It's More than Shootouts and Car Chases takes you inside the life of a Montgomery Police Officer in the capital city of Alabama. Corporal Smith began his career as a nineteen year old police cadet working in an administrative capacity, until attending the police academy in 1983. As a trainee, Smith started the police academy with twenty fellow recruits and sixteen grueling weeks later, graduating with only six. You experience from the beginning what it takes to become a Montgomery police officer. This detailed, factual account provides the reader with an inside look from being shot at as a rookie officer while investigating a car burglary, to being involved in two police shootings and working the deaths of two fellow officers as an evidence technician. Throughout his twenty year career, Corporal Steve Smith shares his experiences that will have you laughing one moment and then a call of "shots fired" will show you the true dangers of being a police officer. As Corporal Steve Smith shares his true life experiences he also shares his faith in the Lord as he serves and protects the citizens of Montgomery.

Vern, the self-styled 'outlaw film critic' is described by Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro as "equal parts Hell's Angels and Pauline Kael... a national treasure!" Now Vern unleashes his magnum opus: an in-depth study of the world's only aikido instructor turned movie star/director/writer/blues guitarist/energy drink inventor, the ass-kicking auteur Steven Seagal. "A book that'll shake the very foundations of film criticism, break their wrists and then throw them through a window."

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army swiftly occupied Manila and then plunged into a decade-long pacification campaign with striking parallels to today’s war in Iraq. Armed with cutting-edge technology from America’s first information revolution, the U.S. colonial regime created the most modern police and intelligence units anywhere under the American flag. In Policing America’s Empire Alfred W. McCoy shows how this imperial panopticon slowly crushed the Filipino revolutionary movement with a lethal mix of firepower, surveillance, and incriminating information. Even after Washington freed its colony and won global power in 1945, it would intervene in the Philippines periodically for the next half-century—using the country as a laboratory for counterinsurgency and rearming local security forces for repression. In trying to create a democracy in the Philippines, the United States unleashed profoundly undemocratic forces that persist to the present day. But security techniques bred in the tropical hothouse of colonial rule were not contained, McCoy shows, at this remote periphery of American power. Migrating homeward through both personnel and policies, these innovations helped shape a new federal security apparatus during World War I. Once established under the pressures of wartime mobilization, this distinctively American system of public-private surveillance persisted in various forms for the next fifty years, as an omnipresent, sub rosa matrix that honeycombed U.S. society with active informers, secretive civilian organizations, and government counterintelligence agencies. In each succeeding global crisis, this covert nexus expanded its domestic operations, producing new contraventions of civil liberties—from the harassment of labor activists and ethnic communities during World War I, to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, all the way to the secret blacklisting of suspected communists during the Cold War. “With a breathtaking sweep of archival research, McCoy shows how repressive techniques developed in the colonial Philippines migrated back to the United States for use against people of color, aliens, and really any heterodox challenge to American power. This book proves Mark Twain’s adage that you cannot have an empire abroad and a republic at home.”—Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago “This book lays the Philippine body politic on the examination table to reveal the disease that lies within—crime, clandestine policing, and political scandal. But McCoy also draws the line from Manila to Baghdad, arguing that the seeds of controversial counterinsurgency tactics used in Iraq were sown in the anti-guerrilla operations in the Philippines. His arguments are forceful.”—Sheila S. Coronel, Columbia University “Conclusively, McCoy’s Policing America’s Empire is an impressive historical piece of research that appeals not only to Southeast Asianists but also to those interested in examining the historical embedding and institutional ontogenesis of post-colonial states’ police power apparatuses and their apparently inherent propensity to implement illiberal practices of surveillance and repression.”—Salvador Santino F. Regilme, Jr., Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs “McCoy’s remarkable book . . . does justice both to its author’s deep knowledge of Philippine history as well as to his rare expertise in unmasking the seamy undersides of state power.”—POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review Winner, George McT. Kahin Prize, Southeast Asian Council of the Association for Asian Studies

This revised and updated edition of the Chronicle of Malaysia brings the full dramatic sweep of Malaysia's history up to date, taking the reader through the nation's first 50 years from the formation of Malaysia in 1963 all the way to 2013. It is packed with illustrated news stories covering hundreds of the nation's key social, political, cultural and sporting events. As a compendium of all aspects of Malaysian life, the book captures the mood of the day with a sense of vividness and immediacy. Concise, accessible articles—revised and rewritten to engage today's readers—are introduced by headlines and liberally illustrated with photographs and specially commissioned cartoons. The book is structured chronologically, with an average of eight pages devoted to each year beginning with a succinct summary of the year's key events. A host of themes are covered: not just the major political and economic events but also the human side of the Malaysian experience—sports, fashion, music, the arts, architecture, lifestyle, disasters, crime and the social scene. These combine to give readers the feel of each era of Malaysia's past and enables them to draw parallels with the present.

From his first feature film, The Duellists, to his international successes Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, and American Gangster, Ridley Scott has directed some of the most compelling films of the last 30 years. Apart from his work as a film director, Scott has engaged in a vast range of activities, including that as a designer, producer, film mogul, and advertising executive. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia is the first book that focuses on all aspects of his work in a wide-ranging career that spans nearly 50 years. The entries in this encyclopedia focus on all aspects of his work and are divided into four categories. The first focuses on Ridley Scott's work as a director, encompassing his feature films from The Duellists to Body of Lies, as well as his work in television, including commercials. The second category focuses on the people who have been involved in Scott's projects, including actors, directors, producers, designers, writers and other creative personnel. The third focuses on general thematic issues raised in Scott's work, such as gender construction, political issues, and geographical locations. Finally the encyclopedia incorporates entries on films by other directors who have influenced Scott's approach to his work as a director or producer. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online, making this the most comprehensive reference on Scott's body of work.

Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and ended with the publication of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, two works that were arguably "the sun and moon" of modernist literature, some would say of modernity itself. In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the titanic achievements of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared. As Jackson writes in his introduction, "On all sides, and in every field, there was a frenzy of innovation." It is in 1922 that Hitchcock directs his first feature; Kandinsky and Klee join the Bauhaus; the first AM radio station is launched; Walt Disney releases his first animated shorts; and Louis Armstrong takes a train from New Orleans to Chicago, heralding the age of modern jazz. On other fronts, Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics, insulin is introduced to treat diabetes, and the tomb of Tutankhamun is discovered. As Jackson writes, the sky was "blazing with a ‘constellation of genius' of a kind that had never been known before, and has never since been rivaled." Constellation of Genius traces an unforgettable journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, filmmakers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians, and scientists whose lives and works—over the course of twelve months—brought a seismic shift in the way we think, splitting the cultural world in two. Was this a matter of inevitability or of coincidence? That is for the reader of this romp, this hugely entertaining chronicle, to decide.

The 1980s was the decade when the action film as it's now known came into being. Nonstop, big-budget excitement became the standard as epic adventures like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Road Warrior set the tone for the summer blockbusters of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris. Homages (and ripoffs) made with lesser budgets followed every hit, especially with the advent of direct-to-video releases. Providing detailed commentary on 284 films, this book explores the excitement, audacity and sheer weirdness of '80s low budget action cinema, from the American Ninja series to dime-a-dozen barbarian pictures to such bargain-basement productions as The Courier of Death, Kill Squad and Samurai Cop.

A chance meeting... In a world still recovering from the vampire/human wars, Kasima Wilder is glad to live in the safe haven of Riverstone, a town founded by vampires and populated by both mortals and immortals. Largely, Kasima has avoided the town’s vampire-run establishments. Until one night her wayward boyfriend ditches her at Ever Nights Annual Masquerade Ball. An unforgettable night... As head of security, Lex Stirling’s job is to ensure the safety of those within the walls of club Ever Nights, especially on the night of the Masquerade, a night where lust reigns supreme and limits are tested. After rescuing a woman from the unwanted attention of a persistent guest, he finds himself enamored with the little mortal. Soon, their chemistry turns combustible, and they are engulfed in a night of unforgettable passion. A passion that could consume them both as Kasima’s ex conspires against them.

In More Than a Movie, producer and entertainment attorney F. Miguel Valenti presents a compelling argument for the creative community to consider the consequences of its products, from movies to TV to the Internet. Valenti refrains from attacking the industries in which he himself works, but argues for reflection on the part of those who create media. More Than a Movie takes a pioneering first step toward outlining the issues in an insider fashion, and provides the tools to make ethical decisions about creating for the big and small screens. Edited by veteran media writer Les Brown and media consultant Laurie Trotta, More Than a Movie is written to stimulate debate in professional and academic arenas, and for the enjoyment of everyone who loves entertainment. The book contains a foreword by noted author and director Peter Bogdanovich, and commentary from producers Christine Vachon and David Brown. Mediascope, a Studio City, California-based media policy organization, commissioned the book upon discovering that ethical discussions seldom occur in film and television schools, although they are staples for studying law, medicine, business and journalism. Issues range from ethnic and gender stereotyping to excessive and gratuitous violence."It's not about censorship -- it's about having a responsibility for what we do," says author Valenti (no relation to MPAA's Jack Valenti). "The book outlines how we are helping to shape societal values and individual behavior with the artistic choices we make." A team of writers from across the nation offer essays: Neil Hickey, editor, Columbia Journalism Review ; Annette Insdorf, Columbia University; Ted Pease, professor and columnist; Jack Pitman, Variety; Martin Koughan, Emmy Award-winning documentarian. The essays in More Than a Movie are interspersed with stories of actual ethical dilemmas told by noted screenwriters, directors and other practitioners in interviews by Manhattan writer Laura Blum.