John Muir

In the summer of 1984, a small, low-budget film came out of nowhere and unexpectedly debuted at the number one slot at the box office, unseating reigning champion Ghostbusters and making its star, Prince, a household name. By the end of the year, the film was a multiple-award winner, a trend setter in terms of fashion, and recognized on many prominent critical "top ten" lists. Purple Rain: Music on Film explores in detail the behind-the-scenes struggles...

In 1984, four comedians - Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Rob Reiner, and Harry Shearer - unleashed This Is Spinal Tap, the world's first "mock-rockumentary" and a joke that has lasted into the 21st century and inspired a generation of imitations. Now, award-winning film journalist John Kenneth Muir (An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith) escorts the reader through a quarter-century of heavy metal laughs, offering a detailed history of the film's...

Providing a career-spanning view of everyone's favorite geek writer and director, Joss Whedon FAQ offers answers to fans' questions about one of the most significant pop culture auteurs of the past twenty-five years. The book gazes at Whedon's early work in Hollywood as a script doctor on films such “The Quick and the Dead” (1995) and “Waterworld” (1995), and follows his career as he became the cult-favorite creator of such sensations as “Buffy...

Promoting young people's access to social rights as a means for their inclusion and participation in society! In and around many cities, social and economic imbalances have led to the development of disadvantaged neighborhoods, where diversity is also accompanied by poverty and often marginalization or exclusion. This is sometimes combined with different forms and levels of de facto social segregation, discrimination and violence. At times of...