In the previous blog post, I introduced a couple of eccentric films that have since been celebrated as cult classics. Rumour has it that The Man Who Saves the World, mentioned in that post, has been selected as one of the ten worst films ever made and is taught at universities in the US as an example of how not to make a film.
Read MoreBelieve it or not, Yeşilçam, the studio system of Turkey, which became dominant from the 1960s to the 1980s, essentially introduced classical cinema to Turks. It drew its production systems from Hollywood—big producers familiarized themselves with the studio structure in Los Angeles and brought the same system back home—but localized the content to reflect the specific experiences of Turkish society.
Read MoreTrue to the promise of its title, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, 2023) is an exhilarating and emotional journey that continues to blaze the narrative and visual trail started by its predecessor. Made by Sony Pictures Animation in association with Marvel, the film does not open with the previous film’s Spider-Man, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as one might expect. Instead, it shifts the focus to Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), also known as Spider-Woman, as she finds herself embroiled in the multiversal machinations of the taciturn, pragmatic Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), and his spider society.
Read MoreWhat’s in a flerken? Having watched Goose regurgitate the tesseract at the post-credit close of Captain Marvel (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, 2019), I immediately wanted to know: what’s in a flerken? Finding my answer meant looking to the comics, in particular the reboots of Captain Marvel in print by both Kelly Sue DeConnick and Margaret Stohl. I have to admit to not learning much more about flerkens, alien creatures which appear to resemble ginger cats, but DeConnick and Stohl’s revisionings did give me a lot more insight into Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel as a contemporary woman who struggles with her history.
Read MoreIt seems fair to suggest that, right now, there is just a bit of cultural interest in the figure of the superhero. Thanks to the efforts of DC and the MCU in particular, the superhero film has arisen out of its somewhat middling status amongst Hollywood production schedules throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to reach a status comparable only to that once enjoyed by the classical western or musical.
Read MoreThe comic book adaptation has become one of the most prominent genres in recent cinema. In response, academic studies on comic books, comic book adaptations, superheroes and their ilk, have increased in number with many scholars bringing a variety of critical approaches to this popular type of production. Drew Morton’s Panel to the Screen: Style, American Film, and Comic Books During the Blockbuster Era (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2016) focuses on an aesthetic used throughout cinematic adaptations of comic book properties, that of “remediation,” defined by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin as “the representation of one medium in and by another” (6).
Read MoreThe awarding of the Golden Lion to Todd Philips’ Joker (2019) at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 illustrates the overwhelming significance of comic book material and its characters for the contemporary Hollywood film industry. Telling the origin story of Joker, Batman’s nemesis, through the development of a violent, nihilistic character, Joker subverts the heroic expectations we might expect from a perceived comic book film.
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