A Northern Irish writer explores his adopted homeland through film in this irreverent yet moving journey through each of the 50 states. Set among a personal backdrop of immigration memoir, he takes on American myths in their most powerful form—the motion picture—by setting out to determine if a Kansas yellow brick road really does lead to the end of the rainbow, and whether it first has to pass through Colorado's Overlook Hotel. Amid the multipurpose woodchippers, friendly exorcists, and faulty motel showers, resurrected baseball players, and miracle-working gardeners, he examines what the stories we tell reveal about American lives and uses this to sum up what he has learned about the promises, failures, and hope that is America.

The national cinemas of Czechoslovakia and East Germany were two of the most vital sites of filmmaking in the Eastern Bloc, and over the course of two decades, they contributed to and were shaped by such significant developments as Sovietization, de-Stalinization, and the conservative retrenchment of the late 1950s. This volume comprehensively explores the postwar film cultures of both nations, using a “stereoscopic” approach that traces their similarities and divergences to form a richly contextualized portrait. Ranging from features to children’s cinema to film festivals, the studies gathered here provide new insights into the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of Cold War cultural production.

"See yourself in the movies!" Prior to the advent of the home movie camera and the ubiquitousness of the camera phone, there was the local film. This cultural phenomenon, produced across the country from the 1890s to the 1950s, gave ordinary people a chance to be on the silver screen without leaving their hometowns. Through these movies, residents could see themselves in the same theaters where they saw major Hollywood motion pictures. Traveling filmmakers plied their trade in small towns and cities, where these films were received by locals as being part of the larger cinema experience. With access to the rare film clips under discussion, Main Street Movies documents the diversity and longevity of local film production and examines how itinerant filmmakers responded to industry changes to keep sponsors and audiences satisfied. From town pride films in the 1910s to Hollywood knockoffs in the 1930s, local films captured not just images of local people and places but also ideas about the function and meaning of cinema that continue to resonate today.

Films examined include: Master and commander - the far side of the world, The Coneheads, X2, The postman, Taxi driver, Working girl, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Robocop, Showgirls, The passion of the Christ, Last tango in Paris, Pulp fiction, Kill Bill: Vol. 2.

Gomery (The coming of sound to the American cinema, 1975; The Hollywood studio system, 1986) draws upon his earlier work and that of other scholars to address the broader social functions of the film industry, showing how Hollywood adapted its business policies to diversity and change within American society. Includes 31 bandw photographs. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book is an analysis of the specificities of public film funding on an international scale. It shows how public funding schemes add value to film-making and other audio-visual productions and provides a comprehensive analysis of today’s global challenges in the film industry such as industry change, digital transformation, and shifting audience tastes. Based on insights from fields such as cultural economics, media economics, media management and media governance studies, the authors illustrate how public spending shapes the financial fitness of national and international film industries. This highly informative book will help both scholars and practitioners in the film industry to understand the complexity of issues and the requirements necessary to preserve the social benefits of film as an important cultural good.

This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, trance, vision and ecstasy in their cinematic expression.

A comprehensive, accessible introduction to modern all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. All-solid-state thin-film lithium-ion batteries present a special and especially important version of lithium-ion ones. They are intended for battery-powered integrated circuit cards (smart-cards), radio-frequency identifier (RFID) tags, smart watches, implantable medical devices, remote microsensors and transmitters, Internet of Things systems, and various other wireless devices including smart building control and so on. Comprising four chapters the monograph explores and provides: The fundamentals of rechargeable batteries, comparison of lithium-ion batteries with other kinds, features of thin-film batteries. A description of functional materials for all-solid-state thin-film batteries. Various methods for applying functional layers of an all-solid-state thin-film lithium-ion battery. Diagnostics of functional layers of all-solid-state thin-film lithium-ion batteries. The monograph is intended for teachers, researchers, advanced undergraduate students, and post-graduate students of profile faculties of universities, as well as for developers and manufacturers of thin-film lithium-ion batteries.