Front Cover -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Overrated, Underseen -- Overrated -- American Beauty -- In the Mood for Love -- Good Will Hunting -- Far From Heaven -- Shine -- Your Friends and Neighbors -- Fight Club -- Zero Dark Thirty -- Underseen -- Wild Bill -- Joe Gould's Secret -- Babe: Pig in the City -- A Cry in the Dark -- Madadayo -- Trouble in Mind -- A Modest Proposal -- Chapter 2: Youngish Turks -- Spike Jonze -- Being John Malkovich -- Adaptation -- Richard Linklater -- Waking Life -- Todd Field -- In The Bedroom -- Paul Thomas Anderson -- Boogie Nights -- Sofia Coppola -- Lost in Translation -- David O. Russell -- Three Kings -- Chapter 3: Auteurs -- Curtis Hanson -- L.A. Confidential -- Wonder Boys -- Mike Leigh -- Secrets and Lies -- Topsy-Turvy -- Stanley Kubrick -- Full Metal Jacket -- Eyes Wide Shut -- An Appreciation -- Alfred Hitchcock -- Rear Window -- István Szabó -- Sunshine -- Neil Jordan -- Michael Collins -- Satyajit Ray -- The Home and the World -- Martin Scorsese -- Overview -- The Coen Brothers -- Overview -- Bernardo Bertolucci -- The Last Emperor -- Stealing Beauty -- Francis Ford Coppola -- Overview -- Spike Lee -- Bamboozled -- Warren Beatty -- Bulworth -- George Lucas -- Overview -- James Cameron -- Titanic -- Woody Allen -- Everyone Says I Love You -- Wild Man Blues -- Ingmar Bergman -- Overview -- Robert Altman -- Overview -- The Player -- Michael Mann -- The Insider -- Robert Zemeckis -- Contact -- Roman Polanski -- The Pianist -- Bob Fosse -- Star 80 -- Baz Luhrmann -- Moulin Rouge -- Terrence Malick -- Overview -- Brian De Palma -- Overview -- Chapter 4: Steven Spielberg -- Overview -- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom -- The Color Purple -- Why the Schindler's List Backlash? -- Amistad -- A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Chapter 5: About Acting, Star Actors, and Acting Stars -- Acting in the Seventies -- Marlon Brando -- An Appreciation -- Nick Nolte -- Hollywood's Lost Generation of Women -- Debra Winger -- Jessica Lange -- Blue Sky -- Tom Cruise -- Top Gun -- Al Pacino -- Looking for Richard -- Richard Pryor -- Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling -- Eddie Murphy -- Overview -- Harlem Nights -- Will Ferrell -- Robert De Niro -- Sylvester Stallone -- Rambo -- Buster Keaton -- Chapter 6 Some Masterpieces -- The Night of the Hunter -- Time Out -- Au Revoir, Les Enfants -- The Last Letter -- Blue Velvet -- Something Wild -- The Wind Will Carry Us -- Kaos -- The Makioka Sisters -- Pretty Poison -- Shoot the Moon -- Hamsun -- Chapter 7: Documentaries -- When We Were Kings -- Streetwise -- The Gleaners and I -- Buena Vista Social Club -- Stone Reader -- Domestic Violence -- Bright Leaves -- Chapter 8: Issues (Mostly Hot-Button) -- Blood Sport: Quentin Tarantino and Kill Bill -- Sexual Harassment/Sexual Politics: Oleanna and Disclosure -- Twisting in the Wind: Politics Left and Right -- White Rage: Falling Down -- Anti-Hero Worship: Malcolm X -- A Little Princess -- The Innocence Game -- On the Pleasures and Dangers of Pulp: Unlawful Entry -- Paradise Lost?: The Truman Show -- Pleasantville -- Passion Ploy: The Passion of the Christ -- Neo-Noir -- Thelma and Louise -- The People vs. Larry Flynt -- Captain Video -- Kaboom Town: L.A. Disaster Movies -- Moviegoing Manners: A Tale of Woe -- Blackface: Robert Downey Jr. in the Tropics -- On Male Weepies -- Screen Test(osterone) -- Chapter 9: Comedies (Intentional and Unintentional) -- Intentional -- Sideways -- Diner -- Roxanne -- Mars Attacks! -- Man on the Moon -- Almost Famous -- Unintentional -- Under the Cherry Moon -- Meet Joe Black -- The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc -- Evita.

Chapter 10: Literary and Theatrical Adaptations -- The Golden Bowl -- Under the Volcano -- Lolita -- Fool for Love -- Kiss of the Spider Woman -- Prick Up Your Ears -- Quills -- Affliction -- The Tailor of Panama -- Troy -- The Crucible -- Hamlet -- Seize the Day -- Chapter 11: Miscellany: Book Reviews and Cruise Ships -- The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne -- The Primary Colors: Three Essays by Alexander Theroux -- License to Thrill: A Movie-ish Cruise -- Index -- Acknowledgments -- Permissions -- About the Author.