Category Archives: film

March 13, 2018

4 Things You Need to Know at #SCMS18

Posted by michael
in authors, awards, film, media studies, Uncategorized | Comments Off on 4 Things You Need to Know at #SCMS18

Headed to SCMS in Toronto this week? So are we! Here’s what you need to know: 1.  We’re giving away 50 copies of Pink-Slipped: What Happened To Women In The Silent Film Industries. Stop by our booth in the exhibit hall and grab … Continue reading →

March 7, 2018

Women in Film: In 2017, “Time’s Up”

Posted by michael
in american history, feminist studies, film, media studies, Uncategorized, women's history | Comments Off on Women in Film: In 2017, “Time’s Up”

In Jane M. Gaines newest book, Pink-Slipped: What Happened to Women in the Silent Film Industries?, she rediscovers the previously overlooked women of the silent era that were instrumental in the earliest days of film. Today, the film industry is known for … Continue reading →

March 5, 2018

Contemporary Film Directors Series: Celebrating 15 Years of Scholarship on Filmmakers From Around the World

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in film, The Callout, UIP100 | Comments Off on Contemporary Film Directors Series: Celebrating 15 Years of Scholarship on Filmmakers From Around the World

“Our aim has been to publish conceptually ambitious, risk-taking work that challenges familiar models for understanding film authorship.”–Justus Nieland, CFD series editor Since the publication of an illuminating cross-cultural dialogue on the legendary Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in 2003, the University … Continue reading →

January 15, 2018

Happy Birthday Steven Soderbergh

Posted by rkcunningham
in biography, film | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Happy Birthday Steven Soderbergh

Born on January 14, 1963, in Atlanta, Steven Soderbergh found filmmaking in his teens. His Hollywood apprenticeship included work as a cue card holder and a director of concert films. In 1986, his film Sex, Lies, and Videotape helped launch the surge … Continue reading →

January 4, 2018

Happy National Spaghetti Day

Posted by rkcunningham
in film, food | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Happy National Spaghetti Day

“There’s a reason that this genre film never worked. It must be ethnic to the core—you must smell the spaghetti. That’s what brought the magic to the novel—it was written by an Italian.” With those words former studio head Robert … Continue reading →

December 11, 2017

Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra

Posted by rkcunningham
in biography, film, music | Tagged , | Comments Off on Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra

One hundred-and-one years ago, Francis Albert Sinatra entered the world in Hoboken, New Jersey. He proceeded to live one of the more completely lived lives this side of Casanova. Though foiled by television, Sinatra otherwise thrived across mass media, earning love … Continue reading →

May 19, 2017

Climbing Twin Peaks, plus David Lynch cooks quinoa

Posted by rkcunningham
in film | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Climbing Twin Peaks, plus David Lynch cooks quinoa

An excerpt from Justin Nieland‘s once-again-timely book David Lynch. Laura Palmer—passive, suffering, already victimized—is one kind of a melodramatic myth, and Twin Peaks, both the series and the fictional town, is Lynch’s most enduring melodramatic network, a famously quirky environment of character. … Continue reading →

March 16, 2017

Backlist Bop: Women in film

Posted by rkcunningham
in feminist studies, film, gender, Uncategorized, women | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Backlist Bop: Women in film

Widely regarded as one of the most innovative and passionate filmmakers working in France today, Claire Denis has continued to make beautiful and challenging films since the 1988 release of her first feature, Chocolat. Judith Mayne‘s comprehensive study of these … Continue reading →

February 28, 2017

Backlist Bop: Only Pam Grier can save us

Posted by rkcunningham
in African American Studies, feminist studies, film, women | Tagged , | Comments Off on Backlist Bop: Only Pam Grier can save us

This lively study unpacks the intersecting racial, sexual, and gender politics underlying the representations of racialized bodies, masculinities, and femininities in early 1970s black action films, with particular focus on the representation of black femininity. Stephane Dunn explores the typical, … Continue reading →

January 13, 2017

On the classic opening scene of D.O.A.

Posted by rkcunningham
in film | Tagged , , | Comments Off on On the classic opening scene of D.O.A.

Excerpted from the new book The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s, by Robert Miklitsch D.O.A. begins at night with a tilt-down shot from the top of Los Angeles City Hall to a man, his back … Continue reading →