Ziad Shihab

Showing all posts tagged "Cinesemiotics"

Aggravating plot holes in otherwise great movies - a list of 15

There’s nothing worse than a smart-alec film fan.We’ve all done it, of course. Picked apart a cheesy blockbuster for its perceived flaws. Poked holes in some sloppy plot logic. Proposed another ending that would have made oh so much more sense.The fact is, though, we’re often not as smart as we think we are. Often, films are simply more interested in telling a story than in bulletproofing themselves against pedants.Sometimes, even widely circulated complaints are totally fatuous. People watch...

Preview Post: Updates, Mine Craft, Super Bowl + Diana/Diana

Post includes only about 30% of the full post which will be coming Friday. The parts you see here will be improved then as well. I post these preview posts mostly because I don’t like to go that long without a post. Updates The news everywhere is negative, but looks can be deceiving. There is a great contradiction between the way things look and reality, but it’s this way because it has to be this way. The comms explain that much of what we see is a lie and that inc...

'This World Is Not My Own' Review: Self-Taught Artist's Story Breaks ... - Global Village space

Nellie Mae Rowe: The Self-Taught Artist Who Designed Her Own Life Nellie Mae Rowe was born on July 4, 1900, according to her own claim. Although there are no definitive records to prove this, the symbolism of Independence Day and the dawn of the century was significant for Black Americans born into poverty in the Jim Crow South, just like Rowe. After years of farm work and many more years as a domestic servant, the twice-widowed Georgian decided to "design my life the way that I want it...

Symbolism Behind the Hairstyles in House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon: Symbolism in the Hairstyles The Symbolism Behind the Hairstyles in "House of the Dragon" October 24, 2022 by Jessica Harrington First Published: September 15, 2022 Watch out! This post contains spoilers. Image Source: HBO The first season of "House of the Dragon," HBO's prequel to "Game of Thrones," dives into the tumultuous past of the House Targaryen almost 200 years before Daene...

Good, Bad, and the Complete Opposite: Cynicism in Golden Age Mexican Cinema

This essay was originally published in the Full Stop Quarterly "Cynicism" issue (Fall 2022). Subscribe at our Patreon page to get access to this and future issues, also available for purchase here. Your support makes it possible for us to publish work like this. It’s 1957, and, like most of Mexico, Cantinflas needs money. Once content with living hand-to-mouth, the death of his best friend suddenly leaves him in charge of raising his godson. In search of opportunity, he pursues an...

Star Wars Canon Just Revealed the Truth About Palpatine’s Cloning Scheme

Palpatine’s cloning conspiracies aren’t only about Baby Yoda and Order 66. Star Wars canon — via The Bad Batch Season 2 — has just revealed that the story of the Empire’s cloning programs is much bigger than whatever’s happening on The Mandalorian. Spoilers ahead for The Bad Batch, Season 2, Episode 11, "Metamorphosis." At some point before A New Hope, human stormtroopers completely replaced the Jango Fett clones created on Kamino. But the Empire didn’t abandon cloning and genetic manip...

A Little Interaction with ChatGPT: Can Teachers Spot Fake Student Work? Part 2

Part 1 In the previous post I presented two questions that I asked ChatGPT, a writing tool based on artificial intelligence, and I included the tool’s response to each question. My interest in trying this was to see if I could spot any evidence that the responses were not written by a student; as a teacher, I want to have some defense against the possibility that a student might use the tool to get out of writing a paper himself. The first question was "write an essay evaluating Paul’s ...

All the Places (2023) Movie Ending, Explained – Do Gabriela & Fernando return home safely after visiting all the places?

We are living in an age where we need to learn to make a lot of adjustments either for the sake of ourselves or for the sake of our family. For better prospects, we move from our homes to faraway places. But, our home will always be a place where we would want to return to cherish memories. All the Places is a movie about a brother and sister who are alienated due to various circumstances but brought together owing to the funeral of their beloved father. They meet each other after 15 yea...

God's Time

There’s no time like the present in Daniel Antebi’s fast-paced feature debut, "God’s Time." From the moment Regina (Liz Caribel) sits down to share her grievances to an Addicts Anonymous group, the movie’s main character Dev (Ben Groh), cuts in and talks directly to the audience, filling us in on what we don’t yet know. This isn’t Regina’s first time spilling her emotions to the group—it’s part of a months-long series of complainants about the dirtbag boyfriend who moved in, took over her apa...

The Fundraiser - Todd Field’s ‘TÁR’ Berlin Short Never to Be Screened Again

Say it ain’t so. As the Berlin Film Festival winds down, Todd Field and Cate Blanchett were in attendance to premiere their short film "The Fundraiser," which takes place inside the "TarVerse." Presenting the film with his cast, Field confirmed that the short won't ever be screened again. Hopefully, if TÁR ever gets a Criterion release, they will include "The Fundraiser" as a bonus. Otherwise, that’s not cool, man. Despite those in attendance having seen the film, not much is known abou...

British Erotica

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Women in Love (Ken Russell, 1969). "British erotica" has long been considered an oxymoron, and this distinction is not entirely unfounded. While European auteurs like Jean-Luc Godard, Tinto Brass, Walerian Borowczyk, and Luis Buñuel were treating copulation as a springboard to philosophical ruminations, the British were paying to see Barbara W...

Tomu Uchida | 警察官 (Keisatsukan) (Police Officer, aka Policeman)

Tomu Uchida | 警察官 (Keisatsukan) (Police Officer, aka Policeman)SourceURL: http://internationalcinemareview.blogspot.com/2023/02/tomu-uchida-keisatsukan-police-officer.html looking homeward by Douglas Messerli Eizo Yamauchi (screenplay, based on a story by Toshihiko Takeda), Tomu Uchida (director) 警察官 (Keisatsukan) (Police Officer, aka Policeman) / 1933 Only this film of the several of the several Tomu Uchida made in pre-war Japan has survived intact. But Keisatsukan...

Does Your Movie Deserve a Femme Fatale Character

Femme fatale characters are incredibly important to Hollywood and fun to write and direct.  The femme fatale is a timeless archetype in Hollywood, capturing the imagination of audiences with her mix of sexuality, mystery, and danger. From the classic film noir of the 1940s to modern thrillers and dramas, this captivating character type has been a staple of movies and TV for decades. But what makes the femme fatale so enduring, and why are we drawn to these characters time and...

Re/Member (2023) Movie Ending Explained

Re/Member (2023) Movie Ending Explained: "Seriously, could life get any better than this?Only if we were not being murdered every night…" That is how mean the sense of humor is in this newest Japanese horror-comedy. Re/Member is now available to stream on Netflix and follows a group of six random high school students as they try to demystify their circumstance of waking up on the same day and getting attacked by someone called a "red person." It makes great use of the time loop trop...

White Noise - the original from 1995

White Noise Reviewed by: Martin Gray Architect Jonathan Rivers is proving unable to rebuild his life after his novelist second wife Anna disappears. He mopes, he neglects his weekend son Mike, he moves into a truly soulless apartment (typical architect). He hangs on to the hope that her story isn't ove...

49th PARALLEL

49th PARALLEL (11)By: Joshua Glenn February 6, 2023 University of Toronto philosopher Mark Kingwell and HILOBROW‘s Josh Glenn are coauthors of The Idler’s Glossary (2008), The Wage Slave’s Glossary (2011), and The Adventurer’s Glossary (2021). While researching and writing their respective sections of the latter book, they engaged in an epistolary exchange about real-world and fictional adventures. (As intended, passages from this exchange appear verbatim in the book.) Via the series 49th PA...

Legion of Super-Heroes Ending Explained

Legion of Super-Heroes (2023): Movie Ending Explained: The Justice League and The Justice Society of America are two names that come to mind when one talks about super teams in DC lore. Legion of Super-Heroes is an animated offering that permits the eponymous group to earn a place among the minds of the audience. Legion of Super-Heroes (2023): Plot This film focuses on the story of Kara Zor-El, who flew from Krypton, entered cryospace, and arrived in an alien world. As someone who d...

Film has many layers, and it’s hard to pin down what it is - THE AMAZING MAURICE

Great animation, adorable critters, and the underlying thought-provoking themes at play make Sundance film The Amazing Maurice charming, if not amazing. I was able to chat with one of the directors, Toby Genkel, of the Sundance Film Festival 2023 pick, The Amazing Maurice. It’s a funny, wonderfully animated film that dangled some deeper, emotional themes. I talked to him about those elements, the difficulty of an adaptation such as this, the message he’s hoping viewers will take away, and ...

FBI Agent Phillip Jeffries - Twin Peaks

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers. • indicates passages added or...

Essays on meaning in cinema

Translated from French: -zasDescription of the work: Essays on meaning in cinema by Christian Metz (1931-1993) constitute a fundamental work in the history of reflection on cinematography. The first part of the book (published in one volume in 1968) marks a first step in Christian Metz's effort to found a semiological approach to fact-cinema: he then signs the first encounter between modes of thought inspired by modern linguistics and the aesthetic tradition of reflections on the notion of...

Last of Us - Theory Reveals a Heartbreaking Secret the Game Only Hints At

Video games are full of different upgrade systems that don’t logically make sense outside of the medium. When adapting a game to another medium, like television, one of the biggest challenges is how to handle gameplay mechanics. HBO’s The Last of Us has subtly been weaving gameplay systems into the show’s narrative in a way that deepens the characterization of the show's cast. One mechanic in the game that the series has adapted is the "Supplements" that Joel collects in his travels. But this...

Mukundan Unni Associates 2022 - A Metamodern Replica of The Tragedy of Macbeth

Mukundan Unni Associates (2022): A discussion of Shakespeare adaptations isn’t exactly a "thing" right now, thanks to his oeuvre covering most (if not all) plot points and the fact that few films aren’t Shakespearean in some way. We have reached a point where a film’s (or any text’s) similitude to one of his plays falls flat. Now it is easy to overlook – for lack of a better word – the late British playwright’s (whose authorship is still contested by conspiracy theorists and obstinate Marlowe...

Some brief reflections on canon and genius

Among the many bees in my professional bonnet is the issue of canon formation: how some works become singled out as being of particular value and worthy of preservation and perpetuation through subsequent generations. The mechanisms of canon formations are usually shared by whatever type of art we are talking about, whether it is pictorial art, the art of writing, or the art of music. There are several factors that can contribute to a work's entry into a given canon, and there are also severa...

The Chaotic B-Movie Retro Charm of Gerard Butler

It’s only right that Gerard Butler is starring in a film called Plane. That title lets you know everything you need to, much like Geostorm or Butterfly on a Wheel. There’s no better film for a cold and empty January quite like an airplane disaster film starring Scotland’s third or fourth-finest as a totally believable pilot saving the day as shit goes down. The only thing that’ll make it better is if Butler tries to punch the plane.  Butler’s career has followed a fascinating trajectory si...

Contagious visual blandness of Netflix

Last week I saw M3GAN, the new horror-comedy starring Allison Williams and a robot-doll in a blond wig. I liked it enough. The doll character is genuinely well-done—a seemingly hard-to-nail mix of creepy and campy—but I walked out of the theater with a vaguely empty feeling. I couldn’t quite place it until I started talking with my friends about where the movie was set, and I realized I had no idea. One answer is somewhere in Silicon Valley, given its bald critique of big tech. It didn’t actu...