An extraordinary lecturer and a knowledgeable showrunner who's always willing to share his industry insights. His film selections can be meh, but the quality, digestibility, and practicality of his presentations make up for them. Most assignments rely on close reading of films rather than research, which was really refreshing in this department.

Mr. McNamara is a great professor; I love his teaching style and lectures. He makes the course interesting, but he is giving out a massive amount of information. His lectures are dense, and the papers are graded strictly, pretty unfair I would say.

He means so much to the film department at UCSB. Can say there is a lot of respect and love for this man.

Very knowledgeable. Lectures have all the materials you need for writing papers, which is basically all your grade consists of. He posted slides/lecture notes which kind of made going to lecture unnecessary, even though he was a good lecturer. Very tough grader -- he wanted us to get better as the papers went on, but seemed a bit unfair sometimes.

Talk about information overload! In trying to simply ideas and concepts he actually overwhelms you with tons and tons of information. Lectures are not that bad but slides are always filled. Super monotone so it can be hard to stay alert after the first hour.

His lectures are clear and easy to understand. Lots of examples and film clips to demonstrate some abstract examples. His offers much help regarding papers. The instructions of paper are specific, and his even shows how he might write the paper. Really a gentleman and caring teacher who know what he is doing.