Those of you that remember the Self-Reliant Film contest back in April might be happy to learn that the winner, Chris Cagle, has put his prize (a DVD of Punishment Park) to good use. Over at Left Center Left, Chris has a good introduction to the work of Peter Watkins. If you're not familiar with Watkins's work, check it out. Now is a good time to mention, too, that Chris has recently started Category D, a promising new blog that concerns the academic scholarship of film and media studies. (The name is a reference to an important early '70s essay from Cahiers du Cinema.) Cagle writes:
It's been my belief for some time that there needs to be a blog, and ultimately many blogs, devoted to academic film and media studies. There is no shortage of websites devoted to film, television, popular culture, or new media. And a few of them are written by scholars teachers, mediamakers or other educated critics: see the blogroll for some of these. But to my eyes, few of them are fully devoted to discussing and promoting the discipline as a discipline. This is where Category D steps in.
The first and second posts are a good place to start, but all I've read have Chris's typical mix of precision, skepticism, and insight.