>would Professor Bordwell be antagonistic to using well-known >contemporary films in this way--or is that quite against the

There are well-known contemporary films included:  Do the Right Thing, Hannah and Her Sisters, Desperately Seeking Susan.  Or do you mean showing Titanic and Mission Impossible II?  Film Art actually has an unusually wide range of examples from numerous genres, periods and countries.  Very recent films can't be in the book due to the time it takes to reach publication but there's no reason a teacher can't use Adam Sandler (or Stephen Chow for that matter) if the students might "relate" better.

----
Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite