The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s (Amsterdam University Press

Book Description

The French Connection, The Last Picture Show, M.A.S.H., Harold and Maude--these are only a few of the iconic films made in the United States during the 1970s. Originally considered a "lost generation," the 1970s are increasingly recognized as a crucial turning point in American filmmaking, and many films from the era have resurfaced from oblivion to become a reference for new directorial talents. The Last Great American Picture Show explores this pivotal era in American film history with a collection of essays by scholars and writers that firmly situates the decade as the time of the emergence of "New Hollywood."

Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, Peter Bogdanovich, Monte Hellman, Bob Rafelson, Hal Ashby, Robert Altman, and James Tobac: these legendary directors developed innovative techniques, gritty aesthetics, and a modern sensibility in American film. Here, contributors compellingly argue that the cinema of today's major directors--Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Robert Zemeckis--could not have come into existence without the groundbreaking works produced by the directors of the 1970s. A wholly engaging and long-overdue investigation of this important era in American film, The Last Great American Picture Show reveals how the films of the 1970s transformed the American social consciousness and influenced filmmaking worldwide.

Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure
Average customer rating:

Glimpses of Heaven Amidst the Chaos

A Pleasant Surprise

A Unique Angle on an American Phenomenon

What a long, strange read it was

A better book than shown by reviews here

Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure
Carol Brightman
Manufacturer: Pocket
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0671011170

Amazon.com

What a long, strange trip it's been, indeed. Carol Brightman's examination of the Grateful Dead's history supports the widely held belief that it was more than just a psychedelic band. The Grateful Dead was a cultural phenomenon from its beginnings in the late 1960's up until its untimely demise following the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995.

Brightman does more than just present a chronology of the band's history. She explains how the Grateful Dead both influenced and was influenced by the turbulence of the events unfolding around them in the 1960's. Rather than just telling the same old story of how the band evolved from a house band for Ken Kesey's infamous Acid Tests to the top-grossing act of the early 1990's, she presents detailed histories of the band members, their families, their friends, and everyone else they came into contact with. It is also a fascinating look at the emergence of the 1960's drug culture and the involvement of everybody from Timothy Leary to the CIA.

Whether you're a baby boomer Deadhead who has followed the band since its beginnings or a Generation X Deadhead who jumped on the bandwagon when the band hit the Top 40 in the late 1980's, this book is a must-read. Sweet Chaos is a compelling report of a period in United States history and of a band that is truly beyond description. --Michael Mariani

Book Description

San Francisco's Grateful Dead brought its psychedelic blend of folk, bluegrass, and blues to the 1960s counterculture, along with a romance for the Beats and a love of anarchy that made it something more than a bond. Without radio play and virtually unnoticed by the press, the Dead forged a vast underground following whose loyalty survives to the present day.

National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Carol Brightman returns to the bond's roots -- to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the acid tests and the heady days of Haight-Ashhury, the free concerts in Golden Gate Park and the formative shows of New York's Fillmore East -- to uncover the secrets of the band's longevity. Drawing on exclusive interviews With band members, staff and crew, Deadheads, other musicians, journalists -- and her own experience as a '60s activist -- Brightman shows us how, amid the turbulent Free Speech Movement and antiwar rallies, the Grateful Dead's abandonment to music, drugs, and dance offered the faithful a shelter in the storm. Her riveting, in-depth portrait of Jerry Garcia, the "nonleader leader" who held to a vision of the Grateful Dead's destiny even as he recoiled from the juggernaut it became, shows us how it was that a Dead concert become something halfway between a revival meeting and a family reunion.

An absorbing and exhilarating exploration, Sweet Chaos offers, at last, a complete understanding of the Dead phenomenon and its place in American culture.

Customer Reviews:

Glimpses of Heaven Amidst the Chaos.......2007-03-01

I'd read every book out there about the Dead...or so I thought. Somehow this one passed me by, and I'm glad it did, because because maybe if I read it 8 years ago when it first came out I wouldn't have like it so much. I still listen to the Dead almost daily and sometimes I wonder why, what it is about what they did that I find so profound. Sure, it's about the music; but not totally. The Dead's music operates at so many more levels than simple sound than a collection of instruments and poetry. It emerged from a certain concoction of musical history, personality, drugs, group dynamics, and social context. Brightman looks at and analyzes that context and those forces better than anyone else. To me reading her book gave me a wider perspective, and even greater appreciation, for why I'm so moved when I listen to the Dead. It gave
Definitely a book worth reading, whether you like the Dead's music or not, if you are interested in understanding how people explore the world we live in and somehow find ways to achieve moments of transcendence amidst all the chaos and suffering.

A Pleasant Surprise.......2005-04-06

I got this book as a Christmas gift, and I approached it with kneejerk Deadhead prejudices (fueled by some of the reviews here, I must admit.) I was pleasantly surprised.

One criticism I share: I don't think that Ms. Brightman's activist past and her insights about it are interesting enough to stand alone in the market.

I was intrigued by what she has to say about the spiritual aspects of the Dead experience. It seems to me that she understands and respects certain facets of the experience that most outsiders don't. It is equally clear that she doesn't really "get it."

A Unique Angle on an American Phenomenon.......2003-10-08

Carol Brightman, sister of GD lighting designer Candace Brightman and veteran activist, has an interesting take on the Grateful Dead. Her book is an outsider's look in, particularly from the point of view of a antiwar activist who cut sugarcane for Castro and travelled to Vietnamese hamlets. Now she asks: how come this freakin' band is the only thing left from the 1960s?

Dennis McNally's biography of the Dead is still the first book anybody interested should read (well, after Wolfe, Kerouac, Kesey, and David Gans' Conversations with the Dead), but Brightman has an interesting angle. Her take on the reasons for the Dead's staying power is evenhanded and convincing, and her criticism of the Dead has haven for people disillusioned with politics is only fair. It almost doesn't matter that she could have used some help with structure--the organization is a mess, jumping from the 60s to the 90s, from Berkeley to Europe 72, from history lessons in the Weatherman to sharp-eyed analysis of Hunter lyrics. You never know what you'll find when you turn the page.

Or maybe with a book called Sweet Chaos, that's intentional.

What a long, strange read it was.......2003-09-02

Looking for a history of the Dead? Go elsewhere! As other reviewers have commented, this book is self-indulgent, and spends too much time on the politics of the Sixties (as if that was the only decade during which the Dead were performing and recording!), despite tha author's repeated statements that the band was apolitical.

Aside from the above, this book is also a poor choice because it leaves out so much. There is no mention on the deaths of Pigpen and other deceased members of the group. TC gets very little coverage, as did the albums on which he played. "Europe 72" is ignored, as are many of the post-Sixties albums. I could go on and on...

Save your money, friends.

A better book than shown by reviews here.......2002-08-10

This book has gotten hammered because it has a lot of autobiography and a lot of political and sociological content.

Listen to most people talk about the Dead, and it's autobiographical, it's about the experience and less about the music. I'm not faulting Brightman for writing about it in that context.

Also, if you are a boomer deadhead, then marches on Washington or the draft as political happenings during the time you began listening, or the Dead's playing on your college campus and your conscious effort to adopt hedonism instead of politics may be describing your trip. This book touches on your life and how the Dead fit into it.

It's NOT a biography of dead members, either.

It's for deadheads, for sure. Ones who had or have other interests outside the minutiae of each song in each performance.

But if your only interest is classifying that really awesome bass line from Philly, or what the best Scarlet Begonias was in 1977, then look elsewhere, the Compediums or Wybenga's book. (I like the latter as well, for different reasons.) If you really want to know all the gory details behind the trip, then Scully or McNally are your guys.

How to Beat 1 D4: A Sound and Ambitious Repertoire Based on the Queen's Gambit Accepted
Average customer rating:

An average repertoire book

Great Book

Good Repertoire Book, But....

Won my first two QGA games after reading this book

An Exemplar of Chess Opening Books

How to Beat 1 D4: A Sound and Ambitious Repertoire Based on the Queen's Gambit Accepted
James Rizzitano
Manufacturer: Gambit Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1904600336

Product Description

Rizzitano, author of Understanding Your Chess, presents a full repertoire for Black against 1 d4, based on the Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA). The QGA is an extremely popular opening amongst players of all levels, as it gives Black free development and counterpunching potential, especially if White takes up the challenge and tries to set up a broad pawn centre. The QGA's soundness is shown by the number of top-class grandmasters who have used it in critical games - it was a key factor in Short's victory over Karpov, and has even been used by Garry Kasparov at world-championship level. Rizzitano has chosen to recommend dependable main lines of the QGA, and throughout emphasizes how Black can create winning chances and White's typical ways to go wrong. The repertoire is completed by a set of weapons against White's alternatives to offering the Queen's Gambit, ranging from the stolid Colle to the weird Hodgson Attack and the reckless Blackmar-Diemer.

Customer Reviews:

An average repertoire book.......2007-06-04

This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 consists of queen gambit accepted lines which not include the classical variation, part 2 handles the classical variation and part 3 handles openings where white do not follow up with c4 (Colle, London, Veresov, etc.)

Rizzitano handles the 3 parts very differently. While the classical variation is very deeply explained (as for 2300 players), Rizzitano handles for instance the Torre Attack more lightly (as for 1700 players).

So this book is not for ordinary club players. In many positions where white has more than just one alternative, Rizzitano often just describe just one alternative. The other alternatives may be less attractive, but for an ordinary club player who plays black, it is not easy to understand why. This book is full of variations and variations. Rizzitano surely knows how to use a chess database. But I miss some informative text, and not just variations after words like: Alternatives:, then:, now:, White has some alternatives here:, Let's examine: When someone write "Let's examine" I want some explanation text, not just variations. I believe it may be difficult for a normal chess player to benefit 100% from this book, without doing his one opening description from this book.

So I will not recommend this book for players rated below 2000.

What I also miss in this book is a more specific description of strategically ideas about each variant and some complete games showing when these strategically ideas are successful.

Great Book.......2007-05-11

This is an amazing book, extremely detailed and thorough. It is a totally complete repertoire against 1.d4. I don't know what the last reviewer is talking about. Contrarily, this one of the most complete and thorough opening repertoire books I've ever seen.

This is your road map when white plays 1.d4. Keep in mind that it's a repertoire book, not an instructional manual on how to play every single move in every single position. (But it comes close!) One thing the book lacks is an "Illustrative Games" section. If this is your only reference, then you will need to either find a supplemental book, well annotated QGA games, or a coach to help you work through the positions once the analysis stops.

The good news is that he basically quotes his sources on every book, game fragment, and annotator. If you want to see more, just pull the game up on your computer and have at it. This is a window into a titled player's opening preparation, so be prepared to do some work to digest the material.

I think this is good for players rated 1800+, because it can be an overwhelming amount of material at some points. It is definitely *not* the "Easy Guide" to the QGA.

I am looking forward to seeing more from the meticulously thorough Rizzitano.

Good Repertoire Book, But...........2007-04-29

Missing a couple of critical lines that Black should be aware of.

Of course, all the initial analysis through the earlly stages of the ooening is spot-on, but at that nebulous threshold between the end of an opening and the onset of a full-blown middle game, this book serves the function of dropping us off at a couple of key (and very complex) intersections with a map that does not show all the avaliable roads that can be taken. Of course, this is not an real big deal if these are options for our side (the good guys!-- it is a repertoire book afterall), but when these options are important (and powerful) moves that are opponent can spring, and they are not even mentioned, it makes me wonder what the full intent of the author really was.

Don't get me wrong, I like this book, and if the player with the white pieces cooperatively stays within the confines of the repertoire proffered, Black is doing fine. But for a volume of this size and reputation, I was disappointingly surprising to see it completely overlooks some key lines that Black will probably see OTB.

Won my first two QGA games after reading this book.......2006-03-26

I'm an ICCF Master Class player and I recently bought Rizzitano's book "How to beat 1.d4". I ever had problem with black vs 1.d4 and I read with great interest Rizzitano's book. The book was clear, extremely interesting, up to date, with all strategic ideas behind the opening well analysed and explained.

I recently tried the QGA in an ICCF Master Class tournament (EM-M-307) and the result was : +2 =0 -0 that is 100% for the first 2 QGA I ever played!!!!

Compliments to the author: the good result I get in the tournament is fully due to his book!!!

Dr.Mauro Marchisotti, Torino, Italy

An Exemplar of Chess Opening Books.......2006-03-26

Rizzitano's "How to Beat 1 d4" is an example of how opening repetoire books should be written. The reader can tell how meticulously the author approached this work- all the relevant analysis, along with many suggested improvements from the author himself. The book presents the Queen's Gambit Accepted as the centerpiece of the repetoire, and also offers lines against all of White's second-move alternatives. A welcome bonus is analysis of 3 e3 e5 in the QGA, which allows Black to play alternatives such as 4...Bg4 in the main line after 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3. A great work.

Book Description

The popular Postmortem column in Game Developer magazine features firsthand accounts of how some of the most important and successful games of recent years have been made. This book offers the opportunity to harvest this expertise with one volume. The editor has organized the articles by theme and added previously unpublished analysis to reveal successful management techniques. Readers learn how superstars of the game industry like Peter Molyneux and Warren Spector have dealt with the development challenges such as managing complexity, software and game design issues, schedule challenges, and changing staff needs.

Postmortems from Game Developer enhances your project management skills by showcasing projects from start to finish with candid, thorough, and specific accounts of the good and bad decisions made along the way.

Customer Reviews:

A look at the real nuts and bolts..........2007-09-19

I've read several game design books, including Mike McShaffry's Game Coding Complete. While reading architecture and design is good and many of the books reflect the author's experience on several projects, Game Developer Postmortems provides the actual triumphs and stumbling blocks each game project went through.

A quick read and the best way to get insight into these projects without actually having worked on the teams, it's a book I'd recommend to anyone looking to understand game design projects.

Experience, distilled, in a bottle........2007-08-20

Love this book. Each postmortem is full of advice about designing, producing, and shipping a video game - advice from the developers themselves - allowing YOU to learn from THEIR mistakes. Techincal gaffes, hiring snafus, political missteps, project management mistakes; anything that can go wrong in a software project HAS gone wrong in one of these stories.

When you get to the end of this book, you'll feel like a battle-hardened veteran that can take anything a project throws at you; and most of minefields mapped out are surpisingly appicable to ALL software development, not just video games.

Beware: this book may have you rummaging through discount bins to find the games mentioned- good or bad, you feel affection for a game once you've shared the trials and tribs of the creators.

The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (Harvard Univ. Kennedy School of Gov't Goldsmith Book Prize Winner; Amer. Political Science ... in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)

Average customer rating:

Valuable but Naively Assimilationist in Tone
Long needed research.

The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (Harvard Univ. Kennedy School of Gov't Goldsmith Book Prize Winner; Amer. Political Science ... in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)
Robert M. Entman , and Andrew Rojecki
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226210766

Book Description

Winner of the Frank Luther Mott Award for best book in Mass Communication and the Robert E. Lane Award for best book in political psychology.

Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. The Black Image in the White Mind offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites toward Blacks.

Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry-from prime-time dramas and sitcoms to commercials and Hollywood movies. While the authors find very little in the media that intentionally promotes racism, they find even less that advances racial harmony. They reveal instead a subtle pattern of images that, while making room for Blacks, implies a racial hierarchy with Whites on top and promotes a sense of difference and conflict. Commercials, for example, feature plenty of Black characters. But unlike Whites, they rarely speak to or touch one another. In prime time, the few Blacks who escape sitcom buffoonery rarely enjoy informal, friendly contact with White colleagues—perhaps reinforcing social distance in real life.

Entman and Rojecki interweave such astute observations with candid interviews of White Americans that make clear how these images of racial difference insinuate themselves into Whites' thinking.

Despite its disturbing readings of television and film, the book's cogent analyses and proposed policy guidelines offer hope that America's powerful mediated racial separation can be successfully bridged.

Customer Reviews:

Valuable but Naively Assimilationist in Tone.......2002-03-11

This is an important and well-researched study of the image of African Americans as presented in the media (mostly TV and Movies). Indeed, it is a "must read" for anyone interested in white attitudes regarding African Americans. The authors begin with a nice review the dominant survey research approach to gauging change in racial attitudes. They also discuss their own survey and qualitative study of Whites living in the Indianapolis metro area. The findings of the in-depth qualitative interviews are particularly interesting and valuable for folks interested in the validity of survey research on racial attitudes.

Rightly reserving the use of the counterproductive term "racist" for those who feel Blacks are a "lower order of humanity," the authors develop a framework for categorizing White American views of the African American population from "low denial" (enlightened) to "high denial" (overtly racist) (chapter 2).

In their view, most whites fall between these poles--termed by the authors as "ambivalent" (a mix of positive and negative views about Blacks.)

Unapologetically integrationist (assimilationist?) in their views, the authors see "low denial" whites as those folks who view African Americans sympathetically and empathetically, (as brothers/sisters), who share fundamental interests, but who suffer unique barriers to equal opportunity.

What seems to differentiate the "low-denial" whites from their well-meaning but "ambivalent" peers is that low-denial whites uncritically accept the victimization explanation for the social problems of the Black community.

This is where the trouble begins...

According to the authors, enlightened Whites see the Black community as largely helpless in the face of White dominated society. Hence, for example, high rates of crime and non-marital births stem from forces external to the Black community. These "enlightened" Whites appear to believe that if anti-Black stereotypes and discrimination were to end, the social problems experienced by African Americans would be resolved.

On the other hand, the mass of "ambivalent" whites is less likely to let struggling Black folks off the hook. They tend to see each person as a moral agent with the freedom to make choices even in the face of discrimination and inequality. They also feel that the stereotypes of Black folks have a grain of truth to them--e.g., that blacks do tend to be, say, less educated, more violent, more likely to bear children out of wedlock than Whites or Asians, as evidenced by empirical evidence reported in the media. These folks wonder (rightly in my opinion) whether current discrimination is really so powerful and dehumanizing as to engender the social problems of the black community.

The weakness of this morally laden framework is that it perceives folks who have honest questions about the role of individual choice and moral responsibility (i.e., character) in shaping life chances as somehow unenlightened ("in denial"). With the huge social problems associated with the Black community, I think it is fair to say that "ambivalent" attitudes towards blacks are justified. Indeed, survey evidence suggests that African Americans also share ambivalent attitudes towards their own racial group. (Even Jesse Jackson has made public his personal ambivalence towards young black men, admitting that he often has felt relieved to discover that the stranger walking towards him on a darkened street is not Black.)

If the majority of African Americans also recognize that endemic social problems exist within poor black communities, does that mean that they too are "in denial?"

Later in the book the authors go on to encourage the media to construct positive images that encourage "racial comity." They frame this as an ethical and political responsibility. But because the authors emphasize IMAGE over REALITY, the book often takes on an Orwellian tone. In my opinion, if the media seeks honest portrayals of African Americans, it will often reflect the reality of difference.

The authors seem to assume assimilation as a valued goal by finding flaw with any racial differentiation in fictional portrayals in movies and television. While multiculturalism celebrates group differences, the authors find problematic any racial differentiation whatsoever. This is a flawed perspective. African Americans are have a distinct history and culture and are not simply white folks in dark face. I suspect the authors would erase expression of these existential differences from the media if given the chance.

So while the book is a valuable contribution (as discussed by the previous reviewer), it suffers from a naively self-righteous and assimilationist perspective.

Long needed research........2000-06-06

This is a very important book of research. Though written in sociologist language (lots of statistics and repetitition claims), this is one work that provides meticulous reserach about how the media help perpetuate racial stereotypes and prototypes in this society.

As a teacher who is studying widely literature about the media, I found Entman and Rojecki's work useful for providing a lens to better analyze media representations of Black and White people. The authors contend that "Blacks now occupy a kind of limbo status in White America's thinking, neither fully accepted nor wholly rejected by the dominant culture. The ambiguity of Blacks' situation gives particular relevance and perhaps potency to the images of African Americans in the media."

They show that though representations of Black people are quantitatively better than in the past, these representations still convey stereotypical or ambiguous images of Blacks. For example, though there has been sharp increase of Black male actors in movies, their roles still revolve around plots that focus on sports, crime, and violence. In the area of news media, Blacks are usually presented as sources of disruption, as victims, and as complaining supplicants. These type of images, they contend, help to maintain a gap in what they refer to as comity on the part of Whites toward Blacks and other racial minorities in this country.

They provide a well known but much needed reiteration of why the media maintains these stereotypes and marginalizations of racial minorities: largely it's eoncomics."Media workers," they argue, "seek to make money for their organizations and advance their own careers. That means that they must stay vigilantly attuned to the presumed tastes of their target audiences. These creators operate in a professional culture and organizationl milieu that transmits lessons about what attracts and sells, what upsets and repels. Ratings and market research increasingly inform decisions, whether about news coverage or entertainment plots." They argue that political and White ethnocentricism play an equal role as well

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism on July 1, 2001. The length of the article is 780 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: From Bad to Worse: Black Images On "White" News.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
Author: Lawrence K. Grossman
Publication: Columbia Journalism Review (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2001
Publisher: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Volume: 40 Issue: 2 Page: 55

Article Type: Brief Article, Critical Essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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