Review and Commentary: Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
Not long ago while I was reflecting on the layers of significance underlying Avatar and its connection to fantasy, I first became aware, through Cinefantastique Online, of an article by Ethan Gilsdorf touching on these topics which he had written for Psychology Today. I was intrigued by the insights that Gilsdorf brought to the subject [...]
Clash of the Titans Remake: Contrasting CGI Creatures with Stop-Motion Artistry
Some of my favorite and formative influences of the fantastic as a child and teenager were the fantasy films of Ray Harryhausen. I was so taken by Harryhausen’s use of stop-motion animation to bring creatures to life that I saved my paper route money and purchased an 8mm camera with single frame capacity that allowed [...]
Avatar’s Success: Romantic Narratives and Dark Green Religion
Earlier this week various news outlets reported that Avatar has surpassed Titanic as the highest grossing film in history. (For a different take on its place in cinema box office see this article.) This tremendous response by viewing audiences might have gone the other direction. With all the pre-release hype coming from James Cameron, and [...]
Avatar’s Pandora Depresses Some Viewers: Utopia, Escape and the Realized Ideal
A recent article at CNN Entertainment presents some disturbing viewer reactions to James Cameron’s Avatar. In a piece titled “Audiences experience ‘Avatar’ blues,” Jo Piazza reports that some audience members have become seriously depressed and even suicidal after watching the film when contrasting the real-world situation of Earth with the beauty of the science fiction/fantasy [...]
Disney’s The Princess and the Frog: Cartoon Fantasy and Social Reflection
I haven’t seen Walt Disney’s The Princess and the Frog movie yet, but living in a neighborhood with young families many of them have, and they seem to have enjoyed it. The television advertisements for the film make me a little wary since it is supposedly the best Disney cartoon since The Lion King. But [...]
AVATAR: Probing Beyond Visuals to Culture and Identity
My latest article for Cinefantastique Online is now available at this link, a review and commentary on AVATAR. Following is an excerpt:
In regards to Na’vi religion, some commentators have referred to it as pantheism, but this is technically inaccurate. The Na’vi believe that Eywa, the divine “All Mother,” is connected to and in some sense [...]
AVATAR May Deliver Digital Real Deal
In a previous post I’ve shared my skepticism about the ability of James Cameron’s soon-to-be-released Avatar to live up to the director’s hype. I should probably have more faith in a cinematic visionary who has served up science fiction icons like Terminator 2 and Aliens, not to mention the romantic tragedy and blockbuster Titanic. But [...]
Millennial Mythmaking
One of the great things about having a website like this is discovering people engaged in the same kinds of reflections on the fantastic in pop culture that I am involved in. It gets even better when I get to develop relationships with these people, and then discuss their thinking.
This is the case with the [...]
WIRED Interview with Guillermo del Toro: Fantasy, Horror and the Future of Film
A friend who is aware of my passion for the fantastic, and that Guillermo del Toro is one of my heroes in this field, passed along a link to a recent article and brief interview with the film director. The article appears in WIRED MAGAZINE 17.06 from May 22, 2009. The piece is by Scott Brown, [...]
Joshua Bellin: A Tale of Two Kongs
Previously I interviewed Joshua Bellin, author of Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), where he interacted critically with various fantasy films. While horror and science fiction films have received a lot of critical analysis, this has not been the case with fantasy films. Thankfully, Bellin moves beyond this in order to [...]
