Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick
Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick

Author: Martin Harris

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2021-08-09

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1909394823

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The Watergate scandal was a horror show. What better way to satirize it than with a horror movie? Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre premiered in October 1974, mere weeks after the resignation and pardon of Richard Nixon brought an uncertain end to the most corrupt and criminal presidency in American history. The film had been conceived, written, shot, edited, and produced precisely as Watergate was playing out, and those responsible for Chain Saw unhesitatingly spoke of the horrors of contemporary politics as having directly inspired the ones they created for the film. Leatherface vs. Tricky Dick presents a fascinating minute-by-minute exploration of the many uncanny connections between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Watergate, as well as other ways the film comments on contemporary politics via satire and (very) dark humor. Read and discover Chain Saw’s response to the White House horrors, the Saturday Night Massacre, and more, as well as how Leatherface’s masks relate to all those Nixon masks worn throughout “our long national nightmare.”

Horror and Science Fiction Cinema and Society
Horror and Science Fiction Cinema and Society

Author: Martin Harris

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-09-02

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1040122299

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Examining how horror and science fiction films from the 1950s to the present invent and explore fictional “us-versus-them” scenarios, this book analyzes the different ways such films employ allegory and/or satire to interrogate the causes and consequences of increasing polarization in American politics and society. Starting with the killer ants film with an anti-communist subtext Them! (1954) and concluding with Jordan Peele’s social horror film with revenge-seeking homicidal doppelgängers Us (2019), Martin Harris highlights social and political contexts, contemporary reviews and responses, and retrospective evaluations to show how American horror and science fiction films reflect and respond to contemporary conflicts marking various periods in U.S. history from post-WWII to the present, including those concerning race, gender, class, faith, political ideology, national identity, and other elements of American society. Horror and Science Fiction Cinema and Society draws upon cinematic sociology to provide a resourceful approach to American horror and science fiction films that integrates discussion of plot construction and character development with analyses of the thematic uses of conflict, guiding readers’ understanding of how filmmakers create otherworldly confrontations to deliver real-world social and political commentary.

Into the Unknown
Into the Unknown

Author: Andy Murray

Publisher:

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781909394469

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As writer of the legendary Quatermass television serials and a string of unforgettable TV plays, Nigel Kneale is one of British popular culture's most influential figures. This revised and updated new edition of the biography charts his extraordinary career, drawing on extensive interviews with Kneale and his many high-profile admirers.

Poker & Pop Culture
Poker & Pop Culture

Author: Martin Harris

Publisher: D&B Publishing

Published: 2019-06-23

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 191286200X

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Introduced shortly after the United States declared its independence, poker’s growth and development has paralleled that of America itself. As a gambling game with mass appeal, poker has been played by presidents and peasants, at kitchen tables and final tables, for matchsticks and millions. First came the hands, then came the stories – some true, some pure bluffs, and many in between. In Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game, Martin Harris shares these stories while chronicling poker’s progress from 19th-century steamboats and saloons to 21st-century virtual tables online, including: Poker on the Mississippi Poker in the Movies Poker in the Old West Poker on the Newsstand Poker in the Civil War Poker in Literature Poker on the Bookshelf Poker in Music Poker in the White House Poker on Television Poker During Wartime Poker on the Computer From Mark Twain to “Dogs Playing Poker” to W.C. Fields to John Wayne to A Streetcar Named Desire to the Cold War to Kenny Rogers to ESPN to Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond, Poker & Pop Culture provides a comprehensive survey of cultural productions in which poker is of thematic importance, showing how the game’s portrayal in the mainstream has increased poker’s relevance to American history and shaped the way we think about the game and its significance.

Leading to Greatness
Leading to Greatness

Author: Jim Reid

Publisher: Figure 1 Publishing

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1773271725

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Leading to Greatness is a hands-on how-to leadership development program designed to guide leaders to self and organizational excellence. By applying five core leadership principles top-level executives will be primed to take their organizations and teams into the future. Principle 1: Define a crystal-clear understanding of values and purpose—and never deviate. Principle 2: Recognize core strengths and align them with passion. Principle 3: Identify and engage the right people and get them in the right seats; no leader excels at everything. Principle 4: Learn to manage energy—not time—to become fully engaged in life (and thus, leadership). Principle 5: Develop a consistent inner discipline to achieve exceptional results. Author Jim Reid combines his decades of top-level leadership and coaching experience with the best research and science available to deliver to leaders a practical and actionable plan that when consistently applied in one’s life becomes a transformative experience. Part guidebook, part workbook and part work study, Leading to Greatness delivers proof of concept of Reid’s program through detailed case studies from level-5 leaders across North America. The stunning results speak for themselves. If you are looking to take your performance—and the performance of your team—to the next level, look no further. Leading to Greatness is your ultimate tool for exceptional results and sustained success.

Bleeding Skull!
Bleeding Skull!

Author: Joseph A. Ziemba

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1909394149

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BLEEDING SKULL! A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey is the definitive resource on 1980s trash-horror cinema. BLEEDING SKULL! features 300 in-depth reviews of movies that have escaped the radar of people with taste and the tolerance of critics. Black Devil Doll From Hell, A Night To Dismember, Heavy Metal Massacre, The Last Slumber Party — this book gets deep into gutter-level, no-budget horror, from shot-on-video (SOV) revelations (Doctor Bloodbath) to forgotten theatrical casualties (Frozen Scream). Clown midget slashers! The Indonesian Jason! A pregnant woman in a bikini who eats fried chicken before getting her fetus ripped out by a psychopath! It’s all here. And it’s all curated by the enthusiastic minds behind Bleedingskull.com, the world’s foremost authority on trash-horror obscurities. Jam-packed with rare photographs, advertisements, and VHS sleeves (most of which have never been seen), BLEEDING SKULL! is an edifying, laugh-out-loud guide through the dusty inventory of the greatest video store that never existed.

Blood In, Blood Out
Blood In, Blood Out

Author: John Lee Brook

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2011-04-26

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1900486806

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For the first time, ex-convict John Lee Brook subjects the Aryan Brotherhood to a devastating exposé, revealing how the notorious white supremacist prison gang has become perhaps the most powerful criminal organization in America, an achievement much more remarkable considering that the majority of its members remain behind bars, and its infamous Commission-the folkloric threesome, Thomas ‘Terrible Tom’ Silverstein, Tyler ‘the Hulk’ Bingham and Barry ‘the Baron’ Mills-are kept in maximum-security solitary confinement, as the US government makes an open effort to subdue the organization by any means necessary. Despite these efforts, the Aryan Brotherhood continues to thrive, and Blood In, Blood Out demonstrates how a combination of Machiavelli, Nietzsche, meditation, secret codes, brutal violence and sheer will enable its buried puppet masters to continue to tug at the strings of an organization at the forefront of the black market trade in drugs, arms and money laundering. In Blood In, Blood Out, John Lee Brook provides both an extensive overview of the Aryan Brotherhood and a thrilling look at its untold recent history.

My Favourite Dictators
My Favourite Dictators

Author: Chris Mikul

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1909394718

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“I’m personally against seeing my pictures and statues in the streets, but it’s what the people want.” — Saparmurat Niyazov, dictator of Turkmenistan Dictators may be among the worst people in history, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t laugh at them. In My Favourite Dictators, Chris Mikul tells the stories of eleven of the twentieth century’s most colourful and reviled human beings, including Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Muammar Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il. In each case, he examines the political backgrounds to their rise to power and eventual downfall, but the focus here is on the personalities, peculiarities and private lives of these very strange men. You’ll be amazed and appalled by their effortless cruelties, voracious sexual appetites, absurd personality cults, ostentatious uniforms, promotion of dreadful art and pretensions to being great writers – not to mention their terrible taste in interior decoration.

Small Town Skateparks
Small Town Skateparks

Author: Clint Carrick

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9781909394773

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For many Americans who grew up in a small town, childhood and adolescence revolved around the skatepark. As time passes, however, these people drift away from skateboarding and the spaces where they learned to do it. Part memoir, part travelogue, part essay, Small Town Skateparks is the story of an adventure to discover the role skateparks play in such lives and the role they played in the author's own. Clint Carrick grew up at the skatepark. Every day of the summer, he and his friends would loaf at the dilapidated park with warped plywood ramps strewn with rusty nails. They were the outsiders of the town, or at least thought of themselves that way. They wore jeans and ripped skate shoes and felt free in their special hang out, the skatepark, where they had their own language, their own heroes, and their own views of the world. In this setting they matured from children awestruck of high school kids to bored young men desperate to get out. Clint, now an adult, rekindles these forgotten memories as he drives across the country visiting unremarkable skateparks in America's small towns. Why is he drawn to these skateparks? What is their charm? How does the skatepark function as an institution, and what is the indelible mark it leaves on those who grow in its womb? As he makes his way further west, Clint relearns how to skate. He chats with locals, crashes, bleeds, and hears a lot of stories that sound like his own. The rust begins to wear off, but questions remain. Can someone who left skating behind rediscover the activity that defined his youth? Can someone who abandoned skateboarding make the skatepark once again his home?

Bleeding Skull
Bleeding Skull

Author: Annie Choi

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1683961862

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A celebration of the most obscure, bizarre, and brain-busting movies ever made, this film guide features 250 in-depth reviews that have escaped the radar of people with taste and the tolerance of critics ― Goregasm! I Was a Teenage Serial Killer! Satan Claus!Die Hard Dracula! Curated by the enthusiastic minds behind BleedingSkull.com, this book gets deep into gutter-level, no-budget horror, from shot-on-VHS revelations (Eyes of the Werewolf) to forgotten outsider art hallucinations (Alien Beasts). Jam-packed with rare photographs, advertisements, and VHS sleeves (most of which have never been seen before), Bleeding Skull is an edifying, laugh-out-loud guide to the dusty inventory of the greatest video store that never existed.