Let Maleficent, Captain Hook, and other classic baddies guide your tarot practice with the only official tarot deck featuring Disney's most wicked villains. Disney's most iconic villains have taken over tarot in this dastardly take on a traditional 78-card deck. Featuring the notorious ne'er-do-wells from classic animated films like 101 Dalmations, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, and more, this tarot deck reimagines Cruella de Vil, Ursula, Maleficent and the whole motley crew in original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Including both the Major and Minor Arcana, the set also comes with a helpful guidebook with explanations of each card's meaning, as well as simple spreads for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this devious deck of tarot cards is the perfect gift for Disney fans and tarot enthusiasts everywhere.

This is a superb new study of Japanese culture in the post-war period, focusing on a handful of filmmakers who created movies for a politically conscious audience. Out of a background of war, occupation and the legacies of Japan's post-defeat politics there emerged a dissentient group of avant-garde filmmakers who created a counter-cinema that addressed a newly constituted, politically conscious audience. While there was no formal manifesto for this movement and the various key filmmakers of the period (Oshima Nagisa, Imamura Shohei, Yoshida Yoshishige, Hani Susumu, Wakamatsu Koji and Okamoto Kihachi) experimented with very different conceptions of visual style, it is possible to identify a sensibility that motivated many of these filmmakers: a generational consciousness based on political opposition that was intimately linked to the student movements of the 1950s, and shared experiences as Japan's first generation of post-war filmmakers artistically stifled by a monopolistic and hierarchal commercial studio system that had emerged reinvigorated in the wake of the 'red purges' of the late-1940s. "Politics, Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-Garde Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s" provides a much needed overview of these filmmakers and reconsiders the question of dissent in the cultural landscape of Japan in the post-war period.

Who exactly are the Guardians of the Galaxy? Why are the Infinity Stones so important? What's the best order to watch the films in? And are Iron Man and Captain America friends or enemies? If you've ever mixed up the different ?Thor ?movies, or you get confused by which Avengers villain is which, fear not! ?Marvel Studios: All Your Questions Answered? is the book for you - whether you want to take your very first steps into this pop-culture colossus, you have friends who are die-hard Marvel fans and seem to speak in another language, or you just want to have all of the questions answered that you've been dying to ask.

Featuring a sneak peek of the highly anticipated ?Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War?, this friendly companion untangles plots and characters, film by film. Even if you've never seen a Marvel Studios movie, it's hard to miss that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a really big deal. 10 years' worth of movies, all linked together into a vast, unique and compelling storyline. If you want to find out more but aren't sure where to start, this entertaining, illustrated book breaks down everything in a straightforward and fun way!

© 2018 MARVEL

Tagline: We watch the same movies, but we don't see the same movies. Hollywood Values makes a heroic effort to show that Hollywood bashing doesn't have it right. Good things are coming out of Hollywood. This book proves it.

The World of The Dark Crystal invites fans to delve into the creation and lore of the Jim Henson classic through the evocative illustrations of Brian Froud, concept designer on the original film. Since its original release in 1982, Jim Henson's brilliant film The Dark Crystal has gone on to become a beloved cult classic. The World of Dark Crystal--the original companion art book to the film--was created by Henson and internationally renowned artist Brian Froud to showcase the gorgeous conceptual artwork created for the film and delve deeper into the lore that underpins Thra, the magical world at the heart of the film. Now, for the first time in over a decade, The World of Dark Crystal is back in print, featuring an abundance of striking art and all of the bonus material from the 2003 Collector's Edition. Also included in this exclusive volume is a fascinating essay by Froud on the creative process behind the making of the film and a facsimile of a booklet presented to the film's early backers--a gorgeous overview of the story so rare only a few original copies exist. Beautiful, imaginative, and powerful, The World of The Dark Crystal celebrates the landmark fantasy film that continues to win new fans more than three decades after its release.

Global in scope and a practical tool for students and teachers of history, Filmography of World History: A Select, Critical Guide To Feature Films That Engage The Past includes description and analysis of over 300 historical films. A companion to Grant Tracey's Filmography of American History, this critical reference book selects movies that represent aspects of world history from the middle ages through the twentieth century. These films adopt as their subject a wide range of historical events, people and societies of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Canada, and Latin America. Films are arranged alphabetically, with cross referencing by geographic area, time period, and five themes: History as Biography; Crossing Cultures; Civil, International and Sectarian Conflict; Society: Modernization and Tradition; and Redefining Historical Narrative. Each film entry includes production data, current U.S. home video distributors, geographical and time setting, plot description, and references to critical literature. Over half of the entries provide extended analysis of the historical interpretation the film brings to the screen. Filmography of World History argues for the potential of feature films to teach us about the past and its reconstruction in academe and popular culture. The book offers an historian's perspective on films as varied as Ararat, Black Rain, Lin Zexu, Saladin, Winstanley, Judgment at Nuremberg, Distant Thunder, The Official Story, Cabeza de Vaca, Newsfront, Lumumba, Daresalam, and The Great White Man of Lambarene.

Cyndy Hendershot argues that 1950s science fiction films open a window on the cultural paranoia that characterized 1950s America, a phenomenon largely triggered by use of nuclear weapons during World War II. This study uses psychoanalytic theory to examine the various monsters that inhabit 1950s sci-fi movies giant insects, prehistoric creatures, mutants, uncanny doubles, to name a few which serve as metaphorical embodiments of a varied and complex cultural paranoia. Postwar paranoia may have stemmed from the bomb, but it came to correlate with a wider range of issues such as anti-communism, internal totalitarianism, scientific progress, domestic problems, gender roles, and sexuality."

Let Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and other beloved inhabitants of Middle- earth guide your tarot practice with this epic tarot deck and guide, inspired by the iconic The Lord of the Rings novels. Join the Fellowship of the Ring with the only official The Lord of the Rings tarot deck! Featuring original artwork inspired by classic tarot iconography, this 78-card deck depicts fan-favorite characters, creatures, and scenes from The Lord of the Rings novels, including everyone from heroes like Sam Gamgee and Legolas to sinister antagonists Gollum and Sauron. Comprising both major and minor arcana, the deck also comes with a helpful guide explaining the meaning of each card as well as a few simple spreads for easy readings. Packaged in a collectible gift box, it's the perfect giftm for The Lord of the Rings fans and tarot enthusiasts alike!

What does the portrayal of gender in film reveal about Spanish society? To what extent and in what ways does cinema contribute to constructions of national and regional identity? How does gender interact with ethnicity, class, politics and history?Gender and Spanish Cinema addresses these questions and more in its examination of twentieth-century film. Defining 'gender' in its broadest sense, the authors discuss topics such as body, performance, desire and fantasy. Gender is not considered in isolation, but is discussed in relation to nationalism, race, memory, psychoanalyisis and historical context. The chapters are wide-ranging, dealing with subjects such as Buuel, cinema under Franco, 1950s melodrama and Pedro Almodvar.Bringing together leading academics from the UK, US and Spain, this volume examines the diversity of gender representation in Spanish cinema through a range of genres. A filmography and illustrations enhance the text.

The prevailing view is that existentialism is a product of postWorld War II Europe and had no significant presence in the United States before the 1940s. Jean-Paul Sartre and associates are credited with establishing the philosophy in France, and later introducing it to Americans. But conventional wisdom about existentialism in the United States is mistaken. The United States actually developed its own unique brand of existentialism several years before Sartre and company published their first existentialist works. Film noir, and the hard-boiled fiction that served as its initial source material, represent one form of American existentialism that was produced independently of European philosophy. Hard-boiled fiction introduced the tough and savvy private detective, the duplicitous femme-fatale, the innocent victim of circumstance, and the confessing but remorseless murderer. Creators of this uniquely American crime genre engaged existential themes of isolation, anxiety, futility, and death in the thrilling context of the urban crime thriller. The film noir cycle of Hollywood cinema brought these features to the screen, and offered a distinctively dark visual style compatible with the unorthodox narrative techniques of hard-boiled fiction writers. Film noir has gained critical acceptance for its artistic merit, and the term has a ubiquitous presence in American culture. Americans have much to gain by recognizing their own contributors to the history of existentialism. Existentialism, Film Noir, and Hard-Boiled Fiction describes and celebrates a unique form of existentialism produced mostly by and for working-class people. Faisons analysis of the existentialist value of earlytwentieth-century crime stories and films illustrates that philosophical ideas are available from a rich diversity of sources. Faison examines the plight of philosophy, which occupies a small corner of the academy, and is largely ignored beyond its walls. According to the author, philosophers do themselves and the public a disservice when they restrict what is called existentialism, or philosophy, to that which the academy traditionally approves. The tendency to limit the range of sanctioned material led the professional community to miss the philosophical importance of the critically acclaimed phenomenon known as film noir, and significantly contributes to the contemporary status of philosophy. Existentialism, Film Noir, and Hard-Boiled Fiction properly identifies existentialism, not as the original creation of postWorld War II Europeans, but as a shorthand term used to describe a compelling vision of the world. The themes associated with existentialism are found in the ancient Greek tragedies, and dramatic narrative has been the preferred conveyance of the existentialist message. American and European philosophers present during the early decades of the twentieth century, agreed that the United States was not fertile soil for the existentialist message, but the popularity of hard-boiled fiction and film noir contradicts such claims. Faison examines and emphasizes the working-class origins and orientation of hard-boiled fiction to reveal the division between elites and working-class Americans that led to the ill-informed conclusion. Faison effectively challenges the frequent assertion that the intellectual and creative sources of film noir are to be found in European thinkers andmovements, and establishes film noir, like hard-boiled fiction, as a uniquely American phenomenon. Existentialism, Film Noir, and Hard-Boiled Fiction is scholarly and accessible, and will appeal to academics interested in existentialism, philosophy, and interdisciplinary studies, film enthusiasts interested in the narrative and visual techniques employed in film noir, and fans of hard-boiled mystery fiction and the work of screen legends of the Hollywood studio era.

Eye of the Taika: New Zealand Comedy and the Films of Taika Waititi is the first book-length study of comic film director and media celebrity Taika Waititi. Author Matthew Bannister analyses Waititi's feature films and places his other works and performances-short films, TV series, advertisements, music videos, and media appearances-in the fabric of popular culture. The book's thesis is that Waititi's playful comic style draws on an ironic reading of NZ identity as Antipodean camp, a style which reflects NZ's historic status as colonial underdog. The first four chapters of Eye of the Taika explore Waititi's early life and career, the history of New Zealand and its film industry, the history of local comedy and its undervaluation in favor of more ""serious"" art, and ethnicity in New Zealand comedy. Bannister then focuses on Waititi's films, beginning with Eagle vs Shark (2007) and its place in ""New Geek Cinema,"" despite being an outsider even in this realm. Bannister uses Boy (2010) to address the ""comedian comedy,"" arguing that Waititi is a comedic entertainer before being a director. With What We Do in The Shadows (2014), Bannister explores Waititi's use of the vampire as the archetypal immigrant struggling to fit into mainstream society, under the guise of a mockumentary. Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Bannister argues, is a family-friendly, rural-based romp that plays on and ironizes aspects of Aotearoa/New Zealand identity. Thor: Ragnarok (2017) launched Waititi into the Hollywood realm, while introducing a Polynesian perspective on Western superhero ideology. Finally, Bannister addresses Jojo Rabbit (2019) as an ""anti-hate satire"" and questions its quality versus its topicality and timeliness in Hollywood. By viewing Waititi's career and filmography as a series of pranks, Bannister identifies Waititi's playful balance between dominant art worlds and emergent postcolonial innovations, New Zealand national identity and indigenous Aotearoan (and Jewish) roots, and masculinity and androgyny. Eye of the Taika is intended for film scholars and film lovers alike.

What is 'fun' about the Hollywood version of girlhood? Through re-evaluating notions of pleasure and fun, The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film forms a study of Hollywood girl teen films between 2000-2010. By tracing the aesthetic connections between films such as Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), Hairspray (Shankman, 2007), and Easy A (Gluck, 2010), the book articulates the specific types of pleasure these films offer as a means to understand how Hollywood creates gendered ideas of fun. Rather than condemn these films as 'guilty pleasures' this book sets out to understand how they are designed to create experiences that feel as though they express desires, memories, or fantasies that girls supposedly share in common. Providing a practical model for a new approach to cinematic pleasures The Aesthetic Pleasures of Girl Teen Film proposes that these films offer a limited version of girlhood that feels like potential and promise but is restricted within prescribed parameters.

Why did Edwardian novelists portray journalists as swashbuckling, truth-seeking super-heroes whereas post-WW2 depictions present the journalist as alienated outsider? Why are contemporary fictional journalists often deranged, murderous or intensely vulnerable? As newspaper journalism faces the double crisis of a lack of trust post-Leveson, and a lack of influence in the fragmented internet age, how do cultural producers view journalists and their role in society today? In The Journalist in British Fiction and Film Sarah Lonsdale traces the ways in which journalists and newspapers have been depicted in fiction, theatre and film from the dawn of the mass popular press to the present day. The book asks first how journalists were represented in various distinct periods of the 20th century and then attempts to explain why these representations vary so widely. This is a history of the British press, told not by historians and sociologists, but by writers and directors as well as journalists themselves. In uncovering dozens of forgotten fictions, Sarah Lonsdale explores the bare-knuckled literary combat conducted by writers contesting the disputed boundaries between literature and journalism. Within these texts and films there is perhaps also a clue as to how the best aspects of 'Fourth estate' journalism can survive in the digital age. Authors covered in the volume include: Martin Amis, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Pat Barker, Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Arnold Wesker and Rudyard Kipling. Television and films covered include House of Cards (US and UK versions), Spotlight, Defence of the Realm, Secret State and State of Play.

Often identified as one of the most genuine and enduring American film genres, the road movie has never been explored in the context of experimental filmmaking. To fill this gap, Lost Highways, Embodied Travels provides the first book-length study of over eighty unique and often obscure films and videos and situates them within the corporeal turn in American avant-garde cinema, so far mostly associated with body genres and sexually explicit films. Drawing on unpublished archival materials, the book offers a fresh take on both past and current practices of the experimental film community for scholars, students, makers and film buffs.