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Establishing Shot Indiana University
Michaela Owens is thrilled to be the editor of Establishing Shot, in addition to being IU Cinema's Programming and Audience Development Manager. An IU graduate with a BA in Communication and Culture and an MA in Cinema and Media Studies, she never stops thinking about classic Hollywood, thanks to her mother’s introduction to it, and she likes to believe she is an expert on Esther Williams.

Entries by Michaela Owens

Cary Grant: More Than Just a Pretty Face

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Cary Grant crouching on a roof in the dark

Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief Michaela Owens defines what makes Hollywood icon Cary Grant such a fascinating and endlessly watchable star. Seeing Cary Grant’s face is a religious experience. With his impossibly deep tan, expressive chocolate-brown eyes, glistening black hair, and famously dimpled chin (who else can say they have an instantly recognizable… Read more »

Devil in a White Dress: The Femme Fatales of Double Indemnity and Body Heat

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A woman sits in a darkened room, smoking

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity In this appreciation of the femme fatale, Michaela Owens looks at two of cinema’s coolest and most indelible, Phyllis Dietrichson and Matty Walker. In a blackened office, Fred MacMurray bitterly recounts his story of lust and crime into a Dictaphone as he slowly bleeds out, a consequence any man deserves… Read more »

James Cagney, Song-and-Dance Man

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James Cagney leaps in the air while dancing on a stage as George M. Cohan

James Cagney as George M. Cohan Michaela Owens explains why she appreciates James Cagney’s tour-de-force performance in Michael Curtiz’s tremendous musical biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy. It only takes a few seconds of a James Cagney performance to know that there hasn’t been and never will be another actor like him. With his rat-a-tat voice, jerky… Read more »

The Lasting Legacy of Lucille Ball: An Interview with Author Sarah Royal

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Right: author Sarah Royal, left: the cover of her book A.K.A. Lucy

Author Sarah Royal and the cover of her new book A.K.A. Lucy: The Dynamic and Determined Life of Lucille Ball In this interview, Michaela Owens talks to Sarah Royal, a pop-culture historian and the author of a new book on everybody’s favorite redhead, the one and only Lucille Ball. A television pioneer, comedy legend, and… Read more »

Sirens, Spitfires, and the Sinful Delights of Pre-Code Cinema

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Kay Francis smiles behind a huge bouquet of roses

In this primer for this fall’s Sirens and Spitfires: Liberated Ladies of Pre-Code Cinema series, co-curator Michaela Owens explains why you shouldn’t sleep on this fierce line-up. What does pre-Code mean? To keep it brief, in the 1920s, Hollywood had so many scandals that, to avoid repercussions from political and religious groups, the major movie… Read more »

The Beauty (and the Buffoonery) of the Lonely Island

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The Lonely Island pose as the Style Boyz in a junkyard

How does Michaela Owens love the Lonely Island? Let her count the ways in this ode to the sublime silliness of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Shaffer’s comedy trio. The Lonely Island is not a comedy group I should like. Their jokes can push the boundaries of vulgarity and good taste, with gags that… Read more »

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