Journals @ KPU (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
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Hockey and Horror: An Illustrated Analysis
Get PDFThis article is an illustrated analysis of Stephen Campanelli’s film Indian Horse (2017)
How Do Periods Affect the Perception of Tone in Text Messages?
No full textThe increased use of computer mediated communication (CMC) in the present time prompted our research to verify if the use of a period at the end of a sentence affects the perception of the tone of the text message. We hypothesized that text messages ending with a period would be perceived as more passive-aggressive compared to text messages without a period by college-aged students. We used two groups of participants where the control group was presented with text messages ending in a period and the experimental group was presented with text messages ending without a period. Using an independent samples t-test, we found a significant difference between the two groups, in the direction of our hypothesis
West Side Story: Characterizing the “Bad Guy” Through Color Subconscious
Get PDFIn both the original Broadway (1957) and Hollywood (1961) versions of West Side Story, costume designer Irene Sharaff utilized a practical, historical and cultural approach to costumes of rival gangs the Jets and Sharks. The Anglo Jets are depicted in colors of blue, yellow, and khaki while the Puerto Rican Sharks are shown in red, black, grey, and purple. Though in opposition to one another on the color wheel, a more complicated visual association of “good” and “bad” is created by this color split. Creating a visual binary along the lines of light colors and dark colors the color split furthers’ the semiotic connotations of good and bad. Although the film focuses on society’s clash along racial lines, the narrative itself appears to avoid establishing which gang is “right” and instead pointing to every persons’ festering hate. Yet, West Side Story’s (Jerome Robbin and Robert Wise, 1961) mise-en-scene works in contradiction to the core message of the film by reinforcing white “goodness” and the Puerto Rican Sharks as “bad” advancing prejudice tendencies
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: Adaptation Choices and Their Effects on Alternative Lifestyles and Acceptance
Get PDFIn this article, I argue that in the film, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, director Angela Robinson makes directorial choices that highlight positive aspects of alternative lifestyles, as well as showing support for the LGBTQ+ community. I discuss how her choices change the representation of the historical figures portrayed in Jill Lepore’s book The Secret History of Wonder Woman to elicit empathy for the characters in the film and their lifestyle choices. She does this with using specific elements of mise en scene such as lighting, framing, costuming, and acting styles
Locating the Sublime Between Movement and Action: The Cinema of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne; Sublime; Kenneth Burke.
No full textThis paper locates and examines the sublime moments that emerge from two films written and directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne— L’ Enfant (The Child, 2005) and Le Gamin au Vélo (The Kid with the Bike, 2011). The analysis will reveal a new type of cinematic sublime by employing Kenneth Burke’s dramatism and specifically the Act/Purpose ratio. In this new cinematic sublime, ordinary movements become acts of transition and change. The cumulative effect of these moments is a hard-fought moral and spiritual expansion that exists in the present, the here and the now. Through movement and act the sublime emerges as an interaction of levels of existence, united and visible at the same time, giving a new perspective to an otherwise ordinary event that culminates in a “moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to the aim . . . that the soul becomes” (Bloom 153). Still frames from the selected films will be used to support the thesis. The selected still film frames will be presented like citations of lines from poetry or excerpts from a narrative text. The sublime moments that emerge from these films highlight a deep vulnerability and resiliency that is the human condition. Additionally, this essay will focus on and reference Francois Lyotard’s interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s idea of the dynamic sublime where “in the circumstance, there is ‘something’ that leaves thought dumbfounded even as it exalts thought” (Lessons on the Analytic 68). Lyotard describes this “something” further as a “differend.” “The differend cannot be resolved. But it can be felt as such, as a differend. This is the sublime feeling” ( 234). A differend, generally speaking, is a conflict between two or more parties/ideas that cannot be equitably resolved. The Dardenne brothers’ work is unique in that it creates a new cinematic sublime as an interaction of levels of existence, united, felt, and visible at the same time, giving a new perspective to otherwise ordinary acts. This new perspective allows for ordinary acts to become agents for transition and change
Confinement and Duplicity: Mise-en-scène in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express
Get PDFMurder on the Orient Express provides an example of Sir Kenneth Branagh’s deliberate choice to involve the audience members as active participants in the cinematic experience through his use of mise-en-scène, including camera movement and angles, costuming, and set design. In the scene in which the detective Hercule Poirot reveals the news to his fellow passengers that there has been a murder on the train and that someone on the train must be the murderer, all of these elements appear as Branagh creates a sense of confinement and immediacy, enclosing the audience with Poirot and his fellow passengers on the train and establishing them as participants in the action.
 
Is Truehope’s EMPowerplus Multivitamin Supplement Effective? A Critical Analysis of the Research
Get PDFTruehope is a company that formulated EMPowerplus, a multivitamin and mineral supplement. The company states that the supplement is the most researched in the world with 34 publications. It claims that EMPowerplus is proven to be effective for a variety of mental health disorders. To ascertain whether such an extraordinary claim is accurate, I critically examined all the published journal articles pertaining to the supplement. Overall, I found that the overwhelming majority of the studies had significant flaws and were too weak and poorly done to substantiate Truehope's claim about the supplement's effectiveness. It is concluded that the people of Truehope are engaging in pseudoscience and should modify their statements about their products to be more honest and accurate. It is hoped that through this paper consumers will learn to cherish the scientific method and strive to apply it by thinking critically when they come across products with extraordinary claims, in order to distinguish items that are evidence-based from those that are not, and to avoid being potentially scammed
Decadence and Decay in Paul Morrissey’s Blood for Dracula (1974)
Get PDFPaul Morrissey’s Blood for Dracula aka Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1974) is awash with allusions to vampire lore and B-movie aesthetics. Yet, camouflaged beneath these aesthetics lies a perverse and melancholy message. In the disarmingly simple opening scene of Blood for Dracula, Morrissey employs a heightened artificiality and a depiction of decadence that foreshadows the downfall and the ultimate death of Dracula at the film’s conclusion. Through analysis of the mise-en-scène of this opening scene, in which Dracula applies cosmetics before a mirror, it will be discussed how Morrissey utilizes a heightened artificiality to signify Dracula’s decay, and to ambivalently symbolize the corruption and decline of the European aristocracy
Cinematic Isolation and Entrapment in The Lobster
Get PDFThis essay examines the elements of film form in the final scene of the movie The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015) to illustrate how they contribute to the meaning of the film