2010 National Film Registry List Selects ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ ‘Airplane!’ & More

Every year, The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selects 25 American motion pictures to be preserved in perpetuity for their cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance. The Registry began in 1989 and, as of this year, has preserved 550 films in total.

2010 sees the addition of some of the greatest films from the eighteen-nineties to the nineteen-nineties, including The Exorcist, All the President’s Men, The Empire Strikes Back, and Malcom X. Additionally, The Pink Panther and Airplane! were selected in honor of the late great Blake Edwards and Leslie Nielsen, respectively. (That and they’re awesome movies, to boot.)

According to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington:

“As the nation’s repository of American creativity, the Library of Congress—with the support of the U.S. Congress—must ensure the preservation of America’s film patrimony. The National Film Registry is a reminder to the nation that the preservation of our cinematic creativity must be a priority because about half of the films produced before 1950 and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920 have been lost to future generations.”

Check out the full list below:

Airplane! (1980)All the President’s Men (1976)The Bargain (1914)Cry of Jazz (1959)Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967)The Empire Strikes Back (1980)The Exorcist (1973)The Front Page (1931)Grey Gardens (1976)I Am Joaquin (1969)It’s a Gift (1934)Let There Be Light (1946)Lonesome (1928)Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)Malcolm X (1992)McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)Newark Athlete (1891)Our Lady of the Sphere (1969)The Pink Panther (1964)Preservation of the Sign Language (1913)Saturday Night Fever (1977)Study of a River (1996)Tarantella (1940)A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)A Trip Down Market Street (1906)

It’s a great list, though perhaps not all that surprising. I could watch The Pink Panther, All the President’s Men, and The Empire Strikes Back for hours upon hours on end, with my eyelids taped wide open A Clockwork Orange-style. Star Wars fans will no doubt notice that George Lucas was honored twice on this list, both for his experimental short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB and The Empire Strikes Back. It’s probably too much to ask that they throw Howard the Duck and Radioland Murders on the list for next year, right?

Source: Library of Congress via Deadline

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The National Live Blogs Abu Dhabi Forumla1 Grand Prix

November 14 2010 by admin in News |

I admit, I’m not a big fan Formula 1. But the hype surrounding the Vettel – Alonso – Webber racing love triangle has even lamens like myself following the race closely to see who’ll be the most likely to secure this years championship.

If you are big on Formula 1 racing TheNational have done a good breakdown of how and what they expect to happen by 7pm SAMT today.

So I guess it makes sense TheNational newspaper being one of the UAE’s recent leading English publications having launched only in 2008, would be the first newspaper (in the tradional sense of a newspaper) to use a Live Blog in the region as far as we know.

Live Blogs and similar event coverage has been a feature solely provided by blogs and online tech magazines such as The Next Web’s coverage of MENA ICT Forum last month. Now with Social Media becoming more and more popular we see things like live tweeting, live blogging and even flickr streams to create a more interactive experience for readers.

The move although bold from such a young publication follows a recent revamp of their online interface as well as a release of iPhone app in a clear statement of how it wants TheNational journalism to be.

Providing such coverage also proves publications in the Middle East feel the need to be more real-time than ever before, especially in a country like the UAE with one of the regions highest in Internet penetration.

Their new interface appears to be the enabling factor TheNational have lacked before to pull off such feats. Although the current beta version has failed to include the publication’s 6 popular online blogs (among which beep beep is our favorite), it does make navigating and consuming data a lot easier.

We sincerely hope TheNational ups its journalism standards along with its website budget, just so that we can still consider what they do as journalism and not just 2 day old scoops with real-time toys on the side.

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