Video Nasty Mayhem opens the vault on the British film distributor VIPCO, and finds there are plenty of surprises. The book also includes reviews on more than 60 of VIPCO's films, offers a standalone chapter on cult director Lucio Fulci, highlights Mike Lee's turn at producing movies, and more.
A carefree memoir of growing up during the golden age of VHS and video rental stores in the 1980s. This humorous nostalgia trip rewinds to an era of chunky plastic tapes, horror movie sleepovers, and rewinding woes. Relive the magic of discovering cinema through the blurry analogue footage, cheesy effects, and garish cover art of the VHS generation. A warm remembrance of all that was sublime and ridiculous about watching movies on tape during the heyday of the video rental store. From dodgy splatter films to DIY camcorder creations, this book celebrates a bygone media age and the role VHS played in shaping many a budding filmmaker. Sit back and soak in the fuzzy signals of yesteryear for a heartfelt trip back to the fascinating world of VHS.
Who would believe that choral singing could prove such a deadly pastime? Virginia and Richard Grainger, new members of the Standchester Choral Society, are looking forward, nervously, to their first public performance with the choir, in a production of Berlioz's 'Romeo and Juliet'. As the performance opens, though, tragedy strikes in the form of a very public death. While coping with the repercussions of this, Virginia also has to tussle with the personal problems of her next-door neighbour, Caroline. As plans to re-schedule the concert are being made, another death occurs, and Virginia begins to realise that her own life may be in danger, as she feels the tangled web of deceit and malice tighten around her ...
Do we want four-year-olds to watch slasher films? If not, who should decide? "Mayhem" lays out the ferocious arguments and the evidence on each side, as Bok reveals surprisingly ancient roots of the debate, from Roman critics of the gladiatorial games to restrictions on today's Internet.
In bestselling author John Gilstrap’s ticking time bomb of a thriller, freelance operative Jonathan Grave penetrates a terrorist cell to stop the detonation of total mayhem on home ground . . . America is under fire. One by one, simultaneous terror attacks have left the country reeling. The perpetrators are former Special Forces operatives working for ISIS. Jonathan Grave and his team are called to go undercover and eliminate the traitors. No need to collect intel. No need for arrest. Wipe them out—and get out. The assaults are rehearsals for extreme disaster. A plot codenamed Retribution. One terrorist is willing to talk—for a price. Grave’s only resort is to slip into a dark web where everything can be exposed. Where the rules of engagement do not hold. The bombs have been set and Grave is the one being hunted. Unless he can save himself first, a terrorist plot of unimaginable scope will become history’s deadliest disaster . . .
If the opera world is full of “intrigue, double meanings, and devious dramatics,” then no place exemplifies this more than the world-famous Metropolitan Opera, where politics, ambition, and oversized egos have traditionally taken center stage along with some of the world’s richest music. Drawing on her fifteen years as its press representative, Johanna Fiedler explodes the traditional secrecy that surrounds the Met in this wonderfully entertaining account of its tumuluous history. Fiedler chronicles the Met’s early days as a home for legends like Toscanini, Mahler, and Caruso, and gives a fascinating account of the middle years when haughty blue-bloods battled stubborn adminstrators for control of a company that would emerge as America’s premiere opera house. She takes us behind the grand gold-curtain stage in more recent years as well, showing how musical superstars like Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and Kathleen Battle have electrified performances and scandalized the public. But most revelatory are Fiedler’s portrayals of James Levine and Joseph Volpe and their practically parallel ascendancies—Levine rising from prodigy to artistic director, Volpe advancing from stagehand to general manager—and their once strained relationship. Weaving together the personal, economic, and artistic struggles that characterize the Met’s long and vibrant history, Molto Agitato is a must-read saga of power, wealth, and, above all, great music.
Engages with a range of growing areas of Film and Cultural studies currently being taught in the UK and abroad, including film collecting, horror, moral panics, film censorship and fan and internet cultures. This book deals with the video nasties and the debates around the video recordings act.
From the back pages of history, vivid, entertaining portraits of little-known scoundrels whose misdeeds range from the simply inept to the truly horrifying.