Avatar

James Cameron’s latest film Avatar has gotten vast attention for its special effects and the beauty of its imaginary world, although many acknowledge that its storyline is not incredibly original. However, the implications of the film in terms of religion, gender, and U.S. military policies merit attention as well.

[en] religion, gender, and military policies in Avatar by Jessica B. Burstrem

[en] Win Their Hearts and Minds by Arianna Mancini

[en] I’m Na’vi! Who are You? by Michael Howarth

[en] Is There Life On Pandora? by Ronda Lee Levine

[es] Avatar: ¿nuevo cine para una nueva comunidad política? by José Ramón Narváez Hernández

[en] Future, Present and Past: A Tale of Two Movies by Suzanne Sunshower

[it] Introduction by Simchi Cohen

[en] Interview with James Cameron by

Surrogates

Science fiction films seem obligated to deliver a message of social commentary. In turn, films based on comic books or, worse, video games, seem equally destined to fail in their attempt to translate those original ideas into a new medium. Surrogates finds a middle path, managing critical commentary while falling into mediocrity in its reliance upon the stable cliches of Hollywood action movies

[en] Outsourcing Ourselves by Winter Elliott

Das weisse Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte

L’ultima opera di Haneke si apre con una schermata vuota, nera. Una rassicurante voce-off ci informa che ci aspetta una storia, la storia di eventi “strani”. Eppure non succede nulla. Non si vede nulla. L’immobilità dello schermo nero si dipana lentamente, fino a mostrare, in un progressivo rischiaramento, un paesaggio che sembra una vecchia cartolina, il cui bucolico incanto è ben presto infranto dall’arrivo al galoppo del dottore, che con la sua rovinosa caduta da cavallo dà l’avvio alla vicenda narrata dal film. Lo scarto tra visibile e non-visibile, tra ciò che viene mostrato e ciò che, pur essendo presente, non c’è, lo scarto tra identità e differenza insito in ogni immagine sarà l’ambiguo territorio che cercheremo di esplorare.

[it] Lo Spazio Bianco by Gabriele De Luca

[en] Morality, violence and realism in Robert Musil and Das Weiße Band by Stijn De Cauwer

[it] Das Weiße Band. (Ap)punti di riflessione by Ilaria D Angelo

[it] Ordine by Linda Bertelli e Massimiliano Tognetti

[it] Nessuno è innocente by Simone Pecetta

[it] Ve la do io l'Heimat... by Alessandro Alfieri

[en] Interview with Michael Haneke, by Darren Aronofsky by -

The Road

Australian director John Hillcoat's stately Western "The Proposition" (2005) was a stark, mystical story about a civilization's confrontation with its own barely repressed savagery. In mounting an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's austere apocalyptic novel "The Road", Hillcoat is working with a similar theme, and has found an even more suitable narrative context for the earlier film's end-of-a-world tone, eschewing only the dust browns and evening blues of "The Proposition" for the harsh whites, grays, and blacks appropriate to the wintry devastation of McCarthy's vision. Although Hillcoat thus comes well prepared to an adaptation of The Road, his film version nevertheless has the disadvantage of greeting legions of viewers, less familiar with "The Proposition", perhaps, than with McCarthy's novel, who may be suspicious of an attempt to transpose the book's rigorously affecting prose to the cinema. His effort is also coming on the successful heels of 2007's film version of McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", an Oscar winner and an intimidating benchmark by any measure.

[en] The Other Side of the Road by Steven Rybin

La teta asustada

La teta asustada is the second feature from Peruvian director Claudia Llosa. An international co-production, some of the funding for the film came from Spain where Llosa has been based for the past several years. Set in and around Lima, the drama grabbed headlines in February 2009 when an international jury headed by Tilda Swinton selected the film for the prestigious Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. The film has also picked up awards at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival and at the Montréal Festival of New Cinema. However, the film failed to win the main prize at the Lima Latin American Film Festival which gave rise to subsequent speculation about divisions among the jury there over the merit of the film’s folkloric elements.

[en] Golden Bears, Amulets, and Old Wives’ Tales? by Ryan Prout

Capitalism: A Love Story

Modern mediums of art and film have provided extraordinary opportunities to deliver messages of change, and at times, offering insight on how to do so. Without a doubt, as a connoisseur of cinematographic philosophy, Michael Moore has continually grappled with interpretations of a world around him; yet changing the collective perception of his viewers has never been a simple task.

[en] Love in the Time of Capitalism by Salvador Jimenez Murguia

I am legend

The end of the world is a topic that has gained extraordinary interest over the past decades. The thought of the nearing apocalypse is ever-present within popular culture, be it in the shape of traditional apocalyptic imagery related to Judaism, Christianity and Islam or special effects laden Hollywood scenarios composing the most picturesque versions of mankind’s end.

[en] I’m so lonesome I could cry? by Jana Toppe

28 days later

Each of the monstrous figures in the pantheon of classic American horror cinema—the vampire, the werewolf, and Frankenstein's creature—comes with a unique and distinct set of morphological and behavioral features. Take the vampire, for example, inscribed by Bela Lugosi's seminal performance into the larger text of popular culture, and thus immediately recognizable by his cape and tuxedo, the theatricality of his entrance, the courtliness of his speech, the more or less pronounced Eastern European accent, and the slight formality of his manners.

[en] On the Acceleration of the Undead by Steffen Hantke

[en] I’m so lonesome I could cry? by Jana Toppe

Saw

Since 9/11 and the proclamation of the “War on Terror”, a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits: Captivity, Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Reject, Turistas, or Wolf Creek – films that have since became synonymous with “torture porn”. But from the point of view of many directors, experts, and fans this “reel” horror reflects the “real” horror of our time: War, terrorism, economic decline, corporate greed, natural disasters, and social collapse.

[en] The connection between real and reel horror by Thomas Riegler

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Since 9/11 and the proclamation of the “War on Terror”, a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits: Captivity, Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Reject, Turistas, or Wolf Creek – films that have since became synonymous with “torture porn”. But from the point of view of many directors, experts, and fans this “reel” horror reflects the “real” horror of our time: War, terrorism, economic decline, corporate greed, natural disasters, and social collapse.

[en] The connection between real and reel horror by Thomas Riegler