Everybody analyses films. Ordinary viewers, chatting on the way home afterwards. Reviewers, telling us just enough to tempt or put off. Critics, 'situating' films for us. Moralists, hunting for the (harmful) message. So what exactly is it that film academics do that's different? Martin Barker and Thomas Austin provide a jargon-free, accessible and student-friendly introduction to film analysis. They begin with a discussion about audience and...

Makes the case that philosophy has an essential role to play in the serious study of film. William Rothman has long been considered one of the seminal figures in the field of film-philosophy. From his landmark book Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze, now in its second edition, to the essays collected here in Tuitions and Intuitions, Rothman has been guided by two intuitions: first, that his kind of film criticism is philosophy; and second, that such a...

"In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans--and all movie lovers--could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he...

Brian De Palma is perhaps best known as the director behind the gangster classic Scarface. Yet as ingrained as Scarface is in American popular culture, it is but one of a sizeable number of controversial films-many of which are consistently misread or ignored-directed by De Palma over his more than four-decade career. In Un-American Psycho, Chris Dumas places De Palma's body of work in dialogue with the works of other provocative filmmakers, including...

"Nightmares Alive offers a general introduction to the popular film genre, serves as a guidebook to its film highlights, and celebrates its practitioners, trends, and stories"-- Provided by publisher.

"From legendary entertainment journalist and author of Caddyshack comes a rollicking history of 1980s cinema--how eight legendary sci-fi films changed Hollywood forever In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood's now biggest names--altering...

The "f**k" count is just over sixty. The images are screenshots. The metal is mostly nu. And the grant money's gone. From the author of The Malevolent Volume and National Book Award–winning Indecency comes a gory new mutation in the shape of nonfiction and criticism. In 2019, Justin Phillip Reed's romantic maiden voyage through the waters of American poetry and its communities ran aground in the barrens of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when he found...

"With Dark Carnivals, author W. Scott Poole, an expert in horror and its impact on American history, reveals how the horror genre as a way of seeing the world has become one of the most incisive critiques of America and its history and influence around the globe"-- Provided by publisher.

"Turan's sketches are a blend of cultural analysis, historical anecdote, and sordid Hollywood controversy--astute critical appraisals, all suffused with his abiding love for the silver screen. [His] favorite films range across all genres, low and high. From All about Eve to Seven samurai to Spirited away, these are now timeless films--classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small--each as interesting as the lives of the...

In 2012, a book debuted that would go on to canonical status and usher in a new way of writing about film. Kier-La Janisse's House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films that examines hundreds of films through a daringly personal lens. In this pioneering work, anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, and trivia to create a reflective personal history and a consideration...