Author Archives: Howard Ho

When Mos Def, Da Brat, Monica Calhoun and MC Lyte get together in a film, the set might be expected to have a bumping atmosphere something like “House Party.” Instead, UCLA film and television professor Neema Barnette assembled them together for a film about how prisons are home to new slave labor with clients, according […]

After a conversation about childhood ambitions with her friends, fourth-year graduate directing student Abigail Severance realized she’s not anywhere near what her twenty-year-old self imagined she would be. Not that she’s complaining. Her 17-minute short film is screening in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, which starts Thursday. Severance’s trek to Park City, Utah is […]

Martin Scorsese is perhaps the most open filmmaker. Unlike directors such as John Ford, who scoffed at questions about filmmaking technique, Scorsese has a history of talking about his techniques and influences. Scorsese’s older films will be screened along with films that influenced him in a series beginning at the James Bridges Theater on Thursday. […]

Though different in style, the Japanese and American cultures share an affinity that runs deeper than baseball and Pokemon. And though cartoons are rarely taken seriously in America, the merits of anime are starting to change perceptions as they make their way west. University of Texas professor Susan Napier demonstrated the potency of Japanese animation […]

Arriving late to a movie theater provides a wonderful experience. As you walk into the dark room, you hear the movie before you actually see it. In an age where THX digital sound is touted like a mallet banging on your eardrums before the movies’ start, listening is just as important as seeing. If you […]

For three months last summer, even East Coast humidity couldn’t stop New Yorkers from consistently forming lines trying to get into a sold-out movie theater. No, it wasn’t the new “Star Wars” or “Austin Powers.” It was a retrospective of 11 films made by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. The film […]

Next to Knudsen Hall, Franz Hall and the Inverted Fountain, home to physics, astronomy and psychology, lies Schoenberg Hall, home of the music department. It seems that placing Schoenberg Hall on the cusp of North and South may have been the best case of going into foreign territory up until Nixon in China. But upon closer […]