The book explores Tom Cruise's multifaceted star image, highlighting his roles as both an action hero and romantic lead while navigating complex homoerotic and homosocial dynamics that challenge traditional heterosexual narratives. Edited by Sean Redmond, it emphasizes the significance of star studies in understanding broader societal themes such as masculinity, ethnicity, sexuality, and commercialism, illustrating how a single star can reflect and influence contemporary cultural ideologies.
Focusing on the study of celebrity, this book explores essential terms, concepts, and dilemmas within media and cultural studies. It aims to equip students with a critical understanding of the complexities surrounding celebrity culture, providing insights into its impact on society and individual identities.
Exploring the profound impact of David Bowie, this collection weaves together personal anecdotes and memories from devoted fans. Each story highlights how Bowie's music and persona influenced their lives, capturing the essence of his artistry and legacy. The book serves as a tribute to his transformative power and the deep connections formed through his work, showcasing the diverse experiences of those who found inspiration and solace in his songs.
Science fiction is perhaps the most effective genre to explore the concerns of
the present whilst reflecting on the possibilities of the future. But what
precisely can it tell us about present and future by setting these two
timeframes in the same critical space? In this remarkable and original book,
Sean Redmond examines the issues and themes that are repeatedly found across a
range of contemporary science fiction films and television programmes. He
argues that they reveal the profound effects the digital age has had on our
social lives. Through narratives that feature the 'post-human', genetic
engineering and cloning, surveillance and data mining, space and time travel,
artificial intelligence, online dating cultures and visions of catastrophe,
they portray a world in which the material, and the stable, are being lost to
the ever-more volatile and ephemeral idea of 'liquid space'. Redmond examines
a wide selection of popular films and TV series such as Gravity, Under the
Skin, The Lobster, Children of Men and Doctor Who, to locate how traditional
values are being erased in favour of a new liquid modernity. Drawing on an
eclectic range of approaches from phenomenology to critical race theory, and
from close textual analysis to the revelations of eye-tracking technology,
this book is an illuminating account of the digital age through the lens of
science fiction.
An engaging introduction to the key terms, concepts, dilemmas and issues that
are central to the study and critical understanding of celebrity, exploring
the impacts of celebrity culture on the modern media and examining the
influence that celebrity has on the way people place themselves in the... číst
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The Cinema of Takeshi Kitano: Flowering Blood is a detailed aesthetic, Deleuzian, and phenomenological exploration of Japan’s finest currently-working film director, performer, and celebrity. The volume uniquely explores Kitano’s oeuvre through the tropes of stillness and movement, becoming animal, melancholy and loss, intensity, schizophrenia, and radical alterity; and through the aesthetic temperatures of color, light, camera movement, performance and urban and oceanic space. In this highly original monograph, all of Kitano’s films are given due consideration, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Dolls (2002), and Outrage (2010).
This collection of essays explores the pervasive influence of celebrity culture in modern society, analyzing its impact on media, social values, and various contexts. Topics include political celebrity, reality TV, fandom, and the relationship between fame and authenticity, organized into four thematic sections that address contemporary fame, the celebrity body, simulation, and its damaging effects.
Liquid Metal brings together 'seminal' essays that have opened up the study of science fiction to serious critical interrogation. Eight distinct sections cover such topics as the cyborg in science fiction; the science fiction city; time travel and the primal scene; science fiction fandom; and the 1950s invasion narratives. Important writings by Susan Sontag, Vivian Sobchack, Steve Neale, J.P. Telotte, Peter Biskind and Constance Penley are included.
Wong Kar-wai's 1994 Chungking Express has quickly been recognised as one of the most important examples of 'World Cinema' in the last two decades. It explores time and desire and, on an allegorical level, the perceived loss of independence that many felt would take place post-1997. Studying Chungking Express considers these historical details but also the key issues of film form, author-ship, representation and identity. Required reading for all those studying contemporary World Cinema or Asian Studies, Studying Chungking Express considers these historical details but also the key issues of film form, author-ship, representation, and identity. In particular: Its central place within the Hong Kong New Wave film movement; its radical film form - notably the cut-and mix play with editing techniques; the signature of Wong Kar-wai as an auteur; the film's representation of the postmodern city; the film's relationship to both Hollywood cinema and European art film.
