The Suspense Thriller
The Suspense Thriller

Author: Charles Derry

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2010-06-21

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780786462407

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This book is a comprehensive study of one of the most popular genres in the cinema. From a perspective sympathetic to popular culture, this study analyzes a large number of primarily American and European films by a variety of distinguished directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Chabrol, John Frankenheimer, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Costa-Gavras. Indispensable to anyone interested in understanding how suspense thrillers work and what they mean, this book provides insightful analysis of hundreds of memorable films, while at the same time working as a virtual how-to manual for anyone trying to write a Hitchcock-like thriller. The first section of the book is primarily theoretical. It offers a bibliographical survey and then explains why we so profoundly enjoy these suspenseful films of murder and intrigue. A chapter on "Thrills: or, How Objects and Empty Spaces Compete to Threaten Us" explores the psychological concept of the thrill and relates it to the psyche of the spectator. To what extent does the suspense thriller represent a symbolic and vicarious experience of danger? A chapter on "Suspense That Makes the Spectator Take a Breath" explores the crucial narrative concept of suspense and relates it to the psychological mechanisms of anxiety incited in the spectator. Why do we like to be scared? A final theoretical chapter offers a dynamic definition of the suspense thriller derived in part from Edgar Allan Poe and based primarily on content analysis. The second section of the book is more of an historical survey and devotes one chapter to each of the suspense thriller's primary sub-genres. These chapters provide close readings of more than 150 major films and detailed analysis of the suspense thriller's conventions, themes, and recurrent iconography. Sub-genres include The Postman Always Rings Twice, Body Heat, The Manchurian Candidate, The China Syndrome, Missing, The Passenger, Spellbound, Obsession, Marathon Man and Blue Velvet. A final chapter explores areas for further research and offers concluding insights.

It
It

Author: Joseph Roach

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2007-04-12

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780472069361

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A witty and engaging exploration of the elusive quality of charm, animal magnetism, or charisma possessed by extraordinarily interesting people through the ages

New York Magazine
New York Magazine

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1983-05-02

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13:

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New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

Alternative Projections
Alternative Projections

Author: David E. James

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2015-03-13

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 086196909X

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A collection of papers discussing Los Angeles’s role in avant-garde, experimental, and minority filmmaking. Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 is a groundbreaking anthology that features papers from a conference and series of film screenings on postwar avant-garde filmmaking in Los Angeles sponsored by Filmforum, the Getty Foundation, and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, together with newly-commissioned essays, an account of the screening series, reprints of historical documents by and about experimental filmmakers in the region, and other rare photographs and ephemera. The resulting diverse and multi-voiced collection is of great importance, not simply for its relevance to Los Angeles, but also for its general discoveries and projections about alternative cinemas. “Alternative Projections provides a useful corollary and often a corrective to what has become a somewhat unilateral approach to experimental cinema in the period taken up here.” —Millennium Film Journal “[T]here are enough examples of ingenuity and achievement contained in this volume to unite a new generation of independent artists, exhibitors, and audiences in maintaining a viable outlet for cinematic creativity in Los Angeles.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

Psychology
Psychology

Author: Frank J. Bruno

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2002-11-11

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0471323624

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* A complete course, from brain biology to abnormal psychology * Hundreds of questions and many review tests * Key concepts and terms defined and explained Master key concepts. Answer challenging questions. Prepare for exams. Learn at your own pace. What are the two basic psychological dimensions of emotions? How do you define abnormal behavior? Is extrasensory perception real? What is Viktor Frankl known for? With Psychology: A Self-Teaching Guide, you'll discover the answers to these questions and many more. Frank Bruno explains all the major psychological theories and terms in this book, covering perception, motivation, thinking, personality, sensation, intelligence, research methods, and much more. He presents the foundations of psychology and the biology of behavior; explores how children develop into adults and the psychological factors that make us individuals; and examines various mental disorders and the types of therapy used to treat them. The step-by-step, Q&A format of Psychology makes it fully accessible, providing an easily understood, comprehensive overview of the topic. Like the other popular Self-Teaching Guides, Psychology allows you to build gradually on what you have learned-at your own pace. Questions and self-tests reinforce the information in each chapter and allow you to skip ahead or focus on specific areas of concern. Packed with useful, up-to-date information, this clear, concise volume is a valuable learning tool and reference source for anyone who seeks a greater understanding of human behavior.

Grammar Girl's 101 Words to Sound Smart
Grammar Girl's 101 Words to Sound Smart

Author: Mignon Fogarty

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2011-11-08

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 142995129X

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Millions of people around the world communicate better thanks to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, whose top-rated weekly grammar podcast has been downloaded more than 40 million times. Now she's turning her attention to improving our vocabulary—one smart word at a time—with Grammar Girl's 101 Words to Sound Smart. Are you often stumped for the perfect way to say or write something? Do you find yourself using the same words over and over? Grammar Girl to the rescue! This handy reference guide contains 101 words that will enhance your writing, adding nuance, subtlety, and insight. Using these words in speeches, you'll sound confident and articulate—a skill that will benefit you for years to come. Full of clear, straightforward definitions and fun quotations from historic luminaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Charlotte Bronte as well as contemporary notables such as Dave Eggers and Rowan Atkinson, this highly useable guidebook gives you the ability to speak and write eloquently at any occasion, setting you up for a lifetime of success.

Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow

Author: Peter Keough

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1617037753

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With her gripping film The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow (b. 1951) made history in 2010 by becoming the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. Since then she has also filmed history with her movie, Zero Dark Thirty, which is about the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden. She is one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, but her roots go back four decades to the very non-Hollywood, avant-garde art world of New York City in the 1970s. Her first feature The Loveless reflected those academic origins, but such subsequent films such as the vampire-Western Near Dark, the female vigilante movie Blue Steel, and the surfer-crime thriller Point Break demonstrated her determination to apply her aesthetic sensibilities to popular, genre filmmaking. The first volume of Bigelow’s interviews ever published, Peter Keough’s collection covers her early success with Near Dark; the frustrations and disappointments she endured with films such as Strange Days and K-19: The Widowmaker; and her triumph with The Hurt Locker. In conversations ranging from the casual to the analytical, Bigelow explains how her evolving ambitions and aesthetics sprang from her earliest aspirations to be a painter and conceptual artist in New York in the 1970s and then expanded to embrace Hollywood filmmaking when she was exposed to such renowned directors as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Don Siegel, Sam Peckinpah, and George Roy Hill.

Bird Dream
Bird Dream

Author: Matt Higgins

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0143127462

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A heart-stopping narrative of risk and courage, Bird Dream tells the story of the remarkable men and women who pioneered the latest advances in aerial exploration--from skydiving to BASE jumping to wingsuit flying--and made history with their daring.

The Man Who Never Returned
The Man Who Never Returned

Author: Peter Quinn

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2022-02-08

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 153150082X

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Peter Quinn’s The Man Who Never Returned is a noir-ish, stylized detective narrative set in 1950s New York. It follows Fintan, a retired detective turned private investigator who has been given the job of finding Judge Crater, who just went missing in 1930. Based on a real story, it is quite an intriguing tale that was even more so for people living at the time. The famous missing-person case is comparable to the Amelia Earhart missing-person case, though it could have been an even more interesting one. It was alleged that the missing judge may have had information about underhanded dealings in the New York judiciary. It was believed that if such information came to light, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor of New York, would have had a hard time becoming the president of the United States. There were also rumors that the judge, who was a known ladies’ man, had either decided to disappear or had fallen afoul of the mafia. Featuring hardboiled characters and a beautiful re-creation of New York from the ’50s, it is quite a compelling read.

The Speed Handbook
The Speed Handbook

Author: Enda Duffy

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2009-07-20

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0822392372

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Speed, the sensation one gets when driving fast, was described by Aldous Huxley as the single new pleasure invented by modernity. The Speed Handbook is a virtuoso exploration of Huxley’s claim. Enda Duffy shows how the experience of speed has always been political and how it has affected nearly all aspects of modern culture. Primarily a result of the mass-produced automobile, the experience of speed became the quintessential way for individuals to experience modernity, to feel modernity in their bones. Duffy plunges full-throttle into speed’s “adrenaline aesthetics,” offering deft readings of works ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, through J. G. Ballard’s Crash, to the cautionary consumerism of Ralph Nader. He describes how speed changed understandings of space, distance, chance, and violence; how the experience of speed was commodified in the dawning era of mass consumption; and how society was incited to abhor slowness and desire speed. He examines how people were trained by new media such as the cinema to see, hear, and sense speed, and how speed, demanded of the efficient assembly-line worker, was given back to that worker as the chief thrill of leisure. Assessing speed’s political implications, Duffy considers how speed pleasure was offered to citizens based on criteria including their ability to pay and their gender, and how speed quickly became something to be patrolled by governments. Drawing on novels, news reports, photography, advertising, and much more, Duffy provides a breakneck tour through the cultural dynamics of speed.