Some periods of history contain so many compounded disasters they seem to be inspired by disaster movies. In the early 2020s, the Covid-19 pandemic upended the world and thrust populations into a state of uncertainty and fear--as seen in movies like Outbreak, The Towering Inferno or Armageddon. Birthed from the author's original research on disaster movies, this book argues that the life cycle of Covid closely parallels various apocalyptic films, from the personas of the main players to the strike of the cataclysm itself. To view the Covid pandemic through the language of disaster movies, the book identifies those that mirror (predict!) each stage of the Covid pandemic, analyzing the similarities between the films and real-life events. A filmography of the featured disaster movies concludes the book.

Through detailed analysis of films such as The Towering Inferno, Independence Day, Titanic and The Day After Tomorrow, this book looks at the ways in which disaster movies can be read in relation to both contextual considerations and the increasing commercial demands of contemporary Hollywood. Featuring new material on cinematic representations of disaster in the wake of 9/11 and how we might regard disaster movies in light of recent natural disasters, the volume explores the continual reworking of this previously undervalued genre.

Surveying disaster films from a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective, this book explores the disaster film genre from its initial appearance in 1933 (The Grapes of Wrath, 1933) to its present-day form (Don’t Look Up!, 2021), laying bare the ideological unconscious at work within the genre. The Disaster Film as Social Practice examines environmental science, history, film and literature in its interdisciplinary analysis of the disaster film genre. It explores the interplay, and the dichotomy, of “restorative” and “reflective” disaster narratives. An analysis of cinema's role in symbolizing and managing collective anxiety around disaster and death narratives examines how disaster films, through their narrative structures and symbolic elements, contribute to the public's understanding and emotional processing of real-world threats, and how cinematic narratives shape and are shaped by public and private ideological discourses, reflecting deeper psychological and environmental truths. Finally, the book offers an overview of how the transformation of the disaster film genre over time tells a history through imagining the worst. Providing a nuanced understanding of the disaster film genre and its significance in contemporary culture and thought, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of film studies, cultural studies, media studies, and environmental studies.

How does theological education equip people to face the challenges of mission and ministry in a changing world? This book shows how theological education can provide encouraging and helpful answers to this question.

Envisioning Legality: Law, Culture and Representation is a path-breaking collection of some of the world’s leading cultural legal scholars addressing issues of law, representation and the image. Law is constituted in and through the representations that hold us in their thrall, and this book focuses on the ways in which cultural legal representations not only reflect or contribute to an understanding of law, but constitute the very fabric of legality itself. As such, each of these ‘readings’ of cultural texts takes seriously the cultural as a mode of envisioning, constituting and critiquing the law. And the theoretically sophisticated approaches utilised here encompass more than simply an engagement with ‘harmless entertainment’. Rather they enact and undertake specific political and critical engagements with timely issues, such as: the redressing of past wrongs; recognising and combatting structural injustices; and orienting our political communities in relation to uncertain futures. Envisioning Legality thereby presents a cultural legal studies that provides the means for engaging in robust, sustained and in-depth encounters with the nature and role of law in a global, mediated world.

A chemical spill drifts over the town of Clarence. Deletrium is a drug that releases forgotten memories. Soon the town is caught up in memories of good things and bad, hopes and regrets, people's relationships with their own histories.

The most definitive biography of Hollywood icon Charlton Heston—one of the most popular, engrossingly complex and, at times, controversial personalities ever to emerge from American cinema. Charlton Heston starred in American movies for more than six decades, in roles that ranged from the Biblical leader Moses in The Ten Commandments to the title role in William Wyler’s definitive Ben-Hur, to the heroic astronaut George Taylor in 1968’s sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes, in addition to hundreds of other screen, theater, and television roles. He also served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and more controversially, as the head of the National Rifle Association, which placed him at odds with Hollywood’s then-prevalent left-leaning power elite. New York Times bestselling author Marc Eliot’s definitive biography, which benefits from extraordinary access to friends, family, and private papers, unravels the epic life story of one of America’s most iconic actors, bringing to light Heston’s greatest achievements as well as his greatest failures and regrets—culminating in an account that is informed, moving, artful, and honest. In it, Eliot lays bare the story of how a boy from the backwoods of Michigan went on to become Hollywood’s go-to action and historical actor and left a legacy that helped define American movie heroes of the twentieth century. From Michigan to New York City to Hollywood, Eliot traces the footsteps of this extraordinary figure and sheds new light on one of America’s greatest stars. In glistening detail, he examines and celebrates the lasting legacy of Charlton Heston, taking advantage of never-before-heard stories of Heston as husband, father, and unremitting actor whose stamp on Hollywood grows stronger every year.