Film Entertainment

Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress, and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese, and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives, and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.

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.

Here for the first time is the definitive untold story of Donald Trump’s years as a reality TV star. Trump himself admits he might not have been president without The Apprentice. Now, just as he uncovered the chaos inside the daytime favorite The View in his bestselling Ladies Who Punch, Ramin Setoodeh chronicles Trump’s dramatic tenure as New York’s ultimate boss in the boardroom, a mirage created by Survivor producer Mark Burnett and NBC boss Jeff Zucker.

The Directors, Take Three offers dozens of masterful insights on the craft of directing from such renowned filmmakers as Robert Altman, Wes Craven, Alan Parker, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, and Barry Levinson. Here are details of their experiences making a variety of classic films from Nashville to Nightmare on Elm Street, Rain Man to Raging Bull, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure to Schindler's List.

Michael E. Uslan, executive producer of the Batman movie franchise, offers an insider’s look at Hollywood and the process of how movies and television shows go from the drawing board to your screens. Continuing the delightful tale of his adventures begun in The Boy Who Loved Batman, Uslan draws on both his successful and less successful attempts to bring ideas to the screen, offering a helpful, honest, and breezily told guide to producing films.

The third of Judy Garland's five husbands, Sid Luft was the one man in her life who stuck around. He was chiefly responsible for the final act of Judy's meteoric comeback after she was unceremoniously booted off the MGM lot: he produced her iconic, Oscar-nominated vehicle A Star Is Born and expertly shaped her concert career.

Professor Joseph Luzzi, the director of Italian studies at Bard College and an award-winning author, offers a comprehensive look at Italian cinema from its inception in 1895 through its major periods and influences. Having altered the landscape of Italian art and society, as well as inspiring filmmakers the world over, Italian cinema proves a fascinating study. Major focuses of the course include neorealism, the Spaghetti Western, the Italian giallo, and Italian-style comedy.

Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre? And why can’t we look away? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue the Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake.

Susie Bright, “The Pauline Kael of Porn” (SF Chronicle), rips open the history of erotic cinema before the internet— from the Golden Age of lavish 35mm hardcore, to the video-inspired “Porno Spring”, initiated by none other than punk, feminist, and lesbian video-makers.

Gordy LaSure's passionate about film. He eats film, he drinks film, and sometimes he'll even watch a film. But most of all, he loves talking about film, and how they'd be a shit-ton better if only people would pull their asses out of their ears and listen to Gordy LaSure. Why are some films bad and some films terrible? How come just a handful of films (Titanic, Porky's, Dirty Harry) are any good at all? Gordy'll tell you How and Why, and he'll give you a shot of Wherefore on the side. And he doesn't shoot from the hip; he shoots from the gut.

Available only in audio, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - Makers, Mysteries and Magic lifts the lid on the moviemaking secrets behind the latest installment in J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts series. Narrator Dan Fogler (who plays No-Maj Jacob Kowalski) will guide you through the process of creating the magical on-screen world and explore the story, themes, and characters of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

With a new introduction, acclaimed director and screenwriter Paul Schrader revisits and updates his contemplation of slow cinema over the past fifty years. Unlike the style of psychological realism, which dominates film, the transcendental style expresses a spiritual state by means of austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment.

At last, the definitive audiobook about perhaps the best cabin crew dramedy ever filmed: View from the Top starring Gwyneth Paltrow. In Ayoade on Top, Richard Ayoade, perhaps one of the most 'insubstantial' people of our age, takes us on a journey from Peckham to Paris by way of Nevada and other places we don't care about. It's a journey deep within, in a way that's respectful and non-invasive; a journey for which we will all pay a heavy price, even if you've waited for the smaller paperback edition. Ayoade argues for the canonisation of this brutal masterpiece.

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."

While gangster films are one of America's most popular genres, gangster movies appear in every film industry across the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, A Companion to the Gangster Film explores the popularity of gangster films across three major continents: the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

In many ways, Kamal Haasan is unique. One of the greatest actors India has ever produced, he has usually gone further than just enacting a role to completely immersing himself in it. Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey explores some 50 films out of the 245 Haasan has been associated with and analyses his cinematic journey from his beginnings as a child star all the way to his latest blockbusters.

The Towering Inferno (1974) was the crowning achievement of über-producer Irwin Allen, the self-proclaimed “Master of disaster.” Crafted from two best-selling books and with a budget-busting cast headed by two mega-stars, it took two studios to bring it to the screen. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Towering Inferno, biographer-historian Nat Segaloff (who was a member of the film’s special publicity unit) writes about the production, its innovative marketing campaign, and the goings-on before, during, and after its box office success.

In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews shares reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria.

In this essential guide to acting, internationally renowned directing coach Judith Weston demonstrates what constitutes a good performance, what actors want from a director, and what directors do wrong. She also goes over script analysis and preparation and how actors work, and she shares important and helpful insights into the director/actor relationship.

Walt Disney was a true visionary whose desire for escape, iron determination, and obsessive perfectionism transformed animation from a novelty to an art form, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films–most notably Snow White, Fantasia, and Bambi.