At the Movies, Film Reviewing, and Screenwriting: Selective Affinities and Cultural Mediation

by Steven Maras

Overview

Unpacking a decade of Australia’s most famous TV reviewing program to reveal how film reviewing mediates cultural taste and cinematic storytelling.

At the Movies, Film Reviewing, and Screenwriting discusses the interplay between film criticism and screenwriting, providing a different view on how reviewers engage with story and dialogue. Steven Maras draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of cultural taste to examine film reviewing as a key site of cultural production, analyzing ten years of television scripts from At the Movies (2004-2014). Hosted by Australia’s most influential film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, this long-running program shaped public discourse on cinema and left an indelible mark on Australian screen culture.

Studying the program’s broadcast scripts, this book addresses how film reviewing operates as both critique and storytelling. Of particular interest to media scholars, screenwriting researchers, and cinephiles alike, it provides fresh insights into the evolving role of criticism in contemporary screen culture. Engaging and deeply researched, this work rightfully emphasizes the cultural significance of movie criticism in film culture in Australia and beyond.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781835951163
Publisher:	Intellect, Limited
Publication date:	07/09/2025
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x (d)

About the Author

Steven Maras is associate professor of media and communication at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of Screenwriting: History, Theory and Practice, Objectivity in Journalism, and editor of Ethics in Screenwriting: New Perspectives. He also coedits the Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting book series.

Table of Contents

About At the Movies

List of Abbreviations

List of Tables

List of Figures

 

Preface

A Case Study Approach
Margaret and David as Cultural Mediators

Reviewing as Performance

Acknowledgements

 

Chapter 1. At the Movies, Reviewing, and Screenwriting

From Elective to Selective Affinities

Film Reviewing

Two approaches: Functionalism and rhetoric

Shifting the criticism/reviewing distinction Screenwriting

 

Chapter 2. At the Movies and its Influence

The Business of Managing the Review Process

            Debunking the powerful critic theory

The Margaret and David Effect

A Variable Cultural Field: From Restricted to Large-Scale

The Persona of the Critic

The Responsibilities of the Reviewer

            Proximity to industry

            The Australian new wave

 

Chapter 3. Arbiters of taste.

Inside the Gut

Where the Reviewer Sits

Summary Judgements

The Gospel According to David and Margaret

Taste, Taste Culture, or Cultural Forum

 

Chapter 4. The Politics of Classification

Ken Park (2002)

Romper Stomper (1992)

Wolf Creek 2 (2013)

 

Chapter 5. Three Discourse Frames (Australia, 1987–2002)

Frame 1: Funding Methods and Creative Outcomes

Frame 2: The Crisis in the Film Industry and the Script as Problematic Object

Frame 3: The Doxa

 

Chapter 6. The Discursive Construction of Screenwriting in At the Movies (2004–2014)

Method

Coding: Script, Screenplay, Screenwriter

Analysis

 

Chapter 7. The Well-Made Screenplay: At the Movies as an Aesthetic Enterprise

Performing the Doxa
Problematizations and Conclusions

 

Chapter 8. In Interview: David Stratton on Reviewing and At the Movies

 

Chapter 9. In Interview: Margaret Pomeranz on Reviewing and At the Movies

 

Appendix 1: Notes on method, verification and exclusions

 

Appendix 2: ‘Written by’

 

Appendix 3: DVD classics

 

Appendix 4: Selective reference list of descriptors used by Margaret and David