Selasa, 15 November 2011

Cradle Will Rock

  • As labor strikes break out throughout the country during the 1930s, the art and theater world of New York City is a growing cultural revolution. Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) commissions Mexican artist Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades) to paint the lobby of Rockefeller Center, while Italian propagandist Margherita Sarfatti (Susan Sarandon) gives Da Vincis to millionaires who help fund the Mussolini w
Powerful and sweeping, the critically acclaimed CRADLE WILL ROCK, starring Hank Azaria, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Bill Murray, and Susan Sarandon, takes a kaleidoscopic look at the extraordinary events of 1930s America. From high society to life on the streets, director Tim Robbins (DEAD MAN WALKING) brings Depression-era New York City to vivid life. It's a time when DaVincis are given to millionaires who help fund the Mussolini war effort and Nelson Rockefeller commissions Mexican artist Diego Rive! ra to paint the lobby of Rockefeller Center. A time when a young Orson Welles and a troupe of passionate actors risk everything to perform the infamous musical "The Cradle Will Rock." As threats to their freedom and livelihood loom larger, they refuse to give into censorship. Based on actual events, CRADLE WILL ROCK will move you."Based on a (mostly) true story," according to the opening titles, Tim Robbins's dazzling dramatization of one of the great stories in American theater indeed takes a few liberties with history. Ostensibly the story of the mayhem surrounding Marc Blitzstein's worker's opera The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles for the WPA at the height of the Depression, Robbins paints a veritable mural around this incident, a city alive with plotting industrialists (John Cusack as Nelson Rockefeller), radical artists (Ruben Blades's Diego Rivera), and struggling citizens (Bill Murray's frustrated vaudeville ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw). Lightnin! g strikes when the government closes the show before it even o! pens and the cast marches 20 blocks to an empty theater and tosses the staging aside to perform in the aisles, the balconies, and the seats. It's a rare moment of cinema capturing the immediacy and charge of live theater on the screen and it's the heart of Robbins's often exhilarating film. His heroes are Blitzstein (a warm, gently impassioned Hank Azaria) and cheery WPA Theater director Hallie Flanagan (Broadway star Cherry Jones), but in the process he snidely turns Welles and producer John Houseman into sour, silly caricatures. The stew of artistic creation and political action gets murky and at times contradictory, but vivid performances and Robbins' driving pace and staccato crosscutting keep it humming through even the most didactic moments. The songs are by Blitzstein, and the character-rich cast also features Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, John Turturro, Emily Watson, and Philip Baker Hall. --Sean Axmaker

Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction

  • ISBN13: 9781434103079
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Bestselling author Mike Schmoker describes a plan for radically improving student learning that is built on three core elements: a focused and coherent curriculum (what we teach); clear, prioritized lessons (how we teach); and purposeful reading and writing, or authentic literacy.

With this "less is more" philosophy, educators can help students learn content at a deeper level, develop greater critical thinking skills, and discover more clearly how content-area concepts affect their lives and the world around them.

Both a call to action and a blueprint for creating more effective classrooms, Focus: Elevating the Essentials for Radically Improved Student Learning will cha! llenge your assumptions about schooling and show how educators who have embraced this approach quickly achieved spectacular results.

Meet Emily and Paul: The parents of two young children, Emily is the newly promoted VP of marketing at a large corporation while Paul works from home or from clients' offices as an independent IT consultant. Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task.

In this book, we travel inside Emily and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works-and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the r! eader, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work enviro! nment bu t succeed in it-and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.

YOUR BRAIN AT WORK explores issues such as:

- why our brains feel so taxed, and how to maximize our mental resources

- why it's so hard to focus, and how to better manage distractions

- how to maximize your chance of finding insights that can solve seemingly insurmountable problems

- how to keep your cool in any situation, so that you can make the best decisions possible

- how to collaborate more effectively with others

- why providing feedback is so difficult, and how to make it easier

- how to be more effective at changing other people's behavior

The author writes, "At the heart of this simple book lies the key to many of the struggles we face these days, from being productive and achieving our goals, to getting healthy and fit in the face of fast food and inactivity, to finding simplicity and peace amidst chaos and confusion.! That key is itself simple: focus. Our ability to focus will allow us to create in ways that perhaps we haven't in years. It'll allow us to slow down and find peace of mind. It'll allow us to simplify and focus on less-on the essential things, the things that matter most.

Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger

Away We Go

  • Condition: New
  • Format: DVD
  • AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC
John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) star in the heartfelt film that explores the comedic twists and turns in one couple’s journey across contemporary America. Anticipating the birth of their first child, longtime couple Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) embark on an ambitious itinerary to visit friends and family in order to find their perfect home. Featuring a remarkable soundtrack and an incredible ensemble cast â€" including Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O’Hara and Jim Gaffigan. It’s the hilarious, witty film that critics are hailing as “absolutely extraordinary!” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)Away We Go has an incredible mix of ingredients: A script co-written by Dave Eggers (author of A Heartbreaking ! Work of Staggering Genius), directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road), starring the not-hugely-famous-but-always-excellent Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) and John Krasinski (The Office), and featuring an astounding supporting cast that includes Catherine O’Hara, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, and more. What’s even more incredible is that all these ingredients blend together into a truly marvelous but very non-traditional romantic comedy. For one thing, Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) are already a couple and expecting their first child. What they don’t know is where they’re going to live--so they set off on a tour of disparate locations (Tucson, Montreal, Miami) where they have friends or relatives, sampling not only different cities and climates but also different families. The social and emotional collisions that follow are sometimes very funny and sometimes heartwrenching! . Away We Go starts quietly and, through subtle yet con! sistentl y delightful scenes, builds to a surprisingly potent end. This is a gem of a movie, not to be missed. --Bret Fetzer
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