SlamDunk! Studios

The novel White Noise and the film Pulp Fiction are postmodern texts that utilise a “[montage] of tones, styles, and voices” to examine the “terror and wild humour as the essential tone of contemporary America” (Lentricchia). Both texts employ pastiche and intertextuality to explore the consumerist, media-saturated... [READ MORE]

The Japanese anime film Akira reflects a “love-hate attitude toward monsters” that suggests ambivalence about the future of Japan (Napier). This essay will explore this interpretation of the film, drawing on Japan’s rise as an industrial nation in the aftermath of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. It will examine Japan’s role as... [READ MORE]

In The Killer, the tendency for violence to coincide with episodes of heightened emotion reflects wider social tensions in Hong Kong between 1984 and 1997. This essay will discuss how the film responds to Hong Kong’s political climate at the time of its release; examining religious themes as well as... [READ MORE]

Almost a decade after the introduction of “talkies”, Modern Times was released as largely a silent film. The only audible dialogue (apart from the singing waiters at the end) comes from machines, like radios and television screens. Why do you think Chaplin chose to keep most of the film silent? And how does it relate... [READ MORE]

I remember the grey ships colliding over the shoulder of jagged ridges Tongues of flame dripping over mountain tops Webs of light painting the frantic skies Echoes of life passing long into the abyss Only a vacuous horizon approaches now Consuming all of my craft Sneering with such shocking cruelty A dark, passionless thought... [READ MORE]

The early decades of the twentieth century were marked by significant challenges to, and anxiety about, traditional definitions of gender, which were reflected in the literature and art of the time. This essay will discuss the treatment of gender in Mother Courage and Her Children (Brecht 1939). It will focus of the portrayal of femininity... [READ MORE]

This report will outline what is meant by the terms “high culture” and “popular culture”, comparing and contrasting their relevance to Asian cinema. In defining these terms, it will also refer to the film Seven Samurai. High culture refers to a set of artistic products held in the highest esteem by an elite... [READ MORE]

Resident Evil 5 is tricky game to critique. On its own, it's a perfectly enjoyable and engaging action horror game. The visuals look superb, and the level of detail in the environments really helps immerse you in the storyline. The enemies are creepy and suitably threatening (as zombies should be), and the soundtrack creates a real sense of... [READ MORE]

A Bittersweet Life (or Dalkomhan insaeng) is a South Korean gangster flick that manages to transcend its own genre. Like John Woo’s The Killer, it is firmly routed in revenge/action territory, but just when you think you’ve got the film pegged, it springs into these moments of pure... [READ MORE]

Has anyone noticed that department stores like K-Mart and Target refuse to hook up their video game displays using anything higher than composite cables. The Wii and 360 don't seem to suffer too badly, but if you blow up video from a PS3 onto a widescreen LCD, using composite cables, then things are going to look nasty. I was playing... [READ MORE]

“Stay together!” Sole yells out over the vicious war-cries of the Marlock host. “Shield’s locked forthright on either side of the first rank! Shield’s locked headstrong on each successive rank. Flanks stick close to your fellow soldier and guard him with your life!” Sole peers out over the rim of his broad iron shield and glimpses... [READ MORE]

The Celebration is the first entry in the Danish film movement, Dogma 95. Film-makers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg crafted the Dogme Manifesto (or “Vow of Chastity”) in an effort to “cleanse cinema of an obsessive concern for technique” and “rehabilitate a cinema which foregrounded the... [READ MORE]

That's a tricky one. Obviously GoldenEye 007 is the more influential game, as it created many of the conventions of modern day first-person shooters, and practically revolutionised the genre, but being a 12 year old game, it holds up nowhere near as well as Metroid Prime does. GoldenEye has a brilliant multiplayer and an engaging... [READ MORE]

Now that we’re in the homestretch of 2010, a sad thought occurs to me. There is very little to get excited about on the horizon for the Wii. Apart from the new Donkey Kong and Zelda (which do look brilliant), I'm kinda apathetic to every upcoming Wii title. Epic Mickey could be good, but the E3 demonstration was pretty... [READ MORE]

The real disappointment in this game is the script. It is horrendous, on a writing level and on an acting level. I don't know whether the dialogue was lost in translation or something, but it is just excruciating to sit through this melodramatic mess. Characters repeat the same lines over and... [READ MORE]

This question feeds in directly into Victorian attitudes, both through the minds of the author and his characters. As educated, white males Doyle and Holmes seem to belittle virtually every other human experience. Though they rely on the lower classes for tasks of manual labour, neither mans treats them with very much... [READ MORE]

The film Rashomon challenges us to question the reliability of verbal narration and the assumption that what is seen must be believed. This essay will examine the question – are words or images more credible in Rashomon? We will begin by analyzing the visual and verbal narrative... [READ MORE]

So I got the Metroid Prime Trilogy for Christmas last year. I beat Prime 1 (one of my fave games of all time) in about 7 days, with 100% scans/items). And then moved on with great anticipation to Echoes (which I had never played). Sadly though, I didn't find it nearly as engaging an experience. It took me almost a month of playing... [READ MORE]

The theme of poverty and social class is central to the plot of Oliver Twist. Based on Dickens’ own experience and context, the novel depicts typical life in Victorian times. England had always been a country divided by class and social status, though that’s never been more the case than it was in the 19th Century. Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a... [READ MORE]

This may be a bit of an old topic, but according to Wikipedia, the PC games Deus Ex, released in 2000, accurately predicted the destruction of the Twin Towers at the hands of terrorists. The image of the towers was apparently removed from the game due to texture limitations, but the idea of their destruction in the near future was still written... [READ MORE]