, and made perhaps the best album of his career, Star. On it, he lost the toothy, sunshine-and-lollipops affect that had become his trademark and slid into a fuzzy, distorted chasm of feedback, echo and delay all the way down. It's a triumph of early-days shoegaze, a disoriented morass of strained noise, stretched and squeezed like putty, and yet it's unrelentingly melodious, like what could've been if My Bloody Valentine had made Loveless a record of only big-hooks songs like "Soon."

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Link to each review on Gary Chew's list.

‘The Last King of Scotland', The Good German, A Prairie Home Companion (‘The Last show' in France) (PECC Bonus), The Painted Veil (Le Voile des Illusions)and Dreamgirls (PECC Bonus) are the final movies for PECC's 2nd season.
PECC Pezenas English Language Cinema Club presents: PECC Programme Avril - Juin 2007
Avril Ven 13 / Dim 15 (*NB 2nd week-end en Avril) Last King of Scotland Real - Kevin Macdonald, avec Forest Whitaker Best Actor (...)

More than 50% of U.S. Christians admit to consuming sexually explicit material and 22% say they do so weekly, according to an evangelical research firm.

We present a demonstration of high-pressure grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering for soft matter thin films. The results suggest changes in water reorganization at different pressures.

Combined 100 ms resolved grazing-incidence small/wide-angle X-ray scattering and optical interferometry reveal that the additive diiodooctane can significantly double the solvent evaporation rate, thereby effectively suppressing the rapid spinodal decomposition process in the early stage of spin-coasting, favouring slow phase segregation kinetics with nucleation and growth.

Grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (GISANS) under pressure (HP-GISANS) at the solid (Si)–liquid (D2O) interface is demonstrated for the pressure-induced lateral morphological characterization of the nanostructure in thin (<100 nm) soft matter films. We demonstrate feasibility by investigating a hydrophobic {poly[(2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-octafluoro)pentyl methacrylate]} (POFPMA)–hydrophilic {poly[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate]} (PDMAEMA) brush mixture of strong incompatibility between the homopolymers, anchored on Si, at T = 45°C for two pressures, P = 1 bar and P = 800 bar. Our GISANS results reveal nanostructural rearrangements with increasing P, underlining P-induced effects in tethered polymer brush layers swollen with bulk solvent.

The use of hard X-ray transmission nano- and microdiffraction to perform in situ stress and strain measurements during deformation has recently been demonstrated and used to investigate many thin film systems. Here a newly commissioned sample environment based on a commercially available nanoindenter is presented, which is available at the NanoMAX beamline at the MAX IV synchrotron. Using X-ray nanoprobes of around 60–70 nm at 14–16 keV and a scanning step size of 100 nm, we map the strains, stresses, plastic deformation and fracture during nanoindentation of industrial coatings with thicknesses in the range of several micrometres, relatively strong texture and large grains. The successful measurements of such challenging samples illustrate broad applicability. The sample environment is openly accessible for NanoMAX beamline users through the MAX IV sample environment pool, and its capability can be further extended for specific purposes through additional available modules.

Errors in variable subscripts, equations and Fig. 8 in Section 3.2 of the article by Lotze et al. [(2024). J. Synchrotron Rad. 31, 42–52] are corrected.

The formation of a vitrified thin film embedded with randomly oriented macromolecules is an essential prerequisite for cryogenic sample electron microscopy. Most commonly, this is achieved using the plunge-freeze method first described nearly 40 years ago. Although this is a robust method, the behaviour of different macromolecules shows great variation upon freezing and often needs to be optimized to obtain an isotropic, high-resolution reconstruction. For a macromolecule in such a film, the probability of encountering the air–water interface in the time between blotting and freezing and adopting preferred orientations is very high. 3D reconstruction using preferentially oriented particles often leads to anisotropic and uninterpretable maps. Currently, there are no general solutions to this prevalent issue, but several approaches largely focusing on sample preparation with the use of additives and novel grid modifications have been attempted. In this study, the effect of physical and chemical factors on the orientations of macromolecules was investigated through an analysis of selected well studied macromolecules, and important parameters that determine the behaviour of proteins on cryo-EM grids were revealed. These insights highlight the nature of the interactions that cause preferred orientations and can be utilized to systematically address orientation bias for any given macromolecule and to provide a framework to design small-molecule additives to enhance sample stability and behaviour.

The application of grazing-incidence total X-ray scattering (GITXS) for pair distribution function (PDF) analysis using >50 keV X-rays from synchrotron light sources has created new opportunities for structural characterization of supported thin films with high resolution. Compared with grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, which is only useful for highly ordered materials, GITXS/PDFs expand such analysis to largely disordered or nanostructured materials by examining the atomic pair correlations dependent on the direction relative to the surface of the supporting substrate. A characterization of nanocrystalline In2O3-derived thin films is presented here with in-plane-isotropic and out-of-plane-anisotropic orientational ordering of the atomic structure, each synthesized using different techniques. The atomic orientations of such films are known to vary based on the synthetic conditions. Here, an azimuthal orientational analysis of these films using GITXS with a single incident angle is shown to resolve the markedly different orientations of the atomic structures with respect to the planar support and the different degrees of long-range order, and hence, the terminal surface chemistries. It is anticipated that orientational analysis of GITXS/PDF data will offer opportunities to extend structural analyses of thin films by providing a means to qualitatively determine the major atomic orientation within nanocrystalline and, eventually, non-crystalline films.

Time-resolved high-energy X-ray diffraction was used during growth of ultrathin NixFe3−xO4 films with varying Ni content (0 ≤ x ≤ 1.5) deposited on MgO(001) substrates by reactive molecular beam epitaxy, providing an insight into the growth dynamics of these films. In order to obtain structural information, reciprocal-space maps were recorded and the temporal evolution of the Bragg peaks specific to the octahedral and tetrahedral lattice sites of the inverse spinel structure of NixFe3−xO4 was observed during growth of the films. A time delay, corresponding to a coverage of 1.2–1.8 nm, between the appearance of the Bragg reflections originating from octahedral sites and reflections originating exclusively from tetrahedral sites indicates that the ferrite films grow in two stages. In the initial growth phase, a rock salt interface layer is formed. Afterwards, a structural transition occurs and the films grow in an inverse spinel structure. The thickness of the initial rock salt phase was found to increase with Ni content and to be responsible for atypical strain in the thin films. Films with Ni contents x > 1 do not show a structural transition. These films remain in a (deficient) rock salt structure consisting of a mixed Ni–Fe oxide and do not form a spinel structure at all. They show an increased number of NiO clusters as detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of the valence band, accompanied by a significant roughening of the films.

X-ray diffraction from dislocation half-loops consisting of a misfit segment with two threading arms extending from it to the surface is calculated by the Monte Carlo method. The diffraction profiles and reciprocal space maps are controlled by the ratio of the total lengths of the misfit and the threading segments of the half-loops. A continuous transformation from the diffraction characteristic of misfit dislocations to that of threading dislocations with increasing thickness of epitaxial film is studied. Diffraction from dislocations with edge- and screw-type threading arms is considered and the contributions of the two types of dislocations are compared.

This article demonstrates the feasibility of obtaining accurate pair distribution functions of thin amorphous films down to 80 nm, using modern laboratory-based X-ray sources. The pair distribution functions are obtained using a single diffraction scan without the requirement of additional scans of the substrate or of the air. By using a crystalline substrate combined with an oblique scattering geometry, most of the Bragg scattering of the substrate is avoided, rendering the substrate Compton scattering the primary contribution. By utilizing a discriminating energy filter, available in the latest generation of modern detectors, it is demonstrated that the Compton intensity can further be reduced to negligible levels at higher wavevector values. Scattering from the sample holder and the air is minimized by the systematic selection of pixels in the detector image based on the projected detection footprint of the sample and the use of a 3D-printed sample holder. Finally, X-ray optical effects in the absorption factors and the ratios between the Compton intensity of the substrate and film are taken into account by using a theoretical tool that simulates the electric field inside the film and the substrate, which aids in planning both the sample design and the measurement protocol.

Comedian Paul Mooney takes part in a discussion panel after the world premiere screening of "That's What I'm Talking About" at The Museum of Television & Radio January 30, 2006 in New York City.; Credit: Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve lost several industry icons, including Paul Mooney, Charles Grodin and Norman Lloyd. 

Actor and comedian Paul Mooney was a boundary-pushing comedian who was Richard Pryor’s longtime writing partner and whose bold, incisive musings on racism and American life made him a revered figure in stand-up. He was 79. Charles Grodin was an offbeat actor and writer who scored as a caddish newlywed in “The Heartbreak Kid” and later had roles ranging from Robert De Niro’s counterpart in the comic thriller “Midnight Run” to the bedeviled father in the “Beethoven” comedies. He was 86. Norman Lloyd’s role as kindly Dr. Daniel Auschlander on TV’s “St. Elsewhere” was a single chapter in a distinguished stage and screen career that put him in the company of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and other greats. He was 106. Lloyd’s son, Michael Lloyd, said his father died at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Today on FilmWeek, our critics reflect on their work. Plus they share a couple of their favorite films of the 2021 so far. 

With files from the Associated Press

Guests:

Angie Han, film critic for KPCC and deputy entertainment editor at Mashable; she tweets @ajhan

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and CineGods.com

Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Flair recently introduced the newest members of its PLATiNUM line of thermoforming films.

PghLFilms: Revolutionizing Animation Reviews with Humor and Insight

Dec 1, 2024, 6pm EST

Venezuelan Films in Spanish movie screening: Ninos de las Brisas. The film will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles.

This is the third of three Venezuelan movies that make up this semester's Films in Spanish, a Department of Romance Studies DEIJ initiative that brings focus to social justice issues in the Hispanic world through film screenings.

Film #1: Hermano, October 20
Film #2: La soledad, November 17

Previous editions of Films in Spanish (FIS) include: queer FIS, disability FIS, Jewish FIS, Indigenous FIS, and domestic service FIS.

Building: Olin Center
Campus Location: Medford/Somerville campus
City: Medford, MA 02155
Campus: Medford/Somerville campus
Location Details: Room 0011
Open to Public: Yes
Primary Audience(s): Students (Undergraduate)
Event Type: Lecture/Presentation/Seminar/Talk
Subject: Social Justice/Human Rights
Event Sponsor: School of Arts and Sciences
Event Sponsor Details: Department of Romance Studies
Event Admission: Free

Nov 17, 2024, 6pm EST

Venezuelan Films in Spanish movie screening: La soledad. The film will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles.

This is the second of three Venezuelan movies that make up this semester's Films in Spanish, a Department of Romance Studies DEIJ initiative that brings focus to social justice issues in the Hispanic world through film screenings.

Film #1: Hermanos, October 20
Film #3: Ninos de las Brisas, December 1

Previous editions of Films in Spanish (FIS) include: queer FIS, disability FIS, Jewish FIS, Indigenous FIS, and domestic service FIS.

Building: Olin Center
Campus Location: Medford/Somerville campus
City: Medford, MA 02155
Campus: Medford/Somerville campus
Location Details: Room 0011
Open to Public: Yes
Primary Audience(s): Students (Undergraduate)
Event Type: Lecture/Presentation/Seminar/Talk
Subject: Social Justice/Human Rights
Event Sponsor: School of Arts and Sciences
Event Sponsor Details: Department of Romance Studies
Event Admission: Free

Evolution of Obi-Wan From Lucas Films Star Wars by Mike Kupka is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 75 pcs

Metal Man From Lucas Films Star Wars by Greg Peltz is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 75 pcs

Obi-Wan Kenobi From Lucas Films Star Wars by Donato Giancola is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to Limited Edition Of 95 pcs

As Disney celebrates its 100th birthday, how much can you remember about its films?

We believe viewing a wide variety of films is an essential part of young people’s film education. What film titles do you think all children and young people should see? We welcome your suggestions!

The latest advances in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) resin and production technology are making it possible to design all-PE structures for even the most demanding applications.

Diofan® Ultra736 is fluorine-free, meets regulatory requirements for direct pharmaceutical contact and supports the design of sustainable films with thinner coating designs. 

Company will showcase its diverse range of Pressure Sensitive Face stock films, Shrink Sleeve label films, Wraparound Labels and IML Label Films.

NOVA Chemicals tested its ASTUTE™ plastomers against other blends and found it achieves higher oxygen transmission rates, clarity, and stiffness in breathable films, resulting in fresher food and reduced waste.

Are continuous inkjet inks suitable for printing on and subsequently sterilizing recyclable food packaging? Specialists from both companies investigated this very question at SÜDPACK’s technical center.

A review of the new Max show set in the world of Frank Herbert's Dune.

The breakthrough comes more than 15 years after the first CNT-based ICs made their appearance.

Location: Main Media Collection - Video record 42371 BLU

Location: Main Media Collection - Video record 42371 DVD

What even is a 2021 movie?…