'He wanted to move in and out of the various signature styles of all these genres_Western, melodrama, thriller, horror, ' said cinematographer Robert Richardson of Quentin Tarantino's goals in making Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2. Through close readings of work by major U.S. filmmakers such as Tarantino, David Lynch, Errol Morris, Todd Haynes, and Joel and Ethan Coen, Hollywood Hybrids studies provocative, disorienting strategies of genre mixing in contemporary cinema. The book also investigates foreign parallels to U.S. hybrid cinema in films by such directors as Pedro Almod-var (Spain) and Stephen Chow (Hong Kong). Rather than explore genre primarily from the standpoint of movie critics, producers, marketers, and spectators, Hollywood Hybrids focuses on genre mixing as a key creative interest motivating celebrated filmmakers. The book thus relates genre to auteur theory. Hollywood Hybrids also links recent hybrid cinema to earlier instances of hybrid form in film and other arts, including painting, music, literature, and architecture. The book concludes that hybrid films allude not only to multiple films and genres, but also to hybrid features of consciousness and identity that increasingly heighten as well as complicate human experience.

Love and loyalties get tested in another gripping LA drama from Lucy Broadbent. Pearl Sash lives the dream. Adoring husband, perfect child, and a glamorous Hollywood Hills mansion. Shame how perfect gets boring, isn't it? Cue the re-entrance of Brett. Dangerous, sexy Brett who she married years ago, and who left her the second his own Hollywood star was rising. Now he's back, wanting to start over. No man ever made her feel so bad. No man ever made her feel so good! Will Pearl make the right decision to get her own Hollywood ending?

Genre and Hollywood provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of genre. In this important new book, Steve Neale discusses all the major concepts, theories and accounts of Hollywood and genre, as well as the key genres which theorists have written about, from horror to the Western. He also puts forward new arguments about the importance of genre in understanding Hollywood cinema. Neale takes issue with much genre criticism and genre theory, which has provided only a partial and misleading account of Hollywood's output. He calls for broader and more flexible conceptions of genre and genres, for more attention to be paid to the discourses and practices of Hollywood itself, for the nature and range of Hollywood's films to be looked at in more detail, and for any assessment of the social and cultural significance of Hollywood's genres to take account of industrial factors. In detailed, revisionist accounts of two major genres - film noir and melodrama - Neale argues that genre remains an important and productive means of thinking about both New and old Hollywood, its history, its audiences and its films.

Adopting and developing a ‘cultural politics’ approach, this comprehensive study explores how Hollywood movies generate and reflect political myths about social and personal life that profoundly influence how we understand power relations. Instead of looking at genre, it employs three broad categories of film. ‘Security’ films present ideas concerning public order and disorder, citizen–state relations and the politics of fear. ‘Relationalities’ films highlight personal and intimate politics, bringing norms about identities, gender and sexuality into focus. In ‘socially critical’ films, particular issues and ideas are endowed with more overtly political significance. The book considers these categories as global political technologies implicated in hegemonic and ‘soft power’ relations whose reach is both deep and broad.

A Companion to the War Film contains 27 original essays that examine all aspects of the genre, from the traditional war film, to the new global nature of conflicts, and the diverse formats that war stories assume in today’s digital culture. Includes new works from experienced and emerging scholars that expand the scope of the genre by applying fresh theoretical approaches and archival resources to the study of the war film Moves beyond the limited confines of “the combat film” to cover home-front films, international and foreign language films, and a range of conflicts and time periods Addresses complex questions of gender, race, forced internment, international terrorism, and war protest in films such as Full Metal Jacket, Good Kill, Grace is Gone, Gran Torino, The Messenger, Snow Falling on Cedars, So Proudly We Hail, Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, Tender Comrade, and Zero Dark Thirty Provides a nuanced vision of war film that brings the genre firmly into the 21st Century and points the way for exciting future scholarship

Daydream sequences provide viewers with important information regarding the desires, hopes, fears and psychological state of film protagonists. How, then, do cinematic daydreams stand with regard to classical Hollywood cinema? What do volitional fantasy sequences typically infer about the conscious mind? What do non-volitional cinematic daydreams commonly imply about the workings of the unconscious psyche and human will? Do filmed fantasies–intentionally or otherwise–reinforce cultural hegemony? Is daydreaming typically depicted as a detrimental or beneficial pastime in mainstream US cinema? Through investigating a corpus of Hollywood films containing fantasy scenes, this text answers these questions. This study uncovers the norms and key functions that daydreams serve in contemporary Hollywood films from cinematic, thematic, psychological and ideological perspectives. Whilst this text is aimed primarily at students and academics of film studies, it should also appeal to anyone with an interest in Hollywood cinema and/or daydreaming.