Hollywood From Vietnam To Reagan And Beyond

This new edition includes all the chapters of the original work, supplemented with analysis of comedy films of the 1990s, a chapter on contemporary filmmakers, including David Fincher & Jim Jarmusch, & an essay on 'Day of the Dead'

In this series of provocative, interrelated essays, Robin Wood analyzes 1970s films affected by the ideological crises in America precipitated by Watergate and the Vietnam war, and assembles his much-discussed but hiterto scattered and inaccessible work on the modern horror film. The book also analyzes the complex and problematic films of Brian De Palma, attacks the 1980s fantasy cinema of Lucas and Spielberg, examines the work of women directors, and celebrates the films of Scorcese and Michael Cimino.

This classic of film criticism, long considered invaluable for its eloquent study of a problematic period in film history, is now substantially updated and revised by the author to include chapters beyond the Reagan era and into the twenty-first century. For the new edition, Robin Wood has written a substantial new preface that explores the interesting double context within which the book can be read-that in which it was written and that in which we find ourselves today. Among the other additions to this new edition are a celebration of modern "screwball" comedies like My Best Friend's Wedding, and an analysis of '90s American and Canadian teen movies in the vein of American Pie, Can't Hardly Wait, and Rollercoaster. Also included are a chapter on Hollywood today that looks at David Fincher and Jim Jarmusch (among others) and an illuminating essay on Day of the Dead.

Critics have traditionally characterized classic horror by its use of shadow and suggestion. Yet the graphic nature of early 1930s films only came to light in the home video/DVD era. Along with gangster movies and “sex pictures,” horror films drew audiences during the Great Depression with sensational content. Exploiting a loophole in the Hays Code, which made no provision for on-screen “gruesomeness,” studios produced remarkably explicit films that were recut when the Code was more rigidly enforced from 1934. This led to a modern misperception that classic horror was intended to be safe and reassuring to audiences. The author examines the 1931 to 1936 “happy ending” horror in relation to industry practices and censorship. Early works like Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Raven (1935) may be more akin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Hostel (2005) than many critics believe.

A critical examination of the cultural, cinematic, and historical contexts of the Back to the Future trilogy, this book provides a multi-focal representation of the trilogy from several interdisciplinary fields, including philosophy, literature, music, pop culture, and media and gender studies. Topics include sexual symbolism in the trilogy and the oedipal plotting of the first film; nostalgia and the suburban dream in the cultural climate of the 1980s; generic play and performance throughout the trilogy; the emotional and narrative force provided by the films' renowned musical scores; the trilogy's post-modern references and allusions to the Western genre; female representations across the trilogy; and the Lacanian philosophical constructs in the characterizations of Doc Brown and George and Marty McFly.

This volume covers approaches concerning the relationship between innovation in cinema and the politics of filmmaking in new cinema practices in Turkey. The contributors focus on historiography, genres, mainstream and art cinema production, and transnational cinema, as well as changing narratives and identities. The new cinema movement in Turkey is here analysed from perspectives of new technologies, new production and distribution structures, the impact of film training, the televisual industry, new actors in commercial and art cinema, as well as the impact of the film festival circuit. Additionally, recurring themes of memory, trauma, and identity are dealt with from multidisciplinary angles. The volume covers in depth analyses of the internationally renowned filmmakers Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Fatih Akın, Semih Kaplanoğlu, Reha Erdem, Zeki Demirkubuz, Yeşim Ustaoğlu and Derviş Zaim. A timely study on the centenary of Turkish cinema in 2014, students of Middle Eastern Studies, Film Studies, Cultural Studies, Urban Studies, Gender Studies, and Identity Studies will find this volume extremely relevant to their work.

In virtually every aspect of culture-health, marriage, family, morals, politics, sex, race, economics-American men of the past two decades have faced changing social conditions and confronted radical questions about themselves. In Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema, editor Timothy Shary collects fourteen contributions that consider male representation in films made at the turn of the century to explore precisely how those questions have been dealt with in cinema. Contributors move beyond the recent wave of "masculinity in crisis" arguments to provide sophisticated and often surprising insight into accessible films. Chapters are arranged in four sections: "Performing Masculinity" includes a discussion of Adam Sandler and movies such as Milk; "Patriarchal Problems" looks at issues of fathers from directors such as Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, and David Fincher; "Exceptional Sexualities" examines male love and sex through movies like Brokeback Mountain and Wedding Crashers; and "Facing Race" explores masculinity through race in film. Sean Penn, Jackie Chan, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Philip Seymour Hoffman are some of the actors included in these analyses, while themes considered include police thrillers, psychotic killers, gay tensions, fashion sense, and the burgeoning "bromance" genre. Taken together, the essays in Millennial Masculinity shed light on the high stakes of masculine roles in contemporary American cinema. Film and television scholars as well as readers interested in gender and sexuality in film will appreciate this timely collection.

This collection, representing the work of scholars from a range of theoretical frameworks and disciplines, examines aspects of the preoccupation with children and childhood in Steven Spielberg’s films. It includes essays on such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, Hook, Jurassic Park, and more.