It Only Takes a Spark-le to Start a Fire!

So yeah, yesterday was one of those days that you wish never happened, started, etc. I was one of the 'lucky' people at my company who lost their job yesterday. Sweet, huh?! (if anyone knows of any available awesome jobs in the Vegas area, please let me know!! :-D) I'm trying to look at it as a blessing, there are a ton of roads I could take at this point... I could work at night, and go back to school to get a culinary degree, I could get another graphic job, I could get a bartending or cocktail job, I could work at the casinos... the possibilities are pretty endless. I'm going to turn this situation on it's ass. :-D For today's nails I really wanted to do something fun and sparkly, so I used the new Nubar Sparkles polishes I bought at the International Beauty Show to do an ombre. :) These polishes officially kick ass, I can't stop looking at my hands, they're SO sparkly. I even ended up doing a matching pedicure!! :)



I used 3 coats of Nubar Petunia Sparkle, with Nubar Violet Sparkle sponged on the tip half of the nail. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat to smooth out the glitter coats. :)

So... what should my next endeavor be?

Oh, Quit Your Waning!

So I think I may be tired lately... there are two nights this week so far that I've passed out on the couch, etc. before 8:30 PM! :-P Last night it was about 6:45, and I slept the whole night. That can't be good, right? So much going on lately! Next Friday, I need to make a wedding cake for my friend Jessica's wedding... I'm a little scared because it's the one cake in a person's life they're not likely to forget. :-/ I also need to make some ice cream for class on sunday, I'm thinking Chocolate Cayenne, Fresh Strawberry, and Vanilla Bean. (Banana, too, if I can find ripe bananas at the supermarket). I'm hoping to do a 1-tier practice of the wedding cake on Saturday, and I hope to GOD it looks awesome. lol On the bright side, tomorrow is Friday, and at least over the weekend I won't have to worry too much about work, just personal obligations! :)

Today's nail art was inspired by the phases of the moon, which are: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Las Quarter, Waning Crescent, and Dark. (according to wikipedia.org) As of the time of this blog post, we are nearly at the full moon! :-D I only used TWO colors for this art- black and white! Oh, and by the way, the ring finger on my right hand is new CND Shellac, which would explain why it's not decorated with art.. lol I'm testing their 2-week claim, because if if can stay on me, it'll stay on anyone.





I used American Apparel Hassid
for the background, as well as mixed with American Apparel Cotton for the greys, and also used American Apparel Cotton
to lightly sponge over the base to make 'stars'.

What is going on with this blog? First, all the talk of 'brazilians', and now a Waxing Moon?! :-P (bad joke, I know)

CURRENT MOON

moon phase info

Wet Paint sale on Ideeli!

Hey all!! Just a note to let you know about the Wet Paint Glaze System sale on Ideeli.com today!! Everything is deeply discounted- there is a set of 15 polishes for $50, original price is $150! It's a pretty neat idea, and with those 15 polishes you can create 102 different colors!!



Here is the link! Wet Paint Sale on Ideeli

US Shipping only unfortunately. :(

Picture is from ideeli.com

Oh, How Tacky!

Hi everyone!!! I hope that this lovely April day finds you well ( and not wind-blown, like here in Vegas!! lol) Today's nails were inspired by something at work- my cork board!! :) I thought it'd be something different, and plus, when I did the dinosaur nails the other day, I thought the background looked like cork, so I thought I'd used that idea as a design! :)



I used MAC Abalone Shell (I wish I'd picked up multiples of this- I <3 it), with Zoya Dea pretty heavily sponged over it, then topped with CND Super Matte, which BTW isn't MATTE AT ALL!?!?!?, don't get it. After that failed, I went to my go-to matte topcoat, Essie Matte About You. Next, for the thumb tacks, I used CND Green Scene, American Apparel Downtown L.A. for the red tack, Pure Ice French Kiss for the blue tack, American Apparel Poppy for the orange tack, and CND Bicycle Yellow for the yellow tack. I mixed each with American Apparel Cotton to highlight, and American Apparel Hassid to shade, except the yellow tack, which I mixed American Apparel Poppy with to shade. for the metal part of the tack, I used American Apparel Hassid mixed with China Glaze Millennium. FOr the items tacked up, I used American Apparel Cotton for the white, American Apparel Hassid for the black, and American Apparel Downtown L.A. for the red. For the shadows of the tack on each nail, I used a mix of topcoat andAmerican Apparel Hassid. Topped the tacks off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat, being careful not to get any on the matte portion of the nail.

Totally tack-y, right?!

And, as a bonus sneak peek into part of the giveaway prize.... (hand screened by yours truly)

I'd Like the Brazilian, Please!

OH MY GOODNESS! For those of you that are new to the blog- WELCOME, or bem-vindos!! (I hope that translated correctly on Google Translate! lol) I am SO excited and thrilled from the HUGE HUGE HUGE response on my blog yesterday from the country of Brazil! I received 112,000 page views yesterday!! (thats about two-thirds of what I generally get in a MONTH!) So in honor of all my awesome new readers- I give you today's nail design- the Brazilian flag. :) Obrigado!!!



I used CND Green Scene as a base, used tape to tape off the diamond shape, painted CND Bicycle Yellow, then removed the tape. For the blue, I freehanded a circle with Pure Ice French Kiss, then used Sally Hansen All the White Stuff for the white band across it, as well as little dots (for the stars). I also used CND Green Scene to paint little squiggles for the words Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress"), since I can't paint letters that small. :-D Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Thank you to all my new readers, Brazilian, American, or whatever country you're from!! You rock, and I appreciate you!!

BTW- keep an eye out for a giveaway in the next few days- I was planning to have one for 1500 followers, but the follower count went up by 100 in a day, so I wasn't ready for it! lol Still finishing part of the prizes, and figuring out what the contest rules should be!! :)

Splat!

Happy monday!!! It's *bleepin* hot here today in sunny Las Vegas, and definitely doesn't feel like April should. :-D Today's design is simple again, I got home late after the show last night, and was too tired to do anything intricate, but I still dig the color combo- Flip Flop Fantasy is positively retina-searing, the picture doesn't do it justice! :) I'm sitting at my desk right now having a 'Flip Flop Fantasy'... wishing I was at home sitting in the shade wearing flip flops, my comfy jeans, and a t-shirt!! No such luck, it's a work day! The play last night was fantastic, and if any of you should get the chance to see 'Confessions of a Mormon Boy', I'd highly recommend it. It's hilarious, entertaining, charming, and heart-wrenching all wrapped into one story.



I used China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy as a base, with MAC Showy applied by dipping the end of a straw in the bottle of polish, then aiming it at the nail, and forcefully blowing air through the straw to splatter it. I topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Flippety flop! (I think it's about nap time for this redhead- why can't we have siestas here in the US?)

Paranormal cinematic activity: ghost film studies

Latest update: April 27, 2010

 Publicity still for The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961). See an excerpt from this film in Nicolas Rapold and Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay 'Bad Seeds: Creepy Kids on Film', embedded towards the foot of this entry

Film Studies For Free has gone and spooked itself, today, with its own scary persistence in compiling a list of links to openly accessible, online, scholarly articles, chapters and theses on international ghost film studies. Oh, and there are two related video essays lurking at the bottom to scare the scholarly bejesus out of you for good measure, too (added April 27) .

Like all the best posts at this blog (IOHO), the list below owes its hefty materiality to its connections with FSFF's author's own (hauntological) research, some of which, hopefully, will be directly shared with her fearless readers very shortly. So do please be a revenant, won't you?

• Michael J. Anderson, 'Histoire de Marie et Julien: Jacques Rivette's Material Ghost Story', Senses of Cinema, Issue 32, 2004

• Guy Austin, '"In Fear and Pain": Stardom and the Body in Two French Ghost Films', Scope, Issue 7, February 2007

• Sarah M. Ball, The Uncanny in Japanese and American Horror Film: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Gore Verbinski’s Ring, MA thesis, North Carolina State University, 2006  

• Colette Balmain, '“Vengeful Virgins in White”: Female Monstrosity in Asian Cinema', in Niall Scott (ed), Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2004) [scroll down through pdf to p. 123]

• Colette Balmain, 'Inside the Well of Loneliness: Towards a Definition of the Japanese Horror Film', Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Discussion Papers, 2006

• Caetlin Benson-Allott , '“Before you die, you see The Ring”: notes on the immanent obsolescence of VHS, from Jump Cut, No. 49, spring 2007

• Lesley Brill, 'M. Night Shyamalan: A Preliminary Report', Senses of Cinema, Issue 46, 2008

• Ture Bural, 'Endland Umpire: A placement of David Lynch's Inland Empire', Perforations, 29, 2007

• Jodey Castricano, 'Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and the Strange Question of Trans-Subjectivity', Jung: the e-Journal of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies Volume 2, Number 3, April, 2006

• Brigid Cherry, 'Gothics and Grand Guignols: Violence and the gendered Aesthetics of Cinematic Horror', Particip@tions, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2008

• Leah A.Cheyne, 'The Sixth Sense: Humanizing Horror', Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• David Church, 'Return of the Return of the Repressed: Notes on the American Horror Film (1991-2006)', Offscreen Journal, Volume 10, Issue 10 (November 25, 2006)

• Michel Ciment, 'Kubrick and the Fantastic', (1982) The Kubrick Site, (date unknown)

• Robyn Citizen, 'Review of The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity by Linnie Blake', Senses of Cinema,Issue 51, 2009

• Ryan Cooke, 'Review of Jay McRoy, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008', Screening the Past,Issue 23, 2008

• Lisa Coulthard, 'Uncanny Memories: Stan Douglas, Subjectivity and Cinema, Scope, 2000

• John Culbert, 'The Well and the Web: Phantoms of Community and the Mediatic Public Sphere', Postmodern Culture, 19.2, January 2009

• Jonathan Eig, 'A beautiful mind(fuck): Hollywood structures of identity', from Jump Cut, Issue 46, 2003

• Thomas Elsaesser, 'The Mind-Game Film' in Warren Buckland (ed), Puzzle Films (Blackwell 2009)

• Carolyn Erler, 'The Obama Code: Ghosts and Monsters in the Visual Datasphere', CTheory.net, Resetting Theory Issue, December 2009
  

• Mark Fisher, 'Home is where the haunt is: The Shining's hauntology', k-punk, January 23, 2006

• Mark Fisher, 'You have always been the caretaker': the spectral spaces of the Overlook Hotel', Perforations, 29, 2007

• Brian Grady, '"We're Engaged to Be Engaged": The Paranormal Activity of Trauma and Relationship', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 67, February 2010

• 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  

• Coral Houtman, 'Questions of Unreliable Narration in The Sixth Sense', Scope, November 2004

• Wendy F. Hsu , 'Between Narrative and Expressive, Fantasy and Melodrama in Bombay (Bollywood) Film', Virginia Review of Asian Studies, vol. 5 (2003)

• Annamarie Jagose, 'Hollywood Lesbians [Interview with Patricia White about Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability', Genders, 32, 2000

• Fredric Jameson, 'Historicism in The Shining', (1981) The Kubrick Site, (date unknown)

• Brian Jarvis, 'Anamorphic allegory in The Ring, or, seven ways of looking at a horror video', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, 3, 2007

• Bruce Kawin, 'Carnival of Souls', The Criterion Collection, Film Essays, 76

• Antonio Lázaro-Reboll , 'The Transnational Reception of El espinazo del diablo (Guillermo del Toro 2001)', Hispanic Research Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 2007, 39–51

• John Lewis, '"Mother Oh God Mother …": Analysing the 'Horror' of Single Mothers in Contemporary Hollywood Horror', Scope, Issue 2, 2005

• Owen Livermore, 'Gun and Other Play: Takashi Miike and Fantasia Festival 2004', Synoptique, December 2004

• Li Zeng, Horror returns to Chinese cinema: an aesthetic of restraint and the space of horror ', from Jump Cut, No. 51, spring 2009

• Luo Hui, 'Chapter Four: Minor Discourses in New Peripheries', The Ghost of Liaozhai: Pu Songling's Ghostlore and its History of Reception, PhD Thesis,University of Toronto, 2009

• Nina K. Martin, 'Dread of mothering: plumbing the depths of Dark Water', from Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

• Ewa Mazierska, 'Between the Sacred and the Profane, the Sublime and the Trivial: The Magic Realism of Jan Jakub Kolski ', Scope, 2000

• Donna McRae, 'Family Demons: The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance', B for Bad Cinema, Colloquy, Issue 18, December 2009

• Thomas Mical, 'Introduction: Hauntology, or Spectral Space', Perforations, 29, 2007  

• Elizabeth Mullen, 'Synæsthetic Specters: Haunting Hill House on the Silver Screen', Image and Narrative, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 2009

• Lindsay Nelson, 'Ghosts of the Past, Ghosts of the Future: Monsters, Children, and Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema', Cinemascope, Issue 13, July-December 2009

• John Orr, 'The Trauma Film and British Romantic Cinema 1940-1960', Senses of Cinema, Issue 51, 2009

• Eimi Ozawa , 'Remaking Corporeality and Spatiality: U.S. Adaptations of Japanese Horror Films, 49th Parallel, Conference Special Edition, Autumn 2006

• N. Payasopon, 'The Cultural and Filmic Elements that contribute to the popularity of the Thai film Nang Nak', BU Review, Volume 2, No. 1, January-June 2003

• Jennifer Proctor, 'Différance, the Spectral, and the Work of Mourning in Aaron Valdez’s dissolve', 2004

• Laurence A. Rickels, 'Recognition Values: Seeing The Sixth Sense Again for the First Time', Other Voices, v.2, n.2 (March 2002)

• Juneko J. Robinson , 'Review: Jay McRoy (2007) Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam: Rodopi', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010

• Caroline Ruddell, 'Breaking Boundaries The Representation of Split Identity in Anime', Animation Studies – Vol.2, 2007

• Steven Schneider, 'World Horror Cinema and the US: Bringing it all back home', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

• Aaron Smuts, 'Haunting the House from Within: Disbelief Mitigation and Spatial Experience', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 6 No. 7, April 2002

• Donato Totaro, 'Visual Style in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Fantastic” Trilogy, Part 1: The Long Take., Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• Donato Totaro, Visual Style in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Fantastic” Trilogy, Part 2: Mise en Scène', Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• Donato Totaro, 'Tokyo Sonata: Flirting with the Fantastic: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008', Offscreen Journal,Vol . 13, Issue 5, 2009

• Dennis Tredy, 'Shadows of Shadows - Techniques of Ambiguity in Three Film Adaptations of “The Turn of the Screw”: J. Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), D. Curtis’s The Turn of the Screw (1974), and A. Aloy’s Presence of Mind (1999)', E-rea, 2.1, 2004

• Nicholas de Villiers, 'Leaving the cinema: metacinematic cruising in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn', from Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

• Gang Gary Xu, 'Remaking East Asia, Outsourcing Hollywood', Senses of Cinema, Issue 34, 2005

• Young-joon Cho, 'Four Cinema Versions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', Thannhouser Company Film Preservation, 2006

• Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Neda Hei-tung Ng, 'Magic, Medicine, Cannibalism: the China Demon in Hong Kong Horror', David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Working Paper Series, Paper Number: 74, April 2008 

Nicolas Rapold and Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay
'Bad Seeds: Creepy Kids on Film',

Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay
'Unreal Estate: The Scariest Movie Locations of All Time'

It's Sprung!

Ok, so it's over 80°F here in Vegas, I dare say that Spring has SPRUNG! Today's nail design was a simple one, I had very little time after class before I went to the International Beauty Show to do anything terribly inspiring, but I still like how it turned out!! I used one of the new polishes from my haul yesterday from a brand I've never used/heard of before- Dare to Wear by Lechat, I have to say, the polish is great, it applied wonderfully, and was opaque in 2 coats. :) (and CHEAP- since it was a discontinued color, it was $1.25 at the show. :-D Happy nail blogger here!! I also got to check out the new Shellac from CND, the lovely Kristina applied it to two of my nails. I'll post more details tomorrow about it!! :)



I used Dare to Wear Inspiring Surroundings as a base, with China Glaze DV8 applied with Konad Plate s9, and topped off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Ta-Ta for now.. I'm off to see Confessions of a Mormon Boy at the ONYX Theater here in Vegas. :-D Have a great night!! :)

Dino-MITE!!

Heidy-ho, neighbors! :) Today was a great day!! I participated in Corporate Challenge earlier (a Las Vegas competition between a bunch of corporations where we compete in sports, card games, etc), today's event was Kart Racing. Too bad Mike S. came in 7th, or we might have placed. :-P (Yes, Mike, that was another jab, lol) ANYWAY. lol Another fun thing I got to do today is go to the International Beauty Show! I'd never been to it before, so it was like being a kid in a candy shop... a tad overwhelming, but awesome. It was cool to see people like Nick Arrojo cutting hair a few feet away (and yes, I put in my phone number to be a hair model!! lol). I also loved going around to see all the nail booths, Nubar, CND, China Glaze, Minx, CalGel, etc. There are so many fun techniques- and I swear when I get my project done, I REALLY wanna try CalGel, it looks super rad... and I'm thinking that Shellac is going to be a must-have for this summer on my toes!!! Anyway- I'm hoping to have time to go back tomorrow, and I'll definitely be writing more about what I found, bought, saw, etc. in the next few days! :)

On to the nails... a girl named Danielle in my culinary class suggested that I do Dinosaurs.. I totally thought it was a kick ass idea, so I did it!! It's a T-Rex on my thumb, and dino footprints across the other nails! :)



I used MAC Abalone Shell as a base for the footprint nails, with Essie Mink Muffs and Zoya Dea sponged lightly on top, as well as for the footprints. For the T-Rex nail, I used Orly Snowcone for the background, L.A.Girl Army Green for the T-Rex, Nubar Forest for the shading and part of the lines, American Apparel Hassid for the eye, and the outlines, and Green Scene for the leaves at the bottom. I used Essie Matte About You on the footprint nails, and 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat on the dino nail.

RAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!

Cinema at the Periphery: world cinema studies articles and videos

Sequence from Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, featuring Samantha Morton as Morvern and the psychedelic song 'Some Velvet Morning' written by Lee Hazlewood in 1967 and performed by Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra (for more on Ramsay's great film, see Scott Tobias, 'The New Cult Canon: Morvern Callar', The A.V. Club, February 27, 2008; as well as John Caughie, 'The Angel's Share: Morvern Callar and the Difficulty of Art Cinema', video also linked to below)

With Spring (and a spring) in its step, Film Studies For Free brings you a whole, golden, host of articles as well as little video tasters to the work of some of the world's leading film scholars on the topic of international (and/or 'interstitial', or 'transnational', or 'peripheral') cinema.

The videos are recordings of presentations from the Cinema at the Periphery conference held at the University of St Andrews between June 15th and June 17th 2006. While those external to that university can only see the first ten minutes of each presentation, they're still very informative, and showcase, in miniature at least, some brilliant film studies research.

They've been newly publicised on the occasion of the publication of the conference book Cinema at the Periphery by Wayne State University Press, part of its series on Contemporary Approaches to Film and Television, under the general editorship of Barry Keith Grant. The book is edited by Dina Iordanova, David Martin-Jones, and Belén Vidal.

As FSFF always endeavours to add value to the free resources it links to, it decided also to assemble an accompanying list of related, high quality, freely accessible, online articles:

• Kim Byeongcheol, 'Production and Consumption of Contemporary Korean Cinema', Korea Journal, Spring 2006
• Hamilton Carroll, 'Resisting the Nation: John Sayles' Men with Guns (Hombres Armados) as Postnational Cinema', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 
• Ruby Cheung and D. H. Fleming, 'Introduction: Cinema and Identities', Cinemas, Identities and Beyond, edited by Ruby Cheung with D. H. Fleming (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) 
• E. Anna Claydon, ‘Nostalgia in the Post-National: Contemporary British Cinema and the South-Asian Diaspora’, South Asian Cultural Studies,Vol.2 No.1, 2008, pp 26 - 38  
• Pam Cook, 'Transnational Utopias: Baz Lurhmann and Australian Cinema', Transnational Cinema, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2010 
• Austin Fisher, 'A Marxist's Gotta Do What a Marxist's Gotta Do: Political Violence on the Italian Frontier', Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation, edited by Iain Robert Smith,  Scope, Issue 15, 2010
• Stuart Hall, 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', Framework (no.36), 1989 
• Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim, 'Concepts of transnational cinema: towards a critical transnationalism in film studies', Transnational Cinema, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2010 
• Andrew Higson, 'Transnational Developments in European Cinema in the 1920s', Transnational Cinema, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2010
• Teresa Hoefert de Turégano, 'Transnational Cinematic Flows: World Cinema as World Music?', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Jan Holmberg, 'Globalized Vision', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA  
• Paul Kerr, 'Babel's Network Narrative: Packaging a Globalized Art Cinema', Transnational Cinema, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2010
  
• 'Kinocultura: on Russian, Russo-Soviet, Eastern European, and Central Asian cinemas & television', Film Studies For Free, April 11, 2010 (for dozens of relevant article son Eastern and Central European/Asian cinemas)
• Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, 'Historical Introduction', Transnational Chinese Cinemas (University of Hawai‘i Press and copyrighted, 1997)
• Ewa Mazierska, 'Eastern European cinema: old and new approaches', Studies in Eastern European Cinema Volume 1 Number 1, 2010 
• Marcus Power, 'Post-colonial cinema and the reconfiguration of Moçambicanidade', Lusotoipie 2004: 261-278
• Phil Powrie, 'Heritage, History and the New Realism', French Cinema in the 1990s." French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Ed. Phil Powrie. New York: Oxford, 1998
• Steven Schneider, 'World Horror Cinema and the US: Bringing it all back home', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Brigitte Schulze, 'Globalization and Divergence Dynamics of Dissensus in Non-Dominant Cinema Cultures of South India', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Neelam Sidhar Wright, '"Tom Cruise? Tarantino? E.T.? ...Indian!": Innovation through Imitation in the Cross-cultural Bollywood Remake', Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation, edited by Iain Robert Smith,  Scope, Issue 15, 2010

The clips can be viewed using Quicktime player 7, VLC player or similar MP4 player. Just click on the pictures to access.
The clips are currently set to stream at a quality of medium (512Kbps) - they are also available to watch as low (56Kbps) or high (2Mbps). 

Dina Iordanova and Keith Brown

University of St Andrews

“Introduction and welcome”

(8min 16sec)

Mette Hjort

Lignan University, Hong Kong

“Homophilic Transnationalism: The 'Advance Party' Initiative”

Rod Stoneman

Huston School of Film & Digital Media, Galway, Ireland

“Dimpsey at the Edge”

Duncan Petrie

University of Auckland, New Zealand

“Small National Cinemas in an Era of Globalisation”

Sheldon Lu

University of California at Davis, USA

“Emerging from Underground and the Periphery: Independent Cinema in Contemporary China”

Lucia Nagib

Leeds University, UK

“Japanese Cinema and Local Modernity”

Laura U. Marks

Simon Fraser University, Canada

“Geopolitics Hides Something in the Image; Arab Cinema Unfolds Something Else”

Faye Ginsburg

New York University, USA

“Black Screens and Cultural Citizenship”

Dudley Andrew

Yale University, USA

“Turbulent Waves, Stagnant Seas: Awash in World Cinema”

Bill Marshall

University of Glasgow, UK

“Deleuze, Quebec and Cinemas of Minor Frenchness”

John Caughie

University of Glasgow, UK

“The Angel's Share: Morvern Callar and the Difficulty of Art Cinema”

Pam Cook

University of Southampton, UK

“Out from Down Under: Baz Luhrmann and Australian Cinema”

Patricia Pisters

University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

“Filming Tanger: Migratory Identities in North Africa”

Hamid Naficy

Rice University, USA

“Interstitial, Transnational, and National-Iranian Silent Cinema”

Kristian Feigelson

Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France

“A Visual Map of the Film World”

Behind a Mask

Happy Friday, everyone!! :) Today's nail design was inspired by an episode of Weeds in which the character Ignacio is a Lucha Libre wrestler who goes by the name Perro Insano (insane dog). I think the masks are funny, and colorful and fun, so I thought they'd make an interesting nail design! :) On a more personal note, the root canal saga comes to an end today- I get the final filling!! WOOO!! (this is the third installment/appt in the saga).



I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for all of the exposed skin and American Apparel Hassid for anything black.

Left thumb:

Essie Mint Candy Apple for the base, with Pure Ice French Kiss for the darker blue and Zoya Trixie
for the silver.

Left index:

American Apparel Manila as a base, with American Apparel Downtown L.A. for the red.

Left Middle:

American Apparel Downtown L.A. as a base, with American Apparel Hassid for the black.

Left Ring:

Green Scene as a base, with American Apparel Downtown L.A. for the red.

Left Pinky:

Sinful Colors Let's Talkas a base, with China Glaze 2030 from Khrome Collection for the outlines (for some reason the purple underneath dyed EVERY other color I put on this nail. (even through seche vite)



Right Thumb:

American Apparel Cotton as a base with American Apparel Hassid for the black.

Right index:

Pure Ice French Kiss as a base, with Orly Snowcone for the light blue, and Zoya Trixie for the outlines of silver.

Right Middle:

Zoya Trixie as a base with China Glaze DV8 and American Apparel Hassid for the lines.

Right RIng:

Electric Orange as a base, with American Apparel Downtown L.A. for the flames, outlined by China Glaze 2030 from Khrome Collection.

Right Pinky:

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Sally Hansen All the White Stuff for the white outlines.

Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Today's .Com-Post

Happy Earth Day, everyone!! I hope that you are recycling today! (and every day!!) Today's nails were (obviously) inspired by Earth Day and the recycle symbol. I tried to make the background look like recycled paper, too! :)



I used Urban Outfitters Beige 1 as a base, with Zoya Dea sponged over it. For the recycle symbol, I used Nubar Forest.


Do your part- even if it's something simple, like getting a reusable water bottle, or bringing your own shopping bags... or even doing Back 2 MAC, where you bring in 6 of their empty containers to recycle and get a free lipstick!! (excludes Viva Glam)<---WIN/WIN SITUATION!

Another great company that recycles that I love is Bear Naked, a great granola company that has AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME granola (check out the Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, and the Chocolate!!), which has no refined sugars, and no preservatives or other gross stuff. This stuff is amazing- and this is coming from someone who'd rather eat Cheetos than carrots, and I'll eat this stuff over Cheetos. :-D

There are so many easy ways to do your part to save the environment... so get off the internet and do 'em! :-P

Audiovisual Thinking: Online Video Journal about Audiovisuality, Communication & Media

Screen caps from 'What is Academic Video' by Inge Ejbye Sørensen  
for Audiovisual Thinking 

Film Studies For Free predicted at the beginning of this year that 2010 would be the year of the video essay. And thus it has come to pass... Woohoo!

Audiovisual Thinking -- an online video journal about "audiovisuality, communication and media" -- has just launched and it looks to FSFF to be a very worthwhile venture indeed. All relevant information has been pasted in below to tempt you to the excellent AT website. There are lots of introductory videos embedded there which will inform you audiovisually about the Audiovisual Thinking ethos.

Audiovisual Thinking has issued its first call for videos for its first proper issue which will explore the "legacy and merit of the use of audiovisual material in academic thinking, research and teaching, in the past, present and in the future" (deadline: June 15, 2010; do note: according to the submission form (as of April 22) the videos should be no longer than seven minutes and a maximum of [an as yet quite tiny] 10 Mb [Update: The editors reported to FSFF that they are working on achieving a larger, automated, upload volume. If you have larger submissions, these can be uploaded manually, so just get in touch with the editors via the website's contact page].

If you don't yet completely understand why FSFF is so pleased with this development, you should check out the following propaganda piece that it published last July: Video Essays on Films: A Multiprotagonist Manifesto. Also, do have a peruse of all the video essays embedded at FSFF, including this little one we prepared earlier (sadly, it's just a little longer than seven minutes and larger than 10Mb or 100Mb...).

About Audiovisual Thinking

Audiovisual Thinking is a pioneering forum where academics and educators can articulate, conceptualize and disseminate their research about audiovisuality and audiovisual culture through the medium of video.

     International in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, the purpose of Audiovisual Thinking is to develop and promote academic thinking in and about all aspects of audiovisuality and audiovisual culture.

    Advised by a board of leading academics and thinkers in the fields of audiovisuality, communication and the media, the journal seeks to set the standard for academic audiovisual essays now and in the future.

    Video submissions are welcome from all fields of study and, as one would expect, the main criteria for submissions are that the discussion and thinking are conveyed through audiovisual means.

Audiovisual Thinking Issues

Each issue of Audiovisual Thinking will call for and then showcase academic videos around a specific theme within audiovisual culture and the media. The journal also accepts ‘opinion’ or ‘reflective’ audiovisual pieces on any area of audiovisual research or pedagogy. 

    Submissions are welcome from the areas of the Arts, Journalism, Media and Communication studies, as well as Education and the Social Sciences where audiovisual material is routinely used, or is gaining ground, as an academic research tool or teaching method.
     This first issue will explore the legacy of audiovisual content in contemporary academic research and thinking. Submit your video here.

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Sock it To Me

Guten Tag! :) The inspiration for today's nails came wile watching GLEE! (but aren't related to GLEE... lol) The new KIA Commercial with the toys came on (which I love- especially the sock monkey tattoo), and I thought to myself that a sock monkey design would be funny and cute! So to work I went!! :)



I used Essie Mink Muffs as a base, with American Apparel Cotton sponged on top to give the marled look of the sock, for the forehead and mouth area I also used American Apparel Cotton. For the red, I used a mix of China Glaze Salsa and Zoya Angelina. For the eyes, nostrils, and mouth line, I used American Apparel Hassid, and also mixed American Apparel Hassid with American Apparel Cotton for the highlighting on the button eyes. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Now that's one funky monkey.

Urban Decay Meets Hautelook!

Another Urban Decay sale on Hautelook!

Stuff starts at $4.25! They have the Apocalypse Nail Polish set for $13 (50% off!!)

They also have lipglosses, the big Buddha brush, pigments, etc for cheappppppp!

Urban Decay sale on Hautelook!

Scratchin' the Seven Year Itch

Hey everyone!! Today's nail design is one I've wanted to do for ages, it was inspired by Andy Warhol's Marilyn, c.1967 (On Blue Ground). It's not perfect, but I think I did alright, given the size, and time I had. :) A few of them look a tad 'challenged' but what can ya do, I was already up til 1 am doing them! I hope you all like them!!



I used Orly Gumdrop for the background, a mix of American Apparel Manila and American Apparel Cotton for the hair, China Glaze Flyin' High for the eyeshadow, China Glaze Salsa for the lips and shirt, as well as mixed with American Apparel Cotton for the face. For the lines/shading, I used American Apparel Hassid. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

And a message for one of my readers: Tia- send your dad a text message! :-P

BFI Researchers' Tales: Mulvey, Dyer, Kubrick, Frayling

 Image of Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont in Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

For some time now, Film Studies For Free has been enjoying the videos that the British Film Institute has been posting at BFI Live, its online video channel exploring film and TV culture. There are lots of videos worth seeing at the site but, below, FSFF has singled out and directly linked to some which are especially deserving of the attention of film scholars.

Laura Mulvey on the Blonde

8 Mar 2010: The world-renowned film theorist presents her thoughts on the Hitchcock Blonde.

Researchers' Tales: Richard Dyer

8 Mar 2010: The writer and academic discusses his instrumental role in the creation of the BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, one of the world's most prestigious celebrations of queer cinema.

Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made? (Part 1)

13 Jan 2010: An illustrated lecture on Stanley Kubrick’s most ambitious yet unrealised project.

Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made? (Part 2)

11 Jan 2010: An onstage discussion of the finer points of Stanley Kubrick’s failed production.

Researchers' Tales: Sir Christopher Frayling on Spaghetti Westerns

14 Dec 2009: Eminent academic and writer Sir Christopher Frayling discusses the Spaghetti Western genre as part of the BFI National Library’s Researcher’s Tales strand.

Researchers' Tales: Sir Christopher Frayling on Film Research

14 Dec 2009: Eminent educationalist and writer Sir Christopher Frayling discusses the practice of researching film.

Solar Powered

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Night!! (depending on what time it is when you might read this :-P ) Today's nail design is out of this world...literally. (It's the solar system!) :-P I've had this on my list for some time, but only just now got around to doing it. (too many other fun ideas kept presenting themselves!) Oh well, it's done now, and YES, I included Pluto, because to me, it will always be a planet, scientists be damned. I think Earth and the comet on the pluto nail ended up being my favorite things about this mani.

In correct order from the sun:


Left Hand:



Right Hand:



I used:

American Apparel Hassid as a base for all 10 nails, with American Apparel Cotton lightly sponged to make distant stars.

Left Thumb: Sun

American Apparel Manila as a base for the sun, with Electric Orange, Zoya Pinta and American Apparel Manila again sponged over it to give a fiery, mottled look.

Left Index: Mercury

American Apparel Cotton mixed with American Apparel Hassid and a touch of Essie Mink Muffs, and shaded with the same combination with more American Apparel Hassid.

Left Middle: Venus

American Apparel Cotton mixed with American Apparel Manila, the mixed that combination with American Apparel Pinto and a touch of American Apparel Hassid to shade.

Left Ring: Earth

Pure Ice French Kiss as a base for Earth, highlighted with Pure Ice French Kiss mixed with a touch of Essie Mint Candy Apple, For the continents, I used L.A. Girl Army Green as a base, then mixed with American Apparel Hassid and Essie Mink Muffs to create some topography. For the clouds, I lightly brushed American Apparel Cotton.

Left Pinky: Mars

American Apparel Cotton mixed with American Apparel Pinto as a base, highlighted with the same mixture with a bit more American Apparel Cotton, and shaded with straight American Apparel Pinto.

Right Pinky: Jupiter

American Apparel Cotton mixed with American Apparel Pinto as a base, with American Apparel Pinto to add in the lines and big red spot. :)

Right Ring: Saturn

Essie Sag Harbor mixed with American Apparel Cotton, then added a little Pure Ice French Kiss to the mixture to add more of the bright blue color that Saturn's Northern Hemisphere is supposed to have. For the rings, I used American Apparel Cotton.

Right Middle: Uranus

Essie Sag Harbor mixed with Essie Mint Candy Apple for the planet, and American Apparel Cotton VERY lightly used to create the almost non-existent looking ring.

Right Index: Neptune

Orly Gumdropas a base for the planet, then mixed with Pure Ice French Kiss for the outer shadow, and mixed with American Apparel Cotton for the highlight.

Right Thumb: Pluto and Comet

For Pluto, I used American Apparel Manila mixed with a tiny bit of American Apparel Cotton, then dabbed a little Essie Mink Muffs and American Apparel Hassid on it. For the comet, I used American Apparel Manila and Electric Orange.

Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Did you know that this past week the sun had it's most violent eruption in 15 years?!