Randy Astle

RANDY ASTLE {[email protected]} is a New York-based writer and filmmaker focusing on children’s media, transmedia, and independent film. A graduate of the London Film School, he has published nearly thirty articles on Mormon film and is currently finishing a book entitled Mormon Cinema and preparing the feature film Saints, about the coming of age of a Mormon actress in New York City. For more information, see http://mormonfilm.com.

Etching

Articles/Essays – Volume 42, No. 3

Writing on the subway feels like etching
an intaglio on horseback. The train
writhes and bucks beneath me, making

What is Mormon Cinema? Defining the Genre

Articles/Essays – Volume 42, No. 4

Latter-day Saints made their first known cinematic appearance in 1898 in Salt Lake City Company of Rocky Mountain Riders, part of a series of very short motion pictures depicting American troops in the Spanish-American War. Since then thousands of films and television programs have dealt with Mormonism; at present the Mormon Literature and Creative Arts database lists 4,591 such items.

Mormonism Goes Mainstream | Mark T. Decker and Michael Austin, eds., Peculiar Portrayals: Mormons on the Page, Stage, and Screen

Articles/Essays – Volume 44, No. 1

In an article posted in September 2010 on Patheos.com, a website devoted to the discussion of religion and spirituality, Michael Otterson, managing director of Public Affairs for the LDS Church, wrote: “During the past few years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has navigated a period of intense public attention and scrutiny rarely seen during any other time in its history.” He buttressed this claim with the fact that for over a year “media attention far exceeded even the considerable interest generated during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.” While Peculiar Portrayals: Mormons on the Page, Stage, and Screen looks at artistic productions rather than traditional journalism, its editors Mark T. Decker and Michael Austin agree with Otter son, stating that “Mormons and Mormonism have seen increasing scrutiny during the previous decade” (1). They even cite many of the same causes.

The Truth Will Set You Free | Errol Morris, Tabloid

Articles/Essays – Volume 45, No. 1

Tabloids, it seems, make good headlines. When Errol Morris’s new film Tabloid began its limited release on July 15, 2011, British papers were themselves dominating the news, with the News of the World closing its doors on July 10 and Rupert Murdoch appearing before Parliament less than two weeks later. The timing was weirdly appropriate: Morris’s film examines an episode from 1977 when the British papers were awash with the story of Joyce McKinney, an American girl alleged to have abducted a Mormon missionary and briefly made him her sex slave. In looking at the tactics of tabloid reporters in 1977, it seems that not much has changed. Surely the reporters then would have hacked McKinney’s mobile phone had they been able.