They Went Thataway: Redefining Film Genres, a National Society of Film Critics Video Guide by Richard T. Jameson (Editor), National Society Of Film Critics

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Annotation

Members of the National Society of Film Critics examine movies that have defined or redefined movie genres, including Unforgiven, The Crying Game, Reservoir Dogs, Rear Window, Star Wars, The Grifters, Aliens, Platoon, The Silence of the Lambs, Fatal Attraction, Heathers, Ghostbusters, Thelma & Louise, and lesser-known film.

Library Journal

Jameson, an editor for Film Comment magazine, presents a fine collection of uniformly intelligent essays on recent trends in traditional film genres and the emergence of new genres (e.g., women's movies). Essays on directors are included, along with reviews of especially pivotal films like Dances with Wolves (1990) and Platoon (1986), which recast the conventional war movie with themes unique to Vietnam. Prominent critics are featured, including Andrew Sarris and Richard Schickel; and who could be more appropriate than Playboy magazine's Bruce Williamson to review (unfavorably) The French Lieutenant's Woman ? For list lovers, there is an appended, intriguingly debatable catalog of classic films in each genre. Though somewhat dated now, the definitive study on the subject is still Thomas Schatz's Hollywood Genres ( LJ 6/1/81). For comprehensive collections.-- Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno