Film and Literature Studies

Showing all posts tagged "Cinesemiotics"

Piano Teacher - The

September 18th, 2024

from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/s/DNLGBXXDTN The Piano Teacher (2001) film review - an analysis of Haneke's most disturbing filmThe 2001 psychological drama film The Piano Teacher is an adaptation by German director Michael Haneke of Elfriede Jelinek’s 1983 novel ‘Die Klavierspielerin’, an in depth character study of repressed piano teacher Erika Kohut. Appearing disciplined, harsh, and controlled to her peers and students, Erika is soon revealed to be proprietor to a whole hos...

Big in pictures too

September 16th, 2024

Earlier this year our local film society screened Yorgos Lanthimos’s gothic mash-up Poor Things (2023) to a packed house. The audience seemed to love it – in an exit poll it earned a 91 per cent approval rating – though a few people voiced misgivings about the hypersexualized representation of its female protagonist, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). By far the most vociferous and negative response, however, came from a writer friend of mine, who railed against the film’s "betrayal" of its source ma...

Transcendence - Movie Ending Explained - How Will plans to be with Evelyn even after their death

September 13th, 2024

"We are not gonna fight them. We’re gonna transcend them." Wally Pfister’s Transcendence is a film that employs the meddling of several generic elements. It is science fiction, but not quite. It is also a romance, but not entirely. There are traces of horror as people get zombied and revived through artificial intelligence. And by extension, no one can deny its political undertones. With an ensemble star cast of Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, and Paul Bettany, Tran...

Meaning of THE WILD DUCK - Drew Lichtenberg

August 19th, 2024

Clip source: The Meaning of THE WILD DUCK | Drew Lichtenberg Drew Lichtenberg~ Dramaturg and Theater CriticTags David Auburn, Henrik Ibsen, ReDiscovery, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Wild Duck What is it that has drawn David Auburn, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award and one of our greatest contemporary playwrights, to The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen? The play is rarely staged and the challenges it poses to an adaptor are potentially vast. It was written in 1884, after the career-c...

Lawrence of Arabia Decoded

August 7th, 2024

Lawrence of Arabia dominated the 1963 Academy Awards. It was also voted as "the best British film of all time" by leading filmmakers. It reached the top of the box office and managed a close 2nd overall for the year. Steven Spielberg stated it was his favorite film and the film that inspired him to becoming a film maker. This is just to say it was an important film with a lot of unusual pieces to reconcile. E.g. before Alec Gui...

Metacinema - how self-awareness sucked the fun out of movies

August 3rd, 2024

(Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures)Metacinema: how self-awareness sucked the fun out of movies Fri 2 August 2024 11:00, UKThere’s a time and a place for self-awareness in cinema, and when used correctly, it does nothing but increase the enjoyment factor. However, when it’s used as a crutch that doubles as a thinly veiled admission of substandard writing, then it crosses the line from innovation into apathy.Make no mistake about it—there are a number of wonderful films that wink directly to the a...

Laura Van Den Berg on Merging Autofiction With Speculative Fiction

July 23rd, 2024

Like her most recent novel The Third Hotel, the story of a woman whose reality is askew navigating the seaswept island of Cuba, Laura Van Den Berg’s State of Paradise is a luminous, surreal, fantastical yet clearly realistic adventure. It’s drawn from her own experiences during Covid. "In 2020, my husband and I landed in Florida, where I’m from," she explains.We were in Austin for the semester, but then Covid happened and we decided to leave—and central Florida was a day’s drive. I’d started ...

Science that Christopher Nolan had to adhere to for Interstellar

July 2nd, 2024

(Credits: Far Out / Paramount Pictures)The "non-negotiable" piece of science Christopher Nolan had to change for ‘Interstellar’ Sun 30 June 2024 17:30, UKMore than most genres, sci-fi isn’t obligated to adhere rigidly to proven and indisputable scientific principles, but Christopher Nolan still sought to make Interstellar as authentic as possible despite its far-flung narrative.The narrative crux of humanity being relocated to a different planet by choosing the best and brightest, packing the...

Alien - Romulus Is Doing Something The Alien Movies Should Have Done

June 20th, 2024

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Alien - Romulus Is Doing Something The Alien Movies Should Have Done

June 20th, 2024

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Karate Kid and the True Story Behind Mr. Miyagi

June 18th, 2024

"Wax on, wax off." This classic line from The Karate Kid is ingrained in our minds as the epitome of cinematic martial arts lessons. It captures the elfin broken English of Mr. Miyagi in all his humble and quirky charm. Miyagi won our hearts as the kindly sensei, and the role earned Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (1932-2005) a nomination for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. But did you know that Mr. Miyagi was based on a real person? Actually, he was based on three people, all famous karate masters. Her...

John Carpenter - They Live

June 18th, 2024

Remembering John Carpenter’s "They Live"Do any of the great movie fight scenes stick in the memory as much as Nada taking on Frank in an alleyway in 1988's They Live? Is Roddy Piper and Keith David’s epic fight scene in John Carpenter’s They Live the greatest of all time? Granted, there have been some epic one on ones over the years: Neo versus Agent Smith in The Matrix, Indiana Jones versus The German Mechanic in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Bruce Lee versus Han in Enter the Dragon. But do a...

I Saw the TV Glow Ending Explained - Hidden Message Reveals True Meaning

June 18th, 2024

— A24 Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow is about television. But like television, it’s also about life. It’s also a deeply weird movie with a final act that will likely leave you at least a little confused (and perhaps totally lost). Some have called the movie’s ending bleak and even cruel. But if you choose to believe it, I Saw the TV Glow’s ending is incredibly inspirational. So what does I Saw the TV Glow’s ending mean? We’re going to do our best to explain a movie that’s admittedly left...

North - the Film Roger Ebery calls the worst movie ever made

June 17th, 2024

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Pros and cons of the meta twist in The Movie Critic by Tarantino

June 15th, 2024

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)The pros and cons of Quentin Tarantino’s meta twist on ‘The Movie Critic’ Wed 15 May 2024 20:45, UKHaving placed almost unattainable pressure on himself, the tenth and final feature of Quentin Tarantino‘s career is going to be viewed by many as a crushing disappointment if it isn’t the best movie he’s ever made, which could help explain why The Movie Critic was abandoned so late in the day.For the last couple of years, Tarantino has been talking up his proposed swans...

Cinema and Synchronicity

June 8th, 2024

Thoughts On 道可道非常道 January 25, 2020 Cinema & Synchronicity — Thoughts On: Jungian Film Theory A consideration of the contingency and chance significance of meaning in artistic mediums. Art finds you as much as you find it. I have been interested of late in a wider conception of cinematic and artistic meaning under a Jungian lens. It is fascinating to think of meaning as related to primordial imagery, the unknown symbol and archetypal patterns in s...

Socratic Irony - examples from film

June 5th, 2024

Socratic irony is a rhetorical technique in which one feigns ignorance (plays stupid) to expose another person’s ignorance or inconsistency.Socrates allegedly used Socratic irony to draw out the knowledge and assumptions of others, leading them to realize their lack of understanding or the flaws in their reasoning.Key Characteristics of Socratic IronyFeigning Ignorance: Socrates often acted as if he did not know the answer to a question, encouraging others to explain it to him.Eliciting Respo...

Triangle Of Sadness film review

June 4th, 2024

Skip to main contentABC listen HomeRadioPodcastsNewsABC listen appProgram: Thomas Caldwell reviews Triangle of SadnessProgram:Victorian Afternoons Broadcast Tue 6 Dec 2022 at 8:30pmTuesday 6 Dec 2022 at 8:30pm Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.Presented byJacinta ParsonsTriangle of Sadness reviewEarly in the film it is revealed that the ‘triangle of sadness’ is a term used in the beauty industry to describe the wrinkled pattern bet...

Longlegs Screens at Beyond Fest to More Raves

June 2nd, 2024

Neon is really pushing hard for us to notice Oz Perkins’ upcoming "Longlegs," and know what? It’s working. They’ve released three cryptic teasers, a trailer, around half a dozen posters and even low-key screenedthe film, a few months, before its release, for a handful of carefully selected horror-affiliated critics.Another unannounced screening occurred on Friday evening, at Beyond Fest, and we have more raves for this film, which seems to have been spawned and nurtured in the fiery furnaces ...

Cloverfield creature and its origins

May 31st, 2024

(Credits: Far Out / Paramount Pictures)Monster, alien or something else: where did the ‘Cloverfield’ creature come from?Modern franchises feel increasingly – and frustratingly in many cases – obliged to painstakingly explain every aspect of their respective mythologies, something that wasn’t on the minds of the Cloverfield creative team when their monster movie stomped into cinemas in January 2008.Found footage was already on a downward slope by the time the film came along, but putting a kai...

Modern movies which incorporate absurdism

May 30th, 2024

From David Lynch's debut 'Eraserhead' to Yorgos Lanthimos' quirky romance 'The Lobster', here are five movies which use absurdism within their narratives. Cover Story: Joanna Sternberg BFI: Italian Neorealism (Credit: Press / Focus World)Film » Features » Lists ...

Anything can happen in the film The Square

May 26th, 2024

'Anything Can Happen in This Movie': The Sheer Satirical Brilliance of 'The Square' Ruben Östlund has made monkeying around an art form. Jon Fusco Oct 06, 2017 No one is safe from the satirical grip of the Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund. Even the audiences and jury at Cannes 2017, where his latest filmThe Square received multiple awards, were no more than a joke at his expense. "The aim of the film was that we should be accepted in competition," he explained. "I loved the idea that when the com...

Best Mystery Movies of All Time

May 21st, 2024

There's something comforting about settling in to watch a good mystery movie. You sort of know exactly what to expect. I watch a ton of mystery movies because I think they are wonderful at getting audiences excited about their premises and clearly defining their stakes. Mystery movies have captivated audiences for generations, weaving intricate plots, enigmatic characters, and thrilling suspense. Their ability to transport us to worlds of intrigue and challenge our deductive skills is what ma...

Detailed Look at the Cast of The Office

May 16th, 2024

When the British mockumentary sitcom series known as The Office was released in 2001, few could have predicted what a smash hit it would eventually become. By the series’ ten-year anniversary there were no fewer than six different versions of the series around the world, the latest of which was the Israeli show HaMisrad. 1 As of 2023, six additional adaptations have been released, with a few more still in the works. 2 Clearly, there is something about ridiculous bosses and banal office politi...

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Review: Bold and Brash

May 16th, 2024

Review by Jason Gorber.There will be plenty of hyperbole flung about in celebration of this film with the joy and abandon of an ape playfully lobbing his poop at an appreciative audience.Yet like the scatological simian show at your local zoo, there may be those that fixate on the repellent parts of the display, annoyed perhaps by the fact, they may claim, that this latest Apes film feels like a previously enjoyed meal - something familiar, sure, but no longer sustaining after passing through...