Features
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is the filmography of progressive genre director Monte Hellman.
When we come across words like Arabic, Iranian, Palestinian, or any other Middle Eastern nationality, we immediately think of the difference in culture. Especially when it comes to women, we think of Islam’s (justified or not justified) reputation as an opponent of gender equality, an oppressor of women and the rule of men. This preconceived notion is slowly being challenged with a flood of films from the Middle East.
Whether it’s aimed at big kids or little kids, one of the most common themes in films from the last few decades has been the concept of ‘coming-of-age’. What this actually means can vary. For instance, ‘coming-of-age’ films may be ‘teen dramas’ or stories about childhood, sexuality, gender, or (auto-) biography.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down (via Skype) with director Deborah Kampmeier after a special preview screening of her newest film, SPLit. The film is premiering at the Sarasota Film Festival this year, so if you can go see it, get yourself down. Until you get the chance, check the trailer out here.
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is women-directed films of the 1980’s.
In 1971 a particularly interesting film bestowed with an X rating made its way to a limited release in New York City and Los Angeles. This film was not a commercial success. It was a film that was so “out there” some reviewers refused to even see it.
Like all social groups, people with disability have been portrayed in diverse ways in Hollywood, from stereotypical representations in horror to genuine inspirations in melodramas. Disability is represented as a metaphor through imagery or characters’ features, or as a direct subject within the narrative. The entire concept of genre is recycled from elements within society, and the relevant features of each specifically labels the disabled into a certain character type.
There have been an abundance of actor, actress and director collaborations throughout the history of cinema. One of the first collaborations in Hollywood was that of director D.W Griffth and actress Lilian Gish, who worked together on over thirty films throughout the 1910s and 1920s.
Taste is a fluid thing, though we seldom view it as such in the moment. For many, our cultural tastes define us and they are as solid and inscrutable as a pope made out of granite. Yet this is something that is often felt even bereft of the experience required to discover, explore and refine what kinds of cinema to which one really responds.
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is prison films.
There has been a historical frequency in film for older men to be depicted in romantic relationships with younger, sometimes much younger, women. This article seeks to examine whether this propensity for older men to be paired with younger women on-screen can reveal something of mainstream cinema’s and, by extension, western culture’s attitudes towards older women, sex and romance. Might more contemporary examples featuring fresh approaches to the age gap be leading us down a new path, featuring a wider range of romantic perspectives?
“Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.
William Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter; when it comes to playwrights who have had their work go from stage to silver screen, the list sees no end. Whilst everyone cannot resist a new portrayal of a timeless piece of literature incorporated with modern twists and/or special effects, audiences are constantly being introduced to plays through the expression of cinema. While this is a positive notion, it does however highlight the contrary:
Screwball comedy is a predominantly American film genre popularised during the Great Depression. The golden era of screwball comedy was the 1930s and early 1940s, with hundreds of films being produced and the genre fast becoming one of Hollywood’s most popular. However, from the mid 1940s, evolving circumstances saw it becoming increasingly obsolete, with true screwball comedies beyond the 1960s being few and far between.
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is films which have passed the Ava DuVernay Diversity Test.