http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/film-reviews Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Tue, 02 Jun 2026 23:19:20 -0400 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 23:19:20 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/740/power-and-presence-in-fritz-langs-m-1931 By Zachary B. Wunrow - In the penultimate scene of Fritz Lang’s M (1931), mentally-disturbed child murderer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) falls to his knees before a kangaroo court and cries out, “I have to roam the streets endlessly, always sensing that someone’s following me. It’s me! I’m shadowing myself!”  Beckert’s monologue conveys that a disparity exists between his shadow and his self, and it becomes apparent that his self cannot exist without his shadow.  For most of the film, the Beckert on screen is a “shadow,” a monster; only at the end is the... Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:33 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/740/power-and-presence-in-fritz-langs-m-1931 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/386/94-minutes-in-the-badlands-1973 By Kristina S. Ten - If you’re looking for another all-American cross-country love story, you’d be better off browsing movie aisles far, far away from the likes of Badlands. This 1973 title, director Terrence Malick’s debut film, turns the typical teenage romance on its head. First, predictably, boy meets girl. (He is on his way home from a day’s work of garbage-collecting; she, only fifteen, is innocently twirling a baton in her front yard.) Then: boy kills girl’s father, boy and girl run away together, driving from state to flat desert state, multiplying the body count and dodging the... Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:48 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/386/94-minutes-in-the-badlands-1973 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/170/sexuality-religion-and-science-as-seen-through-twilight-of-the-gods By Alina Saminsky - Within the first ten minutes of Twilight of the Golds, it is clear that both Judaism and homosexuality play a role in the Gold family. The family is at least culturally Jewish, if not more, and the son David (Brendan Fraser), is portrayed to be gay. Yet neither “gay” nor “Jewish” is actually mentioned until much later in the film. What are the methods that the film uses to construct gayness and Jewishness? And are these constructions depicted as being cultural, ethnic, biological or genetic? How does the film use these constructions to make a statement about the ethical... Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:35 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/170/sexuality-religion-and-science-as-seen-through-twilight-of-the-gods