Cinema and Television Studies

This review explores the twin documentaries Earth and Planet Earth. Both are structured with the same goal of exploring our planet and its nonhuman animal inhabitants, but they diverge in approach. Using Disney’s “True-Life Adventure” series as an ideal, the view of human-non- human animal relations presented in Earth differs from the one presented in Planet Earth. While the former relies strongly on a purified image that mirrors traditional (Western, human) ideals, the latter presents an image that is both less “neat” and less reliant on attributing human- like qualities to nonhuman animals. There are some similarities, however, especially regarding the human role in the future survival of the planet’s nonhuman animals.

This article explores notions of intersectionality and otherness through the analysis of Guillermo Del Toro’s creative process by focusing on the semiotics of monstrosity and specifically on the vampire as propagator of infection. In Cronos, del Toro's first feature film,  he combines several of his preferred genres: horror, gore, melodrama, and comedy. The vampire theme would appear again in Blade II (2002), but it is in the FX- television series The Strain, where del Toro’s concept of vampirism fully develops. I analyze the creative process of del Toro’s writing for cinema and television by focusing on his vampire characters in Cronos, Blade II, and The Strain screenplays and films. By comparing the vampire motif over twenty years of his career, I show how the creative process has evolved in del Toro’s writing. I also discuss modifications in the screenplays and the feature films, and the difference between del Toro’s creation of vampires for movies and for television.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book summary in downloadable .doc]      Our instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection— evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not in today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons—that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. She also reminds us that by exercising self-control we can rein them in, potentially saving ourselves and civilization.

This paper aims to examine the  ''Search for the Self'' in Kaufman's Films , by analysing ''Being John Malkovich'', ''Adaptation'' and ''Synecdoche New York''. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan's writings on the formation of the self and by charting the theoretical debate revolving around selfhood, I will attempt to elucidate the protagonist's relationship with his reflection.

When Margaret Atwood's visceral dystopia rst appeared in 1985, Mary McCarthy of the New York Times criticized the book for its implausibility, unfavorably comparing it to the more convincing horrors of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Anthony Burgess. McCarthy's main argument was that the "extreme feminism" of Atwood's tale posited a world so far removed from the realm of the possible that it could spark no real sense of fear in the reasonable reader in 1986 (McCarthy 1). Bruce Miller's 2017 television adaptation of Atwood's novel received no such censure. From the start, Miller's Handmaid's Tale has been lauded for its eerie resemblance to present-day America-to such an extent that protestors dressed in Handmaid costumes have demonstrated in front of the US Capitol, Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, and around the world (Hauser, The New York Times, 2017).