Recently added articles from Journal of Popular Film & Television:
Play it Again, uncle Sam: Casablanca & US foreign policy.(Critical essay)
Mar 22, 2009; ... Abstract: This article looks at the historical context and making of perhaps the most famous classic Hollywood film. Not merely one of the best-loved films in movie history, Casablanca can also be seen as a very clever piece of political propaganda made soon after the United States entered ...
Something's Gotta Give and the classical screwball comedy.(Critical essay)
Mar 22, 2009; ... Abstract: Nancy Meyers's Something's Gotta Give (2003) may have succeeded both critically and financially because it imitates the central conventions, characterization, and narrative structure of classical screwball comedies. Like its screwball predecessors, Something's Gotta Give presents ...
Dead man still walking: explaining the zombie renaissance.(Critical essay)
Mar 22, 2009; ... Abstract: Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, zombie movies have become more popular than ever, with multiple remakes, parodies, and sequels. This renaissance of the sub-genre reveals a connection between zombie cinema and post-9/11 cultural consciousness. Horror films ...
Not a gay cowboy movie? Brokeback Mountain and the importance of genre.(Critical essay)
Mar 22, 2009; ... Abstract: Many critics refused Broke-back Mountain's narrative image as "the gay cowboy movie," challenging both its "gayness" and its status as a Western. Using genre theory, popular criticism, and the work of Frederic Jameson, this article explores the progressive work accomplished by ...
When bad girls go good: models of the self and reality on VH1's Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School.(Critical essay)
Mar 22, 2009; ... Abstract: This article examines the ways in which VHl's Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School (2007) conceptualized ideas of reality and the self. Drawing upon interviews, theoretical research, and the authors' observations, we find that the ideas of reality and the self that Charm School ...
British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker's Guide.(Book review)
Mar 22, 2009; ... BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION TELEVISION: A HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE Ed. John R. Cook and Peter Wright. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. 296 pp. $26.95 paper. The recent successful resurrection of Doctor Who for a run of new high-budget series suggests that British science fiction ...
Pervert in the Pulpit: Morality in the Works of David Lynch.(Book review)
Mar 22, 2009; ... PERVERT IN THE PULPIT: MORALITY IN THE WORKS OF DAVID LYNCH Jeff Johnson. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004. 186 pp. $35.00 paper. Jeff Johnson presents his study of morality in David Lynch's films as an "expose" (12J intended to lift the veil of subversiveness shrouding the director's ...
Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation.(Book review)
Mar 22, 2009; ... FRAMING MONSTERS: FANTASY FILM AND SOCIAL ALIENATION Joshua David Bellin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005. 241 pp. $30.00 paper. Joshua David Bellin begins Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation by revisiting the scholarly work about King Kong (1933), which ...
Can romantic comedy be gay? Hollywood romance, citizenship, and same-sex marriage panic.(Report)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Abstract: This article links recent trends in romantic comedy to the debate about same-sex marriage. By comparing contemporary heterosexual romantic comedies to same-sex romantic comedies, it argues that Hollywood colludes with efforts by the state and the conservative Right to ensure that ...
Cut, spliced, and dubbed for the sky: film censorship and the airline industry.(Report)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Abstract: As movies became part of airline enterainment, executives exercised caution when selecting films for a general audience. To make sure the audience felt comfortable, the airline industry also censored films. Studios and directors not only tolerated airline editing standards but ...
Individualism, Bentham's panopticon, and counterculture in Robert Aldrich's the Dirty Dozen (1967).(Jeremy Bentham)(Critical essay)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Abstract: An intelligent and multilayered critique of its genre and America's military mythologies. The Dirty Dozen is a groundbreaking cinematic oxymoron--a revisionist combat film that transmits its director's belief in the supreme and intrinsic importance of American individualism and ...
Forget Peter Vincent: nostalgia, self-reflexivity, and the genre past in Fright Night.(Critical essay)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Abstract: Fright Night (1985) is a nostalgic and self-reflexive vampire film, made at a moment when the vampire subgenre seemed increasingly irrelevant. It tries to rejuvenate the vampire film by adhering to its classical conventions and updating them for a new audience at the same time ....
The suburban spy and the rise of the New Right: negotiating gender politics in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.(SCARECROW & MRS. KING)(Critical essay)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Abstract: This article analyzes how Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-87) negotiated the political values embedded in the New Right movement and the lived experiences of its female viewers, as divorce rates significantly increased in the 1980s and many women were raising children on their own ...
"We're in a tight spot!": the Coen brothers' screwy romantic comedies.(Joel and Ethan Coen)(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Abstract: While most discussions of the relationship between classical screwball comedy and postclassical romantic comedy are best served by emphasizing the differences between the two, with the comedies of the Coen brothers that's just not the case. Accordingly, this article traces the ...
Beauty and the patriarchal beast: gender role portrayals in sitcoms featuring mismatched couples.(The King of Queens and According to Jim )(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Abstract: A number of recent situation comedies on U.S. television depict smart, witty, and attractive women who are married to inept, overweight, and immature men. This textual analysis examines two examples of this type of show, The King of Queens (1998-2007) and According to Jim ...
The stereoscopic Mickey: space, animation, and the mouse.(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Abstract: Film history has partially obscured the accomplishment of the first Mickey Mouse cartoons. With the appearance of the fully synchronized-sound Steamboat Willie (1928), they have been primarily discussed in relation to that technology, being both praised and attacked for the ways ...
Revisiting a science fiction classic: interpreting The Day the Earth Stood Still for contemporary film audiences.(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Abstract: The Day the Earth Stood Still is a rich and complex science fiction film that was clearly trying to communicate many messages to the American film audience of 1951. The film's Cold War themes resonated with its original viewers. But could a contemporary audience extrapolate any ...
"Three times is thrilling!": the lost history of 3-D trailer production, 1953-54.(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Abstract: This article uses the "lost" history of film and television trailers to reassess the 3-D aesthetic and its place in film history. By reconstructing and analyzing trailers from 1953 and 1954, which educated audiences about the competing 3-D technology, this article reveals a ...
Introduction to the special issue.
Jun 22, 2008; ... Long a staple of classical Hollywood cinema, the biopic continues as a vital and popular genre with film producers, actors, directors, and audiences. Despite the labeling of 2004 as "The Year of the Biopic" by some Hollywood watchers, genre production (often instigated by actors and ...
The figure in the landscape: Capote and Infamous.(Critical essay)
Jun 22, 2008; ... Abstract: The author compares two recent biopics of writer Truman Capote using intertextual approaches: noting the genres they invoke and the way they remind us of the textualization of history, analyzing the effect of their biographical sources on their form, and speculating about the ...