Final Cuts

Legendary genre editor Ellen Datlow brings together eighteen dark and terrifying original stories inspired by cinema and television. A BLUMHOUSE BOOKS HORROR ORIGINAL. From the secret reels of a notoriously cursed cinematic masterpiece to the debauched livestreams of modern movie junkies who will do anything for clicks, Final Cuts brings together new and terrifying stories inspired by the many screens we can't peel our eyes away from. Inspired by the rich golden age of the film and television industries as well as the new media present, this new anthology reveals what evils hide behind the scenes and between the frames of our favorite medium. With original stories from a diverse list of some of the best-known names in horror, Final Cuts will haunt you long after the credits roll. NEW STORIES FROM: Josh Malerman, Chris Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, Garth Nix, Laird Barron, Kelley Armstrong, John Langan, Richard Kadrey, Paul Cornell, Lisa Morton, AC Wise, Dale Bailey, Jeffrey Ford, Cassandra Khaw, Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, Usman T. Malik, and Brian Hodge.

It would be difficult to find a more heated topic in American political circles than tax cuts. Do they help the economy, the rich, or the middle class? Or do they harm the economy? Do the rich benefit the most and should they? Tax cuts are closely tied to the Tax Code which very few people truly understand. The new book tries to make sense out of this impenetrable jungle of issues, projections and actual tax cuts. Contents: Preface; Tax Cut Bills in 2003: A Comparison; Across-the-Board Tax Cuts: Economic Issues; Tax Cuts, the Business Cycle, and Economic Growth: A Macroeconomic Analysis; Using Business Tax Cuts to Stimulate the Economy; Tax Cuts and Economic Stimulus: How Effective Are the Alternatives?; Economic and Revenue Effects of Permanent and Temporary Capital Gains Tax Cuts; The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: Interaction With Marriage Penalty Relief and Other Tax Cuts; Major Tax Issues; Index.

This fast-paced book by Yale professors Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro unravels the following mystery: How is it that the estate tax, which has been on the books continuously since 1916 and is paid by only the wealthiest two percent of Americans, was repealed in 2001 with broad bipartisan support? The mystery is all the more striking because the repeal was not done in the dead of night, like a congressional pay raise. It came at the end of a multiyear populist campaign launched by a few individuals, and was heralded by its supporters as a signal achievement for Americans who are committed to the work ethic and the American Dream. Graetz and Shapiro conducted wide-ranging interviews with the relevant players: members of congress, senators, staffers from the key committees and the Bush White House, civil servants, think tank and interest group representatives, and many others. The result is a unique portrait of American politics as viewed through the lens of the death tax repeal saga. Graetz and Shapiro brilliantly illuminate the repeal campaign's many fascinating and unexpected turns--particularly the odd end result whereby the repeal is slated to self-destruct a decade after its passage. They show that the stakes in this fight are exceedingly high; the very survival of the long standing American consensus on progressive taxation is being threatened. Graetz and Shapiro's rich narrative reads more like a political drama than a conventional work of scholarship. Yet every page is suffused by their intimate knowledge of the history of the tax code, the transformation of American conservatism over the past three decades, and the wider political implications of battles over tax policy.

Roger Crittenden reveals the experiences of many of the greatest living European film editors through his warm and perceptive interviews which offer a unique insight into the art of editing - direct from masters of the craft. In their interviews the editors relate their experience to the directors they have worked with, including: Agnes Guillemot- (Godard, Truffaut, Catherine Breillat) Roberto Perpignani- (Welles, Bertolucci, Tavianni Brothers) Sylvia Ingemarsson- (Ingmar Bergman) Michal Leszczylowski- (Andrei Tarkovsky, Lukas Moodysson) Tony Lawson (Nic Roeg, Stanley Kubrick, Neil Jordan) and many more. Foreword by Walter Murch - three-time Oscar-winning Editor of 'Apocalypse Now', 'The English Patient', 'American Graffiti', 'The Conversation' and 'The Godfather Part II and III'.

The remarkable story behind the planning, development and marketing of Laurel and Hardy’s ill-received final film, Atoll K, has been little explored. Details on the script development, cast, crew, locations, and even basic information on running times and release dates have been sketchy at best since the film’s 1951 release. This work reconstructs the circumstances surrounding this unusual international co-production (Atoll K was a French-Italian film with English-speaking stars). Through lost documents detailing the film’s production and funding, previously unreleased behind-the-scenes photos, and a rare interview with French movie star Suzy Delair, the author explores the continuous changes to the film’s script during its chaotic production and the final marketing of the film’s many different versions (Atoll K was also released as Robinson Crusoeland in the United Kingdom and as Utopia in the United States). Several appendices detail alternative sequences and cut scenes in various versions of the film and include French box-office reports from 1951 to 1952 as well as a complete filmography.

Explores the philosophical, literary, and psychoanalytic significance of film endings.
Editing has been called the language of cinema, and thus a film’s ending can be considered the final punctuation mark of this language, framing everything that came before and offering the key to both our interpretation and our enjoyment of a film. In Cinematic Cuts, scholars explore the philosophical, literary, and psychoanalytic significance of film endings, analyzing how film endings engage our fantasies of cheating death, finding true love, or determining the meaning of life. They examine how endings offer various forms of enjoyment for the spectator, from the momentary fulfillment of desire in the happy ending to the pleasurable torment of an indeterminate ending. The contributors also consider how film endings open onto larger questions relating to endings in our time. They suggest how a film ending’s hidden counternarrative can be read as a political act, how our interpretation of a film ending parallels the end of a psychoanalytical session, how film endings reveal our anxieties and fears, and how cinema itself might end with the increasing intervention of digital technologies that reorient the spectator’s sense of temporality and closure. Films by Akira Kurosawa, Lars von Trier, Joon-Hwan Jang, Claire Denis, Christopher Nolan, Jane Campion, John Huston, and Spike Jonze, among others, are discussed.