Resources for September 11, 2016

Houska, Tara. "National Guard on Standby in North Dakota Before Court Ruling on Dakota Access Pipeline." Democracy Now (September 9, 2016) ["North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has activated the National Guard ahead of today’s ruling on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. government over the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is set to rule today on an injunction in a lawsuit challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to issue permits for the pipeline, arguing it violates the National Historic Preservation Act. This comes as over 1,000 people representing more than 100 Native American tribes are gathered along the Cannonball River by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to resist the pipeline’s construction. It’s been described as the largest unification of Native American tribes in decades. We go to North Dakota for an update from Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth."]

Carhill, C. Robert and Brian Salisbury. "Rebel Without a Care: Spending a Day Off with Ferris Bueller." Junkfood Cinema (June 30, 2016)


Kuersten, Erich. "The Shrouds of Soavi: Cemetery Man, The Devil's Daughter." Acidemic (September 8, 2016)

Brookes, Chris, et al. "Vestigial Tales, Pt. 1." Ideas (August 11, 2016) ["Analysing stories is usually territory claimed by writers, critics, and university scholars. But recently, evolutionary psychologists have begun to look at the human propensity for storytelling from a scientific perspective.  Why are we humans such suckers for a good story? Literary critics find the answer in story structure, characters, and plotlines. The literary Darwinists find the answer in evolution.  Documentary-maker Chris Brookes looks at the evolutionary origins of human storytelling."]


Barry, Nick and James Hancock. "John le Carré & Our Kind of Traitor." Wrong Reel (July 1, 2016)

Rothenberg, David and Heather Ann Thompson. "45 Years After Legendary Attica Prison Uprising, New Book Reveals State Role in Deadly Standoff." Democracy Now (September 9, 2016) ["Today prisoners in at least 24 states are set to participate in a nationally coordinated strike that comes on the 45th anniversary of the prison uprising at Attica. Much like the prisoners who took over New York’s infamous correctional facility in 1971, they are protesting long-term isolation, inadequate healthcare, overcrowding, violent attacks and slave labor. We speak with the author of an explosive new book about the four-day standoff, when unarmed prisoners held 39 prison guards hostage, that ended when armed state troopers raided the prison and shot indiscriminately more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. In the end, 39 men would die, including 29 prisoners and 10 guards. We are also joined by David Rothenberg, who was a member of the Attica observers’ committee that was brought into Attica to negotiate on behalf of prisoners. He is founder of The Fortune Society."]

Fox, Neil, et al. "Point Blank (Port Elliot Special, Pt. 1)." The Cinematologists (August 21, 2015) ["Dario is on Holiday so Neil is joined by filmmaker and academic Mark Jenkin to present and discuss John Boorman's 1967 classic Point Blank starring Lee Marvin. Point Blank was released in a zeitgeist year for crime cinema that also included Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai and Seijun Suzuki's Branded To Kill and it stands equal to those illustrious peers. This episode also features an interview with writer Tom Shone about his latest book Woody Allen: A Retrospective. "]

Cassidy, Brendan and J.D. Duran. "The Neon Demon, Dr. Strangelove - Extra Film." In Session (July 1, 2016) 

Desaulniers, Jake and Arik Devens. "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." Cinema Gadfly #3 (ND) 


Richter, Brent. "Culture warrior - How anthropology can save the world." North Shore News (September 10, 2016) [Wade Davis: "“The great revelation of anthropology was that the world that you’re born into is just one model of reality, the consequence of one set of choices your cultural lineage made, however successfully,” Davis said. “The other peoples of the world remind us there are other ways of thinking, other ways of being, other ways of orienting yourself in social, physical, even spiritual space.”]

Resources for September 8, 2016

Sudhakaran, Sareesh. "Cinematography of Roger Deakins." Wolfcrow (February 16, 2016)

Hedges, Chris. "America the Illiterate." Truthdig (August 31, 2016)

Head, Stephen Slaughter and Brett Michel. "Escape From New York (1981)." Diabolique #36 (July 28, 2015)

Cooper, Julia. "This Is the Rhythm of My Life: Failure in Claire Denis’ Beau Travail." cléo 1.3 (July 28, 2013)

Ehrlich, David. "Il Sorpasso both exemplifies and perfects the Italian comedy." A.V. Club (April 30, 2014)

"E.T. and Alienation." Pop Culture Case Study (June 30, 2016)

Noisecat, Julian Brave and Anne Spice. "A History and Future of Resistance: The fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline is part of a centuries-long indigenous struggle against dispossession and capitalist expansionism." Jacobin (September 8, 2016)

"The Battle of Algiers Turns 50." Current (September 8, 2016)

Kuersten, Erich. "The Ancient She-Shaman and her Shrooming Exhumer: Szamanka." Acidemic (November 30, 2014)

Bird, Daniel. "The Genre Mask." Electric Sheep (July 19, 2013)

Lola (West Germany: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981)

"One of the most prolific and influential European filmmakers of the second half of the 20th century, Rainer Werner Fassbinder completed nearly 40 feature-length films between 1969 and 1982 (the year he died at age 37) and left behind one of the most cohesive and provocative bodies of work in the history of cinema. In his many melodramas, gangster movies, literary adaptations, and even sci-fi films, he returned obsessively to themes of love, crime, labor, and social and emotional exploitation. He was similarly fixated on his beloved performers, many of whom—Hanna Schygulla, El Hedi ben Salem, Ulli Lommel, and countless others—comprised a repertory company whose fierce, complicated devotion to their visionary leader defies comparison." -- Film Society Lincoln Center (2014)

Lola (West Germany: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981: 113 mins)

Cheney, Matthew. "Fassbinder at 70." The Mumpsimus (June 1, 2015)

---. "First Fassbinder: A Romantic Anarchist From the Start (Video Essay)." IndieWire (September 11, 2013)

Ebert, Roger. "Fassbinder Films Capture a Frantic Life's Desperation." Chicago Sun-Times (April 27, 1997)

"The Films Of Rainer Werner Fassbinder: A Retrospective." IndieWire (July 29, 2011)

Hancock, James, Mikhail Karadimov and Aaron West. "The Meteoric Career Of Rainer Werner Fassbinder." Wrong Reel #233 (February 2017)

Jones, Kent. "Heartbreak House: Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy." Current (Septemvber 29, 2003)

Leadbetter, Kate. "Fugitive Physicality and Female Performance in Werner Rainer Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss and Lola." Movie (August 2010)

Mahani, Najmeh Khalili. "Mirroring History: Fassbinder’s The BRD Trilogy." Offscreen 17.2 (February 28, 2013)

Moeller, H.B. "Fassbinder's use of Brechtian aesthetics." Jump Cut #35 (April 1990)

Nelson, Max. "In the Case With the Insects: On Fassbinder's Top 10." Metrograph (April 20, 2016)

Ruffel, Joe. "Great Directors: Rainer Werner Fassbinder." Sense of Cinema (May 2002)

Töteberg, Michael. "The Candy-Colored Amorality of the Fifties: Lola Production History."  Current (September 29, 2003)

Trocan, Irina. "Fassbinder's History Lessons." Keyframe (January 9, 2016)


Fassbinder's Faces - Lola from Daniel Mcilwraith on Vimeo.

Resources for September 6, 2016

Waititi, Taika. "Hunt for the Wilderpeople." The Treatment (June 29, 2016) ["In 2005, director Taika Waititi’s adaptation of the novel Wild Pork and Watercress started as a much darker piece. Revisiting the work years later, however, allowed Taika to realize that comedy indeed prevails and he took the film The Hunt for the Wilderpeople in a different direction, while paying homage to the adventurous spirit of New Zealand. Behind films like What We Do In The Shadows and Eagle vs Shark, Taika Waititi shares the importance of humor through life’s tough times and dissects an artist’s ultimate quest for immortality."]

Piketty, Thomas.  "From the Introduction to Capital in the Twenty-First Century." (Harvard UP, 2014: posted on Harvard University Press website - for an archive of resources and reports on the book visit Harvard University Press)

Kenny, Glenn. "There's a Riot Goin' On." The Current (May 1, 2014)

Drain, Heather, et al. "Celine and Julie Go Boating." The Projection Booth #277 (June 28, 2016) ["Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) tells a story of friendship, adventure, and magic between two women (Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier) in Paris."]

Lachman, Edward. "Howl." American Cinematographer #22 (2010) ["Edward Lachman, ASC, talks with American Cinematographer’s Iain Stasukevich about the concepts behind visualizing the works of artists like Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, particularly regarding his work on the recent film Howl."]

Sunstein, Cass. "What Would Luke Skywalker Do?" Studio 360 (June 30, 2016) ["Sunstein recently had a job advising President Obama at the White House, and he’s appeared on lists of potential candidates for the Supreme Court. Sunstein’s new book, "The World According to Star Wars," came as a shock to many people who expected him to produce yet another scholarly tome. But the book isn't really all that different from his other work — it explores social, legal and political philosophy. The revelation for Sunstein was that the "Star Wars" universe contained so many of the moral quandaries that fascinate him."]


Bucsco, Gabe, Justine Smith and Josh Spiegel. "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind." Mousterpiece Theater (August 13, 2016) ["The film that led to the creation of Studio Ghibli, from director Hayao Miyazaki: it’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Josh and Gabe are joined by Justine Smith of Vague Visages to talk about this early Miyazaki effort, and whether or not it might be his very best film. Or is this movie not as emotionally engaging as films like Princess Mononoke or Kiki’s Delivery Service? Did this movie set the foundation or raise the bar so high nothing else could clear it?"]

Devens, Arik and Herb van der Poll. "Bob Roberts." Cinema Gadfly #22 (June 30, 2016)

Smith, Justine. "Why Criticism: Mark Cousin's 50 Week Film Course." Vague Visages (September 6, 2016)

"They Live: John Carpenter's Brilliantly Simple and Hugely Enjoyable Assault on Reagan's America." Cinephilia and Beyond (September 2016)

Friday Night (France: Claire Denis, 2002)

No one creates a sensorial cinematic experience like Claire Denis. Watching Friday Night is akin to a grounding exercise. How it works its way into your mind and then down into your skin, your flesh, your bones. You feel every sensation these characters do. The amount of attention she gives to close-ups of hands invites us to inhabit that textural rush. Your fingers connecting with the steering wheel of your car, body parts of your lover, cigarette boxes, removed watches, buttons on a blouse, the check at a restaurant, the keys to a hotel room, the knob turning on the radiator. The way your feet feel as they’re grazing between your lover’s legs and the bedsheet. Friday Night lights up with the romanticism of late night in the world—the neon lights of store signs, the way that light shimmers off the wet road as you are rushed by the thrill of a chance encounter with a stranger who can take you on a journey before the sun comes up. -- Mitchell Beaupre

Friday Night (France: Claire Denis, 2002: 90 mins)

Cole, Kristin. "Claire Denis." Oxford Bibliographies (October 29, 2013)

Dinning, Samantha. "Great Directors: Claire Denis." Senses of Cinema (April 2009)

Funderburg, Christopher, et al. "Claire Denis." Wrong Reel #122 (April 3, 2016)

Gee, Felicity. "Claire Denis." The Cinematologist #61 (April 19, 2018) ["The episode covers a range of topics including aesthetics and feminism, the canonisation of Beau Travail, as well as the new film and how it fits into her body of work. Music in the episode comes from some of the collaborations Denis has undertaken with the band Tindersticks."]

Grant, Catherine. "35 Shots of Claire Denis (and More)." Film Studies For Free (April 23, 2009)

Hughes, Darren. "High Life and the 'Idea of a Claire Denis Film.'" Notebook (April 16, 2019)

Hughes, Darren and Michael Leary. "Claire Denis." Movie Mezzanine (April 13, 2015)

Hynes, Eric. "The Eyes Have It: Friday Night." Reverse Shot #29 (2009)

Koresky, Michael and Jeff Reichert.  "Claire Denis - The Art of Seduction: An Introduction." Reverse Shot (July 16, 2009)

Morrow, Fiona. "Claire Denis: That Friday Night Feeling." Independent (August 7, 2003)

Nelson, Max. "Claire Denis' Chemical Reactions." The New York Review of Books (April 27, 2018)

Phillips, Craig. "Seeing, Believing with Claire Denis." Keyframe (March 3, 2016)

Preziosi, Patrick. "“Why Don’t You Ever Take Me In Your Arms”: Claire Denis’ Cinema of Intimacy." Photogénie (November 16, 2018)

Reardon, Kiva. "Claire Denis and Objects of Desire." Keyframe (March 3, 2016)

Sarmiento, José. "The Strangers of Claire Denis: Her cinema speaks of the borders that divide humanity, and the people who cross them." Keyframe (March 24, 2017)

Walton, Saige. "Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression by Martine Beugnet." Senses of Cinema #50 (April 2009) ["Those familiar with French director Claire Denis will be aware of the exquisite sensuality of her cinema. Whether coming together with another body in the world through the shared space and flesh of desire, or being driven apart from others by personal and sociopolitical circumstance, bodies – their gestures, bites and kisses, alternately languid or energetic movements, postures, habits and rituals – are the very “stuff” and substance of the film experience here. Given her privileging of the senses and her amenability to, as well as considered dialogue with, philosophers of the body, Denis is at the forefront of a number of contemporary directors (by no means exclusive to France, if we consider the work of figures such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, David Lynch or Wong Kar-Wai) who are generating much interest from sensually alert film scholars. Adrian Martin, for instance, identifies “the bedrock of Denis’ cinema [as] the flesh”, while Elena del Río comments that the “film body” of the cinema itself becomes a “sensation producing machine” in Denis, as if each film were “sending ripples of affect and thought across a diversity of its movements”, independent of the body of the viewer. The arresting materiality that infuses Denis forces us to look anew at sensory encounters with the cinema."]

Resources for September 5, 2016

Berkowitz, Roger. "The Human Factor - Hannah Arendt." Ideas (June 26, 2016)


Herzog, Werner, Peter Zeitlinger and Iain Stasukevich. "Bad Lieutenant." American Cinematographer #13 (ND)

Block, Fred. "Malthus, Market Fundamentalism, and Welfare’s Trajectory." Against the Grain (August 30, 2016) ["The idea that human society and markets are self-regulating, and that therefore political intervention to address poverty and equality is wrong-headed, has taken over the political landscape. Fred Block shows how that idea, advanced by T. R. Malthus and much later by Charles Murray, has pushed governments to abandon safety-net protections."]

Koski, Genvieve, et al. "Finding Dory / Memento, Pt. 1." The Next Picture Show #33 (June 28, 2016)


Koski, Genevieve, et al. "Finding Dory / Memento, Pt. 2." The Next Picture Show #34 (June 30, 2016)

Markowitz, Barry. "Crazy Heart." American Cinematographer #14 (ND)

Tobias, Scott and Kevin B. Lee. "Terence Malick: The Art of Voiceover." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)

Graham, Bill, Brian Roane and Ethan Vestby. "The Neon Demon." The Film Stage #196 (June 28, 2016)

D., Margo and Margo P. "Carrie." Book vs. Movie (December 28, 2014)

Crudo, Richard and Victor J. Kemper. "The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)." The American Cinematographer #19 (ND)

The Artist (France/Belgium: Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

The Artist (France/Belgium: Michel Hazanavicius, 2011: 100 mins)

Caldwell, Thomas. "The Artist (2011)." Cinema Autopsy (January 30, 2012)

Ebert, Roger. "The Artist." Chicago Sun-Times (December 21, 2011)

Grusin, Richard. "Post-Cinematic Atavism." Sequence 1.3 (2014)

Mercer, Benjamin. "A Cinematic Cheat Sheet for The Artist." The Atlantic (January 19, 2012)

Pigeon, Ted. "Critical Distance: The Artist." The House Next Door (February 27, 2012)

Scott, A.O. "Sparkling, Swooning and Suffering Wordlessly: The Artist, by Michel Hazanavicius." The New York Times (November 24, 2011)

Sicinski, Michael. "A Moment of Silents: Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist." Cinema Scope (ND)

Sperb, Jason. "Specters of film: new nostalgia movies and Hollywood’s digital transition." Jump Cut #56 (Winter 2014/2015)

Wilder, Felix. "The Artist, The Most Emasculating Film of the Year." Omega Level (January 16, 2012)

Once Upon a Time in America (Italy/USA: Sergio Leone, 1984)

Once Upon a Time in America (Italy/USA: Sergio Leone, 1984: 229 mins)

Babiak, Peter. "Once Upon a Time in America: Sergio Leone and the Construction of Myth." Cineaction (March 2007): 65-69.

Ebert, Roger. "Once Upon a Time in America." Chicago Sun-Times (January 1, 1984)

Edwards, Dan. "Great Directors: Sergio Leone." Senses of Cinema (October 2002)

Godden, Richard. "Maximizing the Noodles : Class, Memory, and Capital in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America." Journal of American Studies 31.3 (1997): 361-384.

Heldt, Guido. Music and Levels of Narration in Film. Intellect, 2013. ["This is the first book-length study of the narratology of film music, and an indispensable resource for anyone researching or studying film music or film narratology. It surveys the so far piecemeal discussion of narratological concepts in film music studies, and tries to (cautiously) systematize them, and to expand and refine them with reference to ideas from general narratology and film narratology (including contributions from German-language literature less widely known in Anglophone scholarship). The book goes beyond the current focus of film music studies on the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music (music understood to be or not to be part of the storyworld of a film), and takes into account different levels of narration: from the extrafictional to ‘focalizations’ of subjectivity, and music’s many and complex movements between them."]

Kwiatkowski, Al and Brad Strauss. "Sergio Leone." Director's Club #125 (March 3, 2017) 

Leone, Sergio. "Interview (1987)." ASX (December 28, 2012)

Knowles, Dana. "Once Upon a Time in America (1984)." About Film (June 1999)

Martin, Adrian. "Euphoria and Liberating Laughter: The Cinema of Sergio Leone." Projectorhead (1997 / revised and updated July 2011)

---. "Gangsters Without Glory." Once Upon a Time in America. British Film Institute, 1998: excerpt of pages 37-43.

Oliver, James. "Once Upon a Time in America: Leone creates an opera." Film Club (June 27, 2013)

Once Upon a Time in America Critics Round Up (Ongoing Archive)

Reardon, Kyle. "The Operatic Ecstasy of Sergio Leone." Wrong Reel #118 (March 2016)

"Sergio Leone." Director's Club (March 3, 2017)

ENG 102 Resources: August 24, 2016

Fitzpatrick, Veronica. “'Every Movie is a Ghost Story': On Writing About Film." Ploughshares (July 14, 2016)

Badejo, Anita. "Modern Marvel." Buzz Feed (July 20, 2016) [On actress Tessa Thompson]


STAR TREK's Rules of War from Fandor Keyframe on Vimeo.


Sylla, Fanta, ed. "The Black Film Critic Syllabus." (Archive posted online: 2016)

Neal. Carthew. "Hunt for the Wilderpeople." Film School (June 27, 2016)

Kuersten, Erich. "The Primal Father (CinemArchetypes #8)." Acidemic (March 19, 2012)

Henighan, Craig and Brad North. "How the Outstanding Sound for Stranger Things is Made." A Sound Effect (August 17, 2016)

Clover, Carol J. "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film." Blue Sunshine (ND)

Wood, Robin. "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 1970s." Blue Sunshine (ND)

Creed, Barbara. "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection." Blue Sunshine (ND)

Williams, Linda. "When the Woman Looks." Blue Sunshine (ND)

Shaviro, Steven. "Bodies of Fear: The Films of David Cronenberg." Blue Sunshine (ND)

Carroll, Noel. "Why Horror?" Blue Sunshine (ND)

Freeland, Cynthia. "Horror and Art-Dread." The Horror Film. ed. Stephen Prince. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004: 189-205.

Biswell, Andrew. "A Clockwork Orange." Radio West (August 19, 2016) ["Author Anthony Burgess said his novella A Clockwork Orange should have been forgotten, but because of Stanley Kubrick's film, it seemed destined to live on. It's the story of the barbaric passions of a British teen and the state's attempt to impose a mechanistic morality over his free-will."]

ENG 102 Resources: August 22, 2016

Lee, Kevin B. and Matt Zoller Steitz. "Arsenic and Apple Pie: Patriotism and Propaganda in Born on the Fourth of July [Oliver Stone, Part 1]." Moving Image Source (October 14, 2008)

---. "Unreliable Narratives: JFK and the Power of Counter-Myth. [Oliver Stone, Part 2]." Moving Image Source (October 15, 2008)

---. "Fear and Self-Loathing: Nixon and the Unmaking of a President [Oliver Stone, Part 3]." Moving Image Source (October 16, 2008)

---. "Empire of the Son: War and civilization in Alexander, and an epilogue on W [Oliver Stone, Part 4]." Moving Image Source (October 17, 2008)

Moody, Rick. "Frank Miller and the rise of cryptofascist Hollywood." The Guardian (November 24, 2011)

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Italy/Spain/West Germany: Sergio Leone, 1966: 161 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Ferdinand, Marilyn. "The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)."  Ferdy on Films (August 21, 2016)

"Notorious: Hitchcock's Mature and Intricate Espionage Masterpiece." Cinephilia and Beyond (August 2016)

Landekic, Lola. "My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)." The Art of the Title (August 16, 2016)

Thompson, Kristin. "Frodo Lives! and So Do His Franchises." Observations on Film Art (July 31, 2016)

Dirks, Tim. "Memorable and Great 'Chick Flicks.'" Film Site (ND)

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Italy/Spain/West Germany: Sergio Leone, 1966)

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Italy/Spain/West Germany: Sergio Leone, 1966: 161 mins)

Ebert, Roger. "Great Movie: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." Chicago Sun-Times (August 3, 2003)

Edwards, Dan. "Great Directors: Sergio Leone." Senses of Cinema (October 2002)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Original Soundtrack)

Kwiatkowski, Al and Brad Strauss. "Sergio Leone." Director's Club #125 (March 3, 2017)

McGee, Patrick. From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.[Professor has copy]

Morton, Drew. "Happiness is a Warm Gun." Pajiba (October 22, 2010)

Reardon, Kyle. "The Operatic Ecstasy of Sergio Leone." Wrong Reel #118 (March 2016)

"Sergio Leone." Director's Club (March 3, 2017)

Siu, Carmen. "C'era una volta la storia: Credit Sequences and Storytelling, Leone Style." Film International 5.1 (2007) [Professor has copy]

Stafford, Jeff and Lang Thompson. "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." TCM (November 5, 2016)

Williams, Tony. "The 'Complete Italianization' of the Western: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Kino Lorber." Film International (October 24, 2017)






The Art of Editing in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Max Tohline on Vimeo.

Chi-Raq (USA: Spike Lee, 2015)

Chi-Raq (USA: Spike Lee, 2015: 127 mins)

Brody, Richard. "Spike Lee’s Necessary, Overwhelming Chi-Raq.” The New Yorker (December 9, 2015)

Caravajal, Nelson. "Wake Up: Spike Lee’s Vital Chi-Raq.” (Posted on Vimeo: March 31, 2016)

Chang, Justin. "Chi-Raq." Variety (November 22, 2015)

Chi-Raq Critics Round Up (Ongoing Archive)

Child, Ben. "Spike Lee rebuffs Chicago-based rapper's criticism of Chi-Raq: Do the Right Thing director says Chance the Rapper’s father works for the city’s mayor, who has been criticised for Chicago’s high gun crime." The Guardian (December 11, 2015)

Collins, K. Austin. "Stakes Is High: On Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq.” The Los Angeles Review of Books (January 16, 2016)

Donnella, Leah. "Chi-Raq And A Hard Place: What Critics Are Saying About Spike Lee's New Movie." Code Switch (December 9, 2015)

Gibbs, Adrienne Samuels. "The Problem With ‘Chiraq’: It’s important not to let the popular slang become a self-fulfilling prophecy." Chicago (April 9, 2015)

Mudede, Charles. "Ijeoma Oluo Was Right. Spike Lee's Chi-Raq is Insultingly Bad. Why Are Other Critics Failing To Say So?" SLOG (December 7, 2015)

Murphy, Mekado. "How Spike Lee Created Three Signature Visual Shots." The New York Times (August 2, 2018)

Obaro, Tomi. "Chi-Raq is a Wasted Opportunity." Chicago (December 4, 2015)

"Video Evidence: #OscarsSoWhite." Keyframe (February 12, 2016)

Fall 2016 Eng 102: 1st Section Examples

Digging Deeper "Vehicles of Masculinity." (Posted on Youtube: October 26, 2015) [Trailer and Archive]

Carvajal, Nelson. "Wake Up: Spike Lee’s Vital Chi-Raq.” (Posted on Vimeo: March 31, 2016) [Trailer]




Bolin, Garrett. "Queer Becomings: A Visual Essay on Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine." (Posted on Vimeo: 2015) [Trailer and Archive]

Bond, Lewis. "Andrei Tarkovsky - Poetic Harmony." (Posted on Youtube: April 29, 2016)

Zizek, Slavoj. "Full Metal Jacket (excerpt from The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, 2012)." (Posted on Youtube: August 31, 2014) [Trailer and Archive]


Cheney, Matthew. "Vigilante Man - Eastwood and Gran Torino." Vimeo (2012)

De Fren, Allison. "The Human Machine in Ex Machina." Keyframe (March 16, 2016)

Digging Deeper. "Serenity: Exploring the Genre Frontier." (Posted on Youtube: November 20, 2015)

Bond, Lewis. Hayao Miyazaki: The Essence of Humanity. (Posted on Youtube: October 6, 2015)

Doyle, Sean and Violet Lucca. "The Soundtracks of The Man Who Fell to Earth." (Posted on Vimeo: September 22, 2015)

Ferguson, Kirby. "Everything is a Remix, Pt. 2." (Posted on Vimeo: 2012)

Digging Deeper "It Follows: The American Nightmare." (Posted on Youtube: September 23, 2015)




Digging Deeper. "Carol: The Love Story in a Look." (Posted on Youtube: April 7, 2016)

Digging Deeper. "Sicario: The Mirage of a Moral World." (Posted on Youtube: February 4, 2016)


Digging Deeper. "A Separation: A Man-Made Divide." (Posted on Youtube: May 5, 2016)

Bluegrass Film Society Fall 2016 Schedule

(Schedule is ongoing)

August 15: Trust (UK/USA: Hal Hartley, 1990: 107 mins)

August 22: Southland Tales (France/Germany/USA: Richard Kelly, 2006: 145 mins)

August 29: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japan: Hayao Miyazaki, 1984: 117 mins)

September 1: Fruitvale Station (USA: Ryan Coogler, 2013: 85 mins)

September 8: Princess Mononoke (Japan: Hayao Miyazaki, 1997: 134 mins)

September 12: The Wonders (Italy/Switzerland/Germany: Alice Rohrwacher, 2014: 110 mins)

September 15: The Game (USA: David Fincher, 1997: 129 mins)

September 19: The Invitation (USA: Karyn Kusama, 2015: 100 mins)

September 22: The Ascent (Soviet Union: Larisa Shepitko, 1977: 111 mins)

September 26: Nénette et Boni (France: Claire Denis, 1996: 103 mins)

September 29: Vessel (International: Diana Whitten, 2015: 90 mins)

October 3: Embrace of the Serpent (Columbia/Venezuela/Argentina: Ciro Guerra, 2015: 125 mins)

October 10:  Birth of a Nation (USA: Nate Parker, 2016: 120 mins)

October 13: Spring (USA: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead, 2014: 109 mins)

October 17: Szamanka (Poland/France/Switzerland: Andrzej Zulawski, 1996: 110 mins)

October 19: American Honey (UK/USA: Andrea Arnold, 2016: 163 mins)

October 20: Certain Women (USA: Kelly Reichardt, 2016: 107 mins)

October 24: The Face of Another (Japan: Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966: 124 mins)

October 27: High Rise (UK/Belgium: Ben Wheatley, 2015: 119 mins)

November 3: The Driver (USA: Walter Hill, 1978: 91 mins)

November 7: Farewell, My Lovely (USA: Dick Richards, 1975: 95 mins)

November 10: Drive (USA: Nicholas Winding Refn, 2011: 100 mins)

November 11: The Handmaiden (South Korea: Park Chan-wook, 2016: 144 mins)

November 14: Chimes at Midnight (Spain: Orson Welles, 1966: 116 mins)

November 18: Do Not Resist (USA: Craig Atkinson, 2016: 72 mins)

November 20: Ran (Japan/France: Akira Kurosawa, 1985: 202 mins)

November 21: The Academy of the Muses (Spain: José Luis Guerín, 2015: 92 mins

December 3: Black Girl (Senegal: Ousmane Sembene, 1966: 59 mins)

December 4: Adama (France: Simon Rouby, 2015: 82 mins)

December 5: The Lobster (Greece: Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015: 119 mins)

December 10: Fanny and Alexander (Sweden: Ingmar Bergman, 1983: 188 mins)

December 14: Toni Erdmann (Germany: Maren Ade, 2015: 162 mins)

Trainspotting (UK: Danny Boyle, 1996)

Trainspotting (UK: Danny Boyle, 1996: 94 mins)

Bradshaw, Peter. "Trainspotting: Danny Boyle's Classic Holds Up Terrificably Well." The Guardian (January 12, 2017)

Ebert, Roger. "Trainspotting." Chicago Sun-Times (July 26, 1996)

Eggert, Brian. "Trainspotting (1996)." Deep Focus (September 19, 2011)

Gioia, Ted. "Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh." The New Canon (ND)

James, Andrew, et al. "Danny Boyle." The Director's Club #123 (January 2017)

Mullan, John. "Low behaviour: John Mullan on the role of morality in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting." The Guardian (June 7, 2008)

Northey, Robert. "Trainspotting: An Analysis of the Film." Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society (ND)














Brought to a Boyle from Fandor on Vimeo.

Lewis Bond: Video Essays (Ongoing Archive)

Bond, Lewis. "Andrei Tarkovsky - Poetic Harmony." (Posted on Youtube: April 29, 2016)

---. "Apocalypse Now: Analysis, Part 1." (Posted on Youtube: April 5, 2015)

---. "Apocalypse Now: Analysis, Part 2." (Posted on Youtube: April 14, 2015)

---. "Birdman Movie Review." (Posted on Youtube: January 4, 2015)

---. "Colour in Storytelling." (Posted on Youtube: July 29, 2015)

---. "Composition in Storytelling." (Posted on Youtube: January 22, 2016)

---. "David Lynch: The Elusive Subconscious." (Posted on Youtube: September 3, 2016)

---. Hayao Miyazaki: The Essence of Humanity. (Posted on Youtube: October 6, 2015)

---. "Lars von Trier: Deconstructing Cinema." (Posted on Youtube: July 23, 2016)

---. "Gone Girl Movie Review." (Posted on Youtube: November 12, 2014)

---. "Let's Discuss Horror." (Posted on Youtube: February 23, 2015)

---. "Whiplash Movie Review." (Posted on Youtube: January 18, 2015)

The Assassin (Taiwan/China/Hong Kong/France: Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2015)

"The first film in eight years from the Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien is an immaculate treasure box of light, texture and movement – though just when you think you’ve pinned it down, it slips your grasp as nimbly as its lead character darting through a silver birch grove. For the first time in his estimable 35-year career, Hou has made a wuxia, or period martial-arts film… If you’ve seen swordsmen and/or women bouncing through a bamboo forest, you’ve seen wuxia – yet you’ve almost certainly never seen it carried off with this degree of delicacy and refinement. There’s a little forest-bouncing here, but the fight scenes are few and far between." - Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

The Assassin (Taiwan/China/Hong Kong/France: Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2015: 107 mins)

The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies (USA: Keith Clarke, 2002: 105 mins)

The Assassin Critics Round Up (Ongoing Archive)

Brooks, Xan. "The Assassin Director: Why I Gave Plot the Chop." The Guardian (January 11, 2016)

Bradshaw, Peter. "The Assassin review - enigmatically refined martial arts tale baffles beautifully." The Guardian (May 20, 2015)

Ganjavie, Amir. "When Minimalism Meets the Martial Art Tradition: An Interview with Hou Hsiao-hsien." Senses of Cinema #75 (June 2015)

Goldberg, Max. "Hou’s Killer Instincts with THE ASSASSIN." Keyframe (October 15, 2015)

Guillen, Michael. "'A Different Space and Time': Hou Hsiao-Hsien on The Assassin (2015)." Bright Lights Film Journal (November 21, 2015)

Patterson, Cleaver. "The Languid Approach of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin." Film International (January 30, 2016)

Scott, A.O. "The Assassin Finds Delight in a Deadly Vocation." The New York Times (October 15, 2015)

Udden, James. "The Assassin: Personal Reflections." Observations on Film Art (June 1, 2015)

Weston, Hillary. "​Hou Hsiao-hsien on the Films That Changed His Life." Current (October 20, 2015)

Carol (UK/USA: Todd Haynes, 2015)

Carol (UK/USA: Todd Haynes, 2015: 118 mins)

"The 30 Best LGBT Films of All Time." BFI (March 15, 2016)

Blanchett, Kate. "Carol." DP/30 (November 16, 2015)

Bordwell, David. "Pick Your Protagonists." Observations on Film Art (January 9, 2016)

Bra, Roberto. "Glances in Carol." (Posted on Vimeo: March 2016)

Brody, Richard. "Carol Up Close." The New Yorker (November 30, 2015)

Carol Critics Round Up (Ongoing Archive)

Carvajal, Nelson. "Todd Haynes' Isolated Women." Press Play (November 3, 2015)

Davis, Nick. "The Object of Desire: Todd Haynes discusses Carol and the satisfactions of telling women’s stories." Film Comment (November/December 2015)

Digging Deeper. "Carol: The Love Story in a Look." (Posted on Youtube: April 7, 2016)

Dolan, Jill. "Carol." The Feminist Spectator (December 25, 2015)

Enelow, Shonni. "The Great Recession: Restrained but resilient, a style of acting has taken hold that speaks to an era’s anxieties."  Film Quarterly (September-October 2016) ["This is another way to read the emotional withdrawal or refusal in these performances: as a response to a violent or chaotic environment, one that doesn’t offer an alternate vision of an open and embracing future. For even when representing an alienating or unfeeling world, actors of earlier eras generally appealed to the camera and their audiences to receive their feelings and implicitly trusted them to respond generously, either through vicarious sentiment or humanist compassion. Expressive acting—of which Method acting is one dominant form—is built on the conviction that audiences want an actor’s emotions to be in some way available to them. There’s a basic optimism in that conviction: the optimism that the world would be better if we all told each other the truth about what we feel. In contrast, many of today’s most lauded American film actors give performances that evince no such optimism about emotional expression. Returning to Winter’s Bone, for example, it’s clear that within the fiction of the film, Ree doesn’t trust the world to care about her well-being. But rather than contrast her character’s suspicion with an appeal to the (presumably) sympathetic film audience, Lawrence maintains her wariness throughout. Likewise, Mara doesn’t cut Lisbeth’s lowered gaze and near-inaudible, clipped speech with any revelation or outburst that would make us think she could be—or really is, deep down—other than she appears. There aren’t hidden motivations in these performances, and in fact, close to no subtext (the idea of subtext, with its inherently psychological schema, is parodied in Carol by a would-be writer who takes notes on the difference between what characters in movies say and what they really feel)."]

Graham, Bill, Jordan Raup and Brian Roan. "Carol." The Film Stage (January 8, 2016)

Gray, Duncan. "Private Lives: Carol and the Cinema of Todd Haynes." The Notebook (January 28, 2016)

Lane, Anthony. "Secret Lives: Carol and Legend." The New Yorker (November 23, 2015)

Lee, Kevin B. "Video Evidence: Oscar 2016, Best Actress." Keyframe (January 20, 2016)

---. "Video Evidence: Oscar 2016, Best Cinematography." Keyframe (February 3, 2016)

---. "Video Evidence: Oscar 2016, Best Supporting Actress." Keyframe (January 28, 2016)

López, Cristina Álvarez. "Carol: Ravishment." Keyframe (February 9, 2016)


Maxwell, Lida. "Does Love Have a Politics?" Los Angeles Review of Books (February 24, 2016)


Nagy, Phyllis. "Carol: Screenplay." (September 2015)


---. "Carol Screenwriter talks Cate Blanchett, Todd Haynes, and Isabelle Huppert’s Pact with The Devil." Flixwise (February 14, 2017)  ["The funny and brilliant Phyllis Nagy is here to talk about adapting Carol’s screenplay from Patricia Highsmith’s original source material and the lengthy, and at times frustrating, process of getting the film into production. They chat about Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara’s rendering of the two lead characters, as well as the standout performance from supporting players, Sarah Paulson and Kyle Chandler. Plus, Phyllis offers a scoop on what happened to a few scenes from the book that didn’t make the final cut of the film. ... In addition to filling us in on details from behind-the-scenes of Carol, Phyllis is also here to discuss a pair of standout performances by the incomparable French actress, Isabelle Huppert. This year Huppert was, at long last, nominated for her first Academy Award. However, Huppert has been giving Oscar-worthy performances well before she ever worked with Verhoeven. If you are unfamiliar with her work up to this point, you might not know where to begin, as her filmography is quite extensive. Fortunately, Phyllis is here to offer up two of her favorite Huppert films as suggestions for your watch list: Claude Chabrol’s 1988 film: Story of Women, and Diane Kurys 1983 film: Entre Nous.  Both Story of Women and Entre Nous are period dramas which find Huppert playing malcontented married women, both of whom form deep attachments to their closest female friends. In Story of Women she plays Marie Latour, a woman who, despite her husband’s objections, traffics in abortions and other illegal various dealings in German occupied France. In Entre Nous, Huppert plays Lena Weber, a woman who falls into an expedient marriage in order to escape Nazi control, but after the war is over falls in the love with another woman."]

O'Malley, Sheila. "Carol." Roger Ebert (November 20, 2015)

Phillips, Eva. "Carol and the Ineffable Queerness of Being." Another Gaze (February 21, 2016)

Prose, Francine. "Love is the Plot." NYR Daily (December 11, 2015)

Ramon, Alex. "Todd Haynes' Carol Could Have Been Better." Pop Matters (May 17, 2016)

Rich, Frank. "Loving Carol." Vulture (November 18, 2015) 

Sims, David. "Why Carol Is Misunderstood." Atlantic (January 15, 2016)

Smith, Victoria L. "The Heterotopias of Todd Haynes: Creating Space for Same Sex Desire in Carol." Film Criticism 42.1 (March 2018) ["Using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia (an “other space”), this essay contends space is key to understanding Haynes’s Carol. It examines how Haynes, through his meticulous attention to framings, textures, color, and spatial relations, creates a queer counter space, time, and look—a rejection of early 1950s social and sexual propriety."]

Thomason, John. "Flung Out of Space: Carol, Genre, and Gender." Los Angeles Review of Books (January 2, 2016) 

Todd Haynes They Shoot Pictures Don't They (Ongoing Archive)

Turner, Kyle. "Todd Haynes Discusses Manifesting Love in Carol and the Performativity of His Films." The Film Stage (October 12, 2015)

Uhlich, Keith. "Great Directors: Todd Haynes." Senses of Cinema (July 2002)

Watercutter, Angela. "Inside the Cult of Carol, the Internet’s Most Unlikely Fandom." Wired (May 16, 2017)

Wilson, Natalie. "The Lesbian Gaze of Carol.' The Establishment (January 7, 2016)


















































Framing the Picture: Favorite Films of 2015 from Matt Marlin on Vimeo.