Category: TV/Movies

  • Menstruation In Fiction

    Menstruation In Fiction

    Menstruation is depicted rarely in fiction. Perhaps you are rattling off half a dozen stories which feature menstruation right now, hoping to prove me wrong. But when you consider the impact of menstruation on lives, and how frequently it occurs, menstruation is heavily underrepresented across storytelling. We need more of it. People going through female […]

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  • Wolf Children Japanese Anime Film Study

    The Japanese anime Wolf Children is an inspiring and engaging film for miniature nature lovers. I have recommended this film to people completely forgetting that it is basically a very sad story though, so consider yourself warned! I wonder if the author of Wolf Children was inspired by the story of Amala and Kamala, two […]

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  • Ponyo by Miyazaki Symbolism and Structure

    Ponyo by Miyazaki Symbolism and Structure

    Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo is a feature-length anime which makes heavy use of  myth and symbolism but is aimed squarely at a young child audience.

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  • Thelma And Louise Story Structure

    Thelma And Louise Story Structure

    Thelma and Louise is an iconic 1991 film, hailed at the time as feminist. I don’t fall into the camp who consider this a feminist film, but it is still one of my all time favourites. I know Thelma and Louise so well it makes an excellent case study in storytelling technique. While I was […]

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  • Gender Problems In ParaNorman (2012)

    Gender Problems In ParaNorman (2012)

    ParaNorman (2012) is an animated zombie flick, light-hearted in its intent, and follows the adventures of an outcast 11-year old called Norman, who sees dead people. They’re everywhere. I identify with Norman, I really do. These days, whenever I watch a kids’ film, all I see are anti-girl references and tropes. These tropes are like […]

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  • Gilmore Girls and Modern Feminism

    Why Fans Love Gilmore Girls A Fan’s Notes On Gilmore Girls from The Awl. Is it an UNDERRATED CLASSIC or did you see it when you were 14? Chris Schleicher (@cschleichsrun) November 18, 2020 Watching With Your Kids Here’s a good argument for watching Gilmore girls with your daughter even if you see problems with it. […]

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  • Gravity (2013) Film Study

    Gravity (2013) Film Study

    Gravity is a science fiction film from 2013, with a strong mythological, Christian influence.

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  • Film Study: Contact (1997)

    Film Study: Contact (1997)

    I recently found a copy of Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact at the second-hand store. I already knew that Carl Sagan was a brilliant thinker and that he wrote this book of fiction as a way of playing with some ideas he had about what might happen if humans were to make contact with an extra-terrestrial intelligent life […]

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  • The Others Film Study

    The Others Film Study

    Written by Alejandro Amenábar, The Others is an old-fashioned melodramatic ghost story but done very well. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s one of those films that can be ruined in one fell swoop (like Sixth Sense), so leave the building now!

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  • Storytelling Tips From Juno (2007)

    Storytelling Tips From Juno (2007)

    I’m no great fan of many traditional rom-coms, but I do love this off-beat romantic comedy drama blend precisely because it takes the regular, conservative storyline of: mother almost loses her baby and then reunites (to live happily ever after), and the usual movie tropes (geek = Bleeker, but he’s also an athlete, stepmother is not […]

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  • The Study Of Film Equals The Study Of Picturebooks

    In juxtaposing a series of pictures in order to imply the sequence of a story, picture-book artists act much as filmmakers do. Andre Bazin [film critic] suggests that montage, assumed by many to be the essence of film art, is “the creation of a sense of meaning not proper to the images themselves but derived exclusively […]

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