Questioning the assumptions that govern our culture, this book focuses on one medium -- the movies. In particular, it examines how movies are packaged, distributed, and promoted, exposing industry secrets such as how Miramax often buys distribution rights to movies it then fails to distribute, presumably to make sure its competitors don't get them. The book shows, for the first time, how the corporate ownership of movie theaters defies antitrust laws and precedents stretching back over 50 years. While the average American can usually find a book or record that has not been endorsed by the mainstream media, when it comes to movies, consumers are powerless against what Rosenbaum calls "the media-industrial complex".