Author Archives: Ika

Teaching Film Reception Studies: Modelling “Not Knowing” as a Fruitful Position

DJOYMI BAKER: Central to teaching my film genre course is an acknowledgement that film genres do not merely exist within films themselves, but rather the idea of a film genre also circulates through marketing (such as trailers and posters) and reception (such as reviews and audience responses). While audience research is beyond the scope ofContinue reading “Teaching Film Reception Studies: Modelling “Not Knowing” as a Fruitful Position”

‘& Juliet’: Violent delights

STEPHANIE RUSSO: & Juliet is a jukebox musical that utilises the many, many hits of the Swedish pop mega-producer Max Martin to reimagine the story of Romeo & Juliet. In this queer, feminist, modern and diverse retelling, Juliet does not die, but instead lives to go party in Paris and sing “…Baby, One More Time”.Continue reading “‘& Juliet’: Violent delights”

What Makes Reading Social: One Direction and Inline Comments

LUCY ROUSE: It’s the year 2013. Beyonce played the Superbowl, Apple released the iPhone 5s– with a revolutionary fingerprint scanner, Cronuts (the fusion of croissants and donuts, obviously) became a thing, and most importantly, the British boyband One Direction was dominating the charts. With a rabid fanbase, me included, One Direction firmly cemented their placeContinue reading “What Makes Reading Social: One Direction and Inline Comments”

Spontaneous applause: A reflection on film reception after COVID

DJOYMI BAKER: The lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the closure of cinema theatres, and for academics such as me, who would normally teach cinema studies on campus at universities, the temporary end to weekly film screenings for students on the big screen. Instead, our “film of the week” had to shift to streaming atContinue reading “Spontaneous applause: A reflection on film reception after COVID”

Thoughts on the ‘Firebrand’ trailer

STEPHANIE RUSSO: I have thought a lot about queens. I wrote a book about the most infamous English queen, Anne Boleyn, and as somebody who specialises in historical fiction, there is never any shortage of fiction about queens, so queens seem to creep in at the edges of everything I write. Queens are a handyContinue reading “Thoughts on the ‘Firebrand’ trailer”