A Christmas Carol is an inherently moralistic tale, cautioning us to nurture social bonds and give generously of our time and money to help others. Richard Donner’s 1988 adaptation of this Dickens Christmas classic is no different. Scrooged embraces the “true meaning of Christmas” (as the Grinch might say) and guides its Scrooge protagonist, television… Read more »
From the first frames of the film, Josephine Decker’s 2014 feature Thou Wast Mild and Lovely merges violence and play. Sarah (Sophie Traub) chases her father Jeremiah (Robert Longstreet) across the lawn, jabbing him with a decapitated hen. They giggle and run at each other, getting blood on their clothes. When they’re done playing, the handheld… Read more »
When film reviewers wrote about The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005) during its U.S. theatrical release in August 2006, many displayed an interesting contradiction. They often praised the film for departing from hypersexualized depictions of its women protagonists, but then used sexualized language in their reviews to describe the actors. In some instances, reviewers interpreted the… Read more »
Lynne Sachs’ film output is prolific and varied, encompassing documentaries, essay films, non-narrative experiments, and installations. Like many feminist filmmakers, a theme running through her work is the insistence that the personal is important. Whether one’s own body, private moments in a doctor’s office, or one’s sense of family and home, our personal lives are… Read more »
Many of us watch cat videos without a second thought. We follow cats on Instagram, subscribe to multiple cat-themed sub-Reddits (r/startledcats, anyone?), and own Lil BUB or Grumpy Cat merch. Cats are weird and cute; why overanalyze it? Some researchers seem to agree, using cat videos as the frivolous internet foil to their serious subject…. Read more »
This July, Establishing Shot presents It’s Revived!, a miniseries celebrating some of our favorite (or at least some of the more fascinating) movie remakes out there in anticipation of IU Cinema’s fall film series Re:Made. Today, Laura Ivins looks at a different kind of remake as she discusses one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films and its… Read more »