This is a critical examination of the ways that ageing and old age are represented and given meaning in popular film. Arguing that the narratives, discourses, and philosophical positions that underlie filmic depictions of growing older are historical and open to revision, the author evaluates how a given film both portrays ageing or older characters and tells the larger story of ageing itself. Using the evaluations to explain how knowledge about ageing and old age is made visible through film, the book shows how movies are able not only to promote negative portrayals of aging but also to challenge the cultural devaluation of old age. Movies cannot only consolidate age-based exclusionary definitions of self and personhood but also to dispute the distinction between self and other on which these definitions are based. The author sees popular film as a helpful site of cultural struggle where the cinematic representation and the lived reality of ageing and old age intertwine.

The documents emerging from the secret police archives of the former Soviet bloc have caused scandal after scandal, compromising revered cultural figures and abruptly ending political careers. "Police Aesthetics" offers a revealing and responsible approach to such materials. Taking advantage of the partial opening of the secret police archives in Russia and Romania, Vatulescu focuses on their most infamous holdings--the personal files--as well as on movies the police sponsored, scripted, or authored. Through the archives, she gains new insights into the writing of literature and raises new questions about the ethics of reading. She shows how police files and films influenced literature and cinema, from autobiographies to novels, from high-culture classics to avant-garde experiments and popular blockbusters. In so doing, she opens a fresh chapter in the heated debate about the relationship between culture and politics in twentieth-century police states.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is one of the greatest shows on earth. Around 220,000 people attend each year. It is seen on TV by a further 100 million. Alasdair Hutton is the Voice of the Tattoo. This book is the story of the Tattoo, told by the Narrator and prefaced by a short history of tattoos pre-Edinburgh and a history of the Tattoo pre-Alasdair. With an ever-changing cast of over 1,000 performers, each year’s show is unique. Some elements remain unchanged – the spine-tingling Lone Piper playing on the Castle ramparts, the cacophony of sound that is the closing massed pipes and drums, the welcoming voice of Alasdair Hutton as you arrive. Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, the Greatest Show on Earth is about to begin. For the last 25 years, Alasdair Hutton has told our story to each of our audiences since he started in 1992 – a total live audience of over 5 million people. Not only has he been behind the microphone without fail, in Edinburgh and when we have taken the show abroad, but he has also researched and written the script. Alasdair’s most precious talents are his voice, his sense of timing and his feel for occasion. Alasdair Hutton is above all one of life’s great gentlemen. Not only is he impeccably polite but he has great charisma, values and a wonderful sense of purpose. This book, which is Alasdair’s own story – only a small part of it! – gives a sense of the huge contribution he has made to the remarkable institution of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. From the foreword by brigadier David Allfrey

Remaking Horror chronicles the American horror genre in its development of remake titles from the 1930s to 21st century films. The book investigates Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) as the watershed moment when the horror genre opened its doors to the possibility of that horror movie--classic, modern, B-movie, and more--might be remade for contemporary audiences. Staple horror franchises--Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)--are highlighted along with their remake counterparts in order to illustrate how the genre has embraced a phenomenon of remake productions and what the future of horror holds for American cinema. More than 25 original films, their remakes, and the movies they influenced are presented in detailed discussions throughout the text.

When did Queen for a Day air? How long did the soap opera The Edge of Night run? A valuable companion to Television Network Prime-Time Programming, this book is complete. Beginning with September 1959 and continuing to the fall of 1989, this work provides month-by-month early morning (Monday-Friday, 7-9 a.m.), daytime (Monday-Friday, 10-6) and late night (Monday-Friday, 11-2 a.m.) schedules for all national broadcasting networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox). Schedules are presented in easy-to-understand, at-a-glance charts. Also included are a detailed listing of all network programming moves, including series premieres, cancellations and time slot moves, and a yearly recap of key programming moves.

Aptly named ""Television's First Lady"" by Walter Ames of the Los Angeles Times, actress Beverly Garland (1926-2008) is also regarded as a Western and science-fiction film icon. Beverly was TV's first ""police woman"" in the landmark series Decoy, and was seen in starring or recurring roles in such popular shows as My Three Sons and Scarecrow and Mrs. King. In addition to more than 700 television appearances, she made more than 55 feature and made-for-television films including the cult classics Not of This Earth, It Conquered the World and The Alligator People. Working with such mega-names as Sinatra, Bogart, and Bing Crosby, Beverly Garland had fascinating stories to tell about all of them and many, many more. This comprehensive biography of Beverly's life and career includes a foreword and afterword by her colleagues Joseph Campanella and Peggy Webber.

"The greatest American dramatist of our age" - Evening Standard In this second volume of collected works, four of Arthur Miller’s stage plays from the sixties and seventies are brought together in a new edition. Taking up the theme of individual responsibility from his earlier work, this volume also contains an introduction from Miller himself, along with two of his screenplays. One of Miller’s most personal plays, After the Fall (1964) takes place almost entirely inside the mind of the play's protagonist, who is often read as a stand-in for the playwright himself, and touches on themes of the Holocaust, McCarthyism and inherited sin. This was followed by Miller's largely forgotten masterpiece, Incident at Vichy (1964): a prescient examination of the evil that exists in us all, inspired by a real-life incident in France in which a Gentile gave a Jew his identity pass during a check. The Price followed in 1968, a touching and farcical presentation of American life beyond the Vietnam War and Great Depression, which earned Miller a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. In The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), Miller offers a comedic retelling of the Book of Genesis, constructing a parable around the theme of good-versus-evil. Also included are two of the playwright’s most beloved screenplays: The Misfits, written for and filmed with Marilyn Monroe, and Playing for Time, televised with Vanessa Redgrave. Freshly edited and featuring a bold new design, this updated edition of Arthur Miller Plays 2 is a must-have for theatre fans and students alike.

All at once, and without apology or shame, the name Whoopi Goldberg conjures images of laughter, sex, surprise, versatility, African heritage, and Jewish identity, to name a few. How did she become such a major player in Hollywood and the larger world? This book provides an overview of some of Goldberg's most important efforts on Broadway and in major motion pictures, television, and the world of social activism. Major features include comparative analyses of Goldberg's work in relation to that of such notable performers as Bert Williams, Jackie ""Moms"" Mabley, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Dave Chappelle, as well as an in-depth analysis of her work as the fictional Celie in the major motion picture The Color Purple; her Oscar-winning role as the fictional Oda Mae Brown in Ghost and her cultural impact as an American woman working.

An imagination of possibilities, of miscalculations, of futures off-kilter   “Probability is a chimera, its head is true, its tail a suggestion. Futurologists attempt to compel the head to eat the tail (ouroboros). Here, though, we will try to wag the tail.� —Vilém Flusser  Two years after his Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, the philosopher Vilém Flusser engaged in another thought experiment: a collection of twenty-two “scenarios for the future� to be produced as computer-generated media, or technical images, that would break the imaginative logjam in conceiving the social, political, and economic future of the universe. What If? is not just an “impossible journey� to which Flusser invites us in the first scenario; it functions also as a distorting mirror held up to humanity.  Flusser’s disarming scenarios of an Anthropocene fraught with nightmares offer new visions that range from the scientific to the fantastic to the playful and whimsical. Each essay reflects our present sense of understanding the world, considering the exploitation of nature and the dangers of global warming, overpopulation, and blind reliance on the promises of scientific knowledge and invention. What If? offers insight into the radical futures of a slipstream Anthropocene that have much to do with speculative fiction, with Flusser’s concept of design as “crafty� or slippery, and with art and the immense creative potential of failure versus reasonable, “good� computing or calculability. As such, the book is both a warning and a nudge to imagine what we may yet become and be.

Smart, quirky, female-centric, drenched in pop-culture references—Amy Sherman-Palladino's singular TV voice has won her legions of fans and critical appreciation over the past two decades, thanks to shows like "Gilmore Girls," "Bunheads," and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." Sherman-Palladino—the first woman ever to win Emmy Awards for both comedy writing and directing in a single year—may write about different decades and milieus, but her sensibility is unique and unmistakable throughout. Her greatest contribution may be her pantheon of unforgettable female characters, including Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy), Michelle Simms (Sutton Foster), Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein), and Miriam "Midge" Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan). In The Women of Amy Sherman-Palladino, writers from different walks of life—scholars, critics, writers, comedians, dancers—take us on a journey through the worlds of these characters, and how they have influenced their own lives. This is the second book in "The Women of" series, after The Women of David Lynch, published in June 2019. This unique series, covers great female characters in television and film.

As Doctor Who nears its 50th anniversary, it is very much a part of British popular culture, and the Doctor has become a British icon. Nevertheless, thanks to BBC America and BBC Worldwide's marketing strategy, as well as the Doctor's and his companions' recent in-person visits to the U.S., the venerable series is becoming more susceptible to an ""American influence,"" including the possibility of becoming ""Americanised."" Doctor Who and recent spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures offer American audiences very different insights into the Whoniverse and have met with varying degrees of success. Whereas Torchwood became a U.S.-U.K. co-production, The Sarah Jane Adventures was largely mismarketed. To complicate matters, the interrelationships that keep the Doctor Who franchise alive through radio dramas, audiobooks, comics, novels, etc., during hiatuses in television broadcasts, may give U.S. and U.K. audiences different understandings of the lead characters--the Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, and Sarah Jane Smith. Although the past decade has been an exciting time in the Whoniverse, the Doctor--and the franchise--are poised for yet another regeneration.

The oral eye is a metaphor for the dominance of global designer capitalism. It refers to the consumerism of a designer aesthetic by the 'I' of the neoliberalist subject, as well as the aural soundscapes that accompany the hegemony of the capturing attention through screen cultures. An attempt is made to articulate the historical emergence of such a synoptic machinic regime drawing on Badiou, Bellmer, Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, Ranciere, Virilio, Ziarek, and i ek to explore contemporary art (post-Situationism) and visual cultural education. jagodzinski develops the concept of an 'avant-garde without authority, ' 'self-refleXion' and 'in(design)' to further the questions surrounding the posthuman as advanced by theorists such as Hansen, Stiegler and Ziarek's 'force' of art.

In this work, 222 musicals developed specifically for television are fully detailed, including musical episodes from non-musical shows, animated specials that appealed to adults as well as children, and operas and related works commissioned for the small screen. Each entry provides air date, network, running time, cast and credits, and a listing of all the songs. A plot synopsis follows these data, focusing on the show itself and the story from which it was adapted; information on award nominations and awards won, recordings, videos, and published music is then provided. Contemporary reviews of the show complete the entry.

The five directors studied here embody postmodernism-the erosion of the earlier 20th century distinction between ""high culture"" and the so-called mass or popular culture that had its beginnings in the 1950s and 1960s. Comprised of repetition, pastiche, parody and homage, their postmodern films borrowed from high and low, from directors like Lean, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Ford and Godard. The personal history and childhood interests of each director are studied, along with their apprenticeship in film school and early directorial efforts. This shared film school background and their familiarity with the films of Hollywood's classic period, of the entire ouevres of certain directors, have allowed them mastery of a wide range of film styles, genres and techniques.

This new and updated encyclopedic guide, with over 2700 cross-referenced entries, covers all aspects of the American theatre from its earliest history to the present. Entries include people, venues and companies scattered through the USA, plays and musicals, and theatrical phenomena. Additionally, there are some 100 topical entries covering theatre in major US cities and such disparate subjects as Asian American theatre, Chicano theatre, censorship, Filipino American theatre, one-person performances, performance art, and puppetry. Major popular forms are represented in entries such as circus, burlesque, vaudeville, and tent shows. Highly illustrated, the Guide is supplemented with a thorough historical survey as introduction, a bibliography of major sources published since the compilation of the first edition, and a unique and valued biographical index covering over 3200 individuals mentioned in the text. This new edition includes hundreds of new and updated entries, making it the most up-to-date guide to American theatre available.

When Art Spiegelman's "Maus" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, it marked a new era for comics. Comics are now taken seriously by the same academic and cultural institutions that long dismissed the form. And the visibility of comics continues to increase, with alternative cartoonists now published by major presses and more comics-based films arriving on the screen each year.
"Projections" argues that the seemingly sudden visibility of comics is no accident. Beginning with the parallel development of narrative comics at the turn of the 20th century, comics have long been a form that invitesOCoindeed requiresOCoreaders to help shape the stories being told. Today, with the rise of interactive media, the creative techniques and the reading practices comics have been experimenting with for a century are now in universal demand. Recounting the history of comics from the nineteenth-century rise of sequential comics to the newspaper strip, through comic books and underground comix, to the graphic novel and webcomics, Gardner shows why they offer the best models for rethinking storytelling in the twenty-first century. In the process, he reminds us of some beloved characters from our past and present, including Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, Crypt Keeper, and Mr. Natural.
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Born on February 12, 1886, in Missouri Valley, Iowa, Margaret Fischer made her stage debut at the tender age of eight. Now called Margarita, by 1910, she had embarked on a new and daring occupation--as an actress in the fledgling industry of motion pictures. Although Margarita Fischer made an attempt to preserve her cinematic accomplishments shortly before her death in 1975, her career has remained largely unknown--until now. This biography details Fischer's life and career, examining not only her work in front of the camera but also the broader issues--including her devotion to family and her shrewd management of her public image--which informed her personal and professional decisions. It follows her sometimes difficult marriage to fellow performer Harry Pollard and examines her work with Pollard Picture Plays, a production company founded by the couple. Movies discussed include The Butterfly Girl, The Devil's Assistant, Impossible Susan and, her final film, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Through the lens of Fischer's life and career, the reader sees the changing mores and lifestyles of America, particularly those of the film industry itself. Never-before-published photographs and a filmography listing over 170 projects complete this story of one of America's earliest film stars.

Unlike traditional animation techniques that use specialized 3D animation software, machinima --a term derived from the words ""machine"" and ""cinema""--records the action in real-time interactive 3D environments, such as those found in video games, to create a cinematic production. No longer solely the province of hard-core gamers, machinima has become central to the convergence between animation, television, and film, but retains its own identity as a unique media format. It has evolved quickly within massive multi-player gaming and virtual platforms such as Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft, and virtual worlds under development. These interviews, essays, and discussions with leading machinima producers, reviewers, performers, and advocates discuss scripting basics, character development, and set design, as well as tips on crafting machinima through creative use of sound, lighting, and post-production. Aimed at beginning or intermediate machinima storytellers, this is an informative and useful overview of an emerging art form.

This is a detailed examination, from creation to cancellation, of 58 science fiction television series produced between 1990 and 2004, from the popular The X-Files to the many worlds of Star Trek (from The Next Generation onward), as well as Andromeda, Babylon 5, Firefly, Quantum Leap, Stargate Atlantis and SG-I, among others. A chapter on each series includes essential production information; a history of the series; critical commentary; and amusing, often provocative interviews with more than 150 of the creators, actors, writers and directors. The book also offers updates on each series' regular cast members, along with several photographs and a complete bibliography.