In Part 2 of 2, it's asked what repetition or originality even mean in a sequel, and how The Force Awakens is "nostalgic."
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Film
The Force Re-Awakens: Star Wars, Repetition, and Nostalgia, Part 2
The Force Re-Awakens: Star Wars, Repetition, and Nostalgia, Part 1
What's new about The Force Awakens? Amidst criticisms of the film's adherence to A New Hope, is it all just repetition?
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On Tim Burton’s Dumbo
Last week's announcement that Tim Burton will direct a remake of Disney's Dumbo is a reminder that in Burton's career we witness the convergence of the aesthetic logic of allusionism and the corporate logic of franchising.
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Star Wars Now: Fan Creativity and That Trailer
As a researcher, the rich and creative fandom discursively surrounding a text that does-not-quite-exist yet provides a mélange of data.
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Interstellar: It’s About Hope, Not Just Science!
Interstellar’s real value is as an exploration of memory, of hope, and of the power of dreaming of a better tomorrow for our kids.
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Drive-Ins, and the Stubborn Usefulness of Film Nostalgia
Interstellar (2014) made its well-known debut last weekend. In Chicago, the film (yes, we can still call it that) screened in its “intended” format of 70mm at the Navy Pier IMAX. Its appearance there and at other such venues was predictably celebrated by old school cinephiles as yet another defiant declaration of celluloid’s continuing...
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Redefining “Public” Education: Reflections from GeekGirlCon, Seattle, October 11-12
We have been to three girl-focused cons this summer and fall: LeakyCon, DashCon and GeekGirlCon. These cons are non-profit, largely run by volunteers, and provide alternative geeky spaces to male-dominated cons. These cons extend the work of social media such as Tumbr by providing safe public spaces where feminist, feminine, and queer young people can...
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New York Film Festival, 2014, Part Two: Explicitly, Sex
Part two of this series on the 52nd New York Film Festival focuses on Alain Resnais' Life of Riley, David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, and Abel Ferrera's Pasolini.
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The Guardians of Good Taste: Critics and the “Fanboy” Menace
Why do critics claim that only "fanboys" can make sense of Guardians of the Galaxy?
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Simple Machine & Micro-Wave: Building a Grassroots Film Community
How to transform the potential of online communities like Simple Machine into local, public support for independent filmmaking?
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Exploring True/False
Each winter, as February becomes March, Columbia, Missouri transforms itself into a grand stage for the True/False film fest, a four-day international nonfiction film festival.
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Following the Instructions
Continuing to think about LEGO, the idea of “creativity,” and the unequal extension of that idea to different consumer groups.
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The Hunger Games and the Female-Led Franchise Part 2
While teaching an undergraduate film module this week, I asked my student cohort to come up with any female-led film franchises. We were discussing gender and I was trying to illustrate how inequality still persists in the twenty-first century both at the level of industry and aesthetics. Masculine film franchises were easy and the...
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The Hunger Games and the Female Driven Franchise (Part 1)
Female-led film franchises are few and far between, especially in the traditionally masculine genres of science fiction and fantasy. There are, of course, exceptions to this ‘rule’ which I shall discuss in a moment – but, firstly, I would like to point out that I am not implying that so-called ‘boy’s genres’ – science...
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Rethinking Media Distribution
Chuck Tryon discusses Jeff Ulin's latest book on media distribution, focusing on temporal and spatial considerations in a global, digital marketplace.
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