Selected Resources
Dying for a Laugh: Disaster Movies and the Camp Imagination by ISBN: 9780819567918Date: 2006-01-25First study of disaster movies through reception theory and queer theory. Dying for a Laugh looks at the evolution of the contemporary disaster film from the 1970s to the present. Ken Feil argues that contemporary camp culture has influenced and reformed the conventions of the 1970s disaster film, in both its production and reception. This book chronicles how the genre rose to prominence, sank into critical and popular disrepute, and became unintentionally campy. Through close readings of films including The Swarm, Ghostbusters, Independence Day, and Mars Attacks along with film reviews, entertainment reports and publicity materials as evidence, Feil shows that the renewal of the disaster genre in the 1990s hinged on self-parody, ironic self-consciousness, and state-of-the-art effects.
The Horror Spoofs of Abbott and Costello by ISBN: 9780786406425Date: 1999-12-01While Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are more famously known for their straight comedy routines, they did make a number of films in which horror played a crucial role. The first part of this critical reference explores the Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters spoof films. The second section deals with Abbott and Costello's films with horror elements that do not follow this formula, such as Hold That Ghost and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.
Humour, Comedy and Laughter: Obscenities, Paradoxes, Insights and the Renewal of Life by 
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ISBN: 9781782385431Date: 2016-04-30On the basis of a wide range of ethnographic and textual materials, the chapters examine the cognitive, social, and moral aspects of humor and its potential to bring about a sense of amity and mutual understanding, even among different and possibly hostile people. Chapter titled "Laughing at the Future: Cross-Cultural Science Fiction Films."
Science Fiction Double Feature by ISBN: 9781781381830Date: 2015-09-01Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost surreal pleasure to be found in their sudden juxtapositions or narrative combination. With its own boundary-blurring nature - as both science and fiction, reality and fantasy - science fiction has played a key role in such cinematic cult formation. This volume examines that largely unexplored relationship, looking at how the sf film's own double nature neatly matches up with a persistent double vision common to the cult film.
Speculative Satire in Contemporary Literature and Film: Rant Against the Regime by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781000289732Date: 2020-12-27Since 1980, when neoliberal and neoconservative forces began their hostile takeover of western culture, a new type of political satire has emerged that works to unmask and deter those toxic doctrines. Literary and cultural critic Kirk Combe calls this new form of satire the Rant. The Rant is grim, highly imaginative, and complex in its blending of genres. It mixes facets of satire, science fiction, and monster tale to produce widely consumed spectacles--major studio movies, popular television/streaming series, bestselling novels--designed to disturb and to provoke. The Rant targets what Combe calls the Regime. Simply put, the Regime is the sum of the dangerous social, economic, and political orthodoxies spurred on by neoliberal and neoconservative polity. Such practices include free-market capitalism, corporatism, militarism, religiosity, imperialism, racism, patriarchy, and so on. In the Rant, then, we have a unique and wholly contemporary genre of political expression and protest: speculative satire.
- SUBVERSION AND SATIRE: APOCALYPTIC FUTURES IN THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL AND DR. STRANGELOVE / by George Ayres Mousinho
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Mousinho, George Ayres; Florianópolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC Centro de Comunicação e Expressão
Ilha do Desterro, 2023-05, Vol.76 (2), p.135-155 - Why There are Always Ducts: Parody and Fandom in Galaxy Quest / By Kim Edwards
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Screen education (St Kilda, Vic.), 2007-01 (48), p.109-115 - From the Grotesque to Nuclear-Age Precedents: The Modes and Meanings of Cli-fi Humor / by Courtney Traub
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Studies in the novel, 2018-03, Vol.50 (1), p.86-107
Selected films on Kanopy
Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy: Gosti iz galaksije (dir. Dušan Vukotić, 1981)
"A truly gonzo Croatian sci-fi / fantasy about a struggling writer, Robert (Zarko Potocnjak), who dreams up a story of gold-skinned alien androids named Andra, Targo and Ulu from a distant planet. Incredibly, his fictional alien creations become reality, causing chaos in his relationship with his girlfriend Biba (Lucie Zulová) and threatening his small seaside village. The alluring lead robot Andra (Ksenia Prohaska) looks like H.R. Giger re-designed the Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; watch for the scene where she pours hot coffee and cream out of her fingertips. But for sheer jawdropping insanity, nothing rivals the Mumu Monster -- created for the film by legendary Czech animator Jan Svankmajer -- a rubber-suited, multi-tentacled creation that destroys a wedding party, ripping off heads and spouting plumes of toxic green smoke while a blind accordion player blithely plays his squeezebox."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
The Brother from Another Planet (dir. John Sayles, 1984)
""The Brother" (Joe Morton) is an alien and escaped slave on the run from his home planet. After he lands in New York City, he tries to adapt to life on the streets of Harlem. Although the Brother is mute, he does have great abilities at fixing machines, and he gets a job. As the Brother tries to blend in with his new culture, he finds an apartment and gradually makes friends. Meanwhile, he is pursued by two agents from his home world who are intent on returning there with him."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
La Belle Verte (dir. Coline Serreau, 1996)
"A half human extraterrestrial lands in Paris on a reluctant mission to provide some much needed spiritual healing to her irritable, stressed-out Earthling relatives."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
Save the Green Planet! (dir. Jang Joon-hwan, 2003)
"Lee Byeong-Gu is a sensitive, blue collar sad sack hopped up on conspiracy theories and sci-fi films whose life has been derailed by one bad break after another. Yet he knows there's no such thing as bad luck. The only thing that could have made such a mess of his life are…aliens. Specifically, Andromedans. Nasty, disgusting Andromedan aliens who have infiltrated human society.
Sly Andromedans who are planning to destroy our planet at the next lunar eclipse. The one alien possessing the Royal Genetic Code needed to contact Andromeda's Crown Prince and stop the destruction just happens to be his old boss, CEO of Yuje Chemicals, Kang Man-Shik. So, with the help of his circus-performer girlfriend, he sets out to kidnap Kang and torture him until he confesses to his alien identity and stops the invasion. Of course, it's hard to confess to something that's just a delusion in a sick man's mind."
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Colossal (dir. Nacho Vigalondo, 2016)
"An out-of-work party girl moves back to her hometown, when she realizes her life has a COLOSSAL effect on the fate of the world after a giant creature begins destroying it."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022)
"When an interdimensional rupture threatens to unravel reality, the fate of the world is suddenly in the hands of a most unlikely hero: Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), a flustered immigrant mother. As bizarre and bewildering dangers emerge from the many possible worlds, she must learn to channel her newfound powers and fight her way through the splintering timelines to save her home, her family, and herself in this big-hearted and irreverent adventure through the multiverse."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.