Cinema of China

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) is undoubtedly one of the most notorious and successful tales ever told. The trilogy has earned around three billion US dollars and nominated for more than 800 film awards winning 425 of them, 17 of which were Academy Awards. This astronomical level of success has made Lord of the Rings a pop culture staple. Through the lenses of culture studies, the trilogy will be dissected critically to evaluate its success through the three main theories of popular culture.…

The Tree of Life is a subtle film that intricately links together the world while discussing vast concepts. One such concept, the way of nature, is personified through Brad Pitt’s character; he is a man who acts in primal animalistic ways, and consistently lets these emotions get the better of him. This motif has been explored in many films prior to Terrence Malick’s masterpiece and previous directors’ efforts by no means come close to the beauty of Malick’s film. Many of the films of the…

In the 1990s, there was an increase in females who worked in the film industry. The entry of women into more significant roles such as producers and directors led to a change in direction of women films and the development of contemporary “chick flicks” (Hollinger, 2012). The popularity of the genre can be observed through its economic success. In her article “From Chick Flicks to Millennial Blockbuster: Spinning Female-Driven Narratives into Franchises”, York (2010) describes the progress and…

Bubble, Melancholia, and Whitey were all released in day-and-date format, but that is not their only point of similarity. To begin, Bubble and Whitey both lack star studded casts. For Bubble this choice was likely made for two reasons; amateur actors gave a more authentic feel to the town about a small town, and it was an experimental film that did not need to specifically do well. Soderbergh had already been promised a contract for several additional films no matter the outcome of the first.…

The movie industry in India is definitely undergoing changes to cater to modern mindsets of younger generation who are more liberalized. In the past, movies tend to be portrayed more stereotypes such as gender, storytelling and culture. However, with revolutions in the information and communications technology, Indian movies are becoming more diasporic, taking into account the audiences outside India. Hence, this idea intrigued us into the issue of stereotypes and if any changes in the…

Today, the name Los Angeles has become synonymous with the film industry. However, the city, which goes by the initials LA, has a history going back long before the movies. It is known for a variety of culture and business operations. As a result, it is the most populated city in the state of California. LA has the second highest population in the entire United States, second only to New York City. Spanish and Mexican Roots Spanish governor Felipe de Neve founded Los Angeles in the early 1780s…

The Seventh Sleep In 1957, ancient times, an era with limited technology, “historical” days, a movie was created, “The Seventh Seal” by Ingram Bergman, is a example of how different our present mindset has changed from the dreadful era of the 50’s. I’ve always wanted to experience a classic film experience in a theatre instead of searching for them online, upon searching for one I came across the showing of “The Seventh Seal”, which frankly, I wish I hadn’t. I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard of…

The films ‘STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE’, MARIA FULL OF GRACE’, and THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION’ shows the audience, political view, family affection and more. The films were featured in countries such as, Cuba, Colombia and Brazil. This is beneficial because it gave the audience who has little to no knowledge about these countries an understanding of their social or political views. In ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’, one can see that Cuba is not accepting of the gay population and in such…

It is evident that time is a very abstract concept in the sense that so many things can go so many different ways. There are numerous scenarios where we as humans could have done something better or worse. Or perhaps we were saved by ten seconds from a fatal car crash. In a very captivating German film, Run Lola Run, film director Tom Tykwer explores this topic of time with a great visual aesthetic. In this film, Lola, the main character, receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni who has…

popularly know as the hub of the American film industry. India, the world’s largest producer of films actualizes an average of 1,288 to 1,500 feature films every year compared to films produced by Hollywood which are only a fraction. Although Hindi cinema is just a segment of India’s annual film production, it remains as the most popular and influential with an estimated 3.6 billion tickets sold worldwide, compared to Hollywood’s sale of 2.6 billion tickets each year. In fact, Hindi movies are…