Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Introduction: The Way We Live Now 1
Part 1 Trends 25
Conglomerate Aesthetics: Notes on the Disintegration of Film Language 27
Pirates on the iPod: The Soul of a New Screen 45
Spectacle: The Passion of the Christ, Avatar, Endless Summer-Digital All the Time 58
Part 2 Independent Glories 71
Capturing the Friedmans, Sideways, Capote, The Squid and the Whale, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, There Will Be Blood, The Hurt Looker, Winter's Bone 73
Part 3 Stars 99
Enduring Joan Crawford 101
Fallen Idols: Movie Stars Today 114
Part 4 Genres 133
High School Movies 135
Chick Flicks 142
Romantic Comedy Gets Knocked Up: The Slacker-Striver Comedy 157
Part 5 Directors 173
Otto Preminger: The Balance of Terror 175
Victor Fleming: The Director the Auteurists Forgot 186
Pedro Almodóvar: In and Out of Love 199
Clint Eastwood: The Longest Journey 208
The Coen Brothers: A Killing Joke 234
Quentin Tarantino: Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Inglourious Basterds 246
David Fincher and The Social Network 254
Part 6 Two Critics 265
James Agee 267
Pauline Kael: A Great Critic and Her Circle 280
Part 7 An Opening to the Future? 301
Mumblecore 304
Terrence Malick's Insufferable Masterpiece 308
Rise of the Planet of the Apes 314
Acknowledgments 319
Index 321