Daughters of the Dust “Film Bytes” call extended!

We are actively seeking well-crafted comments (anywhere from one sentence onwards) on Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) for our “Film Bytes” column in issue 3.2 (2012).  This is a quick and easy way to get published!

Better still, the film is available streaming through the website Fandor, which offers a free two-week trial for new customers.  If you haven’t seen Daughters of the Dust, you really should!  The direct link to the film is here:

Please share your thoughts on Daughters by June 19th.  Comments can be posted here on our website or on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/filmmattersmagazine), or you can email them to us at:  futurefilmscholars AT gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Posted in News | Comments Off on Daughters of the Dust “Film Bytes” call extended!

Announcing our newest guest editors!

Working with Theresa L. Geller and her students at Grinnell College on their issue of Film Matters (2.4) on the theme of genre was such a positive experience, that we are looking forward to doing it again (three more times)!

John C. Tibbetts and his students at the University of Kansas will be producing issue 3.4 — due out later this year.  Their theme is fan culture.

Donna Peberdy and her students from Southampton Solent University will be our first guest editors for volume year 4 (2013), with their issue 4.2 on the theme of stars and performance.

Finally, Christopher Sieving and his University of Georgia students will be working on issue 4.4 — our last of 2013 — for us, along the theme of film in the sixties.  Sieving has mentored several of our past Film Matters authors (“Globalization and the Modern Vampire” by Lauren Berg; and “Ritual of the Sadists: The Subversive Horror Cinema of José Mojica Marins” by Will Stephenson) so we are pleased to be working with the University of Georgia again!

Ultimately, we are very excited to be able to share this unique publishing experience with undergraduate students and their instructors worldwide, and believe it results in a more diverse and vibrant Film Matters.  Thanks, as ever, for your support and interest — and we hope to work with you soon.

For more information about Grinnell College’s issue, please visit this link:  http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2216/

And if you are an instructor who would be interested in guest editing an issue of Film Matters with your undergraduate students, please get in touch with Liza (palmerl AT uncw.edu).

Posted in News | Comments Off on Announcing our newest guest editors!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Simple but Charming. Reviewed by John Debono

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL image
Tena Desae as Sunaina and Dev Patel as Sonny star in THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. Photo by Ishika Mohan

One of the biggest problems in amateur film criticism is that people have a difficult time separating their personal taste and quality filmmaking. In order to write a fair article, the critic should consider the intentions of the film and whether it accomplishes its goal in a compelling and honest way. For example, a film like John Madden’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) is not necessarily intended for someone at my stage in life, but I can acknowledge the film’s success as a heartfelt comedy for an older generation.

Continue reading
Posted in Reviews | Comments Off on The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Simple but Charming. Reviewed by John Debono

Our first guest-edited issue — FM 2.4 — is now out!

Film Matters is pleased to announce the release of FM 2.4, guest edited by Grinnell College.  In this issue, you will find:

  • The “Eastern Western”: Cross-Cultural Hybridity and Violent Coexistence by Paul Dampier 
  • The Underside of Desire: Cannibalizing Genre in Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day by Stephanie Wong
  • Queer Horror: Unearthing Sexual Difference in Les Diaboliques by Stephanie Bastek, Isabel Lockhart Smith, and Kerstin Rosero
  • Nobody’s Perfect: Queer Gender Performance in Some Like It Hot and Miss Congeniality by Shirley Welton 
  • “The Scream Instead of the Statement?” Two Landmark Films in Science Fiction’s Meandering Path to Critical Relevance by Kramer McLuckie
  • Sam Green’s Lost Utopias and Documentary Dreams by Phillip Brogdon, Christian Caminiti, and Mike Kleine
  • “Bigger than the Rights”: Nina Paley Sings the Blues: Interview with Nina Paley by Laura StammWinsome Eustace, and Paul Dampier

As well as some quality DVD reviews.  For more information about this issue, visit the following site:  http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2216/

Congratulations to Grinnell College, our first guest editors!  And should you wish to guest edit an issue with your undergraduate students, please get in touch with us today!

Posted in News | Comments Off on Our first guest-edited issue — FM 2.4 — is now out!

The Avengers: Flawed but Intelligent Entertainment. Reviewed by John Debono

Samuel L. Jackson stars as Nick Fury in Walt Disney Pictures’ The Avengers

I should begin my review by admitting some concerns. While I love the graphic novel fan community that I am a part of, it is admittedly very black and white in terms critical discussion. There is absolutely no middle ground between the best and worst film ever. So when reviewing Josh Whedon’s The Avengers, I am going to make my point as clear as possible. While it is an entertaining film with some great dialogue and action, the sheer structure of the narrative’s progression rushes the smaller details to make a truly great movie.

Continue reading
Posted in Reviews | Comments Off on The Avengers: Flawed but Intelligent Entertainment. Reviewed by John Debono

Issue 2.3 is out!

We at Film Matters are pleased to announce that issue 2.3 is out!  In this issue, you will find the following feature articles:

  • Willy Versus Charlie: The Culture-Bending Oompa-Loompa by Kimberly A. Behzadi
  • Globalization and the Modern Vampire by Lauren Berg 
  • “I Want to be a Princess Too”: Exploring the Blackout of Disney’s Princesses and Controversies Surrounding The Princess and the Frog and Its Effects on African American Girls by Lena Foote
  • Michael Snow and SSHTOORRTY: The Collision of Two Spheres of Avant-Garde Cinema by Jacob Mertens
  • Ritual of the Sadists: The Subversive Horror Cinema of José Mojica Marins by Will Stephenson

As well as the following featurettes:

  • Cinema, Editing and Its Seizures: Martin Arnold’s The Cineseizure by Basia Lewandowska Cummings 
  • The Psychedelic Synesthesia of ODDSAC: Interview with Filmmaker Danny Perez by Jacob Diesel 
  • This Is Not a Love Story: (500) Days of Summer (USA, 2009, dir. Marc Webb) by Harry Ryan [for the regular Mapping Contemporary Cinema column]

As well as a vibrant review section!  For more information about the issue, please visit this site: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2198/

Think about submitting a piece to Film Matters today!

Posted in News | Comments Off on Issue 2.3 is out!

Grinnell College Celebrates FM 2.4!

The team of guest editors for issue 2.4 of Film Matters from Grinnell College, led by Theresa L. Geller, celebrated their accomplishment with a launch party:

It’s a great issue and will be announced here soon!  In the meantime, stay involved with Film Matters by submitting to call 4.1.  And if you are interested in guest editing a future issue at your school, let us know!

Posted in News | Comments Off on Grinnell College Celebrates FM 2.4!

Announcing the winner of the Vision Frame Analysis Contest 2011!

We are pleased to announce the winner of the Vision Frame Analysis Contest 2011:

  • Paul Tortolo, Wilfrid Laurier University

Hearty congratulations to Paul, whose winning analysis will feature in issue 3.2 of Film Matters due out later this year!

So high were the standard of the analyses that we received, that the judges decided that an Honorable Mention should also be given for this year’s inaugural award:

  • Jacob Mertens, University of North Carolina Wilmington

You can read Jacob’s analysis here:

Many thanks to all our entrants. Based on the success of the first year’s event, we plan on announcing another contest opportunity later in 2012. So please stay tuned!

Finally, we thank our partners in this year’s initiative, whose support and guidance were invaluable:

Posted in News | Comments Off on Announcing the winner of the Vision Frame Analysis Contest 2011!

The Transcendence of Order: A Frame Analysis. By Jacob Mertens

Jacob Mertens received an Honorable Mention in the Vision Frame Analysis Contest 2011.

The Vision Frame Analysis Contest 2011 image (click on image for a larger view).
Visions: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

Mankind loves the illusion of order. For instance, we can take an abstract idea like rain falling from the sky and ascribe relentless categorization. In our capable hands, rain transmutes into weather, condensation, water molecules, and hydrogen and oxygen; but as the substance moves into microscopic specificity, it loses its inherent essence. Classification does little to describe the feeling of falling to sleep as rain pelts the roof or even the smell of water on grass. We live in a world full of phenomena that we barely understand and yet we refuse to accept a loss of full control. To me, this is what the frame taken from Visions: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen embodies. The cast of light barely reaching the foreground of the frame, the failed symmetry of the mise-en-scene, and the colorful clothing of the sainted juxtaposed with the nunnery habits all reinforce the notion of structure vying to exist in an environment of sublime beauty and doubt. The frame itself lives within an existential threshold of revelation, and our measured gaze challenges whether the world was meant to be rigid or mutable.

Continue reading
Posted in Articles | Comments Off on The Transcendence of Order: A Frame Analysis. By Jacob Mertens

Issue 2.2 is out!

Film Matters is pleased to announce that our latest issue (2.2) is now out and available.  In addition to a healthy review section for books and DVDs, this issue features the following articles:

  • Depiction of Suicide in British Cinema from the late 1940s by Martin Storhaug Gran
  • Romantic Power in Fritz Lang’s You Only Live Once by Daniel Langford
  • The Art of the Frame: The Use of Framing, Montage, and Homage in The Red Balloon and The Flight of the Red Balloon by Royce Marcus
  • The Plight of the Screen Animal: Animal Disappearance and Death on Film by Caufield Schnug 
  • Analyzing the Puzzle That is Amores Perros by Allison Stubbmann
  • In Dublin, Out of Answers: The Question of Irish National Cinema by Allain Daigle
  • An Aggravated Film Student’s Look at Remakes by Nick Griffin
  • Blessed are the Forgetful: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Shanshan Chen

For more information, please visit: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2133/

Read a copy today!

Posted in News | Comments Off on Issue 2.2 is out!