This past weekend I managed to add to my Roku enabled television the streaming service Kanopy. Founded in 2008 Kanopy is an on demand streaming service that functions in conjunction with public libraries and universities. I first heard about Kanopy a few months ago when I attended a screening presented by the San Diego Film Geeks and fellow audience member told me about the service. With a catalog that includes award winning documentaries and foreign film, including a fair number from the Criterion Collection, Kanopy is perfect for the discriminating cinephile. Immediately after that afternoon’s screening of a classic noir, I hurried home only to be disappointed to discover that the San Diego Public Library did not participated in Kanopy.

Fast forward a few months and I found myself at the San Diego State University’s writers Conference, a program that was a function of the University’s college of extended studies. At first that meant very little to me, but when NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour discussed the Oscar nominated documentaries for 2018 they mentioned Kanopy and I decided to see if the San Diego Public Library had joined the program.

They had not.

But San Diego State did, and I realized that because of the Writers Conference I had a SDSU student ID. After a bit of trial and error I managed to activate both my library access at SDSU and my Kanopy account. Once I added the channel to my T.V. everything was in place and I started browsing the catalog.

Man, it is quite an eclectic collection. Everything from cheap horror films to esoteric art house productions and famous entries into the cannon of classic cinema. This past Sunday I watched The Naked Kiss, a 1964 noir  from iconoclastic writer/producer/director Sam Fuller about a prostitute moving to a ‘clean’ American town and the terrible secrets she uncovers about their local philanthropist and hero.

I anticipate quite a few hours watching the film of Kanopy’s library and if you love film it is something you should explore.