Depth
07.29.08 | by Tim Mitchell
The 1998 film “Dark City” will be re-released on DVD this week in a new director’s cut that features additional footage. I’ve always felt that “Dark City” never received the recognition it deserved — due in no small part to being overshadowed later by a very similar film, “The Matrix,” in 1999.
What is particularly [...]
06.09.08 | by Tim Mitchell
This article examines the "Mimic" films, particularly how the plot device of the "Big Bug" monster is still relevant to public discourse on scientific issues. In particular, concepts and issues that are specific to genetic research and their related environmental and political impacts permeate the "Mimic" films, thus making them different from their irradiated Atomic Age predecessors and worthy of unique consideration.
05.11.08 | by Tim Mitchell
Fears of vicious attacks and random massacres are not the product of some aberration of the natural order but an honest reflection of how the universe actually works. Thus, fears of this type of world do not center on vanquishing monsters to save others so much as on just surviving in a pre-determined situation. What kind of horror film is this? The crossover film that has the word "versus" in the title -- namely, "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003), "Alien vs. Predator" (2004) and the recent "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" (2007).
09.13.07 | by Sam J. Miller
The modern haunted house film is fundamentally about gentrification. Again and again we see fictional families move into spaces from which others have been violently displaced, and the new arrivals suffer for that violence even if they themselves have done nothing wrong.
10.18.03 | by Douglas L. Howard
The films of Summer 2003 reflected a fascination with metamorphosis that spoke to our anxieties toward a world in flux
08.05.03 | by Thomas Dodson
How the Frankfurt School might be the key'to unlock the postmodern mysteries of The Matrix
05.01.03 | by Scott Newstok
Political commentators have been claiming Dubya as a modern-day Prince Hal since the 1990s, eager to ascribe a kingly divine right to a ruler who, from his assumption of the throne to his current crusade, lacks justification
03.28.03 | by Cynthia Fuchs
If embedding is a next logical step for reality TV (with all stakes raised, for consumers as well as performers), it's also a huge leap in political, ethical and commercial terms
12.17.02 | by Laura Fokkena
"You own this war," CNN producer Robert Wiener is told in Live From Baghdad, a sentiment that already seems dated
10.29.02 | by Cynthia Fuchs
Most of the emerging stories concerning the sniper shootings have to do with this unexpected turn, this unexpected blackness
05.23.02 | by Mimi Nguyen
To accuse Abercrombie & Fitch of 'misrepresenting" Chinese or Asian men, culture, whatever, with negative stereotypes, is to forego the messier aspects of contemporary cultural politics
04.05.02 | by Daniel Greenstone
Racial pigeonholing persists because the stereotypes of white and black basketball players dovetail so perfectly with the deeper archetypes that are at the core of how Americans think about race
03.11.02 | by Jimmy Dean Smith
Now that the O Brother soundtrack has won Album of the Year, we can expect even more cultural tourism
12.21.01 | by Jimmy Dean Smith
That Bush doesn't hear his generation's soundtrack is evidenced once again by the shortcomings in his remarks about George Harrison's death.
10.26.01 | by Jimmy Dean Smith
Visitors to the annual World Chicken Festival in London, Ky., vie to win Col. Sanders look-a-like contests. Meanwhile, in Islamabad, another KFC burns.
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