Summer Heights High

• In this hilarious series set in a real Australian high school, actor/comedian Chris Lilley stars as three different characters: a vain drama teacher, a self-absorbed boy, and a haughty female exchange student. Hysterical, absurd and frequently shocking, Summer Heights High reveals a world where small issues become huge, social groups are critical, young minds are molded, hopes are shattered and dr

Five New Yorkers must make decisions overnight that will affect their futures.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 2-MAY-2006
Media Type: DVDWith wit and sympathy, Heights traces the crossed paths and messy lives of New York theater people, journalists, and artists. At the middle of everything is Isabel (Elizabeth Banks, The Sisters), a struggling photographer whose mother, Diana (Glenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons), is the gran! d dame of the theater world. Isabel's fiance, Jonathan (James Marsden, X-Men), is being pursued by a writer for Vanity Fair about his relationship with a lionized photographer. Meanwhile, Diana, though married, casts her eye on a young actor named Alec (Jesse Bradford, Happy Endings), who lives in the same building as Isabel... This only begins to unravel the tangle, but a clever script, clean direction, and nicely pitched performances keep Heights from tripping over its own plot lines or sagging into soap opera. Close, in particular, has a blast doing an uncanny Meryl Streep impression, and deft supporting performances by Isabella Rosselini (Blue Velvet), Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio), George Segal (California Split), and musician Rufus Wainwright keep the edges of the stories lively. Heights doesn't achieve the emotional fullness of the best of Robert Altman's ensemble movies, but it stakes a claim in that cinematic territory.! --Bret Fetzer

From the author of The Work! s: Anato my of a City comes a gorgeous graphic tour through the inner workings of skyscrapers.

The skyscraper is perhaps the most recognizable icon of the modern urban landscape. Providing offices, homes, restaurants, and shopping to thousands of inhabitants, modern skyscrapers function as small cities- with infrastructure not unlike that hidden beneath our streets. Clean water is provided to floors thousands of feet in the sky; elevators move people swiftly and safely throughout the building; and telecom networks allow virtual meetings with people on other continents. How are these services-considered essential, but largely taken for granted- possible in such a complex structure? What does it really take to sustain human life at such enormous heights?

Exploring the interconnected systems that make life livable in the sky is the task of Kate Ascher's stunningly illustrated The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper. Ascher examines skyscrapers from ar! ound the world to learn how these incredible structures operate. Just how do skyscrapers sway in the wind, and why exactly is that a good idea? How can a modern elevator be as fast as an airplane? Why are skyscrapers in Asia safer than those in the United States? Have new safeguards been designed to protect skyscrapers from terrorism?

What happens when the power goes out in a building so tall? Why are all modern skyscrapers seemingly made of glass, and how can that be safe? How do skyscrapers age, and how can they be maintained over decades of habitation? No detail is too small, no difficulty too big to escape Ascher's encyclopedic eye.

Along the way, The Heights introduces the reader to every type of person involved in designing, building, and maintaining a skyscraper: the designers who calculate how weight and weather will affect their structures, the workers who dig the foundations and raise the lightning rods, the crews who clean the wind! ows and maintain the air ducts, and the firefighters-whose sp! ecial eq uipment allows blazes to be fought at unprecedented heights.

More than a technical survey, Ascher's work is a triumphant ode to the most monumental aspect of modern civilization. Saturated with vivid illustrations and unforgettable anecdotes, The Heights is the ultimate guide to the way things work in the skyscraper.

A Look Inside The Heights

(Click on Images to Enlarge)

This is a beautifully designed, 6"x9" large edition of Emily Brontë's classic WUTHERING HEIGHTS.This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may! find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition i! ncludes wireless delivery.A "devilishly delightful" (Bookpage) new novel from an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and the author of What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Tim and Kate Welch are seemingly the last middle-class family in the exclusive neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, NewYork. Tim is a popular history teacher, and an ordinary guy. Kate is not ordinary, but she aspires to be. Brought up by a hippie mother, Kate stays home with their two young sons trying to be the responsible parent she never had. But their neat and tidy world is turned upside down when Anna Brody- beautiful, wealthy, and impulsive-moves into the most expensive brownstone in Brooklyn, and draws Kate and Tim into her world.In this hilarious series set in a real Australian high school, actor/comedian Chris Lilley stars as three different characters: a vain drama teacher, a self-absorbed boy, and a haughty female exchange student. Hysterical, absurd and frequently shocking, Summer! Heights High reveals a world where small issues become huge, social groups are critical, young minds are molded, hopes are shattered and dreams are realized.

DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Outtakes

Australian writer/performer Chris Lilley specializes in the comedy of narcissism. All three of his characters in the mockumentary series Summer Heights High are blindly, maddeningly self-absorbed: Mr. G, a drama teacher who writes and directs his own musicals; Ja'mie, a preening 16-year-old from a wealthy private school who views her year at public school as purgatory; and Jonah, a Tongan juvenile delinquent who's been previously expelled from two other schools. The series' 8 episodes follow these three as they seek to find some form of fame and adulation.Mr. G struggles to create a musical about a student who recently died of a drug overdose... only it becomes increasingly about a heroic drama teacher whose dog dies in an accident; Ja'! mie desperately wants to stage a formal dance and will lie, br! ibe, and manipulate to do it; and Jonah wants to do breakdancing with his posse, but he's simply incapable of keeping himself from insulting his teachers and getting into fights with other students. While Mr. G and Ja'mie are blinkered monsters, Jonah verges on tragic, as he stumbles towards increasing self-destruction. The thoroughness of Lilley's creations is impressive, as the comedian loses himself fully in these characters. Still, some viewers may find them more aggravating than funny; just a hint of self-awareness might have made them a little easier to spend time with. But for anyone who connects with Lilley's humor, Summer Heights High will be a feast of juicy, unfiltered, rampaging egomania. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Summer Heights High (Click for larger image)

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