Tom Cruisin’

or, how Tom Cruise cured my fear of aliens.  When I was 16, I found myself home alone on a rainy Friday night. I had just dropped out of high school and was spending the lazy Idaho summer waiting for classes at my local university to start. It had been

Daisies

Opening shots create a first impression. They can signify the whole of the film to come or give the viewer a visual vocabulary for interpretation. It’s all been said before… from Fight Club to The Searchers to Touch of Evil. I’d like to submit my favorite opening shot to the

Re-Mi-Do-Do-So

On my way out of Close Encounters, I overheard the conversation of a couple. They had been one of the other handful of audience members in the 40th anniversary screening at my neighborhood multiplex theater… and apparently had not enjoyed the movie. “So you didn’t like it?” he said to her.

Ending 3-D’s Transience: Narrative Compatibility in 3-D Film

“See it in 3-D!” has become an oft-dreaded addendum of movie trailers. The glasses, the special screens, and the extra cost all create a degree of inconvenience that, to most audiences, is nowhere near worth the trouble. Since James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), each new blockbuster guarantees a mind-blowing 3-D experience,

Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephants: The Logic of Nonsense in Children’s Media

The sentence “Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise” could easily be dismissed as inconsequential nonsense. However, nonsense, especially

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