Entertainment Culture

Upon its release in 2008, Matt Reeves's Cloverfield revitalized the giant creature, a cinematic trope that had languished for over a decade. The film addressed the attacks of September 11, 2001, trading the jingoistic rhetoric of retributive military aggression for serious engagement with personal and collective trauma. It applied the horror genre's fascination with personal stories captured by found footage to the grand violence of history. Innovative and intense, Cloverfield represented blockbuster filmmaking at its best.

There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved."

When disaster strikes, it will take all of Erica’s faith in God and courage in herself to help them survive Erica Monroe has a voice like an angel but no real idea of how to go about making her musical dreams a reality. Then local Windfall, Montana, restaurateur Marcus Walsh happens to catch an impromptu performance by Erica, and sparks immediately fly between the two of them. As their relationship grows swiftly, the new couple decides to set up a weekly open mic night at Marcus’ restaurant. But almost before the event is off the ground, acts of sabotage begin that are clearly designed ...

This Is Our Music, declared saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1960 album title. But whose music was it? At various times during the 1950s and 1960s, musicians, critics, fans, politicians, and entrepreneurs claimed jazz as a national art form, an Afrocentric race music, an extension of modernist innovation in other genres, a music of mass consciousness, and the preserve of a cultural elite. This original and provocative book explores who makes decisions about the value of a cultural form and on what basis.

When Gretchen Carlson made the decision to "walk off the set" and speak up about sexual harassment in the workplace, she jumped off a cliff by herself, but it led to a new calling: empowering women to reclaim their power against any injustice. After the former Miss America, mother of two, and star news anchor stood up and spoke out, women all over the world joined the movement and began to take back their lives, careers, and dignity. Gretchen became the voice for the voiceless.

From growing up in Detroit, where he marched as a 10-year-old with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama, where he narrowly avoided the Purple Tunnel of Doom but still saw nothing, David Alan Grier examines how he - and America - have changed for the better and the funnier.

For an actor who’s been in so many mega-hits and equally mega misses, it can be tough to track Keanu Reeves's accomplishments. But true fans know that Keanu is so much more than his Bill and Ted persona, both onscreen and off. During his long career - over 30 years, although you wouldn’t know it from his immortal looks - he has constantly subverted Hollywood stereotypes and expectations. He's the type to start his own publishing company, reread Hamlet, eat lunch alone in the park while looking very sad, and give away his salary to the film crew.

Your Worshipfulness is the story of how a teenage Carrie Fisher created Star Wars's greatest character, Princess Leia. Leia began as little more than a damsel in distress, albeit one with cinema's most iconic hairstyle. Over three films, Carrie made her a complicated character, beloved the world over. Then Darth Vader died, the Ewoks danced, the credits rolled, and that was that. Carrie now had the rest of her life to live, stuck in Leia's shadow.

This book was designed to provide both motivation and direction to any person passionate about gospel choir singing and performance. Whether you are involved in a world renowned professional choir, a local community choir, or just considering joining the existing choir at your church, this book is full of proven critical knowledge which will help you become fruitful in that endeavor. This book emphasizes the universal importance of specific spiritual and mechanical fundamentals which are far too often neglected.

In this new audiobook, broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of The White Stripes. Cross succeeds once again in revealing the fascinating history behind the music in the same compelling way we've come to expect from his long broadcasting career.

Sneaker Culture is Exploding! This book will challenge you to think critically about purpose, identity, materialism, and eternity. Sneakerheads own anywhere from 25-75 pairs and buy one to four pairs a month. Sneakers used to just be for sports but now they have become one of the biggest fashion items in the world.

Before The Beatles landed on American shores in February 1964, only two British acts had topped the Billboard singles chart. In the first quarter of 1964, however, the Beatles alone accounted for 60% of all recorded music sold in the United States; in 1964 and 1965 British acts occupied the number one position for 52 of the 104 weeks; and from 1964 through to 1970, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and more placed more than 130 songs on the American Top Forty.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank takes a fair and balanced look at the unsettling rise of the silly Fox News host Glenn Beck. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. In America in 2010, Glenn Beck provides the very refreshment Jefferson had in mind: Whether he's the patriot or the tyrant, he's definitely full of manure.

The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist. Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood.

During the past five decades, entertainment media have been the most powerful educators and promoters of social change in nearly every society throughout the world. William Brown has studied the influence of mass media on the values, beliefs, and behaviors of audiences in more than 40 countries during the past 35 years. This book explains the most powerful media and arts strategy of the 21st century known as the entertainment-education communication strategy. If you are an advanced undergraduate or honors student or a graduate student working on a graduate degree in communication, media ...

Love them or hate them, One Hit Wonders stick in our brains... like melted cheese on a porcupine! Sometimes you just can’t get the tune out of your head! But why should music lovers be short changed with the 'Usual Suspects'? Nena's 99 Red Balloons? Band Aid? Why settle for 100 hits of all time when I've collected over 400 from just one decade? Every one holds its own unique story, some sad, some uplifting, and some have as much drama as a Hollywood adventure movie. Did you know that Dave Edmunds’ hit “Cruel to be Kind”, stalled at number 12 of every major chart? Did you know that ...

Pop culture and parody author Valerie Estelle Frankel examines the sources and predicts a Game of Thrones ending for each one. What will the Ragnarok ending look like? Or the Narnia ending? Who will live, who will die, and how goofy can the war of ice and fire possibly get?

Ser un referente para varias generaciones y mantenerse en la cumbre del mundo de la música desde hace cuarenta años no es una tarea fácil. Y más si eres mujer y si nunca has tenido reparos en tomar las riendas de tu vida y de tu carrera (lidiando con las críticas, el machismo, la censura… y el paso del tiempo).

DESPRE AUDIOBOOK. Iată cum o cultură marginală, considerată încă "tânără“ după aproape 50 de ani de afirmare, inspiră o carte atât de bogată în informații. Ce-i drept, autorii au îndrăznit, iar îndrăzneala le-a fost răsplătită: fie că vorbim despre concertul lui Slick Rick din Roxbury, fie despre vizita la studioul RJam, aceștia au documentat fenomenul din interior, dezbrăcat de orice aparență sau prejudecată. Porniți într-o misiune eminamente imposibilă, autorii reușesc totuși să se apropie de esența rapului.

Conceived and developed by Steve Allen, the award winning PBS-TV series Meeting of the Minds brought together the most provocative figures of history of conversation and conflict. In this, the sixth assemblage, the focus is on heroic figures from civil disobedience to the validity of the scientific method.