Course examines contemporary cinema, including fiction films, documentaries, animation, and avant-garde experiments. Focuses on feature-length theatrical films, but will also consider other aspects of the contemporary media world: graphic novels, video games, television series and the Internet (e.g., Youtube). Examines media production, distribution, marketing, exhibition, and reception. Course will also present a survey of developments in contemporary cinema studies, since the choice of films will support a variety of critical approaches including economic, aesthetic (generic, auteurist, formalist), ideological (race, class, gender), and reception studies.