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Leonard Maltin’s 2010 Movie Guide

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:29:36 +0000

The New York Times bestselling film guid E-updated and revised.

Film Consciousness

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:17:52 +0000

The notion of film consciousness is one that has played around various film and philosophical discourses without ever really surfacing as a cogent theory. Representing the first major expression of film consciousness as a tangible concept, this critical study revisits notions of memory, retentional consciousness, narrative expectation, and spatio-temporal perception while also analyzing several major films. The first half of the book focuses on understanding the elements of the film experience-and its associated consciousness-through the descriptive tools of phenomenology. The second part develops the idea of film consciousness as a unique vision of the world and as a large element in the human understanding of reality. Throughout the work, the author combines the ideas of philosophers and film theorists from phenomenology-such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Bazin, and Kracauer-with the postmodernist work of Deleuze and transitional theorists Bergson and Benjamin.

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The Movies of My Life

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:12:52 +0000

Beltran Soler is from Chile, a land in constant movement. A seismologist who knows more about the science of tectonic plate movement than about life, he is cocooned in a world of seismic data, scientific articles, and natural disasters. Beltrán believes he can protect himself from the world around him by losing himself to theoretical pursuits, but thousands of feet above the ground he so meticulously analyzes, on a flight to L.A. — the capital of film and the city in which he was raised — he has a conversation that sparks in him a firestorm of nostalgia. Suddenly, Beltrán finds himself recalling the fifty most important movies of his life — films both precious and absurd that affected him during his childhood and adolescence in the 1960s and ’70s.

From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to kitschy disaster films such as Earthquake!, as well as cult classics of ’70s sci-fi such as Logan’s Run, Beltrán connects with his past by remembering the films he saw, the people with whom he saw them, and even the theaters in which they were shown. Recalling one movie after another, he reconstructs the unusual history of his eccentric and dysfunctional family, coming to terms with his obsession with the movies that helped define him — often whether he wanted them to or not.

Set in the oddly parallel worlds of Nixon’s suburban California and Pinochet’s Santiago de Chile, this ingenious novel throws us into the claustrophobic world of an adolescent who tries to escape from a tumultuous and fragmented existence, one caught between two languages, two cultures, and two families that watch the same movies. Written in the eloquent, compelling, and often hilarious style that has brought Alberto Fuguet world renown, The Movies of My Life is a book about film and about how movies embed themselves in our souls, helping us all share a blinding fondness for the magic of make-believe.

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Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:10:42 +0000

This new Dictionary is the first in-depth reference to cover the approaches deployed in the study of the moving image as well as defining key theoretical terms.
Featuring over 400 entries ranging from 500 to 3,000 words, this resource gives a context to the debates surrounding the terms rather than simplistic “definitions.” The dictionary is destined to be a key reference for students of communication, media, film and cultural studies, art, design and literature.

Entries include:
180 degree rule * African American cinema * agit-prop * audience measurement * Baudrillard, Jean * Bhaba, Homi K. * bias * children and media * consumption * continuity editing * decoding/encoding * deconstruction * Deleuze and Guattari * diaspora * displacement * essentialism * expressionism * fetishism * film noir * formalism * Gaze, the * globalization * hermeneutics * high concept * horror * imaginary * infotainment * internet * Jakobson, Roman * jouissance * kino pravda * live television/live news * Lyotard, Jean-Francois * matching (shots) * McLuhan, Marshall * metanarrative * mise-en-scene * moral panics * narrative * news values * oppositional * pleasure * prime time * Public sphere * quiz shows * real time * reification * Sarris, Andrew * sci-fi films * sender/receiver * tabloid television * utopia/dystopia * verisimilitude * vertical integration * video, home * violence * virtual reality * watershed * western * and more…
Includes suggestions for further reading, cross-references and an extensive index.

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Crime Films and Society

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:01:56 +0000

Movies play a central role in shaping our understanding of crime and the world generally, helping us define what is good and bad, desirable and unworthy, lawful and illicit, strong and weak. Crime films raise controversial issues about the distribution of social power and the meanings of deviance, and they provide a safe space for fantasies of rebellion, punishment, and the restoration of order. In this first comprehensive study of its kind, well-known criminologist Nicole Rafter examines the relationship between society and crime films from the perspectives of criminal justice, film history and technique, and sociology. Dealing with over 300 films ranging from gangster and cop to trial and prison movies, Shots in the Mirror concentrates on works in the Hollywood tradition but also identifies a darker strain of critical films that portray crime and punishment more bleakly.

Review: Crime films
A must read for students – and fans – of crime films! I enjoyed it a great deal!

Review: Enjoying Crime Films
This wonderful book grew out of a college course that Nicole Rafter developed on crime films and society. It will interest general readers, too–those of us who enjoy crime films and are curious about their history and enduring appeal. The book, covering American film from the early 1900s through 1998, begins with an introductory chapter on the history of crime films, followed by chapters on specific genres, such as cop films and courtroom dramas, and other topics.Rafter’s guiding focus is the interaction between crime films and their eras’ dominant beliefs and controversies. Crime films mirror cultural ideas about crime and help shape them. Thus, she features films that have received critical or popular recognition and provide provocative entree to significant social issues of their times. Crime films, Rafter argues, are social tools, as well. They help build consensus, expose our differences, and chart new courses of action. While readers will not always agree with Rafter’s interpretations and analyses, they will become more sensitive observers, more active players in the ongoing exchange between crime films and everyday social life. In addition, readers will come away from this engaging book with a long list of films to see and to rethink. (Rafter mentions over 300 crime films in all, discussing over 100 in some depth.)On a personal note, I share the author’s observation that students in criminology are well versed in crime films and interested in their import. SHOTS IN THE MIRROR provides a marvelous vehicle for capitalizing on their interest and broadening the study of crime, as well. The book’s historical perspective and its sensitivity to issues of race and gender could also prove useful for other courses in the social sciences.

Review: Scholarship and Hollywood: Crime Film as a Social Mirror
Nicole Rafter’s text offers a rigorous analysis of important social issues facing not only scholars and students of criminality and criminal justice but members of our own communities as well. Film- like other media- provides a viable avenue for academic study and discourse and should be used both as a tool for instruction as well as a subject for critical inspection. Rafter addresses seminal, contemporary “crime and justice” issues by considering the various genres of crime films, namely cop films, courtroom dramas, prisons, and crime itself. She contends that crime films in each of these genres make two general arguments. First, they all criticize society to a certain extent, whether the issue concerns excessive use of force by the police or the violent crime rate. Secondly, these films provide the audience with resolution by displaying the triumph of “justice” over corruption and brutality. As Rafter explains, crime films offer us an uncomfortable sense of gratification.One of the many strengths of this text concerns its accessibility to both members of the academy and the general public. Rafter’s text steps outside the boundaries of criminology and criminal justice and embraces a variety of disciplines and perspectives. As she maintains throughout her book, crime films reflect our ideas about social, economic, and political issues, and they shape the way in which we think about them. By examining the interrelationships between film history and technique, social history, criminal justice and criminological theory from multiple interdisciplinary perspectives, Rafter offers a fresh and (enjoyably) enlightening approach to the study and understanding of crime, criminality, and criminal justice within the context of film. Albeit a scholarly text, Rafter’s book reads like a novel; extremely engaging in its description of crime films throughout various genres and generations, readers from various academic disciplines and those outside academia alike will find this book to be both widely entertaining and intellectually rigorous and stimulating.

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Novels into Film

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:49:08 +0000

Completely revised and updated, The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film, Second Edition provides a comprehensive, in-depth look at more than 300 American and foreign novels and their film adaptations. Edited and written by two renowned film scholars, with contributions from more than 70 top experts in the field, this engaging reference explores both the popular and lesser-known films that have come to define this genre. Covering both American and foreign films, each of the more than 300 illuminating entries provides an overview of the literary source and a critical assessment of its various film adaptations. This edition includes more than 30 all-new entries and numerous updates to cover new adaptations, as well as many new photographs. Providing an in-depth look at how books are selected for the silver screen, The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film, Second Edition is a fascinating study for anyone interested in film and literature.

One of the great pleasures of moviegoing is seeing a beloved novel adapted for the screen; one of the big delights of novel reading is encountering a book that has been made into a favorite film. The Encyclopedia of Novels into Films is an expansive volume that will guide you through the rich history of film adaptation. Each entry falls into two parts: the first describes the original novel; the second assesses the film it inspired. Particularly interesting are records for books like Dracula, Les Misérables, Great Expectations, The Body Snatchers, and The Great Gatsby, which were each made into several radically different movies. Some entries may surprise you. Did you know that The Silence of the Lambs, Shaft, and Rear Window were bestselling books before they became famous films? Trivia like this, along with larger issues about how to transform literature into visual art are covered in this wonderful and informative guide. –Raphael Shargel

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Aesthetics And Film

admin — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:37:33 +0000

“Aesthetics and film” is a philosophical study of the art of film. Its motivation is the recent surge of interest among analytic philosophers in the philosophical implications of central issues in film theory and the application of general issues in aesthetics to the specific case of film. Of particular interest are questions concerning the distinctive representational capacities of film art, particularly in relation to realism and narration, the influence of the literary paradigm in understanding film authorship and interpretation, and our imaginative and affective engagement with film. For all of these questions, Katherine Thomson-Jones critically compares the most compelling answers, driving home key points with a wide range of film examples. Students and scholars of aesthetics and cinema will find this an illuminating, accessible and highly enjoyable investigation into the nature and power of a technologically evolving art form.

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Film Art

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:25:09 +0000

Film is an art form with a language and an aesthetic all its own. Since 1979, David Bordwell’s and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art has been the best-selling and widely respected introduction to the analysis of cinema. While it continues to provide the best introduction to the fundamentals of serious film study, the eighth edition has been revised be more classroom friendly by introducing film techniques earlier in the text, followed by the chapters on Film Genres. Supported by a text-specific Tutorial CD-ROM with video clips, Film Art is automatically packaged with this outstanding student learning tool.

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Everything Bad Is Good for You

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:21:02 +0000

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it’s never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.

The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter.

Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, Johnson argues that the junk culture we’re so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can’t be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands.

Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we’d do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.

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Production Safety for Film, Television and Video

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:16:32 +0000

Covering all aspects of production safety, this is an invaluable reference guide for the independent programme maker, freelancer, manager, producer, tutor and student filmmaker. Robin Small identifies all the major risks and gives advice on how to control and/or eliminate them. Each hazard section includes useful references to the relevant legislation, documents and licences, as well as addresses of organisations for essential advice and recommended further reading.

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