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Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World by Ross Melnick

To understand the impact movies and in particularly the American movie industry has had  since the 1920s, not just the messages, directors or entertaining subjects of the films have been important, but also the manner how the product film has been presented all over the world. For that purpose, the well-known website Cinema Treasures has […]

The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema: Essays on the Art and Principles of Ten Films by Vincent Piturro (ed.)...

Originally conceived in 2010 as a short-lived project to pair a film enthusiast with the respective scientific expert on the film’s subject after presenting a science fiction movie, the idea of dialogue and curiosity, in cooperation with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, still is around today. And with each film presentation hosted by […]

Hollywood’s Melodramatic Imagination: Film Noir, the Western and Other Genres … by Geoff Mayer (2022

In four chapters, author Geoff Mayer dives deep into the meaning and the many faces of the melodrama, highlighting several aspects and decades that made audiences familiar with the endless confrontation of virtue against reckless action, true love against intrigue or simply “good” versus “bad” characters, parties or companies. Here we learn about the main […]

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950–1985 by Andrew Nette and Iain McInty

Kicking off roughly in the early 1950s, British and American science fiction authors of the new breed, labeled New Wave later, brought massive changes to the genre and changed the way the future of mankind was perceived. They spoke for a growing readership that was hungry for new visions and speculative prospects, now being prepared […]

Broadcasting Hollywood: The Struggle Over Feature Films on Early TV by Jennifer Porst (2021)

Even if the topic of Porst’s book, with regard to today’s video watching agenda that includes streaming media, Netflix, or any Internet-based platform consulted to watch movies, documentaries or series, may look a bit outdated at first sight, Broadcasting Hollywood actually is a highly interesting study, as it chronicles how we, as audiences, originally “learned” […]

Star Trek, History and Us: Reflections of the Present and Past Throughout the Franchise by A.J. Blac...

To talk about present-day science fiction realms and the impact fictional stories had on popular culture or the way people imagined a better future without touching on Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek is hardly possible. When the first episodes of the show were broadcast in 1966, they were immediately recognized as basically an action and entertainment […]