Film theory no longer gets top billing or plays a starring role in film studies today, as critics proclaim that theory is dead and we are living in a post-theory moment. While theory may be out of the limelight, it remains an essential key to understanding the full complexity of cinema, one that should not be so easily discounted or discarded. In this volume, contributors explore recent popular movies through the lens of film theory, beginning with industrial-economic analysis before moving into a predominately aesthetic and interpretive framework. The Hollywood films discussed cover a wide range from 300 to Fifty First Dates, from Brokeback Mountain to Lord of the Rings, from Spider-Man 3 to Fahrenheit 9/11, from Saw to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more. Individual essays consider such topics as the rules that govern new blockbuster franchises, the 'posthumanist realism' of digital cinema, video game adaptations, increasingly restricted stylistic norms, the spatial stories of social networks like YouTube, the mainstreaming of queer culture, and the cognitive paradox behind enjoyable viewing of traumatic events onscreen. With its cast of international film scholars, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies demonstrates the remarkable contributions theory can offer to film studies and moviegoers alike.

Film theory no longer gets top billing or plays a starring role in film studies today, as critics proclaim that theory is dead and we are living in a post-theory moment. While theory may be out of the limelight, it remains an essential key to understanding the full complexity of cinema, one that should not be so easily discounted or discarded. In this volume, contributors explore recent popular movies through the lens of film theory, beginning with industrial-economic analysis before moving into a predominately aesthetic and interpretive framework. The Hollywood films discussed cover a wide range from 300 to Fifty First Dates, from Brokeback Mountain to Lord of the Rings, from Spider-Man 3 to Fahrenheit 9/11, from Saw to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more. Individual essays consider such topics as the rules that govern new blockbuster franchises, the ‘posthumanist realism’ of digital cinema, video game adaptations, increasingly restricted stylistic norms, the spatial stories of social networks like YouTube, the mainstreaming of queer culture, and the cognitive paradox behind enjoyable viewing of traumatic events onscreen. With its cast of international film scholars, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies demonstrates the remarkable contributions theory can offer to film studies and moviegoers alike.

From Inception to The Lake House, moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques—like fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split identities or unreliable narrators—more commonly attributed to art cinema and independent films. The essays in Hollywood Puzzle Films examine the appropriation of puzzle film techniques by contemporary Hollywood dramas and blockbusters through questions of narrative, time, and altered realities. Analyzing movies like Source Code, The Butterfly Effect, Donnie Darko, Déjà Vu, and adaptations of Philip K. Dick, contributors explore the implications of Hollywood's new movie mind games.

An analysis of novelistic explorations of modernism in mathematics and its cultural interrelations.

A Companion to American Indie Film features a comprehensive collection of newly commissioned essays that represent a state-of-the-art resource for understanding key aspects of the field of indie films produced in the United States. Takes a comprehensive and fresh new look at the topic of American indie film Features newly commissioned essays from top film experts and emerging scholars that represent the state-of-the-art reference to the indie film field Topics covered include: indie film culture; key historical moments and movements in indie film history; relationships between indie film and other indie media; and issues including class, gender, regional identity and stardom in in the indie field Includes studies of many types of indie films and film genres, along with various filmmakers and performers that have come to define the field

The Digitization of Cinematic Visual Effects: Hollywood's Coming of Age, by Rama Venkatasawmy, analyzes how the Hollywood cinema industry's visual effects applications have not only motivated the expansion of filmmaking praxis, they have also influenced the evolution of viewing pleasures and spectatorship experiences. Following the digitization of their associated technologies, VFX have been responsible for multiplying the strategies of representation and storytelling, as well as extending the range of stories that can potentially be told onscreen. By the same token, the visual standards of the Hollywood film's production and exhibition have been growing in sophistication. On the basis of displaying groundbreaking VFX--immaculately realized through the application of cutting-edge technologies and craftsmanship--and of projecting such a significant degree of visual innovation and originality, certain Hollywood movies have established techno-visual trends and industrial standards for subsequent filmmaking practice. Hollywood cinema's entry into the digital realm is intertwined with the intensification of conglomeratic practices within the movie business, the domain of techno-scientific R&D in filmmaking, and the unification of corporate media, information technology, and entertainment. Hence, the standardization of, and convergence toward, the digital medium is emblematic of Hollywood cinema's techno-industrial evolution in the late twentieth century. Accordingly, this volume identifies various synergies and partnerships--between VFX providers, movie studios, graphic designers, and more--that have emerged from a progressive growth of awareness in Hollywood of the digital medium's potential.

This book is an authoritative account of post-1990s US action cinema.

This book highlights how horror in film and television creates platforms to address distinct areas of modern-day concern. In examining the prevalence of dark tropes in contemporary horror films such as Get Out, Annabelle: Creation, A Quiet Place, Hereditary and The Nun, as well as series such as Stranger Things, American Horror Story and Game of Thrones, amongst numerous others, the authors contend that we are witnessing the emergence of a ‘horror renaissance’. They posit that horror films or programmes, once widely considered to be a low form of popular culture entertainment, can contain deeper meanings or subtext and are increasingly covering serious subject matter. This book thus explores how horror is utilised as a tool to explore social and political anxieties of the cultural moment and is thus presented as a site for contestation, exploration and expansion to discuss present-day fears. It demonstrates how contemporary horror reflects the horror of modern-day life, be it political, biological, social or environmental. A vital contribution to studies of the horror genre in contemporary culture, and the effect it has on social anxieties in a threatening and seemingly apocalyptic time for the world, this is a vital text for students and researchers in popular culture, film, television and media studies.

A comprehensive overview of the film industry in Hollywood today, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema brings together leading international cinema scholars to explore the technology, institutions, film makers and movies of contemporary American film making.

This teaching pack, suitable for AS/A2 Media and Film Studies, offers a suitable case study for industry and institution and help students demonstrate an understanding of key concepts and contemporary Hollywood.