In A History of American Movies: A Film-by-Film Look at the Art, Craft and Business of Cinema, Paul Monaco provides a survey of the narrative feature film from the 1920s to the present. The book focuses on 170 of the most highly regarded and recognized feature films selected by the Hollywood establishment: each Oscar winner for Best Picture, as well as those voted the greatest by members of the American Film Institute. By focusing on a select group of films that represent the epitome of th...

In A History of American Movies: A Film-by-Film Look at the Art, Craft and Business of Cinema, Paul Monaco provides a survey of the narrative feature film from the 1920s to the present. The book focuses on 170 of the most highly regarded and recognized feature films selected by the Hollywood establishment: each Oscar winner for Best Picture, as well as those voted the greatest by members of the American Film Institute.By focusing on a select group of films that represent t...

In John Dahl and Neo-Noir: Examining Auteurism and Genre, Paul Monaco provides a focused inquiry into the first three feature films that director John Dahl made for theatrical release: Kill Me Again (1989), Red Rock West (1993), and The Last Seduction (1994). Subsequent to their releases, these three films became identified in academic film criticism as neo-noir, and Dahl was labeled a "noir-meister" who made "a cottage industry of neo-noir."The ...

Classic favorites, current pop films, hidden gems--they’re all part of this new edition of the popular guide to watching and enjoying movies. In his witty and engaging text, author Jim Piper explains key concepts of film and uses fascinating side-by-side comparisons to explore relationships between movies as disparate as The Great Train Robbery and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, High Noon and Blood Diamond, Raise the Red Lantern and The Pursuit of Happyness

WITH 8 PAGES OF BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHSHow—and why—do we obsess over movie stars? How does fame both reflect and mask the person behind it? How have the image of stardom and our stars’ images altered over a century of cultural and technological change? Do we create celebrities, or do they create us?Ty Burr, film critic for The Boston Globe, answers these questions in this lively and fascinating anecdotal history of stardom, with all its blessin...

Citizen Kane Boogie Nights Sunset Boulevard My Fair Lady Almost Famous Jaws A Hard Day's Night Lord of the Rings Monsoon Wedding Apocalypse Now Redux Moulin Rouge Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid A Beautiful Mind Shakespeare in LoveTHEY'RE NOT JUST MOVIES ANYMORE.THEY'RE DVDs.*Supplements...special collector's edition...extras...*Words that set the heart pounding of every DVD lover. But how do you d...

ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A rich companion volume to George Stevens, Jr.’s much admired book of American Film Institute seminars with the pioneering moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age, this time with a focus on filmmakers of the 1950s to present day.The Next Generation brings together conversations with moviemakers at work from the 1950s—during the studios’ decline—to today’s Hollywood. Directors, pro...

“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”—Cary GrantHe is Hollywood’s most fascinating and timeless star. Although he came to personify the debonair American, Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach on January 18, 1904, in the seaport village of Bristol, England. Combining the captivating beauty of silent-screen legend Rudolph Valentino with the masculine irresistibility of Clark Gable, Grant emerged as Hollywood’s quintessential leading man. Today, “the ...

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible?For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down ...

Like her art, Marilyn Monroe was rooted in paradox: She was a powerful star and a childlike waif; a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcissist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No previous biographer has recognized-much less attempted to analyze-most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has. With new details about Marilyn's childhood foster homes, her sexual abuse, her multiple marriages, her affairs, and her untimely death at...

Lion of Hollywood is the definitive biography of Louis B. Mayer, the chief of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer—MGM—the biggest and most successful film studio of Hollywood’s Golden Age.An immigrant from tsarist Russia, Mayer began in the film business as an exhibitor but soon migrated to where the action and the power were—Hollywood. Through sheer force of energy and foresight, he turned his own modest studio into MGM, where he became the most powerful man in Hollywood...

The Worst. Movie. Ever. is a masterpiece. Seriously.Enough time has passed since Showgirls flopped spectacularly that it’s time for a good, hard look back at the sequined spectacle. A salvage operation on a very public, very expensive train wreck, It Doesn’t Suck argues that Showgirls is much smarter and deeper than it is given credit for. In an accessible and entertaining voice, the book encourages a shift in critical perspective on Paul...