Film Art

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there's a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a midlevel agent named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them. Armed with foreign film visas, Mendez and an unlikely team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders traveled to Tehran....

The first ever autobiography of this truly international legend, written with all the trademark style, candour, charm, and wit he has brought to stage and screen over his long and illustrious career.

With personal anecdotes about such luminaries as Noel Coward, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Cary Grant, and Sean Connery, and memories from the heyday of Hollywood, this frank, funny and charming autobiography is packed with wonderful stories.

Film noir was the dark side of the movies’ happily-ever-after mythology. Sinister and sexy, it forged a new icon: the tough, independent dame. Determined, desirable, dangerous when cornered, she could handle trouble—or deal out some of her own. If you thought these women were something special onscreen, wait until you meet the genuine articles. In Dark City Dames, acclaimed film historian Eddie Muller takes listeners into the world of six women who made a lasting impression in this cinematic terrain.

A first-time-ever exploration of the 290 songs from the entirety of Twin Peaks, sure to entice fans of the David Lynch-Mark Frost's cult classic that revolutionized TV, with brand-new interviews with Frost and several of the key composers and musicians involved.

Meryl Streep, Marlon Brando, Anthony Hopkins, Carey Mulligan. When we watch these remarkable actors in a performance, we see only Sophie, Stanley Kowalski, Hannibal Lecter, or Cassie from Promising Young Woman. How are they able to transform our world in this way? How and why do they do what they do? In Acting Naturally, David Thomson sheds light on the actors who have shaped the film industry. He shrewdly analyzes these stars, revealing how a sly smile, an extra-long pause, even a small gesture of the hand can draw in an audience.

This book is a comprehensive history of the most successful straight-to-video horror franchise of all time: Puppet Master. It provides an in-depth exploration of all 14 films to date—including a made-for-TV crossover and a theatrical reboot—and the action figures, comics, and other merchandise that have helped to keep the brand alive for the past 30 years.

Strikingly glamorous and famously inscrutable, Greta Garbo managed, in 16 short years, to infiltrate America’s subconscious; her decision to suddenly end her film career at the age of 36 only made her more irresistible. Garbo appeared in only 24 movies, yet her impact on the world was rivaled only by Marilyn Monroe. She was a phenomenon, a Sphinx, a myth, but also a Swedish peasant girl, uneducated, naïve, and always on her guard. Acclaimed critic and editor Robert Gottlieb attempts to capture the ever-elusive essence of Garbo through the eyes of others.

One of the world's most iconic movie stars, Kirk Douglas has distinguished himself as a producer, philanthropist, and author of ten works of fiction and memoir. Now, more than fifty years after the release of his enduring epic Spartacus, Douglas reveals the riveting drama behind the making of the legendary gladiator film. Douglas began producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when Hollywood’s moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist sympathies.

This book is created for you, hard-working father who works at a corporate American job to pay the bills. You long to support your family composing music for film, TV, and video games. You get no joy or fulfillment from your work...this is a safe, “real” job. You complain to your wife every night about how you long for the day when you can support your family composing music for film, TV, and video games.

A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.

Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. Wheeler Winston Dixon's A History of Horror is the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre. Arranged by decades, with outliers and franchise films overlapping some years, this one-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman and their various incarnations in film from the silent era to comedic sequels.

How does an immortal deal with death? What kind of person makes the best companion? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud "got on very well"? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what can looking at an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box explores these questions and many more.

Demetri's first literary foray features longer-form essays and conceptual pieces (such as Protagonists' Hospital, a melodrama about the clinic doctors who treat only the flesh wounds and minor head scratches of Hollywood action heroes), as well as his trademark charts, doodles, drawings, one-liners, and lists (i.e., the world views of optimists, pessimists and contortionists), Martin's material is varied, but his unique voice and brilliant mind will keep listeners in stitches from beginning to end.

Few actors have had a career as dynamic as that Kathleen Turner's; success has followed her from the television screen to major blockbusters, from indie films to the theater stage. Over her 40-year career, Turner has developed an instinctual knowledge of what it takes to be a successful actor, and, in her conversations with esteemed film professor Dustin Morrow, she shares these lessons with the world.

So, you want to make a movie and you’ve never done it before. Well the Independent Filmmaking: The Ultimate Guide is a book that can get you started on the right path and learn what to expect going on the journey of independent filmmaking. You will learn the basics of script writing, pre-production, finding cast and crew, production, camera, lighting, sound, editing, and distribution, just to name a few. Learn from me, a filmmaker who has learned and found success in making independent films while seeing and going through all the pitfalls.

We'll Always Have Casablanca is celebrated film historian Noah Isenberg's rich account of this most beloved movie's origins. Through extensive research and interviews with filmmakers, film critics, family members of the cast and crew, and diehard fans, Isenberg reveals the myths and realities behind Casablanca's production, exploring the transformation of the unproduced stage play into the classic screenplay, the controversial casting decisions, and the effect of the war's progress on the movie's reception.

The Mockumentary.. or fake documentary.. is becoming an increasingly successful film and television formula across many genres. Although they all investigate very different people, places, and events, they all share one key characteristic that differentiates them from most documentaries. None of it is real. They're all make-believe.

Salka Viertel's autobiography tells of a brilliant, creative, and well-connected woman's pilgrimage through the darkest years of the 20th century, a journey that would take her from a remote province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Hollywood. The Kindness of Strangers is, to quote the New Yorker writer S. N. Behrman, "a very rich book. It provides a panorama of the dissolving civilizations of the 20th century. In all of them the author lived at the apex of their culture and artistic aristocracies."

15 years after Ondi Timoner’s film Dig! shot The Brian Jonestown Massacre to international fame comes the first ever book on the controversial band and their leader, Anton Newcombe, who together have been at the forefront of the resurgence of psychedelic rock in recent decades — and become one of the most infamous and controversial bands around in the process.

Trivia games are simply a great way to get people of all ages together for a fun and exciting bit of competition. Unfortunately, compiling a list of entertaining questions and unique facts about a wide variety of interesting films is painstakingly time consuming. Luckily, we've already done the hard work for you! This compilation of trivia questions, fun facts, and a bonus PDF are designed to keep you entertained and fully on your toes - with the most popular family films in history, modern animated to Old Hollywood classics, and everything in between, you won't want to stop playing!