Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam's costs, opening wider the temptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here Beidler draws on deeply personal memories to reflect on the war's lingering aftereffects and the shallow, evasive ways we deal with them. Beidler brings back the war he knew in chapters on its vocabulary, music, literature, and film. His catalog of soldier slang reveals how finely a tour of Vietnam could hone one's sense of absurdity. His survey of the war's pop hits looks for meaning in the soundtrack many veterans still hear in their heads. Beidler also explains how ""Viet Pulp"" literature about snipers, tunnel rats, and other hard-core types has pushed aside masterpieces like Duong Thu Huong's Novel without a Name. Likewise we learn why the movie The Deer Hunter doesn't ""get it"" about Vietnam but why Platoon and We Were Soldiers sometimes nearly do. As Beidler takes measure of his own wartime politics and morals, he ponders the divergent careers of such figures as William Calley, the army lieutenant whose name is synonymous with the civilian massacre at My Lai, and an old friend, poet John Balaban, a conscientious objector who performed alternative duty in Vietnam as a schoolteacher and hospital worker. Beidler also looks at Vietnam alongside other conflicts--including the war on international terrorism. He once hoped, he says, that Vietnam had fractured our sense of providential destiny and geopolitical invincibility but now realizes, with dismay, that those myths are still with us. ""Americans have always wanted their apocalypses,"" writes Beidler, ""and they have always wanted them now.

Delve behind the scenes of Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro's first foray into stop-motion animation with Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio: A Timeless Tale Told Anew Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio: A Timeless Tale Told Anew takes readers on an unprecedented journey into the creation of Guillermo del Toro's hit musical fantasy version of the beloved story of Pinocchio. Inspired by the art from Gris Grimly's 2002 edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio, del Toro's adaptation is a dark take on the classic fairy tale. Featuring exclusive interviews with the star-studded cast, which includes Finn Wolfhard, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, and more, this book showcases the creativity and effort it takes to produce a stop-motion animation film, from concept art to building the puppets to the filming process and beyond.

The notion of evil- does it exist? what forms does it take? -has always fascinated humankind. The evil underlying such atrocities as the Holocaust, Communist China's Tibetan abattoir, and the murderous ethnic cleansing undertaken by the Serbs and Croats seems beyond explanations or analysis. In this powerfully original work, Oppenheimer analyzes the phenomenon of evil in a mental behavior that emerges in particular conditions. Oppenheimer argues that evil contains specific, predictable ingredients. By understanding its nature, we can diagnose its specific manifestations in mass murder, genocide, and serial killings. Utilizing a variety of cinematic and literary genres in developing its evidence, the book considers such familiar films as "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Brazil," and draws upon such literary works as Richard III, Oedipus the King and the Picture of Dorian Gray. Evil and the Demonic takes a bold first step, providing a framework in which to place the horrors of human existence.

This fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood dynasty offers an in-depth study of the films and artistry of iconic director Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter, Sofia, exploring their work and their impact on each other, both personally and professionally. The Coppolas: A Family Business examines the lives, films, and relationship of two exemplary filmmakers, Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter Sofia. It looks at their commonalities and differences, as artists and people, and at the way those qualities are reflected in their work. Much of the book is devoted to Francis and his outstanding achievements-and equally notable failures-as a screenwriter, director, producer, and presenter of landmark works of cinema. The narrative goes beyond the heyday of his involvement with Hollywood to analyze his more recent projects and the choices that led him to create small, independent films. In Sofia's case, the story is one of women's growing independence in the arts, revealing how Sofia developed her craft to become a cinematic force in her own right. In addition to its insightful commentary on their contributions to cinema past and present, the volume provides intriguing hints at what fans might anticipate in the future as both Coppolas continue to expand their artistry. Helpful notes and bibliography

Make sure all your friends have an X-tra special Valentine’s Day with this awesome set of The Powerpuff Girls™ Valentines!

• 28 CARDS AND ENVELOPES: With seven each of four unique card designs, coordinating envelopes, and exclusive The Powerpuff Girls™ temporary tattoos, this set contains everything you need to save both Townsville™ and Valentine’s Day.
• GLITTER TATTOOS: Apply one of the temporary glitter tattoos to sparkle and shine just as bright as Blossom™, Buttercup™, and Bubbles™.
• ADD TO YOUR COLLECTION: Add more fun super valentines from Insight Editions to your collection with Harry Potter: Honeydukes Scratch & Sniff Sticker Valentines, Harry Potter: Owl Post Super Valentines, and Scooby-Doo: Scooby Snacks Scratch & Sniff Sticker Valentines.

Documents the rich allusiveness and intellectual probity of experimental filmmaking-a form that thrived despite having been officially banned-in East German socialism's final years. In the German Democratic Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, more than two hundred films and videos, many of them experimental, were made outside government-run institutions despite legal restrictions on independent filmmaking, and despite the state-owned DEFA studio system's resistance to experimental film. Many were by professional artists who incorporated their painted, sculpted, and performed works in their films and then re-integrated their films into their other artistic endeavors. In addition to showing and debating their films informally in private, these artists worked within existing institutions, establishing annual meetings at Dresden's Academy of Fine Arts, publishing on experimental film in official journals, and even exhibiting films at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Though pursued as political subversives by the Stasi and dismissed as dilettantes by older critics, these artists frequently engaged their detractors in open debate, advancing their creative itineraries by exposing conceptual problems lurking in the histories of art and cinema. Through extensive archival research, formal analyses of over a dozen films, and interpretation of their relation to their creators' work in other media, Seth Howes documents the rich allusiveness and intellectual probity of experimental filmmaking in East German socialism's final years. Individual chapters examine Lutz Dammbeck's incorporation of painting, dance, literature, and experimental film into a critique of the (mass-)mediation of experience; the Autoperforationsartisten's use of film to problematize the notion of the "performance document"; Greifswald-based artists' integration of film into mail-art projects that crossed political borders and boundaries between media; and Yana Milev's blending of film and installation art to theorize the organization and segmentation of urban spaces. Seth Howes is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of German and Russian Studies at the University of Missouri.

Alfred Hitchcock is said to have once remarked, "Actors are cattle," a line that has stuck in the public consciousness ever since. For Hitchcock, acting was a matter of contrast and counterpoint, valuing subtlety and understatement over flashiness. He felt that the camera was duplicitous, and directed actors to look and act conversely. In The Camera Lies, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career, from Cary Grant in Notorious (1946) to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960). Delving further, he examines the ways that sex and sexuality are presented through Hitchcock's characters, reflecting the director's own complex relationship with sexuality. Detailing the fluidity of acting - both what it means to act on film and how the process varies in each actor's career - Callahan examines the spectrum of treatment and direction Hitchcock provided well- and lesser-known actors alike, including Ingrid Bergman, Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Robert Walker, Jessica Tandy, Kim Novak, and Tippi Hedren. As Hitchcock believed, the best actor was one who could "do nothing well" - but behind an outward indifference to his players was a sophisticated acting theorist who often drew out great performances. The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance, and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.

Gerard Loughlin is one of the leading theologians working at the interface between religion and contemporary culture. In this exceptional work, he uses cinema and the films it shows to think about the church and the visions of desire it displays.
Discusses various films, including the Alien quartet, Christopher Nolan's Memento, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth and Derek Jarman's The Garden.
Draws on a wide range of authors, both ancient and modern, religious and secular, from Plato to Levinas, from Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar to Andre Bazin and Leo Bersani.
Uses cinema to think about the church as an ecclesiacinema, and films to think about sexual desire as erotic dispossession, as a way into the life of God.
Written from a radically orthodox Christian perspective, at once both Catholic and critical.

This comprehensive book illuminates the most fertile and exciting period in American film, a time when the studio system was at its peak and movies played a critical role in elevating the spirits of the public. Richard B. Jewell offers a highly readable yet deeply informed account of the economics, technology, censorship, style, genres, stars and history of Hollywood during its "classical" era.
A major introductory textbook covering what is arguably the most fertile and exciting period in film, 1929-1945
Analyzes many of the seminal films from the period, from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Grand Hotel" to "Gone with the Wind," considering the impact they had then and still have today
Tackles the shaping forces of the period: the business practices of the industry, technological developments, censorship restraints, narrative strategies, evolution of genres, and the stars and the star system
Explores the major social, political, economic, and cultural events that helped to shape contemporary commercial cinema, as well as other leisure activities that influenced Hollywood production, including radio, vaudeville, theatre and fiction
Written in a jargon-free, lively style, and features a number of illustrations throughout the text

Neil Archer's original study makes a timely and politically-engaged intervention in debates about national cinema and national identity. Structured around key examples of 'culturally English cinema' in the years up to and following the UK's 2016 vote to leave the European Union, Cinema and Brexit looks to make sense of the peculiarities and paradoxes marking this era of filmmaking. At the same time as providing a contextual and analytical reading of 21st century filmmaking in Britain, Archer raises critical questions about popular national cinema, and how Brexit has cast both light and shadow over this body of films. Central to Archer's argument is the idea that Brexit represents not just a critical moment in how we will understand future film production, but also in how we will understand production of the recent past. Using as a point of departure the London Olympics opening ceremony of 2012, Cinema and Brexit considers the tensions inherent in a wide range of films, including Skyfall (2012), Dunkirk (2017), Their Finest (2017), Darkest Hour (2017), The Crown (Netflix, 2016), Paddington (2014), Paddington 2 (2017), Never Let Me Go (2011), Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016), The Trip (2010), The Inbetweeners Movie (2011), Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), The World's End (2013), Sightseers (2012), One Day (2011), Attack the Block (2011), King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) and The Kid Who Would be King (2019). Archer examines the complex national narratives and representations these films expound, situating his analyses within the broader commercial contexts of film production beyond Hollywood, highlighting the negotiations or contradictions at play between the industrial imperatives of contemporary films and the varied circumstances in which they are made. Considering some of the ways a popular and globally-minded English cinema is finding means to work alongside and through the contexts of Brexit, he questions what are the stakes for, and possibilities of, a global 'culturally English cinema' in 2019 and beyond.

Film and theory have always gone hand in hand. In many ways, the professional academic study of cinema grew out of the revolutionary surges in literary and cultural theory in Europe. Since the 1970s, film theory has predominantly been a lens through which to wage philosophical and cultural war (in increasingly abstract terms), and cinema was in the right place at the right time. "Toward a New Film Aesthetic" argues that such an approach to film studies ultimately debilitates the study of film.How does film theory connect with an audience that experiences film far beyond the confines of the academy? How can film scholars remain relevant to film culture? These are the fundamental question that film scholars seem to have neglected. Film theory, simply put, has detached itself from meaningful discussions of cinema undertaken with mainstream audiences."Toward a New Film Aesthetic" is a radical attempt to connect the study of film with the actual viewing and consumption practices of mainstream cinematic culture. Isaacs argues that theory has rendered the majority of approaches to film insular, self-reflective, obtuse, and - in its worst incarnation - elitist. He redefines cinema aesthetics in terms of the obsessive consumption of cinematic texts that is the hallmark of contemporary film viewing.

In the New Yorker, Stephen Schiff has described Fred Schepisi (b. 1939) as "probably the least-known great director working in the mainstreamAmerican cinema-a master storyteller with a serenely muscular style that can make more flamboyant moviemakers look coarse and overweening." Schepisi's launch in Australia during the country's film renaissance of the 1970s and his ongoing international work have rightfully earned him a reputation as an actors' director. But he has also become a skillful stylist, forging his own way as he works alongside a talented team of collaborators. This volume includes twenty interviews with Schepisi andtwo with longtime collaborators, cinematographer Ian Baker and composer Paul Grabowsky. The interviews trace the filmmaker's career from his beginnings in advertising, through his two early Australian features-The Devil's Playground and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith-to his subsequent work in the United Statesand beyond on films as various as Plenty, Roxanne, A Cry in the Dark, The Russia House, Six Degrees of Separation, Empire Falls, Last Orders, and Eye of the Storm. Schepisi's films are diverse thematically and visually. In what is effectively a master class on film direction, Schepisi discusses his creative choices and his workwith actors and collaborators behind the scenes. In the process, he provides a goldmine of insights into his films, his filmmaking style, and what makes him tick as an artist.

This is the only book of its kind to explore biblical epics from an LGBT perspective, studying films from the silent era, to the postwar major studio era, to the present day. In spite of restrictive Hollywood censorship regulations, filmmakers throughout history have pushed the boundaries of sex and violence when making religious films. In this unrivaled text, author and educator Richard Lindsay analyzes the relationship between bible-based epics and "camp"-films with overwrought acting, casts of thousands, and exotic sexuality. Lindsay presents the ways in which camp style identifies films as "biblical" in the mainstream imagination, while undermining their traditional religious messages through the inclusion of sexually diverse subtexts. Viewed through this lens, this provocative book explores topics like the Jazz Age excesses of The King of Kings, the pre-code decadence of The Sign of the Cross, the horror movie tropes of The Passion of the Christ, and comparisons between Ben-Hur and the gay male fantasies of 1960s beefcake magazines. Additional content features the history of biblical epics and a comparison of the pious expectations of filmgoers against the real content of the films. Considers pre-code films, production code films, and films under the modern MPAA ratings system Analyzes biblical epics for gay characters and situations Explores the relationship between biblical content and camp Addresses the treatment of LGBT subjects in relation to Hollywood censorship regimes