American Film Studies Commons^™

First Reformed (Movie Review), Tom Clark

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The experience of watching First Reformed is deeply moving, unsettling, challenging, quieting, but above all worth it."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie First Reformed from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-first-reformed/

The Rider (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Brady’s clear sense of calling, and the movie’s observations about his abilities, are part of The Rider’s validation of the Cowboy as an archetype that is actually alive and well in the 21st century."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The Rider from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-the-rider/

Solo: A Star Wars Story (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"In Solo, Han tries to figure out who he is and what he belongs to, if anything."

Posting about the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-solo/

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Chappaquiddick (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

“'Chappaquiddick' probes basic issues about the moral behaviors of American politicians and why voters elect them, even when politicians behave badly."

Posting about the movie Chappaquiddick from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-chappaquiddick/

A Quiet Place (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The great accomplishment of A Quiet Place is its own soundscape, which gets us to listen to everything in it."

Posting about the movie A Quiet Place In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/a-quiet-place-review/

Party On, Derrida!: A Queer, Deconstructionist Look At Wayne's World, Glam, And The Losers Of Rock And Roll, Michelle A. Arp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What do you get when you mix a girl from Long Island, critical theory, a movie based on a Saturday Night Live sketch, David Bowie, and alternative rock of the early 2000s? A lot of losers, a lot of queerness, and plenty of room for deconstruction.

Part performance studies, part queer studies, and part memoir, this study is a cross-genre and experimental analysis of postmodern ideologies, rock and roll, and comedy. More specifically, I use Jacques Derrida’s notion of “the slash” (Of Grammatology, 1967) in relation to high and low culture via comedies, such that of Wayne’s World …

Ready Player One (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Ready Player One from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/ready-player-one-review/

Purgatorio, Rosie Pineda

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

Rodrigo Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of camerastylo, Purgatorio ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images. …

From Swing King To Swing Kids: The Jazz Era Of ‘Big Band Orchestras’ In World War Ii, Katie Victoria Burnopp

Student Scholar Showcase

Known as the ‘King of Swing’, clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) threatened the Nazi cause during WWII. With intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate swing music during World War II. The particular problems of this study were to: (1) identify how the swing music of Benny Goodman (1909-1986) influenced adolescents in the United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany; (2) explore the Nazi party view on ‘swing’ music of the era; (3) examine how the music of Charlie and his Orchestra became used as a tool for Nazi propaganda; and …

Combating Chromophobia: The Importance Of Living Life In Full Color, Natasha G. Kerr

Student Publications

David Batchelor argues that Western culture has chromophobia, a fear of corruption by color, and therefore tends to marginalize color in favor of the achromatic and linear. In examination of cinematic examples of The Wizard of Oz and Pleasantville, as well as the novel The Giver, this paper explores the Chromophobia thesis in action, discussing the dangers of a chromophobic society compared to the benefits of a fall into color. Based on the equation of the fall into color with the fall into self-consciousness, the paper further illustrates the importance of color to life and its role in authenticity and …

Modern American Cover Art: The Great Gatsby Through Time, Jessica Harrell

Senior Theses

Book jackets and cover art are, more than anything, an advertising tool used to attract consumers, promote book sales, and establish company identity. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a staple in the canon of American literature whose cover art has drastically transformed in the ninety years since its original publication. This thesis traces these changes over time, focusing specifically on publishing history, art history, American culture, and thematic interpretations. In doing so, I found that the most substantial influences on these covers were publishing house identity, design trends, and available artistic techniques. Ultimately, The Great Gatsby’s cover …

The Semi-Anti-Apocalypse Of Black Panther, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of films reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

Game Night (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Although Game Night is escapist in good ways, it’s just a fine draft of a movie."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Game Night from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/game-night-movie-review/

The 15:17 To Paris (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The 15:17 to Paris from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/the-1517-to-paris-movie-review/

Hostiles (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"All of the characters are serious sufferers of multiple atrocities, and we feel that the movie earns the emotional weight it gives to them."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Hostiles from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/hostiles-review/

How Lucille Ball Fought The Patriarchy, While Lucy Ricardo (Indirectly) Contributed To Second-Wave (White) Feminism, Anam Rana Afzal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Author Stephanie Coontz argues that our most powerful visions of traditional families derive from images that are still delivered to our homes in countless reruns of 1950s television sitcoms. In actuality, the happy, homogenous families that we “remember” from America in the 50s were a result of the media’s denial of diversity. Also, women’s retreat to housewifery after working during WWII was in many cases, not freely chosen. In his study of sitcoms, Saul Austerlitz claims that once television arrived in American cities after the war’s end, its impact was immediate and incontrovertible, and no sitcom caught America’s eye as …

"The Guy With The Problem": Reform Narrative In Disney's Beauty And The Beast, Faith Dickens

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

When Disney's film Beauty and the Beast was first released in 1991, it was hailed by critics as a departure from the problematic portrayals of women that had plagued the company's previous efforts at converting fairy tales into animated features. Since then, feminist criticism has provided several different interpretations of the film, some of which seek to assign Beauty and the Beast to a specific literary genre. In looking at Disney's film as a literary text, critics such as June Cummins have argued that it most closely resembles a patriarchal classic romance, while others, such as Susan Swan, view it …

Darkest Hour (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The Winston Churchill we get in 'Darkest Hour' is a flawed human being, one who doesn’t command as much respect as revered historical figures are supposed to."

Posting about the movie Darkest Hour from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/darkest-hour-review/

The Big Problems With Being Small, Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

“'Downsizing' poses basic but necessary philosophical questions that all humans ought to deal with."

Posting about the movie Downsizing from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/the-big-problems-with-being-small/

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …

The Rape Of Recy Taylor [Film Review], Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Nancy Buirksi’s documentary The Rape of Recy Taylor centers on a brutal sexual assault in Abbeville, Alabama in 1944. A 24-year-old African American wife and mother, coming home from a sanctified church service with a friend and her son, was forced into a car at gunpoint, and gang raped by six young white men. The beating heart of the film is the on-screen testimony of Taylor’s younger brother, Robert Corbitt, and her younger sister, Alma Daniels, who convey the unspeakably cruel and vicious character of the attack: Corbitt repeats the perpetrators’ directions to Recy: “They said they wanted her to …

The Making Of A Raisin In The Sun, Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun premiered on the Broadway stage in January 1959 just as the edifice of national segregation was cracking open. Response to the momentous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Bd. of Education included both the important early challenges to long-accepted practices of white supremacy and the intensified mobilization of widespread white defiance to the ruling. Black Bus boycotters in Montgomery, Alabama, and their young minister leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black high school students attempting to attend Little Rock’s Central High and their families faced organized harassment and dangerous forms …

Rebooting Masculinity After 9/11: Male Heroism On Film From Bush To Trump, Owen R. Horton

Theses and Dissertations--English

Conceptions of masculinity on film shifted after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from representations of male heroism as invulnerable, powerful, and safe to representations of male heroism as resilient, vengeful, and vulnerable. At the same time, the antagonists of these films shifted towards representations as shadowy, unknowable, and disembodied. These changing representations, I argue, are windows into the anxieties Americans faced in the aftermath of the attacks. The continuing presentation of power as linked to violence, however, illustrates the ways in which conceptions of masculinity have stayed the same.

Tales As Old As Time: The Origins Of Selected Fairy Tales And Their Legacies In Popular Culture, Ann Louise Jackson

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to analyze a selection of fairy tales and their film adaptations. The research centers on the origins of these selected stories and their cinematic derivatives, with particular focus given to authorial and cultural influences as well as audience perceptions of these works. The evolution of character through these fairy tales is an area of interest in this thesis, with an emphasis on agency and the depiction of the heroines through the stories and their adaptations. Including two well-known fairy tales and one that is more obscure, this thesis aims to understand how each variation is conceived and …

Review: A River Of Stars By Vanessa Hua, Olivia Lee

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A review of Vanessa Hua's 2018 novel, A River of Stars.

Good Game, Greyory Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic …

Work/Death, Of Each In Their Own, Micah H. Weber

Theses and Dissertations

Writings in support of my visual thesis, including some background, and bibliographic information: Oregon/Death/Animation/Vocation and the artist as an agent of potential.

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"'Three Billboards' is in no way a crime movie. It is instead a profound movie with a deep insight into the human heart."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­one of the 2018 Golden Globes Best Motion Picture Drama nominees from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/three-billboards-review/