Raise Some Shell

Author: Richard Rosenbaum
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1770905227
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 83

Book Description
[tag line] critically and cleverly examines the origins, evolution, and impact of the Ninja Turtles phenomenon - from its beginning as a self-published black-and-white comic book in 1984, through its transformation into a worldwide transmedia phenomenon by the middle of the 1990s, and up to the sale of the property to Nickelodeon in 2009 and relaunch of the Turtles with new comics, cartoons, and a big-budget Hollywood film. With the eye of contemporary cultural studies and the voice of a true lifelong Turtles fan, Rosenbaum argues that the Turtles' continuing success isn't mere nostalgia, but rather the result of characters, and a franchise, that mutated in a way that allowed the to survive and thrive in a post-modern world.

Animal Architecture

Author: Paul Dobraszczyk
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789147247
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
A provocative call for architects to remember and embrace the nonhuman lives that share our spaces. A spider spinning its web in a dark corner. Wasps building a nest under a roof. There’s hardly any part of the built environment that can’t be inhabited by nonhumans, and yet we are extremely selective about which animals we keep in or out. This book imagines new ways of thinking about architecture and the more-than-human and asks how we might design with animals and the other lives that share our spaces in mind. Animal Architecture is a provocative exploration of how to think about building in a world where humans and other animals are already entangled, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Screening American Independent Film

Author: Justin Wyatt
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000872742
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 564

Book Description
This indispensable collection offers 51 chapters, each focused on a distinct American independent film. Screening American Independent Film presents these films chronologically, addressing works from across more than a century (1915−2020), emphasizing the breadth and long duration of American independent cinema. The collection includes canonical examples as well as films that push against and expand the definitions of "independence." The titles run from micro-budget films through marketing-friendly Indiewood projects, from auteur-driven films and festival darlings to B-movies, genre pics, and exploitation films. The chapters also introduce students to different approaches within film studies including historical and contextual framing, industrial and institutional analysis, politics and ideology, genre and authorship, representation, film analysis, exhibition and reception, and technology. Written by leading international scholars and emerging talents in film studies, this volume is the first of its kind. Paying particular attention to issues of diversity and inclusion for both the participating scholars and the content and themes within the selected films, Screening American Independent Film is an essential resource for anyone teaching or studying American cinema.

It Doesn't Suck

Author: Adam Nayman
Publisher: Pop Classics
ISBN: 9781770414402
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
What's celebrated as the "worst movie ever," film writer Adam Nayman explores the 1995 Paul Verhoeven film that won the Razzie and perhaps ended its star's career. He argues that Showgirls is not so bad it's good, it's so good it's mistaken for bad.

Most Dramatic Ever

Author: Suzannah Showler
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1773051679
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
The right reasons to fall in love with The Bachelor When it debuted in 2002, The Bachelor raised the stakes of first-wave reality television, offering the ultimate prize: true love. Since then, thrice yearly, dozens of camera-ready young-and-eligibles have vied for affection (and roses) in front of a devoted audience of millions. In this funny, insightful examination of the world’s favorite romance-factory, Suzannah Showler explores the contradictions that are key to the franchise’s genius, longevity, and power and parses what this means for both modern love and modern America. She argues the show is both gameshow and marriage plot — an improbable combination of competitive effort and kismet — and that it’s both relic and prophet, a time-traveler from first-gen reality TV that proved to be a harbinger of Tinder. In the modern media-savvy climate, the show cleverly highlights and resists its own artifice, allowing Bachelor Nation to see through the fakery to feel the romance. Taking on issues of sex, race, contestants-as-villains, the controversial spin-offs, and more, Most Dramatic Ever is both love letter to and deconstruction of the show that brought us real love in the reality TV era.

The Time of My Life

Author: Andrea Warner
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 177852267X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 119

Book Description
An engaging exploration into the enduring popularity of Dirty Dancing and its lasting themes of feminism, activism, and reproductive rights When Dirty Dancing was released in 1987, it had already been rejected by producers and distributors several times over, and expectations for the summer romance were low. But then the film, written by former dancer Eleanor Bergstein and starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as a couple from two different worlds, exploded. Since then, Dirty Dancing’s popularity has never waned. The truth has always been that Dirty Dancing was never just a teen romance or a dance movie — it also explored abortion rights, class, and political activism, with a smattering of light crime-solving. In The Time of My Life, celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner excavates the layers of Dirty Dancing, from its anachronistic, chart-topping soundtrack, to Baby and Johnny’s chemistry, to Bergstein’s political intentions, to the abortion subplot that is more relevant today than ever. The film’s remarkable longevity would never have been possible if it was just a throwaway summer fling story. It is precisely because of its themes — deeply feminist, sensitively written — that we, over 30 years later, are still holding our breath during that last, exhilarating lift.

Right, Down + Circle

Author: Cole Nowicki
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1778521975
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Book Description
An exuberant, incisive look at how Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater transformed a culture Going from a hobby toy for surfers to an Olympic sport, skateboarding has had a tumultuous history. Today, professional skateboarders land endorsement deals with Nike and Adidas, while popular television series like HBO’s Betty tell the stories of diverse crews of skaters living in New York City. So how did a fledgling subculture rise from its near-death knell in the ’90s to become ubiquitous today? It was simply a matter of finding the right messenger. In 1999, the bestselling video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was released, and a new generation was exposed to skateboarding culture right in their very own homes. Kids and adults alike could now spend hours playing as actual skateboarders, learning the vernacular, listening to the music skateboarders loved, and having fun onscreen before trying to skate IRL in the driveway. Right, Down + Circle explores how a video game starring the most famous pro skater in the world brought skateboarding culture — and its ever-shifting markers of music, subversion, and coolness — to the masses and ultimately transformed the culture it borrowed from in the process.

Ain't No Place for a Hero

Author: Kaitlin Tremblay
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 177305077X
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 119

Book Description
A deep dive into the groundbreaking and bestselling video game series The critically acclaimed first-person shooter franchise Borderlands knows it's ridiculous. It's a badge of pride. After all, Borderlands 2 was promoted with the tagline "87 bazillion guns just got bazillionder." These space-western games encourage you to shoot a lot of enemies and monsters, loot their corpses, and have a few chuckles while chasing down those bazillion guns. As Kaitlin Tremblay explores in Ain't No Place for a Hero, the Borderlands video game series satirizes its own genre, exposing and addressing the ways first-person shooter video games have tended to exclude women, queer people, and people of colour, as well as contribute to a hostile playing environment. Tremblay also digs in to the way the Borderlands game franchise Ñ which has sold more than 26 million copies Ñ disrupts traditional notions of heroism, creating nuanced and compelling storytelling that highlights the strengths and possibilities of this relatively new narrative medium. The latest entry in the acclaimed Pop Classics series, Ain-t No Place for a Hero is a fascinating read for Borderlands devotees as well as the uninitiated.

National Treasure

Author: Lindsay Gibb
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1770907610
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 51

Book Description
A celebration of Nicolas Cage — the man and the meme Nicolas Cage: leading man or character actor? Action hero or goofball comedian? Internet joke or one of the greatest actors of his generation? Beyond the gif bait and easy punchline, Nicolas Cage continually frustrates easy categorization or understanding. In National Treasure, pop culture writer Lindsay Gibb studies Nicolas Cage's acting style and makes sense of the trajectory of his eclectic career. In the process, Gibb debunks the common claim that Cage makes bad choices. While his selection of roles is seemingly inscrutable, Cage challenges critics and audiences alike by refusing to be predictable or to conform to the Hollywood approach to acting. Much like one of his mentors, David Lynch, Cage aims for art in movie-making. Is there a method to his madness? Is he in on the joke? In this clear-eyed and well-argued volume of the Pop Classics series, Gibb answers both questions with a resounding hell yes.

Gentlemen of the Shade

Author: Jen Sookfong Lee
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1773050419
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 89

Book Description
Gus Van Sant’s film and the ’90s cult of the alternative Gus Van Sant’s 1991 indie darling My Own Private Idaho perplexed and provoked, inspiring a new ethos for a new decade: being different was better than being good. Gentlemen of the Shade examines how the film was a coming-of-age for a generation of young people who would embrace the alternative and bring their outsider perspectives to sustainability, technology, gender constructs, and social responsibility. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Times; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} My Own Private Idaho — fragmented and saturated with colour and dirt and a painfully beautiful masculinity — also crept into popular media, and its influence can still be traced. R.E.M. Portlandia. Hipsterism. James Franco. Referencing the often-funny and sometimes-tragic cultural touchstones of the past 26 years, Gentlemen of the Shade sets the film as social bellwether for the many outsiders who were looking to join the right, or any, revolution.