How do we approach a figure like Mario Bava, a once obscure figure promoted to cult status? This book takes a new look at Italy's 'maestro of horror' but also uses his films to address a broader set of concerns. What issues do his films raise for film authorship, given that several of them were released in different versions and his contributions to others were not always credited? How might he be understood in relation to genre, one of which he is sometimes credited with having pioneered? This volume addresses these questions through a thorough analysis of Bava's shifting reputation as a stylist and genre pioneer and also discusses the formal and narrative properties of a filmography marked by an emphasis on spectacle and atmosphere over narrative coherence and the ways in which his lauded cinematic style intersects with different production contexts. Featuring new analysis of cult classics like Kill, Baby ... Kill (1966) and Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970), Mario Bava: The Artisan as Italian Horror Auteur sheds light on a body of films that were designed to be ephemeral but continue to fascinate us today.

This candid memoir opens a fascinating window on the emotive journey of a ballet mum, the mother of Yasmine Naghdi, Principal ballerina of The Royal Ballet. She presents a unique perspective on the many trials and tribulations she has lived through: from her initial hesitations to all her concerns once Yasmine commenced her classical ballet training at The Royal Ballet School, and up until she joined The Royal Ballet as a young professional dancer. "Tears of a Ballet Mum" offers a fascinating insight into what it takes to support a talented child through the physical and mental demands of ballet training, how to aid in building mental strength, and how to take ownership of the training whilst ensuring overall mental well-being. With over 70 private, backstage and performance colour photos

The Ultimate Action Hero. For twenty years one man has dominated action cinema worldwide. He is adored by more fans than Stallone, Schwartzenegger or Willis and yet until recently was virtually ignored by America and the UK. All that has changed now. Welcome to the world of Jackie Chan, martial artist, comedian and stuntman. Most people associate Jackie Chan with the recent smash hit films Rush Hour and Rumble in the Bronx but there is a lot more of him to see. Jackie learnt his trade from the harsh world of Peking Opera School and began to appear in films as a child. He slowly progressed from minor roles to becoming a head stuntman and eventually lead actor in a number of kung fu movies in the 1970s. It was only when he began to direct his own films that the real Jackie Chan film was born. If you have never seen a Jackie Chan film before, you are in for one wild ride. They are a unique blend of visual comedy, incredible stunts and electrifying fights. What makes them so special is that Jackie performs all of his own stunts, no matter how crazy, no matter how dangerous. And they are dangerous. In the course of his career Jackie has broken nearly every bone in his body and come within a hair's breadth of death...No one will insure him. In this book we'll be taking a look at the world's most popular action hero - See! Jackie skateboard through rush hour traffic. Against the flow... See! Jackie fall from a tall building. Handcuffed... See! Jackie drive through a town. Literally through the town... See! Jackie run down the side of a building. While it is falling down... See! Jackie leap from the top of a car park.. Onto a balcony across the road... You'll laugh. You'll gasp. You'll wince. You've never seen anyone like Jackie Chan.

Examines the role that parenting, as a theme and practice, plays in film and media cultures. Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor constructs a feminist genealogy that foregrounds the relationship between acts of production on the one hand and reproduction on the other. In this interdisciplinary collection, editors So Mayer and Corinn Columpar bring together film and media studies with parenting studies to stake out a field, or at least a conversation, that is thick with historical and theoretical dimension and invested in cultural and methodological plurality. In four sections and sixteen contributions, the manuscript reflects on how caregiving shapes the work of filmmakers, how parenting is portrayed on screen, and how media contributes to radical new forms of care and expansive definitions of mothering. Featuring an exciting array of approaches-including textual analysis, industry studies, ethnographic research, production histories, and personal reflection-Mothers of Invention is a multifaceted collection of feminist work that draws on the methods of both the humanities and the social sciences, as well as the insights borne of both scholarship and lived experience. Grounding this inquiry is analysis of a broad range of texts with global reach-from the films Bashu, The Little Stranger (Bahram Beyzai, 1989), Prevenge (Alice Lowe, 2016), and A Deal with the Universe (Jason Barker, 2018) to the television series Top of the Lake(2013-2017) and Jane the Virgin (2014-2019), among others-as well as discussion of the creative practices, be they related to production, pedagogy, curation, or critique, employed by a wide variety of film and media artists and/or scholars. Mothers of Invention demonstrates how the discourse of parenting and caregiving allows the discipline to expand its discursive frameworks to address, and redress, current theoretical, political, and social debates about the interlinked futures of work and the world. This collection belongs on the bookshelves of students and scholars of cinema and media studies, feminist and queer media studies, labor studies, filmmaking and production, and cultural studies.

From Neal Gabler, the definitive portrait of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American entertainment and cultural history.
Seven years in the making and meticulously researched--Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives--this is the full story of a man whose work left an ineradicable brand on our culture but whose life has largely been enshrouded in myth.
Gabler shows us the young Walt Disney breaking free of a heartland childhood of discipline and deprivation and making his way to Hollywood. We see the visionary, whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen and, when combined with iron determination and obsessive perfectionism, led him to the reinvention of animation. It was Disney, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films--most notably "Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, "and "Bambi--"who transformed animation from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life."
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We see him reimagine the amusement park with Disneyland, prompting critics to coin the word "Disneyfication" to describe the process by which reality can be modified to fit one's personal desires. At the same time, he provided a new way to connect with American history through his live-action films and purveyed a view of the country so coherent that even today one can speak meaningfully of "Walt Disney's America." We see how the True-Life Adventure nature documentaries he produced helped create the environmental movement by sensitizing the general public to issues of conservation. And we see how he reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise in a way that was unprecedented and was later widely imitated.
Gabler also reveals a wounded, lonely, and often disappointed man, who, despite worldwide success, was plagued with financial problems much of his life, suffered a nervous breakdown, and at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his workshop making model trains. Gabler explores accusations that Disney was a red-baiter, an anti-Semite, an embittered alcoholic. But whatever the characterizations of Disney's personal life, he appealed to the nation by demonstrating the power of wish fulfillment and the triumph of the American imagination. Walt Disney showed how one could impose one's will on the world.
This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man--of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life

While highlighting the prevailing role of television in Western societies, Art vs. TV maps and condenses a comprehensive history of the relationships of art and television. With a particular focus on the link between reality and representation, Francesco Spampinato analyzes video art works, installations, performances, interventions and television programs made by contemporary artists as forms of resistance to and appropriation and parody of mainstream television. The artists discussed belong to different generations: those that emerged in the 1960s in association with art movements such as Pop Art, Fluxus and Happening; and those appearing on the scene in the 1980s, whose work aimed at deconstructing media representation in line with postmodernist theories; to those arriving in the 2000s, an era in which, through reality shows and the Internet, anybody could potentially become a media personality; and finally those active in the 2010s, whose work reflects on how old media like television has definitively vaporized through the electronic highways of cyberspace. These works and phenomena elicit a tension between art and television, exposing an incongruence; an impossibility not only to converge but at the very least to open up a dialogical exchange.

Breaking is the first and most widely practiced hip-hop dance in the world today, with an estimated one million participants taking part in this dynamic, multifaceted artform. Yet, despite its global reach and over 40 years of existence, historical treatments of the dance have largely neglected the African Americans who founded it. Dancer and scholar Serouj "Midus" Aprahamian offers, for the first time, a detailed look into the African American beginnings of breaking in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s. Given the pivotal impact the dance had on hip-hop's formation, this book also challenges numerous myths and misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop culture's emergence. Aprahamian draws on untapped archival material, primary interviews, and detailed descriptions of early breaking to bring this buried history to life, with a particular focus on the early aesthetic development of the dance, the institutional settings in which hip-hop was conceived, and the movement's impact on sociocultural conditions in New York throughout the 1970s. By featuring the overlooked first-hand accounts of over 50 founding b-boys and b-girls, this book also shows how indebted breaking is to African American culture and interrogates the disturbing factors behind its historical erasure.

How did a new, irresistible brand of television emerge from the Lebanese Civil War (1975-91) to conquer the Arab region in the satellite era? What role did seductive news anchors, cool language teachers, superheroes, and gossip magazines play in negotiating a modern relationship between television and audiences? How did the government lose its television monopoly to sectarian militias? Pretty Liar explores the rise of language and gender politics in Lebanese television during the Civil War of 1975-91. Khazaal tells the untold story of the coevolution of Lebanese television and its audience, and the ways in which the war influenced that transformation. Khazaal analyzes news, entertainment, and educational shows from Tele Liban and LBC, novels, periodicals, and popular culture to explain how controversies over language and gender became a referendum on television's relevance. Based on empirical data, Khazaal shows how television became a site for politics and political resistance, feminism, and the cradle for postwar Lebanon. Pretty Liar challenges the narrow focus on present-day satellite television and social media, offering the first account of how broadcast television transformed media's legitimacy in the Arab world. This groundbreaking book shows how the history of television in Lebanon is a history not merely of corporate technology but of a people and their continuing demand for responsive media, especially during times of civil unrest.

Come round to Louis Theroux's house, where the much-loved documentary-maker finds himself in unexpected danger . . . Louis's latest TV series about weirdness - the one involving the American far right, home-grown jihadis, and SoundCloud rappers - has been unexpectedly derailed by the onset of a global pandemic. Now he finds himself locked down in a location even more full of pitfalls, surprises and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home. Theroux the Keyhole is the candidly honest and hilarious diary of a man attempting to navigate the perils of work and family life, locked down in Covid World with his wife, two teenagers and a Youtube-addict fiver year-old. Why is his wife so intolerant of his obsession with Joe Wicks's daily workouts? Can he reinvent himself as a podcast host? Why has the internet gone nuts for his old journalistic compadre Joe Exotic? And will his teenage sons ever see him as anything other than 'cringe'? This is Louis at his insightful best, as month-by-month he documents his year of unforeseen new challenges - and wonders why it took a pandemic for him to learn that what really matters in life is right in front of him.