By Jeremy Carr. Even if there wasn’t a compelling, underlying thesis to Hitler’s Hollywood: German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933–1945, this 2017 film by Rüdiger Suchsland would still be a valuable, fascinating record. For the sheer breadth of assembled material, an overwhelming array of Third Reich-era film clips from […]
Beauty and the Dogs: Women’s Revolution in Tunisian Cinema
By Matthew Fullerton. As Hollywood grapples with diversity issues, it is interesting to note how Tunisia, an emergent democracy since its 2011 revolution, has witnessed women filmmakers moving into the forefront of a traditionally male-dominated film industry. Emboldened perhaps by the 2014 Constitution guaranteeing freedom of opinion, thought, and expression, […]
Losing Touch: Ready Player One
April 11, 2018
By Dean Goldberg. While I’ll admit that Pong was the last video game I had any interest in and more recently got sea sick when a colleague slipped goggles on my head for a virtual world tour, I was still pretty excited when asked to review Steven Spielberg’s new film, Ready […]
Unfertile Perspectives – A Green and Pagan Land: Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television by David Huckvale
A Book Review by Tony Williams. According to an old saying about not judging a book by its cover, the same can apply both to the image on the cover as well as the subtitle. This latest study by David Huckvale, A Green and Pagan Land: Myth, Magic and Landscape […]
Metafictional Examination: The Workshop
By Travis Merchant. Recently, the rise of extreme right-wing groups and individuals have done more than upset the quotidian structure to society. More often than not, these individuals seem bent on violence and nationalistic tendencies. It began with the criticism of the European Union and the sudden, unpredicted secession of the United Kingdom […]
War’s Veiled Aftermath: 1945
By Jeremy Carr. On the day of her son’s wedding, presumably the central event of 1945, drug-addled Anna (Eszter Nagy-Kálózy) ominously observes, “I’ve got a bad feeling.” At the time, this comment refers to the approaching marriage of her timorous son, Arpad (Bence Tasnádi), to the notoriously unfaithful Kisrózsi (Dóra […]
Placing Theory and Practice – Spectatorship: Shifting Theories of Gender, Sexuality and Media edited by Roxanne Samer and William Whittington
April 4, 2018
A Book Review by Dean Goldberg. While the introduction to this collection of published essays from the storied Spectator, the University of California’s premier film journal, provides an articulate jumping off point for the text, the book itself is certainly not a page turner. Not that it should be; Spectatorship: […]
Bricolage, Narration, and Archives: Sam Ashby on The Colour of His Hair
By Tom Ue. The title cards of Sam Ashby’s first film The Colour of His Hair (2017) take us to the year 1954, with the sentencing of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers, and Peter Wildeblood for homosexual offenses. This scandal, we learn, led the government to establish a committee […]
Deceit and Inconsistency: The China Hustle
March 30, 2018
By Travis Merchant. A decade has passed since the beginning of an economic recession that many still feel today. The recession of 2008 brought about a collapsed American market that desperately searched for a shining light to capitalize on to regain its losses. Consequently, it found China: a topic that Jed […]
Rebellious Departure: An Interview with Nanouk Leopold on Cobain
By Yun-hua Chen. Premiering at the Berlinale Generation 2018, Cobain is a film about the eponymous hero, a 15-year-old boy in Rotterdam played by the first-time actor Bas Keizer. As his drug addict and expectant mother Mia is unable to take care of him, Cobain is sent to a foster […]