DIVDIVIn this uproarious and wicked cult-classic, Southern skewers American greed and pomposity /divDIVGuy Grand, an eccentric billionaire prankster, is rich enough to do whatever he likes. And what he likes is to carefully execute projects where he can cauterize by ridicule what the rest of the world ignores: complacency, greed, corruption, and idiocy. Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom. Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb. He inserts subliminally suggestive and perverse images into well-loved classic films, takes a howitzer on safari, and brings a panther to a kennel club dog show. His most elaborate adventure is an ultra-exclusive cruise aboard the S.S. Magic Christian, where elite passengers are treated to a series of madcap indignities./divDIV /divDIV The Magic Christian is a hilarious and savagely satiric view of American commercialism, rich in Southern’s deft handling of detail, dialogue, and delightful deviancy./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div/div

Guy Grand is an eccentric billionaire-the last of the big spenders-determined to create disorder in the material world and willing to spare no expense to do it.

In this engaging cross-disciplinary study, Timothy Murray examines the artistic struggle over traumatic fantasies of race, gender, sexuality, and power. Establishing a retrospective dialogue between past and present, stage and video, Drama Trauma links the impact of trauma on recent political projects in performance and video with the specters of difference haunting Shakespeare's plays. The book provides close readings of cultural formations as diverse as Shakespearean drama, the Statue of Liberty, contemporary plays by women, African-American performance, and feminist interventions in video, performance and installation. The texts discussed include: * installations by Mary Kelly and Dawn Dedeaux, * plays by Ntozake Shange, Rochelle Owens, Adrienne Kennedy, Marsha Norman and Amiri Baraka * performances by Robbie McCauley, Jordan, Orlan, and Carmelita Tropicana * stage, film and video productions of King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and All's Well that Ends Well.

Ringo: With a Little Help is the first in-depth biography of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, who kept the beat for an entire generation and who remains a rock icon over fifty years since the Beatles took the world by storm. With a Little Help traces the entire arc of Ringo's remarkable life and career, from his sickly childhood to his life as The World's Most Famous drummer to his triumphs, addictions, and emotional battles following the breakup of the Beatles as he comes to terms with his legacy. Born in 1940 as Richard Starkey in the Dingle, one of Liverpool's most gritty, rough-and-tumble neighborhoods, he rose from a hardscrabble childhood – marked by serious illnesses, long hospital stays, and little schooling – to emerge, against all odds, as a locally renowned drummer. Taking the stage name Ringo Starr, his big break with the Beatles rocketed him to the pinnacle of worldwide acclaim in a remarkably short time. He was the last member of the Beatles to join the group but also the most vulnerable, and his post-Beatles career was marked by chart-topping successes, a jet-setting life of excess and alcohol abuse, and, ultimately, his rebirth as one of rock's revered elder statesman.

Book and CD. The story of Badfinger is among the most tragic in the history of rock'n'roll. They were championed by the Beatles, yet their two principal songwriters committed suicide. An expose of the music business, Without You also serves as a tribute to the band's work. This revised edition includes a CD of over 72 minutes of music and interviews, 300 photos, complete listing of studio dates and concerts, and a discography.

This book explores alternatives to realist, triumphalist, and heroic representations of war in British film and television. Focusing on the period between the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Falkland War but offering connections to the moment of Brexit, it argues that the “lost continent” of existential, satirical, simulated, and abstractly traumatic war stories is as central to understanding Britain’s martial history as the mainstream inheritance. The book features case studies that stress the contribution of exiled or expatriate directors and outsider sensibilities, with particular emphasis on Peter Watkins, Joseph Losey, and Richard Lester. At the same time, it demonstrates concerns and stylistic emphases that continue to the present in television series and films by directors such as Lone Scherfig and Christopher Nolan. Encompassing everything from features to government information films, the book explores related trends in the British film industry, popular culture, and film criticism, while offering a sense of how these contexts contribute to historical memory.

The Beatles produced five films during their time together: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be. Some were cinematic successes, and some were not, but—along with subsequent reissues, bonus material, and Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, a documentary companion to Let It Be—they comprise an endlessly fascinating document of key phases in the group’s career. In this comprehensive deep-dive into the band’s movies, author and longtime music journalist Steve Matteo follows the origins, filming, and often frenzied fan reception of projects from the 1964 premiere of A Hard Day’s Night through 1970’s Let It Be to the release of Get Back in 2022. Matteo explores the production process, original theatrical film releases, subsequent VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases, and bonus materials, along with the US and UK soundtracks. In addition to copious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes details, he also places these films in their larger context, a period of unprecedented artistic and commercial innovation in British and world cinema. Filled with stories and insights that will satisfy collectors, buffs, and casual fans alike, this is the definitive account of an underappreciated part of the Beatles’ creative output.