James Bond movies are a total entertainment package. They contain action, suspense and an element of romance. In the film Golden Eye, all these elements are very well integrated into a cohesive and coherent plot. Two features have particularly caught my attention. These are its charismatic hero and well laid out plot. Pierce Brosnan fits…
Category: Media Studies
Propaganda Analysis: Apparatus of Lies – Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda (1990-2003)
Almost every theoretical type of propaganda was employed by Saddam Hussein. Some of the prominent types are agitation, white, black and vertical propaganda. As the example of mass funeral of dead babies illustrates, Saddam intended to appeal to the emotions of the audience, circumventing deliberation on fact and logic. It served to agitate the minds…
History of Art through its major exponents: Matisse, Wassily Kandinsy, Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Max Ernst
1. BBC Matisse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APaXLXAVkmQ Matisse was an artist who followed a rigorous work ethic. This is true even toward the fag-end of his career, when he conceived and created his monumental chapel. It is ironic that his architecture should garner such popularity, when for most part of his career he gained fame as a painter….
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq: A brief review
Michel Houellebecq has the distinction of being the best known contemporary French litterateur across the globe. Houellebecq had never hesitated to call a spade a spade in his works of art, be it his novels or poems. The latest offering Serotonin is almost prophetic in that it deals with a phenomenon in France that is…
How do Amélie and Ikiru glean the meaning of life from within?
Both the films, Amelie and Ikiru, are in essence about individuals. The characters of Amélie Poulain and Kanji Watanabe negotiate and overcome their share of life’s travails. But there is great variation with respect to the nature and complexion of their challenges. Amélie’s life was not as precarious and grave as Watanabe’s was poised toward…
Reflection on Slingshot! An American Hot Rod Foundation Film
The 30 minute documentary film on the early years of drag racing is concise and yet informative. The film begins by proclaiming how men have always competed for feats of speed, starting with horse-back races to later automobiles. It shows how drag racing came into being on the back of advancements in automobile technology and…
How Netflix’ Bird Box turned into an online sensation:
With horror writ large into its premise, Netflix’ novel cinematic offering Bird Box has garnered controversy and commercial success in equal measure. The production team attracted a fair share of criticism for timing the release coinciding with Christmas festivities. But if the proof lies in the pudding, then these factors did not matter in the…
Democracy and the Media: The relationship between Public Relations industry and democratic process.
The four-part documentary series The Century of the Self captures the rise of one of the definitive industries of the 20th century, namely, Public Relations (PR). The term Public Relations is somewhat of a euphemism, for far from maintaining healthy relations with consumers the industry actually acts against their interests. It is true that the…
The Qualia Problem by Frank Jackson
At the centre of Frank Jackson’s articulation of the Qualia Problem is the claim that “one can have all the physical information without having all the information there is to have”. In the case of sensory experience, for example, while all sorts of comprehensive data could be recorded in a said event, there is yet…
How the ‘fuku’ is an obstacle to happiness for characters in Oscar Wao and how they try to solve this issue?
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has attained both popular and critical acclaim. The novel is a melange of several interesting stylistic features. It brings social history, science fiction and magical fantasy all together in an experimental narrative form. The copious use of footnotes and imaginative asides are also notable. The novel is also…