With impeccable timing, outrageous humor, irreverent wit, and a superb sense of the ridiculous, Groucho tells the saga of the Marx Brothers: the poverty of their childhood in New York's Upper East Side; the crooked world of small-time vaudeville (where they learned to carry blackjacks); how a pretzel magnate and the graceless dancer of his dreams led to the Marx Brothers' first Broadway hit, "I'll Say She Is!"; how the stock market crash in 1929 proved a godsend for Groucho (even though he lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars); the adventures of the Marx Brothers in Hollywood, the making of their hilarious films, and Groucho's triumphant television series, "You Bet Your Life!" Here is the life and lunatic times of the great eccentric genius, Groucho, a.k.a. Julius Henry Marx.

The editors of this anthology analyze a broad range of themes and dance styles in order to examine how dance has helped to shape American identity. This volume focuses on dance and its social, cultural, and political constructs. The first volume, The Twentieth Century, explores a variety of subjects: white businessmen in Prescott, Arizona who created a ""Smoki tribe"" that performed ""authentic"" Hopi dances for over seventy years; swing dancing by Japanese-American teens in World War II internment camps; African American jazz dancing in the work of ballet choreographer Ruth Page; dancing in early Hollywood movie musicals; how critics identified ""American"" qualities in the dancing of ballerina Nana Gollner; the politics of dancing with the American flag; English Country Dance as translated into American communities; Bob Fosse's sociopolitical choreography; and early break dancing as Latino political protest.

Delinquent presenters, controversial executive pay-offs, the Jimmy Savile scandal...The BBC is one of the most successful broadcasters in the world, but its programme triumphs are often accompanied by management crises and high-profile resignations.One of the most respected figures in the broadcasting industry, Roger Mosey has taken senior roles at the BBC for more than twenty years, including as editor of Radio 4's Today programme, head of television news and director of the London 2012 Olympic coverage.Now, in Getting Out Alive, Mosey reveals the hidden underbelly of the BBC, lifting the lid on the angry tirades from politicians and spin doctors, the swirling accusations of bias from left and right alike, and the perils of provoking Margaret Thatcher.Along the way, this remarkable memoir charts the pleasures and pitfalls of life at the top of an organisation that is variously held up as a treasured British institution and cast down as a lumbering, out-of-control behemoth.Engaging, candid and very funny, Getting Out Alive is a true insider account of how the BBC works, why it succeeds and where it falls down.

Beginning with her critically acclaimed independent feature film Eve's Bayou (1997), writer-director Kasi Lemmons's mission has been to push the boundaries that exist in Hollywood. With Eve's Bayou, her first feature film, Lemmons (b. 1961) accomplished the rare feat of creating a film that was critically successful and one of the highest-grossing independent films of the year. Moreover, the cultural impact of Eve's Bayou endures, and in 2018 the film was added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry as a culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film. Lemmons's directing credits also include The Caveman's Valentine, Talk to Me, Black Nativity, and, most recently, Harriet, making Lemmons one of the most prolific and long-standing women directors in Hollywood. As a black woman filmmaker and a self-proclaimed black feminist, Lemmons breaks the mold of what is expected of a filmmaker in Hollywood. She began her career in Hollywood as an actor, with roles in numerous television series and high-profile films, including Spike Lee's School Daze and Jonathan Demme's Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs. This volume collects fifteen interviews that illuminate Lemmons's distinctive ability to challenge social expectations through film and actualize stories that broaden expectations of cinematic black femaleness and maleness. The interviews reveal Lemmons's passion to create art through film, intimately linked to her mission to protest culturally and structurally imposed limitations and push the boundaries imposed by Hollywood.

However difficult the Soviet era was for the peoples of Russia, its seventy-four years represented a true golden age for classical ballet. It was characterised by a wholescale repurposing of the art form from being the 'golden rattle' of the tsars to the most potent cultural weapon in the Communist regime's armoury in its struggles with the West. The Golden Age presents a detailed overview of the development of ballet in Soviet Russia, from its fight for survival in the early years after the 1917 revolutions through the political demands of Stalin's rule, the shock of armed conflict with Germany and the onset of the Cold War. As the century progressed, Soviet ballet was not immune to outside influences hastened by the onset of cultural visits and exchanges; it also suffered the defection of dancers and ultimately opened up further with perestroika in the 1980s and the fall of Communist rule in 1991. Gerald Dowler sets the complex, shifting world of Russian ballet in its political and social contexts and explores the contributions of major choreographers, dancers and teachers in creating the phenomenon of what is celebrated around the world as 'Russian ballet'. Their achievements in creating the Soviet Golden Age were truly remarkable.

Since 2010 "curation" has become a marketing buzzword. Wrenched from its traditional home in the world of high art, everything from food to bed linens to dog toys now finds itself subject to this formerly rarified activity. Most of the time the term curation is being inaccurately used to refer to the democratization of choice - an inevitable development and side effect of the economics of long tail distribution. However, as any true curator will tell you - curation is so much more than choosing - it relies upon human intelligence, agency, evaluation and carefully considered criteria - an accurate, if utopian definition of the much-abused and overused term. Television on Demand examines what happens when curation becomes the primary way in which media users or viewers engage with mass media such as journalism, music, cinema, and, most specifically, television. Mass media's economic model is based on mass audiences - not a cornucopia of endless options from which individuals can customize their intake. The rise of a curatorial culture where viewers create their own entertainment packages and select from a buffet of viewing options and venues has caused a seismic shift for the post-network television industry - one whose ultimate effects and outcomes remain unknown. Curatorial culture is a revolutionary new consumption ecology - one that the post-network television producers and distributors have not yet figured out how to monetize, as they remain in what anthropologists call a "liminal" state of a rite of passage - no longer what they used to be, but not yet what they will become. How does an advertiser-supported medium find leave alone quantify viewers who DVR This is Us but fast-forward through the commercials; have a season pass to The Walking Dead via iTunes to watch on their daily commutes; are a season behind on Grey's Anatomy via Amazon Prime but record the current season to watch after they're caught up; binge watched Orange is the New Black the day it dropped on Netflix; are watching new-to-them episodes of Downton Abbey on pbs.org; never miss PewDiePie's latest video on YouTube, graze on Law & Order: SVU on Hulu and/or TNT and religiously watch Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show via digital rabbit ears? While audiences clamor for more story-driven and scripted entertainment, their transformed viewing habits undermine the dominant economic structures that fund quality episodic series. Legacy broadcasters are producing more scripted content than ever before and experimenting with new models of distribution - CBS will premiere its new Star Trek series on broadcast television but require fans to subscribe to its AllAccess app to continue their viewing. NBC's original Will & Grace is experiencing a syndication renaissance as a limited-run season of new episodes are scheduled for fall 2017. At the same time, new producing entities such as Amazon Studios, Netflix and soon Apple TV compete with high-budget "television" programs that stream around traditional distribution models, industrial structures and international licensing agreements. Television on Demand: Curatorial Culture and the Transformation of TV explains and theorizes curatorial culture; examines the response of the "industry," its regulators, its traditional audience quantifiers, and new digital entrants to the ecosystem of the empowered viewer; and considers the viable future(s) of this crucial culture industry.