The Cinema of Britain and Ireland (24 Frames)

Book Description

A fresh, concise, but wide-ranging introduction and overview to British and Irish cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films ranging from 1928 to 2002 are featured from directors such as John Boorman, Nicolas Roeg, Sally Potter and Jack Clayton. As well as discussions of genre and influences, The Cinema of Britain and Ireland includes in-depth studies of films such as Room at the Top (1958), The Italian Job (1969), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), Orlando (1992), and Sweet Sixteen (2002).

Customer Reviews:

Off the Beaten Track.......2007-03-24

This is a pleasant surprise of a book. Instead of rounding up the usual suspects (Powell&Pressburger, Carol Reed, David Lean, Ealing comedies) this book selects 24 films from the late silent era to the end of the 90s that reflect developments in British cinema. These are films that most Americans are not familiar with. Hammer horror, for example, is represented by "Demons of the Mind," while Ealing is represented by "Pink Sting and Sealing Wax," a gaslight noir. When a famous movie is in the book, such as "Tunes of Glory," it is one that has become a bit obscure in recent years.

Consequently, "Cinema of Britain and Ireland" points the American reader in the direction of some very interesting films that are both well-made and not overexposed. The contributors all avoid academic jargon in their discussions, and the book reads quickly and makes you want to see these unfamiliar titles as soon as possible.

Collected Interviews: Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema

Average customer rating:

Collected Interviews: Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema

Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0809324172

Book Description

Noted film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon offers a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of both major and marginalized figures who have dynamically transformed the landscape of international cinema in the twentieth century. Fifteen interviews spanning two decades of research are collected here, with many appearing in uncut form for the first time. Dixon’s interviewees represent a wide range of cinematic professions (directors, animators, actors, writers, and producers) from several branches of cinema (artistic, avant-garde, and commercial) with Dixon providing an introduction prior to each interview.

Purposeful in his selections, Dixon offers up voices from twentieth-century cinema that have never before had the chance to speak at such length and detail, as well as much more well-known figures addressing unique and obscure aspects of their respective careers. Collectively, this volume presents a treasure trove of firsthand information of keen interest to film scholars and movie buffs alike, while providing a glimpse into the future of cinema in the twenty-first century.

The Director's Cut: A Memoir of 60 Years in Film and Television

Average customer rating:

Enjoyable memoir of a bygone era

The Director's Cut: A Memoir of 60 Years in Film and Television
Roy Ward Baker
Manufacturer: Reynolds & Hearn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Entertainers | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Direction & Production | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Direction & Production | Television | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1903111021

Customer Reviews:

Enjoyable memoir of a bygone era.......2002-01-14

Reading THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, one cannot help but wonder how things might have been different if a movie called "The Singer not the Song" had never been made. Its director, Roy Baker (who added "Ward" to his name in 1967, to avoid confusion with another Roy Baker in the industry), was at the top of his game, having recently made the marvelous "A Night to Remember." He was making "The Singer not the Song" under protest, and in fact tried very hard to avoid the assignment. His instincts turned out to have been right - the film was panned, and his career went into a decline from which it never fully recovered.

Baker is unlikely to ever top anyone's list of great directors, but he is a fine craftsman who made some outstanding films. THE DIRECTOR'S CUT is his memoir - a fairly brief but very entertaining account of his 60-year career in films and television. It's a quick and very pleasant read; it took me only a few hours to get through, and I'm no speed-reader. The book gives a vivid picture of British cinematic life from the silent era into the 1960s, and contains lively anecdotes concerning Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Hitchcock, and some of the other famous personages with whom Baker worked during his career. The best parts, though, are the little technical "secrets" he periodically divulges - tricks of the trade that seem quaint by today's high-tech standards, but serve as fascinating reminders of a time when artistry and ingenuity had to make up for the absence of computer wizardry.

A few years after "The Singer not the Song," Baker had something of a second career in horror films, especially with Britain's legendary Hammer Films. During this period, he made some of the best - and also, one must admit, some of the worst - films in that studio's history. Having been an avid Hammer fan since childhood, it was in this connection that I first became aware of Baker's work. However, I can heartily recommend THE DIRECTOR'S CUT to anyone interested in film, whether or not they've ever seen any of Baker's movies. There aren't many men from his generation left to tell their tales, and Baker's insights and reminiscences should be cherished as relics of a bygone era.

If you care about movies, buy this book. I am sure you will enjoy it, and it may even turn you on to the work of a sorely underappreciated filmmaker.

Average customer rating:

Very Moving

Notting Hill Girl
Denise Watson
Manufacturer: Westworld International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0952921545

Customer Reviews:

Very Moving.......2005-04-25

I read this book a few years ago, and thought it was worthy of a review in Amazon!

This is painful autobigraphy of a young girl growing up in the Notting Hill area of London, who has to overcome obstacles in her life, drugs and violence, that many an ordinary girl of her age wouldn't even dream about. I recommend this book to all youngsters to read and see that life can be real hard if you make the wrong choices, or that there is help out there if you look in the right places.

Average customer rating:

Roy Ward Baker (British Film Makers)
Geoff Mayer
Manufacturer: Manchester University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Direction & Production | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 071906354X
Release Date: 2005-02-10

Book Description

This book traces the career of Roy Ward Baker, one of the great survivors of the British film and television industry. He directed the landmark British film Morning Departure (1949), worked at Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood in the early 1950s where he directed Marilyn Monroe, and the best version of the Titanic disaster, A Night to Remember in 1958. He then moved to television series such as The Avengers, The Saint and Minder. Later Baker re-emerged as a major director of science-fiction (Quatermass and The Pit) and horror films (Asylum). Geoff Mayer provides an industrial and aesthetic context in which to understand the interrelationship between a skilled classical director and the transformation of the British film industry in the 1950s.

Product Description

In Cult Vegas, author Mike Weatherford resurrects the mystique of Las Vegas Golden Age--the '60s-cool of history and legend-and introduces Sin Citys hipster legacy to new generations of Vegasphiles. Meet '50s and '60s lounge greats the Treniers, the Mary Kaye Trio, and Louis Prima and Keely Smith; comedy legends Joe E. Lewis, Shecky Greene, and Don Rickles; and Vegas "babes" Vampira, Lili St. Cyr, Ann-Margret, and Tempest Storm. Weatherford also covers nearly every offbeat movie ever made about Las Vegas, as well as Elvis and Franks impact on the town. This gorgeous entertainment retrospective is packed with showroom esoterica, descriptions of near-forgotten corners of Vegas cult musicology, odd trivia, and unsung heroes of a bygone era.

Customer Reviews:

Cult Vegas: The bygone days I never knew about.......2004-08-23

I'll make this short and sweet. I really liked this book. My mother and I go to Vegas at least once a year, and there are so many changes each year that I began to wonder what happened to the good old days. Well they're right here. Mike Weatherford brings the 50's and 60's to life like never before. He tells the story of the comedy club beginnings, singers who might have never made it if it weren't for the lounges, movies filmed in Vegas and show girls from a bygone era. And yes of course there's the Rat Pack and Elvis (who by the way bombed on his first try in Vegas). I'm too young to have expierenced this side of Las Vegas myself, but I asked my mother about it and she recalled some more stories and loved the fact that this book is out. It's important to know where we've been to know where we're going. But it's books like this that will be the only memory of Vegas we have. Today's Vegas will be gone in a blink of the eye, just like yesturday's Vegas and Mr. Weahterford will be pinning another book about Cult Vegas in the 1990's. If you love the retro era, entertainment, and history about such fab, weird, wild places like Vegas, don't pass this one up.

A Unique City requires a Unique History.......2004-01-29

"Cult `Vegas" is not a history of Las Vegas per se, rather a history of casino entertainment from the rise of the Strip and Fremont Street in the 1950s up to the "family destination" of the early 21st Century. From the earliest days of legalized gambling, entertainment of one sort or another was key to get gamblers in the establishment. Later, the Rat Pack stimulated the aura of a "cool swingin'" Las Vegas. As Mr. Weatherford points out this was probably a reputation that the city held on to way too long. The rise and decline of the Lounge Singer, showgirls, Elvis and the Rat Pack are described with a clearly nostalgic eye. But the author doesn't hesitate to show the faded polyester leisure suit image of Las Vegas during the locust years of the mid 70's. He points out that holding on to the schlocky comics, and warmed over crooners moved the entertainment of Las Vegas away from the tourists with the most disposable income: singles and couples. Films about Las Vegas are also part of the "Cult" and those with the city as subject or backdrop are listed and critiqued. The book itself is quirky, with lots of sidebars and anecdotes but this fits the overall tone of the prose. This is a great anecdotal history of postwar casino entertainment, that would make a great souvenir or as another reviewer wisely suggested, cool reference material for your next trip (whether you're a local or a tourist). If you're at all interested in Las Vegas-get this.

The Rat Pack is Back & More!.......2002-12-18

As a professional tour director I'm always on the lookout for good reference material that I can share with my vacationers. For a 4 day tour titled, Hidden Las Vegas, I brought along this book to add some color to my commentaries.

Here's a fun book that looks at Las Vegas from an entertainment point-of-view. It is packed with stories about Sinatra and the big name acts, Louie Prima and the lounge acts, the comedians such as Don Rickles (who's show I appeared in!), Buddy Hackett, Shecky Greene, Totie Fields, and Red Foxx, Elvis, Liberace, Diamonds Are Forever and other movies shot in Las Vegas.

I think that the strongest part of the book is about the Rat Pack Era (Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford) and its fans (JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Sam Gianciana). There's a great new show in Vegas called "The Rat Pack is Back" and this book's stories help make the show more real.

Is this a great book? Probably, not.

But it's got some interesting stuff in it and it's well laid out.

Weatherford Leads You Down The Right Path To Righteousness.......2002-07-09

What a swelligant book! The detail and the insight from Weatherford are well worth the price. Any hipster who understands how much Frank Sinatra and Las Vegas mirror what American society really pines for should read it well, know it well and take note to preserve and protect all that is Cult Vegas. My only complaint is that I'd like to see a Volume II. Las Vegas is a misunderstood town, but not in Weatherford's hands as an author who plies his trade well. Las Vegas matters to America and Weatherford explains why.

An ok book.......2002-03-21

This book is not as interesting as one would hope. While it does provide an interesting look at Las Vegas, most of it is Entertainment related. Specifically: movies filled there, musicians who have played there, showgirls and celebrities who live and work there.

Book Description

Detailed statistics for the Extended, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Games
Build successful governments
Key unit statistics
Combat tips for surviving a war
Full coverage of new Improvements and Wonders of the World
Strategies for exploration, expansion, and conquest
Advanced strategies to take your civilization to the next level

Average customer rating:

has the auther ever built a single e-commerce site?

high level design and management of a web business

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE COMPLATE E-COMMERCE BOOK

horrible book and title is very misleading

Disappointing

The Complete E-Commerce Book: Design, Build and Maintain a Successful Web-Based Business
Janice Reynolds
Manufacturer: CMP Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Web Marketing | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
E-Commerce | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Internet | Home Computing | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books | Internet & Education | Online Searching | Web Browsers | Web for Kids
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

E-Commerce for Dummies

Start Your own E-Business (Start Your Own . . .)

Starting an Online Business For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Unofficial Guide to Starting a Business Online (Unofficial Guides)

Internet Marketing for Dummies

ASIN: 1578203120

Book Description

'The Complete E-Commerce Book offers a wealth of information on how to design, build and maintain a successful web-based business.... Many of the chapters are filled with advice and information on how to incorporate current e-business principles o

Make your e-commerce vision a success with this comprehensive, step-by-step handbook. Whether your company is a startup or well-established, you'll learn how to plan, implement and operate a successful e-commerce site -- from selecting the right software and Internet service provider through effectively marketing your online business.

Customer Reviews:

has the auther ever built a single e-commerce site?.......2006-04-29

After browsing thru all the chapters, i got the impression that the author is only buzzword-compliant and cannot go into any detail in any subject area. She must have read a lot on ecommerce, but i doubt she ever did any "real work" with ecommerce. The writing reads like it comes from a "good" student who diligently repeats all the words a professor said in a business classroom.

high level design and management of a web business.......2005-11-21

Reynolds talks about many aspects of running your own commercial website. She discusses what type of servers you might need and how to configure these using RAID to maximise uptime while preserving data against hardware failure. Also mentioned is what type of net connections might be suitable and affordable. Along with how to implement security against various types of fraud attempts.

For promoting your website, email newsletters are suggested as being very economical. Though beware of email ad campaigns that can get you labelled as a spammer. Search Engine Optimisation gets a good exposition as a cheap way to promote your site in an engine's rankings.

The "Complete" in the title is slightly misleading. The book does not get into the nitty gritty of technical details about making a database, for example. Or writing webpages. Rather, it's at a higher level of design and management of these issues.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE COMPLATE E-COMMERCE BOOK.......2005-11-08

The dot-com bubble is about to burst again! But, that doesn't mean that e-commerce is dead--to the contrary. Author Janice Reynolds has done an outstanding job of writing the second edition of a book that provides select comparisons of various tools needed to construct, design, and run a successful e-commerce website.

Reynolds begins by examining the e-commerce phenomenon, and the challenges that it brings. Next, the author shows you how you can design a website that is brilliantly complex, employing all of the latest technology, or design a simple site without sacrificing attractiveness or efficiency. Then, she explains why the design and pre-build details are among the first steps you must take when extending an e-commerce site to the Web. The author continues by discussing that if you want to host your own servers, the best advice is to create a balanced plan with each segment working in partnership with each other. In addition, the author next discusses how power and data redundancy are a good start to ensure that your website is always available, but other types of redundancy also should be considered when building a website. She also deals with the bandwidth aspect of connectivity. Next, the author shows you how to institute an on-going program of security monitoring, maintenance, and to perform an annual security audit. Then, she shows you how to choose your basic website software: web server, log analysis, and database. The author continues by discussing specific e-commerce software. In addition, she discusses adjunct software. The author also covers how you can create a good QA plan to determine how and in what order each aspect of a website should be tested. Then, she discusses various software and online solutions to aid in your quest for the perfect, problem-free website. The author continues by examining consultant contracts, costs, types of consulting services available, when to outsource and when to do the work in-house. In addition, the author provides tips on how to choose a web-hosting service. She also examines three different methods that are used to search the Web. Next, the author offers some advice on getting the work started, developing targeted marketing strategies, monitoring the results, and continuously striving to improve your efforts. Then, she explains that in order to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, the web-based business must realize that site experience is actually more important to an online customer than product experience, and build the website and service solutions around that fact. The author continues by discussing why order processing and fulfillment is a website's last form of customer contact. Finally, she shares some thoughts on the future of e-commerce.

The author has done an excellent job of writing a book with both the entrepreneur and the non-technology executive in mind. So, at the end of the day, this book will help you ask the right questions as you move to the Web.

horrible book and title is very misleading.......2005-02-01

If you are from planet Mars, you still wouldn't find this book useful. The dumbest person I know, knows more than is in this book. There is no code. It doesn't tell you exactly how to do anything. It just blah blah's on and on about useless info. Design, Build, and Maintain a website title? It doesn't cover any of the technical side of this like the title says. Save you money and pay someone to start your online business for you. It took a whole book to tell you this????? Save your money.

Disappointing.......2005-01-25

I was very disappointed with this book.

One thing that I hate about the book is that it has ads in the back. The ads are for seven other books. I expect to see ads in magazines, but when I pay for a book I don't want advertising.

More importantly, the writing is awkward and hard to understand. For example, here's how she describes relational databases:

"A relational database is a collection of 'data items' that are organized as a set of linked tables from which data can be accessed or reassembled in many different ways without need to reorganize the database tables (a table is referred to as a 'relation')."

Huh?! That description is confusing and much of it is wrong. How can data be "reassembled"? What does she mean by "without need to reorganize the database tables"? Database tables can have foreign keys or referential integrity, but they are not "linked". Each table is its own independent entity.

She continues, "The columns in all of the tables must depend upon a single key column with values that don't repeat." That's not true either. It's very common to have a table with multiple keys or no keys whatsoever.

The author explains that "SQL is a declarative language, which means that the user specifies what he or she wants and then the RDBMS query planner figures out how to get it." But that's not what "declarative language" means at all.

I tried to work my way through the poor writing and typos, but after a while I lost confidence that the information in the book was accurate and I put it down.

The Complete E-Commerce Book:Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business

Average customer rating:

Simple and effective book about e-commerce
This book is a joke !
Still making money!
Best all-around guide for e-commerce
Out of Date, For Millionaires and Poorly Edited

The Complete E-Commerce Book:Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business
Janice Reynolds , and Roya Mofazali
Manufacturer: CMP Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Marketing | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Web Marketing | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Hardware | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 157820061X

Book Description

Make your e-commerce vision a success with this comprehensive, step-by-step handbook. Whether your company is a startup or well-established, you'll learn how to plan, implement and operate a successful e-commerce site - from selecting the right software through fulfilling orders.

The expert author starts by helping you plan the customer experience and design an effective, easy access interface. You then progress to cutting-edge programming techniques and robust server configuration. Next, you'll master site marketing, customer service, order processing, warehousing and shipping. Along the way are plenty of real-world examples of Web sites to explore so you can learn what to do - and what not to do. Using this book as a tutorial and a reference, you'll learn how to:

-Create a custom business model for success.
-Select the software, hardware and hosting service that will best meet your needs.
-Master outsourcing, building traffic, order processing and fulfillment.
-Choose the type of site that will fit your needs by reviewing current examples of brochureware sites, online stores, subscriptions sites, cyber malls and more.
-Choose the right vendors and consultants to get the job done - and learn how to manage their work effectively.
-Build a web site that stands out form the rest.
-Keep your customers happy with easy access, prompt delivery, good customer service and continuous enhancement of site quality and content.

Business owners, Web entrepreneurs and everyone who's involved with setting up and rolling out an e-commerce site will find answers to their business and technical questions in this all-in-one handbook!

Customer Reviews:

Simple and effective book about e-commerce.......2004-01-05

This book includes valid examples on how to set-up and run an e-commerce business starting, obviously, with the idea that most of the readers are not e-commerce literate and by explaining some basic concepts that might be known to tech savy people.

In the overall this book is an excellent reference.

This book is a joke !.......2003-12-07

As a (non-IT) executive of an established brick & mortar retailer which is about to start selling online, I wanted to get a god practical understanding of the many issues related to e-commerce. I bought 3 books, and this one I threw away after wasting on it 2 hours, when I realized I still had not learned one single thing I already didn't know.
The author's hands-on understanding of the matter is clearly insignificant, and the writing style is that of a consultant: if you take away all the buzzwords and the over-used retorical phrases, hardly any content is left.
If you are looking for a PRACTICAL overall guide about e-commerce, buy "Selling Online" by Jim Carroll & Rick Broadhead.

Still making money!.......2003-02-22

Many people are still making money online using the techniques put forward in this book. This kind of comprehensive approach helped us to weather the dot.com crisis. I highly recommend this excellent guide to anyone who is interested in doing business on the web. A terrific reference and idea-generator!

Best all-around guide for e-commerce.......2002-03-02

This book is the best general, comprehensive guide to e-commerce (or "e-business" if you will) that I've yet run across. The author has gone through great pains to provide information useful to both "the little guy" and large companies interested in applying e-commerce techniques to their business models. She also has dug up an assortment of technologies and services from around the world (not just the U.S.), and its vaguely international flavor probably explains why this book is popular in places such as Egypt....

Out of Date, For Millionaires and Poorly Edited.......2002-02-18

This book was a pretty big disappointment and obviously written before the Net bubble burst. I am very surprised by all the 5-star reviews here... makes one go hmmm...

First, the book is out of date already. Published in the beginning of 2000 means it was written in 1999 and it shows. Many of the links are dead, or the businesses have changed their focus or been taken over by someone else. The recommendations are for the time when venture capital was plenty and business plans were optional. Those days are over...

Second, this book is geared to a millionaire who has big bucks to blow. There is information on servers and RAID redudancy that is too detailed for the non-techie and too shallow for the tech savvy. I doubt many people starting up an e-business today are looking to spend close to a million. They are looking for a "guerilla" style e-commerce book to get up and running under a few thousand dollars. And, yes, it can be done! I guess I'll have to write that book if no one else does.

Third, this book is poorly edited with incorrect subject/verb agreement and accept/except style grammatical confusion. Unfortunately I have come to expect poor editing in programming books, but c'mon, this is a book written for a general audience without coding... get a decent editor!

I do give this book one star over the minimum because it does contain some good material but it is not worth buying. Find it in a library or bookstore to copy the useful information as it is not useful as a reference or worth a close read.

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