Idols of the Odeons

Idols of the Odeons
Author: Andrew Roberts
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2020-04-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1526147025

Idols of the Odeons examines British film stardom in the post-war era, a time when Hollywood movies were increasingly supplanting the Pinewood/Elstree studio system. The book encompasses the careers of sixteen actors, including Stanley Baker, Diana Dors, Norman Wisdom, Hattie Jacques, Peter Finch and Peter Sellers. Such extremely diverse careers provide the opportunity to explore overlooked films, in addition to examining how the term ‘star’ could apply to a stalwart leading man, a Variety comic, a self-created ‘Vamp’ and a character actor. Above all, this is a book that celebrates, with idiosyncratic humour and warmth, how these actors accomplished much of their best work during the transitional period between the Rank/ABPC roster of stars and the US domination of the British film industry.

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Author: Steve Almond
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2010-04-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0679603654

Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

Here Comes Everybody

Here Comes Everybody
Author: James Fearnley
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1556529503

“Everything a really great music memoir should be.” —Colin Meloy The Pogues injected the fury of punk into Irish folk music and gave the world the troubled, iconic, darkly romantic songwriter Shane MacGowan. Here Comes Everybody is a memoir written by founding member and accordion player James Fearnley, drawn from his personal experiences and the series of journals and correspondence he kept throughout the band’s career. Fearnley describes the coalescence of a disparate collection of vagabonds living in the squats of London’s Kings Cross, with, at its center, the charismatic MacGowan and his idea of turning Irish traditional music on its head. With beauty, lyricism, and great candor, Fearnley tells the story of how the band watched helplessly as their singer descended into a dark and isolated world of drugs and drink, and sets forth the increasingly desperate measures they were forced to take. James Fearnley was born in 1954 in Worsley, Manchester. He played guitar in various bands, including The Nips with Shane MacGowan, before becoming the accordion player in The Pogues. Fearnley continues to tour with the band and lives in Los Angeles.

Good Morning, Midnight

Good Morning, Midnight
Author: Jean Rhys
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 202
Release: 1986
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780393303940

A woman encounters a life filled with desires and emotions when she returns to Paris after suffering from a bout of depression and alcoholism in London.

The Film Book

The Film Book
Author: Ronald Bergan
Publisher: DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780241484838

Story of cinema -- How movies are made -- Movie genres -- World cinema -- A-Z directors -- Must-see movies.

Film Stardom and the Ancient Past

Film Stardom and the Ancient Past
Author: Michael Williams
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2018-01-13
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137390026

This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of how the ancient past has shaped screen stardom in Hollywood since the silent era. It engages with debates on historical reception, gender and sexuality, nostalgia, authenticity and the uses of the past. Michael Williams gives fresh insights into ‘divinized stardom’, a highly influential and yet understudied phenomenon that predates Hollywood and continues into the digital age. Case studies include Greta Garbo and Mata Hari (1931); Buster Crabbe and the 1930s Olympian body; the marketing of Rita Hayworth as Venus in the 1940s; sculpture and star performance in Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004); landscape and sexuality in Troy (2004); digital afterimages of stars such as Marilyn Monroe; and the classical body in the contemporary ancient epic genre. The author’s richly layered ‘archaeological’ approach uses detailed textual analysis and archival research to survey the use of the myth and iconography of ancient Greece and Rome in some of stardom’s most popular and fascinating incarnations. This interdisciplinary study will be significant for anyone interested in star studies, film and cultural history, and classical reception.

Beyond observation

Beyond observation
Author: Paul Henley
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2020-01-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1526131374

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Beyond Observation is structured by the argument that the ‘ethnographicness’ of a film should not be determined by the fact that it is about an exotic culture – the popular view – nor because it has apparently not been authored – a long-standing academic view – but rather because it adheres to the norms of ethnographic practice more generally. On these grounds, the book covers a large number of films made in a broad range of styles across a 120-year period, from the Arctic to Africa, from the cities of China to rural Vermont. Paul Henley discusses films made within reportage, exotic melodrama and travelogue genres in the period before the Second World War, as well as more conventionally ethnographic films made for academic or state-funded educational purposes. The book explores the work of film-makers such as John Marshall, Asen Balikci, Ian Dunlop and Timothy Asch in the post-war period, considering ideas about authorship developed by Jean Rouch, Robert Gardner and Colin Young. It also discusses films authored by indigenous subjects themselves using the new video technology of the 1970s and the ethnographic films that flourished on British television until the 1990s. In the final part of the book, Henley examines the recent work of David and Judith MacDougall and the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, before concluding with an assessmentof a range of films authored in a participatory manner as possible future models.

Eddie Must Die

Eddie Must Die
Author: Antonio Biggio
Publisher: Blitos
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Thursday 28th October 1982. Hammersmith Odeon, London. Iron Maiden are about to play in front of a sold-out crowd. This engagement is crucial for the band, who have just changed their lead singer and are trying to face the protests against their latest album, The Number of the Beast. They have been accused of having links to Satanism. A tragedy is round the corner: Liam and Rose, who belong to a religious sect, are also there, armed with enough explosive C4 to cause a terrible massacre. Six weeks previously, the Thames returns the dead body of a journalist named Luke Wilkinson. Everything found at the scene suggests suicide, but Inspector Andrew Briggs is suspicious. He decides to investigate on his own, but the deeper he digs, the more complicated the mosaic becomes. Two events apparently different, but connected by a thin thread. Who is the murderer? And who is behind the attack on the legendary metal band? This page-turning thriller is rich in twisted plots, which intertwine the past and present on a London-Unites States axis. Iron Maiden turn out to be the key to unravel the mystery, but how?