The Golden Globes have arrived on our screens, thus commencing the start of the film award season. This article discusses the history behind the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the Emmys. We’ll also look at the processes by which nominations are made, and most importantly, why some of our favorite and most deserving films and shows do not get nominated.
Read MoreWhen it comes to cinema, women have always been treated as secondary, as an object of men and viewers’ desire. Nonetheless, along with the counterculture movement of the 1960s, there came a surge in revolutionary women trying to find a place in the industry, and beyond that, a place to display their feminist ideas to a man’s world. All by female directors, here are 5 feminist films you should watch.
Read MoreWhat happened to the high school ensemble comedy? After the early 2000s this genre of movie slowly disappeared but there's hope that they might make a comeback in the near future. So, throw on some Blink-182 and keep tweeting at HBO to put American Wedding on HBO Max. We're going back to high school.
Read MoreIn an interview, Keira Knightley explained that the reason she likes period dramas is because, in her opinion, the stories are more feminist than the ones being written about contemporary women. In her films, the characters seek to break the shackles of patriarchy and gain their own autonomy. By exploring her characters and films, one can pinpoint the feminist ideology that is weaved into them.
Read MoreThe 1990s television show Daria showcases a blunt perspective on the fictionalized people and experiences within the community of Lawndale. The show holds an emphasis on conformity, personal identity, and systems of power - ideas which continue to carry a predominant role in our lives today. In this article, I’ll explore the brilliant social commentary within Daria through some specific lenses, including tokenism, capitalism, and beauty standards.
Read MoreOver the years, there have been many different portrayals of mermaids, from the beautiful, gentle creatures sitting on rocks, to men-eating seductresses luring men to sea. Through this list, we will explore the different representations of these water creatures in cinema.
“She’s a ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’”. There’s no doubt that you’ve probably heard the infamous term being thrown around once in a while. The MPDG stock character can be found in a wide variety of media from books to film, so it’s not surprising that Hollywood has presented us with many MPDGs throughout the years. This article explores various examples of the ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ in film and looks into the portrayal of these eccentric female characters on screen.
Read MoreThe Asian film industry is particularly notable for producing well-received and terrifying horror movies. Hollywood also has its fair share of classic horror movies. Many of Asia’s horror classics have been adapted in Hollywood for Western audiences. Between the East and West, there are various differences when it comes to horror movies, such as the methods that studios use to scare their audiences and the intentions behind the films. Asian and Western horror movies place emphasis on different aspects, but they all have the same end goal — to frighten audiences.
Read MoreBeing in your twenties famously sucks. Movies and television have been trying to warn us all along, but I was too busy obsessing over the wardrobes to care. Oh, and you can imagine this realization hit especially hard amid, you know, a global pandemic.
Read MoreEntrenched in self-awareness of the body-horror genre, Rose Glass’s women-led directorial debut is an elegant, albeit acrid, glance inside the cinematic trappings of embodiment, illness, and erosion.
Read MoreOur article outlines some integral tropes in the tradition of maternal horror films. She explores this through two films; psychological thriller The Babadook, and horror Under the Shadows. This article investigates the ways in which these movies subvert and reinforce these tropes, as well as the changing face of the maternal heroine.
Film movements have always influenced each other, throughout time and space. I will explore today, however, one parallel that is not often talked about: the connection between the French New Wave cinema of the 50s and 60s, and the American independent film movement of the 90s. This article will attempt to highlight this link through a comparative analysis of two films, one from each movement; Francois Truffaut’s short film Antoine et Colette, (which came out in 1962), and Richard Linklater’s 1995 film Before Sunrise.
Perhaps one of the more controversial films to be paired with the phrase ‘feminist’, Gone Girl presents a genre-bending tale that poses the question of how women should be portrayed and perceived in media, to gratify both female and wider audiences.
One may wonder what the 2019 remake of Little Women and The Irishman have in common. On the surface, they are nothing alike; one is about four sisters coming of age in the Civil War-era US, and the other is about the events that led to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Despite these surface-level differences, both films touch on the fear and loneliness that comes with aging. With an analysis of the two films and their themes, we can uncover their similarities and contrast them with each other.
Often referred to as dark fantasy for adults, Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film is an exploration of childhood through the lens of Ofelia, a girl navigating life amidst the Spanish Civil War. Reality and fantasy collide, creating an ode not only to the fantasy and magical realism genre, but also a reminder of the symbols and images that are critical to the history of Spain.
Recently, I have been binge-watching fashion documentaries on major streaming services. Whilst Netflix has barely any, it turns out that Amazon and Hulu offer a tonne of them. Having watched the majority of Hulu’s fashion selection, I thought I would give you a taste of a few of my favorites…
You might be familiar with the French New Wave but may not have quite dipped your toes into the spectacular pool of the Czechoslovak New Wave. This movement holds critically-acclaimed treasures of social, critical works surrounding totalitarianism, feminism, and the hypocrisy of the Communist state. Not to mention, they are gorgeously crafted with elements of German expressionism and experimental filmmaking to convey hyper-surrealist stories, with more structured narratives than one would suspect. So, where to begin?
Moving beyond the convention of treating films as separate entities, for this article, I curated a selection of popular and lesser-known films which would make perfect double-bills. Each pairing sheds light on two films’ common ground, as well as their thematic and aesthetic commonalities, to not only pay homage to the films independently, but also to illuminate each other’s brilliance.
The disparity in audience responses to the films Moonlight and Ladybird, despite their similar social contexts and artistic premises, led me to explore the relationship between diversity and the genre of coming of age films. Through this analysis, I’ve worked to shine light on the disastrous effects perpetuated by an endless cycle of non-inclusive and monotonously similar films, especially on young communities of color.
The 2019 movie Hala, created by Pakistani-American director Minhal Baig, stirred up some Twitter controversy during its release. Arab-American Muslims, based on the trailers, found the film's storyline of an Arab-Muslim teenage girl balancing cultural expectations of her parents and Western life, both cliched and offensive. As a fellow Arab-Muslim teenage girl, I aim to investigate whether or not this film offers a complex and accurate look at the challenges which Arab families face in the West, in regards to managing cultural norms, or just another stereotypical, shallow portrayal of the life of Arab girls in the diaspora.
