Transnational Arab Stardom
Building on the work of star studies scholars, this collection provides contextual analyses of off-screen representation, as well as close textual analyses of films and star personas, thereby offering an in-depth study of the Arab star as text and context of Arab cinema. Using the tools of audience reception studies, the collection will also look at how stars (of film, stage, screen and new media) are viewed and received in different cultural contexts, both within and outside of the Arabic-speaking world. Arab cinema is often discussed in terms of political representation and independent art film, but rarely in terms of stardom, glamour, performance or masquerade. Aside from a few individual studies on female stardom or aspects of Arab masculinity, no major English-language study on Arab stardom exists, and collections on transnational stars or world cinema also often neglect to include Arab performers. This new book seeks to address this gap by providing the first study dedicated entirely to stardom on the Arab screen. Structured chronologically and thematically, this collection highlights and explores Arab film, screen and music stars through a transnational and interdisciplinary set of contributions that draw on feminist, performance and film theories, media studies, sound studies, material culture, queer star and celebrity studies, and social media studies.
A New History of Documentary Film
A New History of Documentary Film includes new research that offers a fresh way to understand how the field began and grew. Retaining the original edition's core structure, there is added emphasis of the interplay among various approaches to documentaries and the people who made them. This edition also clearly explains the ways that interactions among the shifting forces of economics, technology, and artistry shape the form. New to this edition: - An additional chapter that brings the story of English language documentary to the present day- Increased coverage of women and people of color in documentary production- Streaming- Animated documentaries- List of documentary filmmakers, organized chronologically by the years of their activity in the field
Documenting Fashion
Feuds within fashion houses, megalomaniacs and photoshoot nightmares - fashion and drama have been a perfect match for decades. Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a boom of documentaries about fashion magazine editors, fashion and media politics and the history of fashion houses. How and why did fashion documentaries and non-fiction media become so popular? Documenting Fashion explores and reassesses the role of documentary media by tracing its history in shaping our understanding of fashion across multiple platforms and different national contexts, including industrial films, newsreels, TV shows, documentary films, digital media and photography. The essays in this collection underpin and profile a scholarly space in which a dialogue between fashion and documentary studies can evolve by drawing from different methodologies and approaches, such as media and cultural studies, ethnography, archival and museum studies, gender studies, marketing and public relations.
Late-Colonial French Cinema
Deploying the term 'late-colonial' to describe a body of largely French films made during, and in response to, the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), this book revolves around one question - what is late-colonial French cinema? - generating two answers. Firstly, Sharpe argues that late-colonial cinema represents a formally and thematically important, yet unappreciated tendency in French cinema; one that has largely been overshadowed by a scholarly focus on the French New Wave. Secondly, Sharpe contends that whilst late-colonial French cinema cannot be seen as a coherent cinematic movement, school of filmmaking, or genre, it can be seen as a coherent ethical trend, with many of the fifteen central case studies explored in Late-colonial French Cinema filtering the Algerian War of Independence through a discourse of 'redemptive pacifism'.
Ageing, Dementia and Time in Film
Ageing, Dementia and Time in Film: Temporal Performances offers the first sustained analysis of films about ageing and dementia through a temporal framework. Analysing the aesthetics of films like A Moment to Remember (2004), Memories of Tomorrow (2006) and Happy End (2017), Deng provides new insights into our understanding of how ageing is temporally produced, presented, received and interrogated in and through cinema. Bringing together Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference and ideas on time, and building on scholars like Alia Al-Saji, Henri Bergson, Bliss Cua Lim, and David Martin-Jones, the book develops a conceptual framework of relational change - of temporal performances - and suggests that everyone and everything experiences time differently.
AI in Sci-Fi
Star Trek's Cmdr. Data... Alien's Ash and Bishop... Skynet and the Terminator... the androids of Westworld... Ex Machina's Eva, the Stepford Wives - and the granddaddy of them all, HAL 9000... These and other famous artificial minds are at the heart of this exploration of AI and the possibility of machine consciousness, suggesting the directions that the evolution of the technology might take. How great is the gap between the AI of film and television and what's emerging in the world today? Will that gap be closed at some point? Will we ever see androids who think and feel and experience the world as we do? Scott Robinson, a social scientist who implements AI and augmented intelligence systems in the corporate world, takes on these questions and others in these surveys of AI in fiction and the real world: What would it take to create a true artificial mind, if it's even possible? What are the building blocks of consciousness, and how could they be recreated in a machine? What can human society learn from the AI of fiction? And if we can actually build conscious machines - should we? With fan service to spare, AI in Sci-Fi tours the science fiction universe for its fascinating artificial life, reaching into the imagination for inspirations that will guide our path tomorrow, as human and machine enter into permanent partnership...
Rape and Revenge Films (2023)
To get a sense of justice in horror and horror-adjacent cinema, you first need to experience revulsion and terror. You need to fear and survive predators before you can start hating them, and you need to hate them to get even in the most painful ways. In this book, I rate and review 28 rape-and-revenge films. How many have you seen?
Psychological Thrillers (2023)
Some movies get your heart pumping and make you feel as helpless as their protagonists. Thrillers are all about suspense and apprehension. Add a psychological element and, suddenly, love, friendship, and admiration turn into jealousy, envy, hate, adultery, crime, or revenge. In this book, I rate and review 159 psychological thrillers. How many have you seen?
GREAT BRITISH FILMS OF THE 2010s
This is the ninth reference book in a series on British films, dealing with more than thirty motion pictures that were maide in Britain or produced by British studios and companies between the years 2010 and 2019, The book includes all films in date order, complete cast listings, numerous photographs, directorial credits, running times, and a succinct story synopsis for each motion picture.
The Celluloid Specimen
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In The Celluloid Specimen, Benjam穩n Schultz-Figueroa examines rarely seen behaviorist films of animal experiments from the 1930s and 1940s. These laboratory recordings--including Robert Yerkes's work with North American primate colonies, Yale University's rat-based simulations of human society, and B. F. Skinner's promotions for pigeon-guided missiles--have long been considered passive records of scientific research. In Schultz-Figueroa's incisive analysis, however, they are revealed to be rich historical, political, and aesthetic texts that played a crucial role in American scientific and cultural history--and remain foundational to contemporary conceptions of species, race, identity, and society.
Who Nuked the Duke?
It's an epic tale that spans more than 30 years. As the Cold War took hold at that dawn of the 1950s the U.S. government began a program to perfect the atom bomb. The Nevada Test Site would be the prime location for testing atomic weapons on U.S. soil. A key to the program was to reduce impact to the public by having the radioactive nuclear fallout drift "downwind" into sparsely-inhabited areas of Utah. Who Nuked The Duke? looks at the program through the camera lens and filming of the 1954 RKO epic The Conqueror. The John Wayne feature, from producer Howard Hughes, would be filmed inside the infamous Snow Canyon, "a key resevoir" of nuclear fallout. As the years ticked by cast and crew would succumb, one by one, to a host of cancers. Director Dick Powell, co-star Pedro Armendariz, leading lady Susan Hayward, co-star Agnes Moorehead, and ultimately John Wayne himself. Along with countless other cast and crew, they represent a microcosm of what happened in the Utah community where the movie was filmed. Taking an objective look back at the government program, the scientific facts behind the testing and its impact on the community, as well as the lives of the Hollywood stars, Who Nuked The Duke? offers a rare look inside movie history and the Atomic Energy program. This award-winning book was first published in 2014 and has been updated in 2023. Who Nuked The Duke? was an inspiration for the film documentary Conqueor: Hollywood Fallout.
Holiday Specials on Television, 1939-2021
In November 1939, NBC's fledgling television station W2XBS broadcast the first known holiday special, The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Despite its small viewership (very few TV sets existed at the time), the experimental telecast was a harbinger of a now-beloved American tradition: the holiday television special. This book offers a thorough account of holiday television specials in the United States from 1939 to 2021, highlighting variety shows, comedic performances, musical spectaculars and more. From familiar favorites (1964's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) to campy one-offs (1985's He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special), the 1140 programs are covered alphabetically and feature performance casts, production credits and storylines for each. Three appendices cover "lost" holiday specials, along with Christmas and Halloween-themed episodes of popular television series.
Sixteen Weeks to Fade Out
This is a comprehensive guide to writing the first draft of a feature length screenplay. While it focuses on the college semester (16 Weeks), it is also completely appropriate for anyone attempting to write a screenplay within a timeline. The text breaks down different approaches to designing a screenplay by providing pragmatic guidelines enhancing your ability to use creativity rather than focusing on rules. It highlights the skills necessary to execute compelling visual language to achieve good story, plot, dialog, dynamic characters, and help you put it all together. Think of this as a companion tool as you write. The language is simplified and yet academic, theoretically sound and yet pragmatic. It also offers additional insight into the history of screenwriting, the re-write process, and the specific skill sets needed for adaptation.This book is easy to understand and provides accounts for context from the author as a professional screenwriter, as well as anecdotes from other professionals (David Mickey Evans - The Sand Lot, and Vince McKewin - Fly Away Home, and Jeb Stuart - Die Hard, The Fugitive, Dana Coen - JAG, NCIS, and Anthony Tambakis -- Warrior, Suicide Squad 2).
Where Do All The Calculators Go?
Are we really alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe?Was Jesus actually a hippy?Was Human Heaven just made up to prevent us all from going nuts?Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite... would you like a toasted teacake?Join the Boys from the Dwarf on their most challenging mission yet, as we attempt to salvage Biblical truth and wisdom from the cosmic debris of the galaxy, taking a sideways look at subjects including destiny, justice, religion, identity and temporal mechanics in Where Do All The Calculators Go?, the Red Dwarf / theology mash-up you never knew you needed.
Film Close Up
Chris Wade takes a look at the films of Henry Jaglom, one of the most fiercely independent filmmakers in American history. Beginning with his earliest pictures, A Safe Place and Tracks, Wade delves deep into Jaglom's 80s period, charting his rise as an artist, before going on to the 90s and more recent work, when Henry's unique style cemented itself into popular culture. Often covering taboo issues and subjects few other male directors would consider, Jaglom's singular filmography is one that deserves to be discovered and cherished by any serious film buff. Peppered with recollections from Jaglom himself, plucked from various email and phone interviews conducted by Wade, THE CINEMA OF HENRY JAGLOM is a celebration of a true one-off maverick.
Shakespearean Drama, Disability, and the Filmic Stare
This volume synthesizes Laura Mulvey's male gaze and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's stare into a new critical lens, the filmic stare, in order to understand and analyze the visual construction of disability in adaptations of Shakespearean drama.
Theo Angelopoulos
The cinema of Theo Angelopoulos is celebrated as challenging the status quo. From the political films of the 1970s through to the more existential works of his later career, Vrasidis Karalis argues for a coherent and nuanced philosophy underpinning Angelopoulos' work. The political force of his films, including the classic The Travelling Players (1975), gave way to more essayistic works exploring identity, love, loss, memory and, ultimately, mortality. This development of sensibilities is charted along with the key cultural moments informing Angelopoulos' shifting thinking. From Voyage to Cythera (1984) until his last film, The Dust of Time (2009), Angelopoulos' problematic heroes in search of meaning and purpose engaged with the thinking of Plato, Mark, Heidegger, Arendt and Luckacs, both implicitly and explicitly. Theo Angelopoulos also explores the rich visual language and 'ocular poetics' of Angelopopulos' oeuvre and his mastery of communicating profundity through the everyday. Karalis argues for a reading of his work that embraces contradiction and celebrates the unsettling questions at the heart of his work.
The Avatar Television Franchise
Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-08) and its sequel The Legend of Korra (2012-14) are among the most acclaimed and influential U.S. animated television series of the 21st century. Yet, despite their elevated status, there have been few academic works published about them. The Avatar Television Franchise: Storytelling, Identity, Trauma, Fandom and Reception remedies this gap by bringing together a wide range of scholarly writings on these shows. This edited collection is comprised of 13 chapters organized into 4 sections, featuring close readings of key episodes, analyzing how they create meaning as well as illustrating how established theories can guide those readings. Some chapters explore different theories relating to identity as well as considering the repercussions of depicting real-world identities in these shows, while others examine the various manifestations of trauma from throughout the franchise as well as illustrates different scholarly approaches to the topic. Still others utilize fan studies to understand the myriad ways viewers have responded to and interpreted the Avatar franchise.
The Cinematic Influence
Exploring the multiple aesthetic and cultural links between French and Japanese cinema, The Cinematic Influence is packed with vivid examples and case studies of films by Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Claire Denis, Naomi Kawase, Michel Gondry and many others. It illustrates the vast array of cinematic connections that mark a long history of mutual influence and reverence between filmmakers in France and Japan. The book provides new insights into the ways that national cinemas resist Hollywood to maintain and strengthen their own cultural practices and how these national cinemas perform the task of informing and enlightening other cultures about what it means to be French or Japanese. This book also deepens our understandings of film's role as a viable cultural and economic player in individual nations. Importantly, the reader will see that film operates as a form of cultural exchange between France and Japan, and more broadly, Europe and Asia. This is the first major book to investigate the crossover between these two diverse national cinemas by tracking their history of shared narrative and stylistic techniques.
The Handbook of French Fantastic Cinema
This book covers the entire history of French genre cinema from its early days to 2022.WHAT THE CRITICS SAID: JOHN CLUTE (Encyclopedia of Fantasy, Science Fiction Encyclopedia)"I just now (finally) gotten my copy of French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction and am immediately finding it enthralling."LOCUS "The most enlightening reference book of the year..."INTERZONE " It is a wonderful window into a world lost to us ignorant monolinguists. The book is well illustrated... It's certainly a book I shall refer to on many occasions. I think the Lofficiers have done a remarkable and laudable job."STARLOG "There is simply, no book like this one. Highly recommended."VIDEO WATCHDOG "...the instant I saw it, I knew that it was going to fill a major void in my library. I've just spent the last hour perusing it with admiration... It's not really a critical book, but rather an awe-inspiring survey of the history of French fantastique in all its forms... I've been saying for years, even though the French were responsible for starting it all, that there really has been no French tradition of the fantastic, but the completeness of this book is going to make me eat my words."FOUNDATION "...A truly epic enterprise... The information it contains abundantly justifies its inclusion on every reference shelf dedicated to imaginative fiction... A powerful instrument of understanding, which will hopefully become an invaluable guide to future research."UTOPIAN STUDIES"I can say, honestly, that I stand in awe of the labor and erudition that went into this book. It is in the same league as the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia, and all the more astonishing in the fact that it is the work of two people, not of multiple hands. It is an invaluable tool for any future research in this fascinating area of French culture... I salute the energy, intelligence and effort that went into producing this work, and can only wish more scholars would follow this example."SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES"The publication of this massive 'guide' must, by any standard, be viewed as a significant event: it is the first heroic attempt to provide, in English, a comprehensive overview of the history of Francophone speculative fiction...CLASSIC IMAGES"French Science Fiction [...] is quite unique and quite incredible in its size... The authors apparently received the Inkpot Award for Outstanding Achievements in Comic Arts. I have no idea what this award is, but based on this present offering, it was well deserved."COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS"... fills in a long-neglected bibliographic gap in the study of French-language science fiction and fantasy literature, a genre with venerable roots and innumerable branches. The authors have covered all the bases in enormous detail."A.R.B.A. "...A wealth of information... It is to the authors' credit that they have made this material more accessible to an English-speaking public. French Science Fiction... will find its place... in the library of enthusiasts who have had a long love affair with science fiction and the fantastique, to whom it is heartily recommended."QUADRANT"This huge and comprehensive book is an extraordinary achievement that deserves to be well known... It is the ultimate sourcebook for anyone wishing to extend their knowledge, deepen it or be introduced -- the authors do not assume prior knowledge, but write their chapters in an interesting and intelligent way.FILM REVIEW"A stupendous achievement..."
Elizabeth Taylor
In Elizabeth Taylor: Icon of American Empire, Gloria Shin contends that the eponymous movie star is a model of postcolonial whiteness as her tenure as the most beautiful and famous woman in the world coincides with the era of postcolonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. Taylor is examined through a series of overlapping readings: as the Mistress in a cycle of Hollywood plantation films in the 1950s, via her extra-cinematic image as an exoticized jet-setting wanton seductress in the 1960s, through her repatriation to the U.S. and the election of her pro-military husband to the U.S. Senate in the 1970s, and her evolution as a relentless AIDS activist in the 1980s. Across these interpretative frames, Taylor emerges as the figuration who performs the vast possibilities open to postcolonial whites for mobility, pleasure, and political agency while operating without the burdens of race that allows her stardom to be symbolic of American Empire at the apex of its power.
Uncomfortable Television
From The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Yet this television is also more perverse: it bombards audiences with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. In Uncomfortable Television, Hunter Hargraves examines how television makes its audiences find pleasure through feeling disturbed. He shows that this turn to discomfort realigns collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. In viscerally violent dramas, cringeworthy ironic comedies, and trashy reality programs alike, televisual unease trains audiences to survive under late capitalism, which demands that individuals accept a certain amount of discomfort, dread, and irritation into their everyday lives. By highlighting how discomfort has been central to the reorganization and legitimization of television as an art form, Hargraves demonstrates television's role in assimilating viewers into worlds marked by precarity, perversity, and crisis.
Uncomfortable Television
From The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Yet this television is also more perverse: it bombards audiences with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. In Uncomfortable Television, Hunter Hargraves examines how television makes its audiences find pleasure through feeling disturbed. He shows that this turn to discomfort realigns collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. In viscerally violent dramas, cringeworthy ironic comedies, and trashy reality programs alike, televisual unease trains audiences to survive under late capitalism, which demands that individuals accept a certain amount of discomfort, dread, and irritation into their everyday lives. By highlighting how discomfort has been central to the reorganization and legitimization of television as an art form, Hargraves demonstrates television's role in assimilating viewers into worlds marked by precarity, perversity, and crisis.
Refocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay
ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay covers a variety of angles, using queer, feminist, historical, and close textual reading methods to grapple with the complicated and contradictory politics and meanings of this pioneering culture-worker. Chapters examine Findlay's marketing strategies, the gender politics of her exploitation and hardcore films, 1980s horror productions, and several case studies of key individual films, in addition to a new interview with Findlay reflecting on her life and career.
A Pirate's History of Doctor Who
Welcome to the first (but not the last) Pirate's History of Doctor Who. What's a Pirate's History, you ask? Well, there's the official, sanitized, orderly histories that are approved by and all about the powers that be. Then there are the Pirate's histories, the things that they don't want you to know about, or that they don't care about, things that are great and marvellous and intriguing... but unapproved. It's a history of secret and forgotten corners of the Whoniverse. Thrill to the story of the first Woman Doctor, Barbara Benedetti, whose four adventures during the end of the Colin Baker era and the start of the McCoy reign, rivalled the official BBC in quality, and launched an entire series of women Doctors, Sharon Horton, Lily Daniels, Krystal Moore, thirty years before Jody Whittaker.Or how about BBC's attempt to kill Doctor Who in 1984, the fan campaign that saved the show, the hiatus, and the slow secret war the BBC waged to end one of its most popular shows. There's the tragic tale of the decline and fall of John Nathan-Turner. There's a history that includes a fan group's attempt to create a feature length Doctor Who movie with Super 8 cameras in the 70s, and a whole lost generation of fans and films. Here's the story of the explosion of Doctor Who in the 80s, the emergence of fan culture, and the rise of fan films, beginning with the woman Doctor.As Doctor Who was driven into oblivion by the BBC, it was fans who stepped up, creating their own stories, building their own adventures, creating Daleks and Cybermen, producing parodies, and even re-creating the show that the BBC had abandoned with astonishingly professional productions. Here are the tales of stories and adventures aspiring to, and sometimes rivalling the classic series, Wrath of Eukor, Visions of Utomu, Ocean in the Sky, Regenesis, Phase Four, Spectre from the Past, the Experiment, the Chronotron Effect, Resurrection of Evil, Time and Again and others. Subsequent volumes will explore Doctor Who's history of stage plays; the recreation and resurrection by fans of Lost stories in every way, from pioneers audio-recording the entire series, to fan artists and animators re-creating the episodes, to the astonishing diversity and imagination of fan art. Witness the creation of audio Who universes, or the stories of fans who figured out how to make legal films and videos in the Doctor Who universe, whether the BBC approved.We'll bring you adventures and epics you've never heard of and never dreamed of, open new worlds in time and space, show how the fans creativity and accomplishments, often against the BBC's wishes, opened up creative possibilities for the show. And how people driven by nothing more than sheer love, were inspired to create amazing and wonderful works. You may think you know Doctor Who, but these are books unlike any other, and we'll show you places in the Whoniverse that you never dreamed of.
Marriages, Families, & Intimate Relationships
Running the Show takes you inside building a show from the ground up and what a showrunner's life looks like in Hollywood.
Six Seasons and a Movie
A rich and heartfelt look at a series that rewrote the rules of TV sitcoms
Dark Comedy Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 769 dark comedy summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
LEXX Unauthorized, Series 2
LEXX Unauthorized, Series 2 - The continuing story of Kai, an undead assassin, Zev, a combination of love slave and cluster lizard, Stanley Tweedle, a hapless security guard and 790, a robot head, careening through space together in the LEXX, a stolen, planet destroying, biological warship shaped like a dragonfly. In the second series, the crew travel through space, searching for a new home, or at least a good time, while in their wake a mysterious force is destroying the universe. LEXX was one of the strangest and most wildly surreal space operas ever conceived, owing as much to Luis Bunuel and Alejandro Jodorowsky as to to Star Trek and Star Wars. It was unique and unforgettable, mixing black comedy and absurdism with epic drama, and an astonishing visual sense. Series Two explores the creation of the series, including the development of story arcs, the musical episode, shooting in Canada and Germany and the evolution of scripts and ideas, including a breakdown of lost episodes that fell by the wayside or mutated into dramatic new forms. Backstage, the story of the creation of the series was even more extraordinary, a tale of regional Atlantic film makers, renegade artists, cult film makers, wild experimentation, Canadian cultural nationalism, German entrepreneurs, new computer generated imagery technologies and backstage chaos intersecting in wildly unpredictable ways, to create truly exotic images and stories. The product of years of research and dozens of interviews, this is a 'must buy' for any fan of the show itself or of science fiction movies television generally, and an eye opening insight into film and television production, especially Canadian and international productions.
Monster Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 1961 monster movie summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
Invasion Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 609 invasion movie summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
Polish Cinema Today
A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic TitleStructured according to key themes, Polish Cinema Today analyzes the remarkable innovations in Polish cinema emerging a decade after the 1989 dissolution of the Soviet bloc, once its film industry had evolved from a socialist state enterprise into a much more accessible system of film production, with growing expertise in distribution and marketing. By the early 2000s, an impressive, diverse cohort of filmmakers broke through the gridlock of a small set of esteemed, aging auteurs as well as the glut of imported Hollywood blockbusters, empowered by the digital revolution and domestic audience appetite for independent work. Polish directors today challenge sacrosanct bromides about national and gender identity, Poland's historical martyrdom, the status of the influential Catholic Church, and the benevolent family, while investigating the phenomena of migration and sexuality in their full complexity. Each thematic chapter places these recent films within a historical/cultural context nationally and transnationally, and designs its analyses of specific works to engage general audiences of film scholars, students, and cinephiles.
Slasher Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 724 slasher movie summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
Haunting Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 946 haunting movie summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
Colonial Tactics and Everyday Life
Following the Japanese invasion of northeast China in 1931, the occupying authorities established the Manchuria Film Association to promote film production efficiency and serve Japan's propaganda needs. Manchuria Film Association had two tasks: to make "national policy films" as part of a cultural mission of educating Chinese in Manchukuo (the puppet state created in 1932) on the special relationship between Japan and the region, and to block the exhibition of Chinese films from Shanghai that contained anti-Japanese messages. The corporation relied on Japanese capital, technology, and film expertise, but it also employed many Chinese filmmakers. After the withdrawal of Japanese forces in 1945, many of these individuals were portrayed as either exploited victims or traitorous collaborators. Yuxin Ma seeks to move the conversation beyond such simplistic and inaccurate depictions. By focusing on the daily challenges and experiences of the Chinese workers at the corporation, Ma examines how life was actually lived by people navigating between practical and ideological concerns. She illustrates how the inhabitants of Manchukuo navigated social opportunities, economic depression, educational reforms, fascist rule, commercial interests, practical daily needs, and more-and reveals ways in which these conflicting preoccupations sometimes manifested as tension and ambiguity on screen. In the battle between repression and expression, these Chinese actors, directors, writers, and technicians adopted defensive and opportunistic tactics. They did so in colonial spaces, often rejecting modernist representations of Manchukuo in favor of venerating traditional Chinese culture and values. The expertise, skills, and professional networks they developed extended well beyond the occupation into the postwar period, and may individuals reestablished themselves as cinema professionals in the socialist era.
Streaming Mental Health and Illness
From mindfulness in schools to meditation apps, mental health is bursting out of the psychiatrist's chair and into our everyday conversations. As awareness of mental health increases, so does its predominance in popular culture, which makes for a particularly interesting investigation into the representation of these concerns on our most ubiquitous streaming service: Netflix. These eight essays explore how the service's original content jumps into those conversations, creating helpful--or harmful--messaging about the inner workings of our minds. From toxic masculinity to PTSD, adolescence to motherhood, mental health touches our lives in myriad ways. This interdisciplinary collection explores these intersections, examining how representations of mental health on our screens shape our understanding of it in our lives.
The Annotated Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello were the most popular comedians of the 1940s, with burlesque-inspired routines that enthralled audiences on both radio and television. Oddly, their films have not received the same level of attention from critics and writers as those of other comedy teams. This book is a scene-by-scene, film-by-film guide to their movies, making a compelling case for their inclusion at the very top of comic artists. Featuring new research and some surprising revelations, the book introduces newcomers to the delights of this uproarious team and provides confirmed fans with the ultimate companion to their work. Also included is a foreword by John Landis, the celebrated director and Abbott and Costello devotee.
Blood, Brutality, and Humor in Tarantino Movies. Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds
Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Film Science, grade: 2,7, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: This thesis gives an analysis of technical as well as contextual items that Tarantino uses time and again in order to produce violent movies and give them his very personal touch. Doing that, he makes use of two basic elements: humor and an abundant amount of violence. It would sound like humor and violence do not go well together. The author argues that Tarantino accomplishes this feat with a seeming effortlessness which could just as well be an elaborate plan to criticize the use of violence and advocate a life free of crime. In order to do that, two scenes from different stages of Tarantino's career were chosen, both personally and cinematically. The first scene that is analyzed is taken from his 1994 independent movie "Pulp Fiction". The second scene analyzed is from "Inglourious Basterds" from 2009. The two films in focus are different in various aspects such as the scenery and setting, the cultural and historical context or sociocultural circumstances at the time of their release, to name a few. This is why they make an excellent contrast to show the differences but also the similarities in Tarantino's work to deduct a development from the comparison. The first focus of the thesis lies on the concept of violence. It gives a brief history both diachronically as well as synchronically. After that, the concept of humor is addressed, and with that why something is perceived as being funny (or maybe not). The idea of alienation between what the viewer or listener expects and what they are actually provided with plays an important role here. A conclusion to this thesis deals with why Tarantino chooses the depiction of (graphic) violence that he is known and famous for. Tarantino changes his modus operandi over the years when it comes to the representation of brutality in his movies. But he stays true to himself in the very core of the k
Horror Watchlist (2023)
This book contains 2859 horror movie summaries in chronological order with a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
The River
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Soviet Films of the 1970s and Early 1980s
This book explores a new character archetype that permeated Soviet film during what became known as the era of Stagnation, a stark period of loneliness, disappointment, and individual despair.
New Approaches to Islam in Film
This book, from an international panel of contributors, significantly expands the boundaries of discussion around Muslims in film, asking new questions of the archive and magnifying analyses of particular cultural productions.
Israeli Television
The essays in this anthology study Israeli television, its different forms of representation, audiences and production processes, past and present, examining Israeli television in both its local, cultural dynamics and global interfaces.
The Shut Up and Shoot Video Production Guide
Anthony Q. Artis is a 30-year veteran of the fi lm and TV industry whose features and TV shows have screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the IFP Market, as well as on MTV and the Independent Film Channel. Anthony works professionally as a producer, director, and cinematographer at MightyAntMedia.com and has taught video production at New York University for two decades now. He is the author of the bestselling Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide (2014), The Shut Up and Shoot Freelance Video Guide (2011), and numerous fi lmmaking courses on LinkedInLearning.com .Accessible and comprehensive, this book is a great introduction on how to make movies and video projects with limited resources, time, or experience. Artis will teach readers the "Down and Dirty" filmmaking mindset, which forces fi lmmakers to be creative with their resources, do more with less, and result in a better, faster, and less expensive product.Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Artis covers such wide-ranging topics as composition, lens choice, smartphone filmmaking, audio equipment, lighting and grip basics, and much more. With more than 500 full-color pictures, tips from pros, checklists, and case studies, readers will be well prepared to apply their knowledge to their shoots.Written by an indie filmmaker for indie filmmakers, this book is perfect for rookies, veterans, and students who want to maximize their budget while turning in top-quality work.
Horror Adjacent Films (2023)
Steve Hutchison reviews 216 horror-adjacent films listed in chronological order. Each article includes a picture of the main antagonist(s), a release year, a synopsis, five ratings, an icon strip of pertaining genres, a review, and a checkbox to keep track of what you've seen.
Splatter Films (2023)
When it comes to horror movie brutality, the gorier the merrier. Gore feeds a fascination for mutilation and the vulnerability of the human body. It can be fun and it can be overwhelming. It can make you laugh and it can make you look away. In this book, I rate and review 263 splatter films. How many have you seen?
Lord Peter Wimsey on Film & TV
This is a reference book on the film and television adaptations based on the character Lord Peter Wimsey, created by Dorothy L. Sayers. The book includes all film and TV productions, and includes complete cast listings, numerous photographs, directorial credits, original dates of transmission, and a story synopsis for each film or TV episode.
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola (b. 1971) was baptized on film. After appearing in The Godfather as an infant, it took twenty-five years for Coppola to take her place behind the camera, helming her own adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides's celebrated novel The Virgin Suicides. Following her debut, Coppola was the third woman ever to be nominated for Best Director and became an Academy Award winner for Best Original Screenplay for her sophomore feature, Lost in Translation. She has also been awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Best Director at Cannes. In addition to her filmmaking, Coppola is recognized as an influential tastemaker. She sequenced the so-called Tokyo dream pop of the Lost in Translation soundtrack like an album, a success in its own right. Her third film, Marie Antoinette, further showcased Coppola's ear for the unexpected needle drop, soundtracking the controversial queen's life with a series of New Romantic bangers popular during the director's adolescence. The conversations compiled within Sofia Coppola: Interviews mark the filmmaker's progression from dismissed dilettante to acclaimed auteur of among the most visually arresting, melancholy, and wryly funny films of the twenty-first century. Coppola discusses her approach to collaboration, Bill Murray as muse, and how Purple Rain blew her twelve-year-old mind. There are interviews from major publications, but Coppola speaks with musician Kim Gordon for indie magazine Bust and Tavi Gevinson, then-adolescent founder of online teen magazine Rookie, as well. The volume also features a new and previously unpublished interview conducted with volume editor Amy N. Monaghan in which Coppola discusses her plans for the now-cancelled adaptation of The Custom of the Country. To read these interviews is to witness Sofia Coppola coming into her own as a world-renowned artist.
