Popular movies and TV shows are not merely forms of entertainment, they come into being at a particular time in the history of a civilization, and often mirror its preoccupations. Be it technological advances, visions of the future, or power politics, they need to trigger some familiar sentiment in the popular awareness, to become hallmarks of popular culture. For example, th...

Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill is made to be seen in one sitting since only thus can the whole bloody affair be fully grasped, as what it truly is. Vol. 1 is highly aestheticized, we see the Bride on a killing spree seeking vengeance, eliminating the Deadly Vipers under Bill’s command. Vol. 2 ties the whole story together in a fashion the point of wh...

The purpose of this reflection on Faramir and Chani, as they are portrayed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s and Frank Herbert’s novels, and how their role is changed in the films made by Peter Jackson and Denis Villeneuve, is not to lament over those changes. It is to show how they reflect different languages of a novel and cinema, what is gained, and what is lost. In Tolkien’s The Lo...