The author invites readers to spend time in the pleasure of Harpo's cinematic company while comparing him to tricksters from folklore, myth and legend. The book demonstrates how Harpo, the sweetest, wildest, most magical Marx brother, accomplishes the archetypal trickster's work. Thirteen chapters examine Harpo's trickster persona closely in each of the Marx Brothers' films: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the R...

Change is natural—beautiful, cathartic, necessary. But change is also painful, ugly, destructive. It’s one of life’s only constants. You can either embrace it or struggle against it. But it’s unlikely you'll ever stop it.This collection of 29 short stories, poems, and essays will take your breath away, break your heart, and even inspire transformation in your life. Because there’s no time like the present to break out of your shell, spread your wings, and embrace y...

Few movie stars made as great an impact as Marilyn Monroe. Although she died in 1962, a half century later she remains vivid in popular culture, even to those who have never seen her films. Two of the men she married, Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, themselves made a powerful cultural impact. In this moving essay, David Morrell analyses Monroe's poignant life, which had more significance than any movie in which she appeared. Even her most knowledgeable fans will find something new ...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning film critics offers up more reviews of horrible films.Roger Ebert awards at least two out of four stars to most of the more than 150 movies he reviews each year. But when the noted film critic does pan a movie, the result is a humorous, scathing critique far more entertaining than the movie itself.I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie is a collection of more than 200 of Ebert's most biting and entertaining reviews of fi...

Drawing on the extraordinary collection of The Library of Congress, one of the greatest repositories for silent film and memorabilia, Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. From its birth in the 1890s, with the earliest narrative shorts, through the brilliant full-length features of the 1920s, Silent Movies captures the greatest directors and actors and their immortal films.Silent Movies also looks at the technology of early film, the...

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...

Discover the revelatory and illuminating interviews with literary luminaries that have graced the pages of The Paris Review for over half a century.This critically acclaimed series continues with another eclectic lineup, featuring intimate conversations with renowned authors such as Philip Roth, Ezra Pound, Haruki Murakami, Marilynne Robinson, Stephen Sondheim, E. B. White, Maya Angelou, and William Styron. In these remarkable extended interviews, the authors delve...

The Maestros of Celluloid Terror The lights dim. The giant screen flickers. And suddenly our most gruesome and ghastly nightmares come to blood-chilling life before our eyes. From filmmakers whose macabre images haunt our dreams to actors and make-up artists who conspire to create monsters, twenty-two brilliant purveyors of cinematic dread usher into their unique world of shadows and terror - sharing with us the secrets of their remarkable craft: the visual art of fear. Featuring in-depth ...

Charlie Chaplin - beloved by his generation, nearly forgotten today - was a cinematic visionary in endless conflict with his times. It turns out, legendary film critic Richard Schickel argues, that his life was far more fascinating than any of the Little Tramp's adventures. Here's his story.

From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience.Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (recently released in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema. Now he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each elem...

From one of our leading film historians and interpreters: a brilliantly researched, irresistibly witty, delightfully illustrated examination of “the marriage movie”; what it is (or isn’t) and what it has to tell us about the movies—and ourselves.As long as there have been feature movies there have been marriage movies, and yet Hollywood has always been cautious about how to label them—perhaps because, unlike any other genre of film, the marriage movie resonates directly with the ex...

It was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before; the movie industry -- even America itself -- would never be the same.In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred ...