London ; New York : Routledge, 2004.

xv, 414 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: 'Trauma thrills' : notes on early action cinema / Jennifer M. Bean -- The 'culture war' of sensational melodrama, 1910-14 / Richard Abel -- 'Child of commerce! Bastard of art!' : early film melodrama / Ben Singer -- Action-adventure as Hollywood genre / Steve Neale -- Dwight Macdonald and the historical epic / Mark Jancovich -- 'Get ready for rush hour' : the chronotype in action / Martin Flanagan -- The collapse of reality and illusion in The matrix / Aylish Wood -- Guns and gas : investigating the 1970s car chase film / Tico Romao -- Saving Private Ryan's 'special affect' / Michael Hammond --Ready for action : G.I. Jane, Demi Moore's body and the female combat movie / Linda Ruth Williams -- Más macha : the new Latina action hero / Mary Beltrán -- Beauty in motion : gender, spectacle and action babe cinema / Marc O'Day -- Breakdown : white masculinity, class, and US action-adventure films / Susan Jeffords -- Maximus melodramaticus : masculinity, masochism and white male paranoia in contemporary Hollywood cinema / Martin Fradley -- The family in action / Yvonne Tasker -- The Hong Kong/Hollywood connection : stardom and spectacle in transnational action cinema / Leon Hunt -- Europeans in action! / Christine Holmlund -- Greek war film as melodrama : women, female stars, and the nation as victim / Lydia Papadimitriou -- Spaghetti western, genre criticism and national cinema : re-defining the frame of reference / Dimitris Eleftheriotis -- Genre and violence in the work of Kurosawa and Peckinpah / Stephen Prince -- The dirty dozen : the contradictory nature of screen violence / Tony Williams -- 'It's aimed at kids - the kid in everybody' : George Lucas, Star wars and children's entertainment / Peter Krämer -- Man's favourite sport? The action films of Kathryn Bigelow / Barry Keith Grant -- 'They call me "action woman" ' : the marketing of Mimi Leder as a new concept in the high concept 'action' film / Rachel Williams.

Adventure films -- History and criticism.

Tasker, Yvonne, 1964-

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