Download or read book Withnail and Us written by Justin Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cult has entered the cultural psyche in a profound and pervasive way. There is no corner of popular culture beyond the potential for cult transformation. Indeed, in entering common parlance the term has effectively lost its clandestine mystique. But why? And how did we get here with cult? "Withnail and Us" charts the journey of cult in culture through an exploration of British cult films and their fans. It is about our bizarre and enduring fascination with once obscure or shocking movies, from "A Clockwork Orange" to "The Wicker Man". What is it about certain films that provokes such obsessive fan devotion? What impells people to remote locations in search of filmic relics? Why do they gather in groups to re-enact scenes learnt by heart? Is any film worth re-viewing over 100 times? From 1968 and all that, through the cultural byways of the 1970s, this book attempts to explain such strange practices, and to trace their origins in the makings of some remarkable films, including "Tommy", "The Man Who Fell To Earth", "Quadrophenia", "Withnail & I", "Trainspotting" and "Performance". Prepare to enter the arena of the unwell!
Download or read book Withnail and Us written by Justin Smith and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- The Rocky horror picture show (1975) -- Performance (1970); Case study 1: Get Carter -- A clockwork orange (1971) -- The wicker man (1973); Case study 2: Monty Python and the holy grail (1975) -- Tommy (1975) -- The man who fell to earth (1976); Case study 3: Quadrophenia (1979) -- Withnail & I (1986); Case study 3: Trainspotting (1996) -- Conclusion.
Download or read book With Nails written by Richard E. Grant and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The star of the cult classic Withnail and I offers “a refreshing combination of comedy, confession, and coruscation” in this memoir of the movie business (Kirkus Reviews). Richard E. Grant’s acting career has included memorable roles in some of Hollywood’s most critically acclaimed films, including Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. But he attributes his success to his first film role, starring as a flamboyantly pathetic Shakespearean in the underground hit Withnail and I. As Grant explains, “I had no notion that, almost without exception, every film offered since would be the result of playing an alcoholic out-of-work actor.” In With Nails, Grant shares his long, maddening, and immensely rewarding journey through the world of film. From the hell of making Hudson Hawk to befriending Steve Martin on the set of L.A. Story; and from eating spaghetti with the Coppolas, to window-shopping with Sharon Stone, and working with and learning from the best actors and directors in the business, Grant’s unvarnished memoir “is a biting and wonderfully funny look at the movie business by an actor who is as clear-eyed and observant about himself as he is about the craziness surrounding him” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Download or read book They All Love Jack written by Bruce Robinson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 1037 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a hundred years, the mystery of Jack the Ripper has been a source of unparalleled fascination and horror, spawning an army of obsessive theorists and endless volumes purporting to finally reveal the identity of the brutal murderer who terrorized Victorian England. But what if there was never really any mystery at all? What if the Ripper was always hiding in plain sight, deliberately leaving a trail of clues to his identity for anyone who cared to look, while cynically mocking those who were supposedly attempting to bring him to justice? In They All Love Jack, the award-winning film director and screenwriter Bruce Robinson exposes the cover-up that enabled one of history's most notorious serial killers to remain at large. More than twelve years in the writing, this is no mere radical reinterpretation of the Jack the Ripper legend and an enthralling hunt for the killer. A literary high-wire act reminiscent of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, it is an expressionistic journey through the cesspools of late-Victorian society, a phantasmagoria of highly placed villains, hypocrites, and institutionalized corruption. Polemic forensic investigation and panoramic portrait of an age, underpinned by deep scholarship and delivered in Robinson's inimitably vivid and scabrous prose, They All Love Jack is an absolutely riveting and unique book, demolishing the theories of generations of self-appointed experts—the so-called Ripperologists—to make clear, at last, who really did it; and, more important, how he managed to get away with it for so long.
Download or read book Vivian and I written by Colin Bacon and published by Quartet Books (UK). This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkable memoir of the legendary Vivian Mackerrell, on whom the character Withnail in Bruce Robinson's iconic film was largely based, is also an attempt to capture the essence of growing up as part of the 'Baby Boom' generation.
Download or read book Withnail and I written by Kevin Jackson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Withnail and I sank almost without a trace when it was first released in 1987. Financed by HandMade Films, the late George Harrison's production company, and drawing heavily on first-time writer-director Bruce Robinson's experiences, this virtually plot-free story follows two out-of-work actors (Withnail, played by Richard E. Grant, and 'I', played by Paul McGann), eking out a living in a run-down London of the late 1960s, and embarking on a booze-fuelled weekend in the country which takes various unexpected turns. Although it initially failed to find an audience, it did not take long for the film to attract a dedicated cult following which still persists today. Lines from the film such as 'we've gone on holiday by mistake!' and 'Bring me the finest wines known to humanity!' have become popular favourites and the subject of countless internet memes. Kevin Jackson's in-depth study gives a full account of the film's origins and production history. But his main focus is the mood and magic of the film, its aesthetics and sensibility, seeking to show, without ever detracting from the film's comic brilliance, just how much more there is to Withnail and I than drunkenness and swearing. 'It is an outstandingly touching yet witheringly unsentimental drama of male friendship,' Jackson writes, 'a bleak up-ending of the English pastoral dream, a piece of ferocious verbal inventiveness' - and, without question, one of the greatest of all British films. In his new foreword to this edition, writer Bharat Tandon pays tribute to to both Withnail's peculiar genius and enduring appeal, and to his close friend Kevin Jackson.
Download or read book The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman written by Bruce Robinson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: _______________________ 'Hums with particularity and vision' - Observer 'Never before has the painful, knotty journey to maturity been depicted with such gusto, and never has the venerable Bildungsroman received such riotously profane treatment' - New York Times _______________________ The acclaimed autobiographical debut novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter Bruce Robinson, the author of Withnail and I This is the story of a dysfunctional family. It is about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer. It is also about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It is also about love.
Download or read book Self I written by Matthew De Abaitua and published by Eye & Lightning Books. This book was released on 2018-03-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique, remarkable and hilarious portrait of one our most talked-about and controversial literary figures. 1994. Matthew De Abaitua, fresh out of university, is being interviewed for a job. The interview involves discussing literature, honking on a special cigarette and shooting at empty whisky bottles with an air rifle. The job in question is that of amanuensis, or live-in personal assistant. The employer is Will Self, the enfant terrible of the literary scene. For the next six months, De Abaitua and Self share a remote cottage in Suffolk, working on their literary ambitions. They are distracted by hikes to Sizewell nuclear power station, opium tea and the allure of Soho. Thanks to Self and his library of bad influences, from JG Ballard to William Burroughs, De Abaitua undergoes a rite of passage that changes him forever. Caught up in vital threads of the early Nineties, from the rise of New Labour to the slow decline of the literary establishment and the emergence of the internet, Self & I is set in a time that burns brightest in its final hour. It is a frank and very funny account of a young, hopeful writer who finds himself alongside one of his heroes only to discover that literary ambition comes at a price. 'If you love Withnail & I, you must read this.' Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller 'I love the perfectly wry balance Matthew De Abaitua achieves between innocence and knowingness, between apprenticeship and ambition. It's a delicious peek into the "Will Self industry" and the vanished publishing world of the Nineties, but it's also a wonderful, highly readable book about love and dedication, and coming of age as a process of learning to be honest with ourselves.' Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse Self & I ups the stakes on both U&I and Withnail and I to offer an utterly compelling account of what it means to read, write, live and breathe literature. Anyone interested in the world of letters will devour this book with delight.' Matt Thorne'Very funny but with an undertow of melancholy, Self & I is at root a hymn to the vocation of writing and, as such, sings to all us nearly-writers, wannabe-writers and sometime-writers (i.e. all writers) with the ecstasy of scripture.' Will Ashon, author of Strange Labyrinth
Download or read book Very Naughty Boys EBK written by Robert Sellers and published by Titan Books (US, CA). This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible, hilarious insider's story of Britain's favourite film company! It all started when Beatle George Harrison stepped in to fund Life of Brian when Monty Python's original backers pulled out. His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong... This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders' story of what happened...
Download or read book British Comedy Cinema written by I. Q. Hunter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the history of British comedy from silent slapstick and satire to contemporary romantic comedy. The essays include case studies on prominent personalities, and exploration of production cycles and studio output. Films discussed in the work include Sing As We Go, The Ladykillers, Trouble in Stone, The Carry Ons, Till Death Us Do Part, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Notting Hill, and Sex Lives of the Potato Men.
Download or read book A Map of Betrayal written by Ha Jin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year From the award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash: a riveting tale of espionage and conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families. When Lilian Shang, born and raised in America, discovers her father’s diary after the death of her parents, she is shocked by the secrets it contains. She knew that her father, Gary, convicted decades ago of being a mole in the CIA, was the most important Chinese spy ever caught. But his diary, an astonishing chronicle of his journey as a Communist intelligence agent, reveals the pain and longing that his double life entailed—and point to a hidden second family that he’d left behind in China. As Lilian follows her father’s trail back into the Chinese provinces, she begins to grasp the extent of his dilemma: he is a man torn between loyalty to his motherland and the love he came to feel for his adopted country. She sees how his sense of duty distorted his life, and as she starts to understand that Gary too had been betrayed, Lilian finds that it is up to her to prevent his tragedy from endangering yet another generation of Shangs. A stunning portrait of a multinational family and an unflinching inquiry into the meaning of citizenship, patriotism, and home, A Map of Betrayal is a spy novel that only Ha Jin could write.
Download or read book American Visa written by Juan de Recacoechea and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armed with fake papers, a handful of gold nuggets and a snazzy custom-made suit, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa - his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami. American Visa is beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler ... a smart, exotic crime fiction offering.' - George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener'
Download or read book The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon written by Richard Zimler and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2000-03-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Bestseller: “A moody, tightly constructed historical thriller . . . a good mystery story and an effective evocation of a faraway time and place.” —The New York Times After Jews living in sixteenth-century Portugal are dragged to the baptismal font and forced to convert to Christianity, many of these New Christians persevere in their Jewish prayers and rituals in secret and at great risk; the hidden, arcane practices of the kabbalists, a mystical sect of Jews, continue as well. One such secret Jew is Berekiah Zarco, an intelligent young manuscript illuminator. Inflamed by love and revenge, he searches, in the crucible of the raging pogrom, for the killer of his beloved uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist, discovered murdered in a hidden synagogue along with a young girl in dishabille. Risking his life in streets seething with mayhem, Berekiah tracks down answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and the fellow kabbalists of his uncle, whose secret language and codes by turns light and obscure the way to the truth he seeks. A marvelous story, a challenging mystery, and a telling tale of the evils of intolerance, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon both compels and entertains. “The story moves quickly . . . a literary and historical treat.” —Library Journal ''Remarkable . . . The fever pitch of intensity Zimler maintains is at times overwhelming but never less than appropriate to the Hieronymous Bosch-like landscape he describes. Simultaneously, though, he is able to capture, within the bedlam, quiet moments of tenderness and love.” —Booklist (starred review)
Download or read book Ashenden written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Standard Ebooks. This book was released on 2023-01-01T20:46:22Z with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War I W. Somerset Maugham, already by then an established playwright and author, was recruited to be a British intelligence agent. These stories reflect his wartime experiences in intelligence gathering. Though fictionalized, they managed to retain enough authentic elements for Winston Churchill to advise Maugham that their publication might be a violation of the Official Secrets Act, resulting in the author burning an additional 14 stories. Set in various locales across the continent, these remaining Ashenden stories are a precursor to the jet-setting spy novels of the 1950s and 1960s. Maugham is known as a master short story writer and these stories are no exception, combining wit and realism to create memorable characters in a unique and highly critical portrait of wartime espionage. Initially released to a mixed reception—with an early review by D. H. Lawrence being especially scathing—Ashenden has since been credited as an inspiration for numerous authors, including John Le Carré, Graham Greene, and Raymond Chandler. The latter in particular was especially impressed, writing in 1950, “There are no other great spy stories—none at all. I have been searching and I know.” This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
Download or read book The Art of Horror written by Stephen Jones and published by Applause Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE ART OF HORROR: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY
Download or read book Borges and Me written by Jay Parini and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this evocative work of what the author in his afterword calls “a kindof novelistic memoir,” Jay Parini takes us back fifty years, when he fled the United States for Scotland—in flight from the Vietnam War and desperately in search of his adult life. There, through unlikely circumstances, he meets the famed Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Borges—visiting his translator in Scotland—is in his seventies, blind and frail. When Borges hears that Parini owns a 1957 Morris Minor, he declares a long-held wish to visit the Highlands, where he hopes to meet a man in Inverness who is interested in Anglo-Saxon riddles. As they travel, stopping at various sites of historical interest, the charmingly garrulous Borges takes Parini on a grand tour of Western literature and ideas, while promising to teach him about love and poetry. As Borges’s idiosyncratic world of labyrinths, mirrors, and doubles shimmers into being, their escapades take a surreal turn. Borges and Me is a classic road novel, based on true events. It’s also a magical mystery tour of an era, like our own, in which uncertainties abound, and when—as ever—it’s the young and the old who hear voices and dream dreams.
Download or read book The Great Movies III written by Roger Ebert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Ebert has been writing film reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times for over four decades now and his biweekly essays on great movies have been appearing there since 1996. As Ebert noted in the introduction to the first collection of those pieces, “They are not the greatest films of all time, because all lists of great movies are a foolish attempt to codify works which must stand alone. But it’s fair to say: If you want to take a tour of the landmarks of the first century of cinema, start here. Enter The Great Movies III, Ebert’s third collection of essays on the crème de la crème of the silver screen, each one a model of critical appreciation and a blend of love and analysis that will send readers back to the films with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm—or maybe even lead to a first-time viewing. From The Godfather: Part II to Groundhog Day, from The Last Picture Show to Last Tango in Paris, the hundred pieces gathered here display a welcome balance between the familiar and the esoteric, spanning Hollywood blockbusters and hidden gems, independent works and foreign language films alike. Each essay draws on Ebert’s vast knowledge of the cinema, its fascinating history, and its breadth of techniques, introducing newcomers to some of the most exceptional movies ever made, while revealing new insights to connoisseurs as well. Named the most powerful pundit in America by Forbes magazine, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Roger Ebert is inarguably the most prominent and influential authority on the cinema today. The Great Movies III is sure to please his many fans and further enhance his reputation as America’s most respected—and trusted—film critic.
