Category Archives: Books

New book on art cinema

Posted on April 15, 2017 by admin

I’ve recently signed a contract for my next book, Art Cinema: Positioning Films and the Construction of Cultural Value. I’m quite excited about this project, which is already at an advanced stage, due for submission late summer for publication by I.B. … Continue reading →

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Companion to American Indie Film out soon; plus Indie Reframed

Posted on November 4, 2016 by admin

A new collection I’ve edited, A Companion to American Indie Film is out soon from Wiley Blackwell (due 6 December). I’m really pleased with the way this has worked out. You can read the intro and find a full list of … Continue reading →

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Quality Hollywood cover

Posted on October 30, 2015 by admin

The final cover has now been agreed for my new book, Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Film, which of course necessitates a plug! Will update when it hits the shops, which shouldn’t be too far away. Below is the … Continue reading →

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A balanced account of ‘quality’ in Hollywood – and a shameless plug!

Posted on September 14, 2015 by admin

Here’s something of a novelty, a journalistic piece about contemporary Hollywood that for once adopts a balanced approach to the subject of whether or not the studios still make any of the kinds of films that are still critically lauded … Continue reading →

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marketing departments in film and academic publishing

Posted on August 1, 2015 by admin

I’m working on a new book project that’s an analysis of the various ways in which art cinema is positioned as something of special cultural value. Among various other perspectives, I’m considering the marketing of such films. While marketing devices … Continue reading →

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Two new indie collections

Posted on March 8, 2015 by admin

Just wanted to give a mention to two new edited collections either about or relevant to American indies (OK, I’m also plugging the fact that I’ve got an essay in each of them!). First is US Independent Film After 1989: Possible Films, … Continue reading →

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Sovereign Masculinity

Posted on January 18, 2015 by admin

Just finished a terrific book on issues relating to gender and American culture, particularly in relation to the so-called’ ‘war on terror’: Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons from the War on Terror, by Bonnie Mann (Oxford UP, 2014). Mann offers a very … Continue reading →

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Happy Endings and markers of distinction

Posted on September 11, 2014 by admin

Indie films often mark their difference from the Hollywood mainstream through their resistance to the kinds of happy endings associated with studio films. That Hollywood films always have, or have had, such endings, or that they are as simplistic and/or … Continue reading →

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Hollywood Puzzle Films

Posted on June 2, 2014 by admin

This is just a shameless plug for a chapter I have in a new book just out, Hollywood Puzzle Films edited by Warren Buckland (a new AFI Film Reader from Routledge). My chapter is one of several on Inception, in which I explore … Continue reading →

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Cultural hierarchies and Game of Thrones

Posted on October 21, 2012 by admin

I’m very interested at the moment in cultural hierarchies – the ways in which cultural products are differently valued, in prevailing systems of taste judgement – and have been thinking about this in various ways, including how it applies to … Continue reading →

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