Research Guides: Media Arts & Culture: Articles

Film Reviews / Film Criticism

Reviews
Crticisim

Film reviews are written by journalists, with the intention of communicating the review to the general public, describing the plot, characters, cast, and director. The goal of a film review is to help the reader assess whether or not they want to watch the movie. Film reviews are published around the weeks and months when the film is released. A film review is a primary source that tells you what thoughts were around the time that the film was released.

Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2015) This link opens in a new window
Search the full text of the New York Times (1851 - 2015 and growing). View results as page images.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times This link opens in a new window
Search the full text of the Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1995 and growing). View results as page images.
Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Sentinel (1934 - 2005) This link opens in a new window
Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender (1910-1975) This link opens in a new window
Includes content from the Chicago Defender between 1910 and 1975.
CDNC California Digital Newspaper Collection This link opens in a new window

Scholarly criticism of a film analyzes the plot, characters, and cinematic techniques. Criticism compares the film with other films in the genre, or might apply a specific theory to the film. Criticism often considers the historical and cultural significance of the film with the goal of advancing scholarly communication. While reviews are published around the time of release, scholarly criticism could be published years or decades after the release of the film.

Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Film & Television Literature Index is designed for use by film scholars, college students, and general viewers. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. From EBSCO.

Sources for Media Arts and Culture

Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Film & Television Literature Index is designed for use by film scholars, college students, and general viewers. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. From EBSCO.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Full-text of hundreds of journals in the humanities, arts, and social sciences from scholarly publishers, mostly university presses. Oxy subscribes to the Standard Collection.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full-text archive of high-impact academic journals in many disciplines. The archive does NOT include recent issues -- included journals generally begin with the first issue and stop 3 to 5 years ago. You can browse journals by discipline or by title, and you can search articles by keyword. Oxy subscribes to eight JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I through VII and the Ecology and Botany collection.
ProQuest Databases This link opens in a new window
A common interface to databases marketed by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. Oxy's set of ProQuest databases includes: ProQuest Research Library, ProQuest Religious Periodicals, ProQuest Health and Medical Resources, and many more. Together they form a convenient general article database offering ample links to complete online articles.
Art Full Text This link opens in a new window
Art Databases includes Art Full Text and Art Retrospective, covering an array of publications about artists, contemporary art, exhibition reviews and theory and criticism. From EBSCO.
Film Scripts Online Series This link opens in a new window
The Film Scripts Online Series makes available, for the first time, accurate and authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays. Now film scholars can compare the writer’s vision with the producer’s and director’s interpretations from page to screen. The series contains 1,500 film scripts—an exploration of culture and cinema through the decades. This highly structured archive offers a bibliographic and biographical database of directors and writers, along with the full text of the movies themselves. From the earliest silent films through to the present, the cultural attitudes and lifestyles are reflected in the medium. Students, instructors, and researchers use the series for studying popular culture, film, diversity and gender issues, language and linguistics, writing, American history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and other disciplines.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
This vast digital archive offers unparalleled insights into the behind-the-scenes activities of the music, film and entertainment industries. By providing the complete runs of major trade and consumer magazines, from their inception to 2000, it arms students and researchers with primary source material to develop a contextual understanding of the entertainment industry as it evolved over the 20th century. SECTION 1: Music, Radio and The Stage • Billboard (1894-2000) • Musician (1976-1999) • Muzik (1995-2003) • Spin (1985-2000) • Back Stage (1960-2000) • The Beat (1988-2000) • Disc/Disc and Music Echo (1958-1975) • Mixmag (1983-2000) • Radio and Records (R&R) (1973-2000) • Rave (1964-1970) • Reggae and African Beat (1982-1988) • The Stage (1880-2000) • Uncut (1997-2000) • Vox (1990-1999) -- SECTION 2: Cinema, Film and Television • American Film (1975-1992) • Broadcasting & Cable (1931-2000) • Contrast (1961-1966) • Film Journal International/Independent Film Journal/Film Journal (1937-2000) • Screen International (1976-2000) • Variety (1905-2000) • Boxoffice (1920-2000) • Broadcast (1960-2000) • Film Weekly (1928-1939) • Picturegoer (1911-1960)
Kanopy Streaming This link opens in a new window
An on-demand streaming video service which provides access to educational titles, including award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases.
Academic Video Online (AVON) This link opens in a new window
Academic Video Online is the most comprehensive video subscription available to libraries. It delivers more than 68,000 titles spanning the widest range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.

Avenues to Finding Articles

Use academic databases (like those listed above, or found in the Database Finder) to execute sophisticated searches and locate relevant scholarly articles.

Identify major journal publications in your subject. Browse Oxy subscriptions to electronic journals using the links at right, or explore the metrics side of Google Scholar by looking at their Journal rankings .

Locate and browse online and print journals accessible at Oxy. Search journals as a Title in an OASys search and view the record to determine whether we have print, online access or both, and to see what years of coverage are included. Sometimes different databases include different date ranges, so look carefully. Our Journal Lists provide coverage information as well.

Finding relevant, peer-reviewed journal articles can be one of the more difficult aspects of the research process. To learn more advanced searching techniques check out the Research and Reference Guide or contact a librarian. You can email questions or use the appointment button to set up a 1-hour consultation.

Open Access Media and Film Journals

These open access journals (and others) may not be indexed in major article databases:

Canadian Journal of Media Studies

Film-Philosophy Journal

Mediascape: UCLA's Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

MediaTropes

Scope

Screening the Past

Senses of Cinema

Velox: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Film

FlowTV

In Media Res

Transformative Works and Cultures