One of my favorite thematic plot devices in the medium of film has been “inner story mirrors outer story” (especially across epistemic layers). Bryan Singer’s 1995 neo-noir classic The Usual Suspects is told through a series of flashbacks – and manages to use this thematic device to great advantage.

WARNING: There be spoilers here. If you’re one of the small group of people who haven’t actually watched The Usual Suspects yet, go watch it, then read on. Seriously. Don’t spoil this for yourself.

“The ability to generate novel, high variance outcomes is based on the availability of ideas. Idea availability can be constrained by local search, in which a limited set of options is considered according to confidently held beliefs. Broader search results in more idea variety and can identify ways to combine knowledge that challenge the belief that constrain innovative behavior. The paradox is that innovative experts also search locally to determine what rules to break, while nonexperts search locally and conform to those rules.” - Taylor, Greve (DOI: 10.2307/20159795)

The concept of story and character crossover/mashup to mix epistemological systems between comic, literary, and film universes is hardly a new phenomenon, but there has been a precipitous rise in its prevalence in popular culture over the past decade; I’m looking to explore the reasons behind the increase in popularity.

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.” - Salman Rushdie

Whether it be for the sake of temporally relevant cultural mores, attempting to refine or “reimagine” an existing work, or for other miscellaneous reasons, the act of changing existing artistic work has extended itself into the artistic medium of film.

This posits that it is destructive to the nature of the medium and the art inherent therein to endorse these kinds of changes.

Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage famously posited that the way something is presented to us is as important if not more important than the information itself. Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film, Pi, offers an excellent example of an auteur using the physical medium of film to help tell a story, rather than be hindered by it.

My 48 Hour Film Project team, Shoot the Moon Films, participated in the first Providence 48 Hour Horror Film Project last year, but had never entered the regular 48 hour festival in Providence, so we decided to give it a shot. This is my critical analysis of the processes used to create “Buck’s Bed & Breakfast” (IMDb).

WARNING: There are some details of the film which may function as spoilers, so don’t read below the fold if you haven’t seen it yet.

This argument originated in a rather unconventional way: it was dropped in my lap. The AV Club’s Scott Eric Kaufmann (or “SEK” for short) dropped this on me in a particularly interesting Facebook thread; in his words:

Because I just can’t with today anymore, I’m just going to say that Batman Begins is the greatest origin film ever, and let the brilliant Jeff Buchbinder defend my position. Did he ask me to do this? No. Did he want me to do this? Probably not. But can he do it? Without a doubt.

Challenge: accepted.

The Jenji Kohan series “Orange is the New Black” has been lauded for its portrayal of a Connecticut womens’ prison, including a cast of diversified characters. Less attention has been given to its excellent and intricate camerawork. I’m going to examine a scene from the last episode of the third season, entitled “Trust No Bitch”.

Warning: There be spoilers here (albiet relatively small ones).

Mad Men’s highly anticipated final season’s second half began with an interesting sequence which uses the expectations we have about the kind of man Donald Draper is to set up one of the best paraprosdokian scenes in the series.

(Apart from potentially spoiling this single sequence, this writeup does not give away any plot points from the last season.)

I wouldn’t normally associate the 1993 Schumacher film Falling Down with the Netflix/Marvel Daredevil series, especially since Schumacher didn’t astound me, given the source material he had to work with. However, there is a common thread between the two properties besides their antagonists’ initials – the descent of their characters and how they perceive themselves.

Before film became possible through Edison and the Lumière Brothers’ fantastical inventions, theater had reigned as the primary dramatic performance artform for thousands of years. Though sharing much of the same lineage, there are fundamental differences in the way that film and theater are conceived, planned, acted, and consumed.