Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Department of English and Linguistics), course: Studying Media, language: English, abstract: When the filmThe Usual Suspectswas released in 1995 nobody knew it would eventually be rated as one of the best films of all time.1The appeal of the film lies within its cleverly structured narrative and its unique way of making the viewer want to watch the film again in a different light.The Usual Suspectsis one of those films you have to watch at least twice to get close to the truth of what is being told. During the second watching you will ask yourself if you are really seeing the same film and the same character, because you were sure that Verbal Kint seemed incredibly harmless the first time around while he comes across very differently the second time. That is the question that shall be examined in the course of this paper in which I want to analyse how Bryan Singer, the film's director, achieved his aim of creating a completely innocent character in the course of the film, only to let the audience find out that Kint might be the criminal mastermind behind the whole scheme. How do the film-makers achieve the portrayal of the harmless Kint, and how does he come across in the second watching? By choosingThe Usual Suspects,this paper also serves as an example of how audiences can be manipulated. Therefore, I will also have a look at the role and the behaviour of an audience. First of all, we will concern ourselves with a film theory developed by Kracauer examining the role of an audience and the effects films might have on it. We will analyse how audiences feel and behave during the experience of a film screening and how their minds function at the time. Secondly, I will shortly introduce the filmThe Usual Suspectswith its most important characters and its plot, before I, thirdly, want to go into the analysis of the creation of Verbal Kint's character, and scrutinise how Singer worked with narrative and technical means to leave behind a puzzled audience. To achieve that, I will pick a few scenes from the film and analyse them in respect to their filmic realisation. I hope that this paper will thoroughly answer the question of how an audience let themselves be manipulated by a feature film and what effects certain filmic means can achieve if properly deployed. Towards the end, all the gathered information will shortly be summarised and a conclusion will be expressed.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

This carefully crafted ebook: "The Generous Gambler (A short but grand prose poem)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Generous Gambler is written by Charles Pierre Baudelaire and was first published in 1864. Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du mal; (1857; The Flowers of Evil) which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a 19th century French poet, critic, and translator. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire's name has become a byword for literary and artistic decadence. At the same time his works, in particular his book of poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), have been acknowledged as classics of French literature.

Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor's garden for seven years. Her five year old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma's games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

A director reveals the original inspirations for his films, their history, his methods of work, and the problems of visual creativity

A collection of some of the Pulitzer Prize–winning film critic’s most scathing reviews, from Alex & Emma to the remake of Yours, Mine, and Ours. From Roger’s review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (0 stars): “The movie created a spot of controversy in February 2005. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture nominees and wrote that they were 'ignored, unloved, and turned down flat by most of the same studios that . . . bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic.' Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: “Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind . . . . Maybe you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers . . . .” Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor but lost to Jar-Jar Binks. But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo while passing on the opportunity to participate in Million Dollar Baby, Ray, The Aviator, Sideways, and Finding Neverland. As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.” Roger Ebert’s I Hated Hated Hated This Movie, which gathered some of his most scathing reviews, was a bestseller. This collection continues the tradition, reviewing not only movies that were at the bottom of the barrel, but also movies that he found underneath the barrel.

Los Angeles magazine is a regional magazine of national stature. Our combination of award-winning feature writing, investigative reporting, service journalism, and design covers the people, lifestyle, culture, entertainment, fashion, art and architecture, and news that define Southern California. Started in the spring of 1961, Los Angeles magazine has been addressing the needs and interests of our region for 48 years. The magazine continues to be the definitive resource for an affluent population that is intensely interested in a lifestyle that is uniquely Southern Californian.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the New York Times bestselling author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero comes a chilling tale that combines reality, memoir, and fantasy to create a fascinating portrait of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness. “John Cheever writes The Shining.” —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly Bret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is the bestselling writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past. His attempts to save his new world from his own demons makes Lunar Park Ellis’s most suspenseful novel. Look for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards!