John McGrath is an executive chef, author and an active film critic who has reported for radio, television and print media for more than 16 years. Author of Watch This Movie, a collection of reviews of his top 1000 films, John is also a veteran of seven Cannes Film Festivals. His last book Its All Part of the Alpine Experience took a behind the scenes look at life as a seasonaire in the worlds most famous ski resort, Chamonix Mont Blanc. Cannes Confidential reveals everything there is to know about the legendary Cannes Film Festival but too afraid to ask. No one has previously attempted taking such an insiders look at the cinema cognoscenti, the hype, the Riviera underworld and the glitz, glamour, sleaze, sex and debauchery that intermingles with the lifestyles of the rich and famous and is the real life blood of the famous festival.
This monograph offers a cutting edge perspective on the study of Chinese film stars by advancing a “linguaphonic” model, moving away from a conceptualization of transnational Chinese stardom reliant on the centrality of either action or body. It encompasses a selection of individual personalities from the most iconic Bruce Lee, Michelle Yeoh, and Maggie Cheung to the not-yet-full-fledged Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jay Chou, and Tang Wei to the newest Fan Binging, Liu Yifei, Wen Ming-Na, and Sammi Cheng who are exemplary to the star-making practices in the designated sites of articulations. This volume notably pivots on specific phonic modalities – spoken forms of tongues, manners of enunciation, styles of vocalization -- as means to mine ethnic and ideological underpinnings of Chinese stardom. By indicating a methodological shift from the visual-based to aural-based vectors, it asserts the phonic as a legitimate bearing that can generate novel vigor in the reimagination of Chineseness. By exhausting the critical affordability of the phonic, this book unravels the polemics of visuality and aurality, body and voice, as well as onscreen personae and offscreen existence, remapping the contours of the ethnic fame-making in the global mediascape.
Festivals have always been part of city life, but their relationship with their host cities has continually changed. With the rise of industrialization, they were largely considered peripheral to the course of urban affairs. Now they have become central to new ways of thinking about the challenges of economic and social change, as well as repositioning cities within competitive global networks. In this timely and thought-provoking book, John and Margaret Gold provide a reflective and evidence-based historical survey of the processes and actors involved, charting the ways that regular festivals have now become embedded in urban life and city planning. Beginning with David Garrick’s rain-drenched Shakespearean Jubilee and ending with Sydney’s flamboyant Mardi Gras celebrations, it encompasses the emergence and consolidation of city festivals. After a contextual historical survey that stretches from Antiquity to the late nineteenth century, there are detailed case studies of pioneering European arts festivals in their urban context: Venice’s Biennale, the Salzburg Festival, the Cannes Film Festival and Edinburgh’s International Festival. Ensuing chapters deal with the worldwide proliferation of arts festivals after 1950 and with the ever-increasing diversifycation of carnival celebrations, particularly through the actions of groups seeking to assert their identity. The conclusion draws together the book’s key themes and sketches the future prospects for festival cities. Lavishly illustrated, and copiously researched, this book is essential reading not just for urban geographers, social historians and planners, but also for anyone interested in contemporary festival and events tourism, urban events strategy, urban regeneration regeneration, or simply building a fuller understanding of the relationship between culture, planning and the city.
John McGrath is a restaurateur turned executive chef, author and an active film critic who has reported for radio, television and print media for more than 16 years. Author of Watch This Movie, a collection of reviews of his top 1000 films, John is also a veteran of seven Cannes Film Festivals. His last book It's All Part of the Alpine Experience took a behind the scenes look at life as a seasonaire in the world's most famous ski resort, Chamonix Mont Blanc. Cannes Confidential reveals everything there is to know about the legendary Cannes Film Festival but too afraid to ask. No one has previously attempted taking such an insider's look at the cinema cognoscenti, the hype, the Riviera underworld and the glitz, glamour, sleaze, sex and debauchery that intermingles with the lifestyles of the rich and famous and is the real life blood of the famous festival.
Get inside the mind of football's most enigmatic icon ‘Zidane is the master’ Pele One of modern football’s most brilliant players - and one of its most iconic and mysterious figures - Zinedine Zidane’s football career is the stuff of legend. A World Cup-winner with France, he became the world's most expensive player in 2001 when he moved from Juventus to Real Madrid for £46million, where his exceptional talent earned him a reputation as one of the greatest players of all-time. His playing career concluded explosively when he retired after being sent off for head-butting Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final. But his football career was far from over. After a spell coaching in Spain, he was appointed manager of Real Madrid in 2015 and immediately demonstrated that his skill as a manager matched his talent on the pitch, leading the team to successive Champions League victories and establishing him as one of the new managerial greats. Rarely speaking to the press, Zidane is known as a man who ‘speaks only with the ball’. In this definitive biography, Patrick Fort and Jean Philippe take us behind the scenes of his exceptional career, revealing the man behind the legend.
