By Sotiris Petridis. Introduction The Star Wars saga is an integral and important part of popular culture since its first filmic text back in 1977. Apart from the films, there are comics, novels, television series, and a plethora of merchandising products that interact with our everyday life. So, gender representation […]
Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology from Rowman & Littlefield/Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
March 21, 2016
In April, 2016, the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Rowman & Littlefield will release Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, edited by Caroline Joan “Kay” Picart, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Cecil Greek; Picart, Jacobsen and Greek also authored and co-authored individual chapters in the book. The edited collection was published as […]
Old Men Rule in Remember
March 21, 2016
By Elias Savada. The perception that people of significantly older age can’t control their destinies, particularly if dementia is knocking at their door, is expressively examined in Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s Remember, a substantially wobbly, yet incredibly persuasive Holocaust revenge thriller masquerading as a cross-country road movie. The award-winning Egoyan, known […]
A Cruel Destiny: Intruders
By Paul Risker. I still recall the scene in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003) when the father tells his offspring that they cannot live separately of the world. It is a scene that has replayed itself numerous times in my mind since I first encountered what could be called Bertolucci’s […]
Berlin Replayed: Cinema and Urban Nostalgia in the Postwall Era by Brigitta B. Wagner
A Book Review by Tony Williams. This book falls into the now familiar category of Cityscape Studies but focuses on representations of Berlin from the period of Walter Ruttmann’s well-known documentary Berlin – Symphony of a Great City (1927) to more recent depictions of a landscape that has been drastically […]
Cannibalized Chaos: Iago, The Joker and the “Good Sport” of Postmodernism
By Richmond B. Adams. During a conversation approximately one-third of the way through The Dark Knight (2008), Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) expresses to Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) his view concerning the escalating rampages of The Joker (Heath Ledger) across Gotham City.[1] Wayne states that “Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. We just […]
Life Falls Apart: Sibylle
By Elias Savada. The ominous hum of unease that saturates Swiss-born director Michael Krummenacher’s effective yet derivative German thriller Sibylle – being sold worldwide under the title Like a Cast Shadow – sounds distinctly familiar. Is it a doppelganger? A transference tale? A journey-into-madness melodrama? Take your pick. You might see pieces […]
“A Strange, Organized Mixture”: David Farr on The Ones Below
March 15, 2016
By Paul Risker. David Farr’s directorial feature debut The Ones Below (2016) reflects ambition stemming from the storyteller’s youth, before his career in theatre that held back work in film. As Farr explains: “I came out of university in the early to mid-nineties and it was just a very difficult environment in those […]
Breaking Waves with Neptune
March 12, 2016
By Elias Savada. Spiritual and haunting in its low decibel manner, the New England coming-of-age drama Neptune is an indie effort that follows a young teenager’s soul-searching excursion along a disconcerting and sometimes allegorical path. The film is a proudly-shot-in-Maine effort from Portland filmmaker Derek Kimball, making a solid, passionate feature […]
A Conversation with Marco Berger
March 11, 2016
By Mark James. Argentinean director Marco Berger first gained notoriety for his 2009 Berlin Film Festival hit, Plan B—a film that explored modern gay romance in an ironically authentic Buenos Aires where nothing is as it appears on its surface. In the film Berger fuses genuine erotic suspense with romantic comedy […]