When discussing blockbuster entertainments and their representations it’s important to understand genre formulas and expectations as recent trends in Hollywood productions are in direct relation to these models. The subversion of expectation is often the selling point of the new summer blockbuster: The trolling anti-hero (Deadpool), the misunderstood villain (Maleficent…

The American film industry developed under a market economy and a mixed economic aesthetic of State-Capitalism and laissez-faire Capitalism which now dominates the global consensus. Structural and stylistic achievements of the Hollywood Studio System are well documented. From early 20th century technological leaps in sound, leading to “talkies”, to the…

The motivating interest in Chloe Zhao’s new film is that the audience will be swept away to the rural and mythological landscape of the American West. A place that doesn’t exist because it has been bleached to a level of fantasy on par with Spielberg’s Kinder films with the high…