When the Movies Mattered

Author: Jonathan Kirshner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501736116
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Book Description
In When the Movies Mattered Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis gather a remarkable collection of authors to revisit the unique era in American cinema that was New Hollywood. Ten eminent contributors, some of whom wrote about the New Hollywood movement as it unfolded across the 1960s and 1970s, assess the convergence of film-industry developments and momentous social and political changes that created a new type of commercial film that reflected those revolutionary influences in American life. Even as New Hollywood first took shape, film industry insiders and commentators alike realized its significance. At the time, Pauline Kael compared the New Hollywood to the "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s" and David Thomson dubbed the era "the decade when movies mattered." Thomson's words provide the impetus for this volume in which a cohort of seasoned film critics and scholars who came of age watching the movies of this era reflect upon and reconsider this golden age in American filmmaking. Contributors: Molly Haskell, Heather Hendershot, J. Hoberman, George Kouvaros, Phillip Lopate, Robert Pippin, David Sterritt, David Thomson

Gray Matters

Author: Brett McCracken
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1441242759
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
Culture is in right now for Christians. Engaging it, embracing it, consuming it, and creating it. Many (younger) evangelicals today are actively cultivating an appreciation for aspects of culture previously stigmatized within the church. Things like alcohol, Hollywood's edgier content, plays, art openings, and concerts have moved from being forbidden to being celebrated by believers. But are evangelicals opening their arms too wide in uncritical embrace of culture? How do they engage with culture in ways that are mature, discerning, and edifying rather than reckless, excessive, and harmful? Can there be a healthy, balanced approach--or is that simply wishful thinking? With the same insight and acuity found in his popular Hipster Christianity, Brett McCracken examines some of the hot-button gray areas of Christian cultural consumption, helping to lead Christians to adopt a more thoughtful approach to consuming culture in the complicated middle ground between legalism and license. Readers will learn how to both enrich their own lives and honor God--refining their ability to discern truth, goodness, beauty, and enjoy his creation.

How to Watch a Movie

Author: David Thomson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101910844
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
In his most inventive exploration of the medium yet, David Thomson—one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema—shows us how to get more out of watching any movie. Guiding us through each element of the viewing experience, considering the significance of everything from what we see and hear on-screen—actors, shots, cuts, dialogue, music—to the specifics of how, where, and with whom we do the viewing, Thomson explicates the movie watching experience with his customary candor and wit. Delivering keen analyses of films ranging from Citizen Kane to 12 Years a Slave, in How to Watch a Movie, Thomson shows moviegoers how to more deeply appreciate both the artistry and the manipulation of film—and in so doing enriches our viewing experience immensely.

Why Acting Matters

Author: David Thomson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213697
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respected and insightful writers on movies and theater, answers this question with intelligence and wit. In this fresh and thought-provoking essay, Thomson tackles this most elusive of subjects, examining the allure of the performing arts for both the artist and the audience member while addressing the paradoxes inherent in acting itself. He reflects on the casting process, on stage versus film acting, and on the cult of celebrity. The art and considerable craft of such gifted artists as Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis, and others are scrupulously appraised here, as are notions of “good” and “bad” acting. Thomson’s exploration is at once a meditation on and a celebration of a unique and much beloved, often misunderstood, and occasionally derided art form. He argues that acting not only “matters” but is essential and inescapable, as well as dangerous, chronic, transformative, and exhilarating, be it on the theatrical stage, on the movie screen, or as part of our everyday lives.

Stuff Matters

Author: Mark Miodownik
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544236041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.

Everything Matters!

Author: Ron Currie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101050926
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
"Startlingly talented . . . he survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and writes in a tenderly mordant voice all his own." -Janet Maslin, The New York Times In this novel rich in character, Junior Thibodeau grows up in rural Maine in a time of Atari, baseball cards, pop Catholicism, and cocaine. He also knows something no one else knows-neither his exalted parents, nor his baseball-savant brother, nor the love of his life (she doesn't believe him anyway): The world will end when he is thirty-six. While Junior searches for meaning in a doomed world, his loved ones tell an all-American family saga of fathers and sons, blinding romance, lost love, and reconciliation-culminating in one final triumph that reconfigures the universe. A tour de force of storytelling, Everything Matters! is a genre-bending potpourri of alternative history, sci-fi, and the great American tale in the tradition of John Irving and Margaret Atwood.

What Matters Now

Author: Gary Hamel
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118219082
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
This is not a book about one thing. It's not a 250-page dissertation on leadership, teams or motivation. Instead, it's an agenda for building organizations that can flourish in a world of diminished hopes, relentless change and ferocious competition. This is not a book about doing better. It's not a manual for people who want to tinker at the margins. Instead, it's an impassioned plea to reinvent management as we know it—to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work. Leaders today confront a world where the unprecedented is the norm. Wherever one looks, one sees the exceptional and the extraordinary: Business newspapers decrying the state of capitalism. Once-innovative companies struggling to save off senescence. Next gen employees shunning blue chips for social start-ups. Corporate miscreants getting pilloried in the blogosphere. Entry barriers tumbling in what were once oligopolistic strongholds. Hundred year-old business models being rendered irrelevant overnight. Newbie organizations crowdsourcing their most creative work. National governments lurching towards bankruptcy. Investors angrily confronting greedy CEOs and complacent boards. Newly omnipotent customers eagerly wielding their power. Social media dramatically transforming the way human beings connect, learn and collaborate. Obviously, there are lots of things that matter now. But in a world of fractured certainties and battered trust, some things matter more than others. While the challenges facing organizations are limitless; leadership bandwidth isn't. That's why you have to be clear about what really matters now. What are the fundamental, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead? Hamel identifies five issues are that are paramount: values, innovation, adaptability, passion and ideology. In doing so he presents an essential agenda for leaders everywhere who are eager to... move from defense to offense reverse the tide of commoditization defeat bureaucracy astonish their customers foster extraordinary contribution capture the moral high ground outrun change build a company that's truly fit for the future Concise and to the point, the book will inspire you to rethink your business, your company and how you lead.

When Pride Still Mattered

Author: David Maraniss
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684844184
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1012

Book Description
By the time he died of cancer in 1970, after one season in Washington during which he transformed the Redskins into winners, Lombardi had become a mythic character who transcended sport, and his legend has only grown in the decades since. Many now turn to Lombardi in search of characteristics that they fear have been irretrievably lost, the oldfashioned virtues of discipline, obedience, loyalty, character, and teamwork. To others he symbolizes something less romantic: modern society's obsession with winning and superficial success. In When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss renders Lombardi as flawed and driven yet ultimately misunderstood, a heroic figure who was more complex and authentic than the stereotypical images of him propounded by admirers and critics.

The Last Great American Picture Show

Author: Alexander Horwath
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9053566317
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
This publication is a major evaluation of the 1970s American cinema, including cult film directors such as Bogdanovich Altman and Peckinpah.

Why to Kill a Mockingbird Matters

Author: Tom Santopietro
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250163765
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
Tom Santopietro, an author well-known for his writing about American popular culture, delves into the heart of the beloved classic and shows readers why To Kill a Mockingbird matters more today than ever before. With 40 million copies sold, To Kill a Mockingbird’s poignant but clear eyed examination of human nature has cemented its status as a global classic. Tom Santopietro's new book, Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters, takes a 360 degree look at the Mockingbird phenomenon both on page and screen. Santopietro traces the writing of To Kill a Mockingbird, the impact of the Pulitzer Prize, and investigates the claims that Lee’s book is actually racist. Here for the first time is the full behind the scenes story regarding the creation of the 1962 film, one which entered the American consciousness in a way that few other films ever have. From the earliest casting sessions to the Oscars and the 50th Anniversary screening at the White House, Santopietro examines exactly what makes the movie and Gregory Peck’s unforgettable performance as Atticus Finch so captivating. As Americans yearn for an end to divisiveness, there is no better time to look at the significance of Harper Lee's book, the film, and all that came after.