Feb 1, 2020Death at a Monkey’s Funeral: Mise-en-scène in Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard”Mise-en-scène provides meaning through the materiality of a film. It establishes a sequence’s texture, composition, context, and milieu. This atmosphere is established through the setting, costume, props, acting, and lighting. In Sunset Boulevard, the scene in which Joe Gillis walks into the viewing of Norma Desmond’s dead pet monkey is…Film4 min read
Feb 1, 2020“Twilight Zone,” Generation Z, and Nostalgia for the UnknownA few years ago I had an interesting conversation about television, memories, and nostalgia with my cousin (who was twenty years old at the time). We discussed the classic television series the Twilight Zone in intimate terms. She described it as a great comfort in times when she felt “lost.”…Television4 min read
Feb 1, 2020The Eternal Flame and the Fountainhead: Milton’s Allegory of Truth Realized in “Fahrenheit 451”In John Milton’s Areopagitica, a treatise written to parliament explaining his views on censorship, he criticizes mankind’s inability to “unite [the] dissevered pieces” of knowledge. Milton’s main contention with censorship is that he felt it limited one’s understanding of truth as a whole. He uses the myth of Osiris as…Censorship7 min read
Jan 28, 2020The Spectacles and Specters of “Apocalypse Now Redux”Coppola’s cinematic adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness brings post-colonial discourse to the New World Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Redux is one of cinema’s most brutal and breathtaking depictions of the Vietnam War. The material for the film is inspired by Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s…Film7 min read
Sep 16, 2019Reflexive Representations of Unseen Forces in Wong Kar-Wai’s “In the Mood for Love”Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love makes a statement about how unseen forces conduct and inspire human behavior, psychology, interactions, and even spiritual orientation through reflexive images. The paradoxical bond and conflict between the illusive and invisible forces that tie the characters to each other and the concrete form…Film5 min read
Sep 16, 2019Like It or NotWe live in a world where hurricanes have Facebook. Where celebrity governs us — baits us with rusty hooks. We will debate the bytes and declare war, no doubt. There’s no doubt — we live in a world where Woman is your bitch or boss. Even women hate women, confused…Rape Culture3 min read
Sep 16, 2019The Art of Cybersecurity“It may be True that Art is Beauty in the Abstract… but in Fact Information is Power.” The silence that followed spoke of The Sacrifice — of what is lost in words spoken twice, of who might overhear, and the fear of losing his head and being strapped to a…Poetry2 min read
Sep 14, 2019Dystopia meets Dreamscape: Brazil as a “Mind-Game” FilmIn Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Mr. Helpmann frequently discusses social issues using sports terminology, encouraging terrorists to “just play the game.” Thomas Elsaesser in his essay “The Mind-Game Film” explains that “mind-games” are played in film — entities realized “out of the very condition of their own (im)possibility: they teach their…Film4 min read
Sep 14, 2019Late Night Joy RideA medley of trees blur by in streaks of auburn green. The seasoned mesh, a mass of solitude — They can stand still. We cannot. A Bobblehead Buddha is as good a prophet as any. Our manmade clouds obscure the vision. Nature’s ambiguity on delivery, The skies are bent over…Poetry1 min read
Sep 12, 2019A TitheIn this year of Our Lord On March 13th I stumble into a singing tin. A broken thing holds it, sallow and thin crumb- -ling and thin His mirrored sockets reflect green and red From the pendulums waving above and ahead. …Poetry1 min read
