I Miss My Grammy.

Day 110

Hey all, Grammys tonight!!! In honor, thought I'd do Grammy-themed nails. :-D



I used OPI Alpine Snow Matte as a base for all nails with OPI for Sephora What's a Tire Jack? Matte for the musical notes. For the grammy, I used a mix of Zoya Angelina and Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme for the base, China Glaze 2030 from Khrome Collection for the metal part of the grammy, with Zoya Angelina and China Glaze White on White to shade and highlight the metal.Two coats of Seche Vite top coat to top everything off.

Who do you want to win tonight?

The Results Are In...

I was seriously surprised with the amount of entries I got- so many of you did the limit of 5!! I absolutely loved seeing everyone's interpretations of the designs from this site, and plan on updating this post with some of the entries when I'm not in a rush like I am today... :-/ (check back tomorrow probably!!)

Ok, on to the winners, which were picked by a random number generator from all the submissions!

Prize #1 goes to: Krista, this was the design that she submitted:



Prize #2 goes to Susan Holak, this is the design that she submitted:



Prize #3 goes to Bonnie Yang, this is her submission:



So, a big fat thank you to all of you that entered the contest- your designs were charming, fun, and well-executed!! I'm so glad to have such awesome readers!!!

And to those that entered, but didn't win, not to worry- I'll come up with another giveaway soon! :)

-Melissa


All the entries- alphabetically (CLICK TO ENLARGE):

It's in My Jeans...

Day 109

Ok, so in theory, these nails are fun and cool and shit, in practice, and let me tell you I PRACTICED, they didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. The process was to paint the nail the dark blue and when it was almost dry, press a piece of jean material onto the paint to leave an indentation that I would later paint with a lighter blue... like jeans? Not so much. lol every time I pressed the jean into the paint, it smeared, and I'd have to repaint the nail and start the process over. ARGH! :-P Anyway, I wasn't about to give up... and finally managed to get all 10 nails done, and mind you, they're not perfect, but I tried...thats what counts, right?!



I used Charlotte Russe nail polish in Rocker as a base, with the jeans pressed into it, and Essie Sag Harbor brushed with dry brush against the grooves from the jean. For the copper rivets, I used Urban Vibe nail polish in Charged from Wet Seal, for the seams, I used China Glaze Liquid Leather, and Diamond Cosmetics #319 Lemon Yellow Zest
for the stitching. For the Levi's tag, I used China Glaze Salsa with China Glaze White on White for the lettering.

Hope you like? :-P

Crimi-Nails.

Day 108

Something tells me I need to lay off the NCIS marathons... and CSI... and Criminal Minds... and... well you get the idea. I'm a crime show junkie. Today's nails are my simplest yet I think, but they're definitely one of my favorites. :-P



I used Sally Hansen All the White Stuff as a base, with a mix of Zoya Dakota, Zoya Angelina, and China Glaze Salsa to get a blood color.

All I did to get this look is dab my fingertip in the red paints, blot on paper til I saw clear prints, then press my fingertip on the white nail. :-P Easy crime scene. :-D

Below the Waves Their Voice is Song, Above the Waves It Sounds So Wrong!

Day 107

No more nerd nails!! (at least for a while) I'm sure some of you are relieved!! :-P I guess this post COULD be considered nerdy, if not only the title, since it's a Harry Potter reference to the merpeople. Anyway... Ever since I bought Hard Candy Break Up, I've totally thought it looked like fish scales, so naturally, last night, when I decided to do a mermaid theme, I HAD to use it, and I have to say, even though there's only a bit here and there, it looks like the light is reflecting off of the scales!



I used:

Thumb:

Sally Hansen Envy Frost (got at Dollar Tree- can't find a link to purchase any online!!) :( as a base, with Hard Candy Break Up over it, http://www.artofbeauty.com/scrpt/scr.dll/Item?Item=1869&brand=2&d=Zoya_Nail_Polish_|_Suvi applied with Konad Plate m57 for the scale lines, Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the belly, and Zoya Dea for the belly button. Zoya Envy was used for the waist. :)

Index:

Sally Hansen Funky Frost (another Dollar Tree purchase- and no online link to be found) as a base, Hard Candy Break Up over it, then with Sinful Colors What's Your Name sponged on the tips and a bit on the sides. For the scales, I used China Glaze DV8 applied with Konad Plate m57. Next, I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the belly, Zoya Dea for the belly button, and China Glaze Metallic Muse for the waist, which was also outlined with China Glaze Liquid Leather.

Middle:

Zoya Juno as a base with Zoya Savita matte sponged on the tip and sides, and Hard Candy Break Up on top of that. For the scales, I applied Zoya Pippa with Konad Plate m57. Next, I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the belly, Zoya Dea for the belly button, and OPI Parlez Vous OPI? for the waist, outlined in China Glaze Liquid Leather.

Ring:

MAC Phosphor as a base, with Urban Outfitters Orange 2 sponged on the tip and sides, and Hard Candy Break Up over that. For the scales, I mixed China Glaze Salsa and Urban Outfitters Orange 2 on Konad Plate m57. Next, I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the belly, Zoya Dea for the belly button, and Urban Outfitters Orange 2 outlined in China Glaze Salsa for the waist.

Pinky:

Zoya Jo as a base, with American Apparel Mount Royal sponged on the tip and sides, and Hard Candy Break Up over that. Next, I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the belly, Zoya Dea for the belly button, for the scales, I used China Glaze Millennium applied with Konad Plate m57, then used American Apparel Mount Royal for the waist, with China Glaze Liquid Leather for the lines.

Everything was topped off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat. :)

All Systems Go!

Day 106

Another Apple-inspired mani today- this one is for you old school Mac enthusiasts! (Yes, I know that it's the Finder icon, too, but it was originally the MAC OS logo... 8.1 baby!!) Yay for iPad!! :)



I used Essie Sag Harbor as a base, which I got on clearance at Ulta for $3, and I'm loving it, I think it'll get used lots in the future, it's just such a pretty color!!! For the other half of the logo, I used China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le, for the black lines, I used China Glaze Liquid Leather and for the dark blue lines, I used American Apparel Mount Royal, which is a perfect darker version of China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le. :-P I topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite top coat to get that new computer shine? :-P

Are you excited about the new iPad? Awesometacular.

Seeing through Avatar: Film Allegory 101

Links updated February 17

Two wounded men: an image of some of Avatar's polysemic screen layers...

"[F]or an allegory to be effective, there must remain some sense that it is actually an allegory" Jeffrey Sconce, Ludic Despair, January 3, 2010

"I'm analogizing race and species here because Cameron's space fable encourages me to do so with all the subtlety of a fry pan upside my head" Scott Eric Kaufman, Acephalous, December 20, 2009

Like/unlike (delete as appropriate) rather a lot of other spectators, Film Studies For Free's author very much enjoyed her recent absorbing encounter with James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar in 3D.

In fact, her immersion in the story-world of this film served to remind her -- in this, the age of more permanent film 'possession' (DVDs, downloads) -- that what we have always been purchasing with our cinema ticket, especially as regards a first-time film viewing, is a one-off and unrepeatable experience. 

Just as in the good old days of old-fashioned cinematic spectatorship, Avatar really has created the space for a thrilling, phenomenological ride. Thanks for the sense-memories, Mr Cameron. 

As for Avatar's plot, however, it is not so much absolutely fabulous as overwhelmingly fabular... Indeed, coming away from the cinema, it's very easy to understand the utter fascination, bordering on obsession, in reviews and discussions of Avatar, with the notion of the 'messages', 'allusions', 'analogies', 'parallels', and, especially, 'allegories' seemingly conveyed by Cameron's film. 

Here's a list, in a nice Na'vi blue, of ten of the 'allegories' most frequently detected by the reviews, together with direct links to an example or two (note: many more, online, allegory-reading reviews are listed further down the post): 

• A rainforest destruction allegory (e.g. Morningmayan, 'Pandora Lives in Us - The Allegory of Avatar' YouTube video essay) 

• A more general, "slash-and-burn extractive industries"/Neo-colonialist allegory (e.g. Neely, 'Avatar: an allegory of the West?'; 'Calder Williams, 'Mining the Unobtainable')  

• An even broader Gaia-hypothesis allegory (e.g. Rundkvist, 'Avatar and the Gaia Hypothesis'; North, 'Gaia and Dolls: James Cameron’s Avatar') 

• An allegory of the genocide and continued oppression of indigenous peoples (A) in the Americas by European/'post-European' colonialism (e.g. Monbiot, 'The Holocaust We Will Not See'; Andrew Patrick Nelson, 'Cowboys and avatars',) and (B) in Africa under the multinational slave trade (e.g. Free Republic comments thread)

• A White Messiah allegory (Huang, 'Avatar Review'; Brooks, 'The Messiah Complex'; Newitz, 'When will white people stop making movies like "Avatar"?'. But also see Bill the Lizard, 'What Does Avatar Tell Us About Masculinity and Disability?' for the opposite view) 

• A Postcolonial allegory (Tiso, 'Postcolonialicious') 

• An Iraq War/War on Terror allegory (Hoyle, 'War on Terror backdrop to James Cameron's Avatar'; Lafleur, 'Avatar: A Critical Assessment'; Nolte, ' ...Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Is a Big, Dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy'; Fisher, 'They killed their mother: Avatar as ideological symptom',) 

• A more general American foreign-policy allegory (e.g. Sconce, 'Avatard', Gardiner, 'Avatar: the most expensive piece'...'; Nolte, ' ...Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Is a Big, Dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy') 

• An allegory of the cinema (e.g. Sconce, 'Avatard')

• A related allegory to the latter: of cultural understanding through total immersion (e.g. Cohen, 'Next-Generation 3-D Medium of ‘Avatar’ Underscores Its Message')
  

The reviews are frequently (if by no means always) characterized by a sense that the above allegories are 'inherent' and obvious. Evidently, such critical moves obviate the need for much, if any, detailed discussion as to how we read, or do not read, particular allegories in particular films.

This is absolutely fine, of course, for journalistic, or, indeed, any "instant impression" reviews, based as they invariably are on just one viewing of the film. Taking on complex questions, such as how Avatar's subtexts might have found their expression through their particular "patterns of metaphorical substitution" (Jeff Smith, p. 1 [pdf]), is not their usual purpose - Jeffrey Sconce's hilarious demolition of some of these fabular processes in his own rapid response to the film notwithstanding ('Before racing the hare, the tortoise does not stop to opine, “By participating in this unlikely contest, I hope to teach you some important lessons about hubris, determination, complacency and the work ethic."').

But, being an earnestly scholarly blog, Film Studies For Free is not happy with any dearth of understanding on this earth. So, as heroic Jake Sully might also say, it's 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more', as FSFF humbly proffers the following notes on film allegory, together with a handy and extensive listing of online and openly accessible resources on Avatar and allegory, and also of (generally, more scholarly ones) on allegory in film.

The evidence base for allegorical interpretation?

"Allegory -- from the Greek, allos, "other" and agoreuein, "to speak in public" -- figuratively unites two orders, one of which is shown and the other of which is kept out of view, establishing relationships of resemblance between them such that the reader or spectator may construe meaning over and above the literal. Allegory stages the relationship between personal and political, private and public, which is often central to the production of political meaning in art." Joanna Page, Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), p. 182

Film allegory paradoxically requires spectators to take up a particular vantage point from which a story "kept out of view" (to use Page's words) can clearly be seen. As Ismail Xavier writes in Allegories of Underdevelopment, in the case of allegory, it's a particular 'narrative texture [that] places the spectator in [this] analytical posture' (FSFF's emphasis).

This 'texture' -- including repeated or repetitious story-elements, such as, sometimes, seemingly gratuitous features of characterization, dialogue (e.g. "shock and awe"), etc. -- eventually provokes in the spectator the question "why are you telling me that when you are supposed to be (necessarily and literally) telling me this (direct) story?"

The salience of the elements and their patterning, together with their hermeneutic journey from 'unnecessary' to 'necessary', are essential in the triggering of "our operations of decoding". This latter phrase comes from cultural theorist Fredric Jameson. In his many discussions of allegory, Jameson makes clear that allegorical reading is a kind of pattern recognition, involving our imaginative capacities.

For Jameson, political and historical facts and realities external to films find themselves

inscribed within the internal intrinsic experience of the film in what Sartre in a suggestive and too-little known concept in his Psychology of Imagination calls the analogon: that structural nexus in our reading or viewing experience, in our operations of decoding or aesthetic reception, which can then do double duty and stand as the substitute and the representative within the aesthetic object of a phenomenon on the outside which cannot in the very nature of things be 'rendered' directly. [Fredric Jameson, 'Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film', College English, Vol. 38, No. 8, Mass Culture, Political Consciousness and English Studies (Apr., 1977), pp. 843-859, p. 858(pdf) (hyperlinks added by FSFF)]

Allegorical recognition works best when a film's patterns of allusiveness (Jameson's 'structural nexus') offer ‘clear configurations for the essential pieces of its game'; when there's a 'graphic isolation of the [allegorical] elements put into relation’, as Xavier again puts it (p. 20): 'The greater the pedagogic impulse of the allegory, the more unmistakable is [the signalling]' (Xavier, p. 16).
 
This is probably why Avatar, with what many critics of the film have noted are its 'cardboard cutout' characters and at times 'clunky dialogue', has provoked so much discussion about its allegoricalness: the excessive signalling of its 'other stories' is, indeed, completely unmistakable. 
 
But that doesn't explain the proliferation of these stories, or why there is complete lack of agreement on what the film's 'principal allegory' is, other than Avatar's own Unobtainium, perhaps.
 
As Joanna Page continues in her theoretical exploration of allegory, it

marks a gap between representation and referent, the essential otherness of two planes of signification that is precisely the quality that permits them to be aligned in the production of meaning. Reflexivity, on the other hand, enacts a conflation of the two and a collapse of possible distinctions between them. Joanna Page, Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009), p. 182, 189

A polysemic text par excellence, as befits one designed to draw in the largest possible global audience, Avatar literally cannot afford to convey only one allegory, to provide only two vantage-points for its stories, because it is a reflexive film -- not an especially complex one, but a reflexive one nonetheless.

As such, it chooses to conflate and collapse many of the distinctions between its literal stories and its 'hidden' ones. In other words, nothing much is really hidden, everything is seen through: indeed, Avatar veritably lets it all hang out. 

In one of the best critical assessments of Cameron's film so far, Jörg Heiser writes

Avatar is an amalgam, as if in a strange dream, of many of these kinds of allusions and associations, and you can look at it being very clever[ly] calculated to capture the widest possible audience globally, playing many cards at once; but by way of the very same strategy, it also could be seen as capturing the widest possible 3-D panorama shot of collective anxieties about the future (ecology, war, loss of social love and security etc.). And in the same contradictory way, it is this all-encompassing ambition that is interesting about it, but also what is off-putting." Jörg Heiser, Editor's Blog, Frieze Magazine, January 26, 2010

On Avatar and Allegory: 

• Bill the Lizard, 'What Does Avatar Tell Us About Masculinity and Disability?', Open Salon,December 23, 2009 
• David Brooks, 'The Messiah Complex', New York Times, January 8, 2010
• Evan Calder Williams, 'Mining the Unobtainable', Socialism and/or Barbarism,January 24, 2010
  
• Adam Cohen, 'Next-Generation 3-D Medium of ‘Avatar’ Underscores Its Message', New York Times, December 25, 2009 
• Ross Douthat, 'Heaven and Nature', New York Times, December 21, 2009 
• Gregg Egan, 'Avatar Review', GreggEgan.net, December 20, 2009 
• Thomas Eddlem, 'Avatar: A Visually Stunning and Perfect Historical Allegory' The new American, December 21, 2009 
• Jim Emerson, 'Avatar, the French New Wave and the morality of deep-focus (in 3-D)', Scanners, February 10, 2010
• Blake Eskin, David Denby and Richard Brody, 'Review of Avatar', New Yorker: Out Loud, January 4, 2010, Podcast (Mp3) 
• Mark Fisher, 'They killed their mother: Avatar as ideological symptom', k-punk, January 6, 2010 
• Nile Gardiner, 'Avatar: the most expensive piece of anti-American propaganda ever made', The Telegraph, December 25, 2009 
• Jörg Heiser, 'Extraterrestrial Irish Pub Type', Editor's Blog, Frieze Magazine, January 26, 2010 
• Ben Hoyle, 'War on Terror backdrop to James Cameron's Avatar', The Australian, December 11, 2009
• Adrian Ivakhiv, 'Avatar: Panthea v. the Capitalist War Machine', immanence blog, December 21, 2009 
  
• Adrian Ivakhiv, 'Avatar's global affects', immanence blog, February 15, 2010
• Huang Zhangjin (黄章晋) - Avatar review cited by Andy Yee, 'China: Bloggers' Reviews of Avatar' Global Voices Online, January 11, 2010 
• Dave Itzkoff, 'You Saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass Those Glasses!', New York Times,January 20, 2010 
• Henry Jenkins, 'Five Ways to Read Avatar', Confessions of an Aca-Fan, February 1, 2010
• Boris Johnson, 'Stop pining for life on Pandora and come back to planet Earth', The Telegraph, January 25, 2010 
• Shaun Joseph, 'A look at Avatar's Achilles' heel', SocialistWorker.org, January 12, 2010 
• Daniel Kasman, 'Avatarcraft', The Auteurs: Notebook, January 17, 2010 
• Scott Eric Kaufman, 'Intentions be damned, Avatar is racist (as is praying for and/or to "JaMarcus Manning")', Acephalous, December 20, 2009 
• Roz Kaveney, 'Avatar', Strange Horizons, January 6, 2010 
• Glenn Kenny, 'James Cameron's "Avatar"', The Auteurs: Notebook, December 11, 2009 
• Steve Lafleur, 'Avatar: A Critical Assessment', Lafleur's Film Blog, December, 2009
• 
China Miéville,'Why the Na’vi Are Making Me Blue', Speakeasy, January 13, 2010 
• George Monbiot, 'The Holocaust we will not see', The Guardian, January 11, 2010 
• Nicholas Neely, 'Avatar: an allegory of the West?', The Goat Blog, January 12, 2010 
• Andrew Patrick Nelson, 'Cowboys and avatars', AP at the Movies, January 3, 2010
• Annalee Newitz, 'When will white people stop making movies like "Avatar"?', IO9, December 18, 2009 
• Annalee Newitz, 'Is Avatar Too Realistic For Its Own Good', IO9, January 21, 2010 
• John Nolte, ' REVIEW: Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Is a Big, Dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy', Andrew Breibart Presents Big Hollywood, December 11, 2009 
• Dan North, 'Gaia and Dolls: James Cameron’s Avatar', Spectacular Attractions, December 23, 2009 
• Dan North, ''Digesting Avatar', Spectacular Attractions, January 6, 2010
• Bert Olivier, 'The ecopolitics of Avatar', Thought Leader, January 25, 2010 
• Bert Olivier, 'Avatar (Take Two)', Thought Leader, February 8, 2010
• Jo Piazza, 'Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues', CNN Entertainment, January 11, 2010 
• John Podhoretz, 'Avatarocious', WeeklyStandard.com, December 28, 2009 
• Andrew Price, 'Does Avatar's Political Agenda Matter?', GOOD Blog, January 16, 2010 
• Bob Rehak, 'Watching Avatar', Graphic Engine, December 30, 2009 
• Richard Roeper, ''Avatar' is no 'Star Wars' -- or leftist allegory', Chicago Sun-Times, January 7, 2010 
• Martin Rundkvist, 'Avatar and the Gaia Hypothesis', Aardvarchaeology, January 16, 2010 
• Jeffrey Sconce, 'Avatard', Ludic Despair, January 3, 2010
• Mayank Shekhar, 'D’ya really need this review?', Hindustan Times, December 18, 2009 
• Giovanni Tiso, 'Postcolonialicious', Bat, Bean, Beam, January 25, 2010 
• Chuck Tryon, 'Avatar', The Chutry Experiment, January 17, 2010 
• Jeffrey Weiss, 'Politics and Religion on Pandora: Why 'Avatar' is Crummy Allegory', Politics Daily, December 21, 2009 
• Armond White, 'Blue In the Face: James Cameron delivers dumb escapism with his expensive special effects in "Avatar"', New York Press, December 15, 2009
• Evan Calder Williams, 'Mining the Unobtainable', Socialism and/or Barbarism,January 24, 2010
• Andy Yee, 'China: Bloggers' Reviews of Avatar' Global Voices Online, January 11, 2010 
• Leela Yellesetty, 'Avatar is a great starting point', SocialistWorker.org, January 15, 2010 
• Steven Zeitchik, ''Avatar': Red-state politics + blue aliens = box-office green', January 5, 2010

On Film Allegory:

• Stephanie Baric, 'Yugoslav War Cinema: Shooting A Nation Which No Longer Exists', MA Thesis, Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 2001
• Felicity Collins, 'History, Myth and Allegory in Australian Cinema', Trames, 2008, 12(62/57), 3, 276–286  
• Felicity Collins, 'Historical fiction and the allegorical truth of colonial violence in The Proposition', Cultural Studies Review, March 2008  
• Felicity Collins, 'Michelle Langford, Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter, Bristol: Intellect Books, 2006', Screening the Past, Issue 23, 2008 
• Sérgio Dias Branco,"Dead Inside: Allegory and Subjectivity in Abel Ferrara's The Addiction", originally published in Renegade Visions: Films and Filmmakers that Defy Popular Cinema, ed. Matthew Edwards. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010 
• Catherine Grant, 'Questions of national and transnational film aesthetics, ethics, and politics in Costa Gavras's Missing (1982)', Paper at Study day on 'The National/Transnational in Hispanic and Latin American Film and the Telenovela' , Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, November 17, 2007
  
• Catherine Grant, 'Still Moving Images: Photographs of the Disappeared in Film about the "Dirty War" in Argentina', in: Phototextualities: Intersections of Photography and Narrative, eds. Alex Hughes and Andrea Noble (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), pp. 63-86 
• Catherine Grant, 'Giving up Ghosts: Eliseo Subiela's Hombre mirando al sudeste and No te mueras sin decirme a dónde vas', Changing Reels: Latin American Cinema against the Odds, ed. Rob Rix and Roberto Rodríguez-Saona (Leeds: Leeds Iberian Papers - Trinity and All Saints/University of Leeds, 1997), pp. 89-120  
• Mike Ingham, 'History in the Making: Allegory, history, fiction and Chow Yun-fat in the 1980s Hong Kong films Hong Kong 1941 (Dir. Po Chieh-leong) and Love in a Fallen City (Dir. Ann Hui)', Screening the Past, Issue 24, 2009  
• Fredric Jameson, 'Class and Allegory in Contemporary Mass Culture: Dog Day Afternoon as a Political Film', College English, Vol. 38, No. 8, Mass Culture, Political Consciousness and English Studies (Apr., 1977), pp. 843-859  
• Michelle Langford, 'Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema by Negar Mottahedeh', Senses of Cinema, Issue 52, 2009 
• Ryan Lizardi, 'Repelling the Invasion of the "Other": Post-Apocalyptic Alien Shooter Videogames Addressing Contemporary Cultural Attitudes', Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture. 2009; 3 (2), p. 295-308 
• Bernhard Malkmus and Ian Cooper, 'Introduction: "The Third" and Modernity', in Third Agents: Secret Protagonists of the Modern Imagination, Edited by Ian Cooper, Ekkehard Knörer and Bernhard Malkmus (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008)  
• Lúcia Nagib,'Reframing Utopia: Contemporary Brazilian Cinema at the Turn of the Century', P: Portuguese Cultural Studies 0 Winter 2006   
• M.A. Ouellette, 'I Hope You Never See Another Day Like This': Pedagogy & Allegory in 'Post 9/11' Video Games. Game Studies 8.1, 2008  
• Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 'State of Horror: the Films of José Mojica Marins and the Brazilian Dictatorship', Tropical Gothi: Latin American Gothic Manifestations, March 9, 2009  
• Jeff Smith, 'Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Christian?: The Strange History of The Robe As Political Allegory', Film Studies, Issue 7, Winter 2005  
• Øyvind Vågnes, 'Inside the Zapruder Museum',‘Show/Tell: Relationships between Text, Narrative and Image’ Working Papers on Design 2 (2007)  
• Maurizio Viano, 'Life is Beautiful: Reception, Allegory, and Holocaust Laughter', Jewish Social Studies 5.3 (1999) 47-66 
• Ester Võsu, Ene Kõresaar, Kristin Kuutma, 'Mediation of Memory: Towards Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Current Memory Studies - Preface to the special issue of Trames', Trames, 2008, 12(62/57), 3, 243–263 

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American Apparel Polish UPDATE FROM AMERICAN APPAREL REP!!

This letter was received in response to my email to Nichole Williams of American Apparel setting the record straight:

"The reason for the recall is because after receiving a few reports of bottles breaking, we made the internal decision to do a voluntary recall of the bottles on both a retail and public level.

We chose this small US manufacturer to produce our nail polish because we support their business model and have a fondness for family who runs it. However, one of the realities of all manufacturing is first-run glitches. We worked all last week with the manufacturer to make the improvements necessary for the second run. Another reason we sought out a US-based company is so we would be able make changes and now, we can investigate what went wrong as quickly as possible. We still believe in the factory we're working with and the new polish will be in stores within the next two weeks.

We will offer an exchange of two new bottles or a $10 giftcard for anyone who brings in a unit from the original run or a receipt."

Hope this clears up any questions or concerns you've had!

iNails

Day 105

Today's nails were painted in order to let you know what they're REALLY going to announce at the Apple press conference tomorrow... screw the iTablet... I'm talkin' iNails. :-P Consider this your sneak preview to an Apple exclusive!! :-D



I used Sally Hansen All the White Stuff as a base, with (from the top of the apple) OPI Green-wich Village, Diamond Cosmetics #319 Lemon Yellow Zest, Urban Outfitters Orange 2, China Glaze Salsa, Zoya Savita matte, and Zoya Yummy. Two coats of Seche Vite top coat to top everything off! :)


Also, here are some fun beauty ads that I found in the January 1885 edition of Peterson's Ladies National Magazine:

Looks like a beauty cure-all if I ever saw one.. :-P


Can you IMAGINE using these?!

Tune in to Antenna

[Film Studies For Free will be sorry to say goodbye to Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker/Spider-Man...]

Film Studies For Free wanted to let its readers know about Antenna, a very stimulating blog from graduate students and faculty in the Media and Cultural Studies area of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Here's what this relatively new site says about itself:

Antenna is a collectively authored media and cultural studies blog committed to timely yet careful analysis of texts, news, and events from across the popular culture spectrum. The site regularly responds to new works and developments in television, film, music, gaming, digital video, the Internet, print, and the media industries.

Antenna is intended to address a broad public inside and outside the university walls. Within those walls, though, it further intends to bridge the gap between scholarly journals, which remain the paradigm for scholarly discourse but too often lack the ability to reply to issues and events in media with any immediacy, and single-author media scholar blogs, which support swift commentary but are limited in their reliance upon the effort and perspectives of individuals. Coordinated by a group of writers who draw on a variety of approaches and methodologies, Antenna, therefore, exists as a means to analyze media news and texts, both as they happen and from multiple perspectives.

Antenna is currently operated and edited by graduate students and faculty in the Media and Cultural Studies area of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Although, while in its current stage, the content published on the site is written largely by members of that program, Antenna is currently in the process of expanding our author team, and we hope eventually to include contributions and comments from a diverse collection of writers.

Antenna’s goal is to create a forum in which readers and contributors participate in active, open, and thoughtful debate about media and culture.

Antenna is designed to respond quickly to events, and thus rather than be published on a set, periodic schedule, Antenna updates its content continually. Because Antenna is interested in timely responses, we encourage short entries. Extensive presentation of evidence is not required, though supplementary links are encouraged.

With its extremely lively house style, and wide-ranging topics, FSFF thinks Antenna has a great future ahead of it. For examples of some good film-related posts, it recommends you check out the following to start with:  

• 'Smells Like an Ethnically Divided Teen Star System' by Mary Beltrán  

• 'THWIP!+CTRL+DEL (on the rebooting of the Spider-Man franchise)' by Derek Johnson    

• 'Egregious Product Placement: The Invention of Lying' By Erin Copple Smith

You can also follow Antenna's updates on Twitter.

What Are You HUP...TO...3...4?

Day 104

Happy Monday, everyone!!! Today's nails were a request a while back from reader Melissa T-S. She told me that her 25 year old son is 5th generation army, and she would LOVE to see camouflage nails... so, Melissa... and your son, I hope you see these!! :) (and like them!! :-P)



I used Sally Hansen Trendy Creme as a base. (this color is amazing- the most perfect avocado color- best of all- I got it at the Dollar Tree! :-P) For the rest of the camo colors, I mixed Zoya Envy with Sally Hansen Trendy Creme for the olive color, since Envy was too dark, used Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme for the brown, and China Glaze Liquid Leather for the black. I topped it all off with two coats of Essie Matte About You to make it matte and awesome. :-P

I really love these nails... and they're totally my dedication to all the troops working their asses off everywhere to make our world, our country, and our people safe. (and for their predecessors, who made it possible to live in a country where one can do something as frivolous as painting her nails every day and blogging about it)...

THANK YOU!!!