American Film Studies Commons^™

Stay Woke, Langston A. Williams

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the pages of my thesis, I comprehensively analyze the processes, intentions, and production of my thesis film Stay Woke. My examination will exhaustively probe every stage of the film from development to preproduction to production to postproduction and beyond. Individual aspects of this process including writing, casting, locations, production design, cinematography, directing, budgeting, scheduling, and postproduction workflows will be detailed. As I make elaborations in each section, I will explain my learning experiences from each day’s new tasks, challenges, and lessons. All of these things will be framed with regards to the overall goal and themes of the …

American Made (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Seal is the subject of the new quasi-biopic 'American Made,' a man whose story by itself ought to destroy all sanctity and high-mindedness about America’s War on Drugs."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie American Made 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/american-made/

Review: Swimming In Hong Kong, Stephanie Chan

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A review of Swimming in Hong Kong (2016), a short story collection by Stephanie Han.

Introduction To Volume Eight: Wins And Losses, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Blade Runner 2049 (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"'Blade Runner 2049' tries to ask the question of whether androids, like humans, are souls."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Blade Runner 2049 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/blade-runner-2049/

Fixing Ground Zero: Race And Religion In Francis Lawrence’S I Am Legend, Michael E. Heyes

Journal of Religion & Film

Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend is a complex intertext of Matheson’s novel of the same name and its two previous film adaptations. While the film attempts to depict racism as monstrous, the frequent invocation of 9/11 imagery and Christian symbolism throughout the film recodes the vampiric dark-seekers as radical Islamic terrorists. This serves to further enshrine an us/Christians vs. them/Muslim dichotomy present in post-9/11 America, a dichotomy that the film presents as “curable” through the spread of Christianity and the fall of Islam.

Impressive Failures: Mavericks Of Film Authorship And The Impossibility Of Success In Hollywood, Tom S. Davies

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation directly challenges the critical and commercial primacy of success attached to Hollywood films and their filmmakers, especially when one argues for or against their quality and/or importance within cinematic history. Through a process of shifting and multiplying perspectives within a broader narrative that is critical of what separates success and failure, certain films and filmmakers that were judged as failures or disappointments under impossible prerequisites of creating a successful film––commercially, aesthetically, or both–– are, instead, reconsidered as constructive counterpoints to the expectations of the Hollywood economic field of production as well as to the inevitable disappointment of the …

Logan Lucky (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"If it’s watched closely, 'Logan Lucky' offers a complete artistic experience. It is a movie that both exists in and transcends its genre."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Logan Lucky 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/logan-lucky/

The Dark Tower (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The Dark Tower destroys, through its reductive vision, creative possibilities for good fantasy storytelling."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The Dark Tower 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.

http://inallthings.org/the-dark-tower/

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Midway through Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, I thought we were witnessing one of the greatest visual experiences in movie history."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 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.

http://inallthings.org/valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets/

Dunkirk (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"In an era of superhero movies galore, Dunkirk reminds us again of real human fragility and fear."

Posting about the movie Dunkirk 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.

http://inallthings.org/dunkirk

War For The Planet Of The Apes (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"This movie asks us to side with the apes, to root against the human army that they face, and to feel elated at the prospect of a planet full of sentient apes, without sentient humans."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­a review of the movie War for the Planet of the Apes 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.

http://inallthings.org/war-for-the-planet-of-the-apes/

Wonder Woman (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"'I used to want to save the world, but I knew so little then.'” So says Diana the Amazon in the opening of Wonder Woman, a movie that mixes the worlds of comic books, World War I, and ancient Greek myths."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Wonder Woman 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.

http://inallthings.org/wonder-woman/

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (Movie Review), Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"First, I really liked this movie, and, second, I think it says something really interesting about the nature of evil."

Posting about the movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword 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.

http://inallthings.org/king-arthur-legend-of-the-sword/

The Case For Christ (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The Case for Christ tries to present a rational defense of Christ’s death and resurrection."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The Case for Christ 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.

http://inallthings.org/the-case-for-christ/

The Circle (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The prevailing point in The Circle is that privacy-eliminating technology exemplifies a growing, heinous class division in American society."

Posting about the movie The Circle 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.

http://inallthings.org/the-circle/

She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Mae West, an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, used her fame on stage, in films, and on the radio to offer social commentary on relationships between men and women in society. Her irreverent style of addressing issues of female sexuality and power certainly caught peoples attention and made them think about these issues in new ways. At the same time, her racy delivery made her a target of stage, film, and radio censorship. She refused to be silenced and continually pushed against restrictions to deliver he message of empowerment in her trademark provocative manner.

Life (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Given the name 'Life,' the title of this new outer-space science-fiction thriller, I was looking for a grand artistic gesture."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Life 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.

http://inallthings.org/life/

"This Aggression Will Not Stand": The Coens On Masculinity, Evan Kelly

Honors Projects

This research examines the constructions of masculinity within the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. Through textual analysis of three film, Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), and The Big Lebowski (1998), three key themes emerge: masculinity as performance, children and family as ego extensions, toxic masculinity personified, and children and redemption through rejection of hegemonic masculinity. Comprehensively, the paper seeks to prove the Coens uniquely construct masculinity as a performance which can override public policy and interpersonal prosperity. This research serves several functions. First, it recasts the Coens as cutting-edge progressive filmmakers, despite their protestations to the contrary. What we …

The Shack (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"[The Shack] deals head-on with the vexing questions of why a good God allows evil to exist and why people have to suffer."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The Shack 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.

http://inallthings.org/the-shack/

Hell Or High Water: Tattered And Familiar, Bob De Smith

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Turns out the hell or high water of the title is less about lines in the sand than it is about commitments."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Hell or High Water 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.

http://inallthings.org/hell-or-high-water-tattered-and-familiar/

Religion And Violence In Jesse James Films, 1972–2010, Travis Warren Cooper

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay analyzes recent depictions of Jesse James in cinema, examining filmic portrayals of the figure between the years of 1972 and 2010. Working from the intersection of the anthropology of film and religious studies approaches to popular culture, the essay fills significant gaps in the study of James folklore. As no substantial examinations of the religious aspects of the James myths exist, I hone in on the legend’s religiosity as contested in filmic form. Films, including revisionist Westerns, are not unlike oral-history statements recorded and analyzed by anthropologists, folklorists, and ethnographers. Jesse James movies, in other words, have much …

How To Attain Liberation From A False World? The Gnostic Myth Of Sophia In Dark City (1998), Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

Journal of Religion & Film

In the second half of the 20th century, a fascinating revival of ancient Gnostic ideas in American popular culture could be observed. One of the major streams through which Gnostic ideas are transmitted is Hollywood cinema. Many works that emerged at the end of 1990s can be viewed through the ideas of ancient Gnostic systems: The Truman Show (1998), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), The Others (2001), Vanilla Sky (2001) or The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003).

In this article, the author analyses Dark City (1998) and demonstrates that the story depicted in the film is heavily indebted to the Gnostic myth of …

Eng 100: Filthy, Ryan Courtney

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Eng 100: The Escape From Cool, Pu Hsin Huang

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

"Beauty And The Beast", Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"There are two movies here, neither of which get along well with the other."

Posting about the movie Beauty and the Beast 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.

http://inallthings.org/beauty-and-the-beast/

Logan (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"It could well be that Logan is the best superhero movie of 2017, or even the best of the last five years."

Posting about the movie Logan from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/logan/

Silence: A Movie Review, Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Scorsese has made his most 'Christian' movie here—at least, overtly Christian. Silence says in a hundred creative ways that God is Not Dead, although not, thankfully, in the title."

Posting about a 2017 Academy Awards Best Achievement in Cinematography nominee ­­­­­­­­ from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/silence-a-movie-review/

La La Land: A Musical For Everyone, Marta Vander Top

Student Work

"I think the simplicity of this film is what makes it brilliant. It’s nostalgic, it’s vibrant, and it’s for all of us."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­a 2017 Academy Awards Best Picture nominee from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/la-la-land-a-musical-for-everyone/

Hacksaw Ridge: A Movie Review, Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

“'Hacksaw Ridge' is a rare bird among war movies, neither pro- nor anti-war."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­a 2017 Academy Awards Best Picture nominee from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/hacksaw-ridge-a-movie-review/