Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides) 4th Edition

Used a few times for a semester

This reads like a thesis printed into book form. Yes, it has a lot of information. No, it is not interesting or enjoyable. Could have been re-edited into something less "for the review committee" and more for-other-film-studies-students

Bought this for my film class, the author is a bit verbose and excessive in wording but I believe it's necessary for clarity. For the most part I feel the content is accurate and unbiased enough, but I feel the author doesn't provide enough critical views for the concept of post-modernism, it has some flaws in it's logic, she touched upon them, but I would like an expansion of critical views on this concept.

It defines cinematic terms but often the definitions themselves have terms that need to be defined. Overall, it's a good book, a tad bit confusing.

Book is abnormally larger than other versions Ive seen of this kind and it is falling apart in the middle.

Ms. Hayward takes the joy out of film like a thesis-writing medical student trying to describe sex. She shows off her supposed understanding of cinematic terms by bludgeoning her reader with paragraph-long sentences that ultimately mean nothing. By Googling each term individually I was able to piece together a much more coherent understanding of these concepts. If you need three sets of parentheses in one sentence, perhaps you need to rewrite. If you are a film student, please don't waste money on this drivel. If you are a film instructor and have inflicted this book on your students, shame on you.

Just started lookin into the book, however, am excited to read into it further. Most of the words are in bold, which I don't like, and the definitions in plain text. Reads like an encyclopedia or resource tool.

Detailed information about cinema terminology and history but with an apparent heavy handed slant toward using terminology like "privilege" and various feminist themes. It would be much more helpful if the author didn't inject her views on sociology into so much of the history of cinema. I am sure the feminist and privilege focus is right on par for today's political and sociological discourses but in my opinion these identity politics are a major distraction from macro issues that impact life and society.Personally I am tired of authors who pander or actually believe that this sort of identity discourse is helpful. I also find it ironic that they do not realize that this discourse has become the dominant narrative and is oppressive in much the same ways as the old meta narrative in western culture.Marginalizing the "majority" and attempting to force others to see from your perspective is not only unhelpful but impossible as well.The book is distracting and so obviously biased in this that it became a tiring read. As another reviewer stated you would be better off just looking up this terminology and reading cinema history from other online sources.

Core text book for Animation student, good delivery and arrived intact. The content is very theoretical and heavy going.

Exellent!