This interesting article mentions my work, and it focuses on some of the funniest robots and automata of early and silent film. Titled “The Bumbling Robots and Awkward Automatons of Silent Cinema,” this piece by Allison Meier gives some hilarious examples, from The Automatic Motorist (1911), to L’Uomo Meccanico (1921), and Houdini’s The Master Mystery […]
I gave a number of interviews and comments on The Martian and its representation of technology, scientific processes, and space travel. Both the novel by Andy Weir and the film directed by Ridley Scott revel in depicting realistic technological challenges and solutions. You can read my discussion of realism and the […]
I will be presenting a paper titled “Artificial People in The Twilight Zone“ at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in Spring 2016. The image above is from one of my favorite episodes, “The Lonely,” aired on November 13, 1959 on CBS. Written by Rod Serling, this episode features Corry, a man sentenced to […]
Although he had directed films before The Lodger, Alfred Hitchcock described this as his true directorial debut. Indeed, watching the film today is complicated by just how much one knows about the director and his personal styles. Many of his signature moves seem to be present here, preternaturally present, elements of an authorial signature that […]