Film Entertainment

An unflinching confrontation of humanity’s dark side, Brian De Palma’s crime drama film Scarface gave rise to a cultural revolution upon its release in 1983. Its impact was unprecedented, making globe-spanning waves as a defining portrait of the gritty Miami street life. From Al Pacino’s masterful characterization of Tony Montana to the iconic “Say hello to my little friend,” Scarface maintains its reputation as an unwavering game changer in cult classic cinema.

If you're serious about your screenwriting, then you're serious about seeing your scripts produced. This book cuts to the chase with the point-by-point essentials behind every successful screenplay and shows you how to demonstrate the professional expertise that will get your scripts noticed. It's a quick, concise listen that gets to the bottom line with a no-nonsense approach to put your writing on a level with Hollywood's working professional screenwriters. Making movies is a complex matter so difficult that very few atempt it.

Now Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate Sound of Music fan audiobook with all the inside dope, from behind-the-scenes stories of the filming in Austria and Hollywood to new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others. Santopietro looks back at the real-life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the story of the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

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.

Part autobiography, part master class, Living the Braveheart Life invites us to explore five major archetypes in Braveheart that resonate not only in Randall's life but in the modern-day lives of both men and women: the father, teacher, warrior, sage, and outlaw. Join blockbuster film director Randall Wallace on the journey of his creative and personal life.

From the New York Times best-selling author Marc Eliot comes the definitive biography of one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful actors, producers, and directors in the history of American motion pictures. Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often tumultuous arc of Eastwood's life and career, from his days as a disaffected college dropout, to his rise to fame as the archetypal loner, to his acceptance into the pantheon of the Academy as a multiple Oscar Award winner.

In I'll Have What She's Having, entertainment journalist Erin Carlson tells the story of the real Nora Ephron and how she reinvented the romcom through her trio of instant classics. With a cast of famous faces including Reiner, Hanks, Ryan, and Crystal, Carlson takes listeners on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron - who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted it - ruled the set with an attention to detail that made her actors feel safe but sometimes exasperated crew members.

"The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions", said the existentialist thinker Albert Camus. And no less a philosopher than Woody Allen has wondered: "How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?" The essays in Movies and the Meaning of Life look at popular and cult movies, examining their assumptions and insights on meaning-of-life questions....

This edition of Story by Numbers is no longer available.

Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, immigrated from a shtetl in Lithuania to the United States in 1894 after his father secured a job as a rabbi in Washington, D.C. A poor, Yiddish-speaking newcomer navigating a racially segregated and antisemitic America, young Jolson dreamed of becoming a star, and he did. Through Jolson, Bernstein simultaneously breaks open the history and legacy of the cultural sensation The Jazz Singer. Not only was The Jazz Singer the first feature-length film with synchronized music and dialogue, but it was also taboo smashing in its content.

Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working-class kids and the white-collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs, and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn't start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn't have the word classic in mind as the cameras were rolling.

If you're watching a movie where a world-weary detective is having trouble with a "dame" or a "broad", and cigarette smoke is wafting through the scene - you're probably appreciating a bit of "film noir". Film noir literally means black film referring to both the look and the attitude of these movies.

For 75 years, Wonder Woman has served as an inspiration to people everywhere. Wonder Woman Psychology: Lassoing the Truth examines this powerful superhero - who was created by famous psychologist William Moulton Marston - through 20 chapters, including some very special interviews and the previously unpublished memoir of Elizabeth Holloway Marston.

Author Lynn delves into Chaplin's childhood and family, his often controversial relationships with four wives and a slew of mistresses, and his associations with British music-hall impresario Fred Karno and silent-screen star and pal Douglas Fairbanks. He addresses Chaplin's political influences and convictions, and brings a keen, critical intelligence to the meaning of the films, illuminating Chaplin's elusive genius.

Josephine Alibrandi is 17 and in her final year of school. Dealing with her mum and the ways of her Nonna are daunting enough as she prepares for her exams. But Josie is about to discover real life gets in the way of her carefully-made plans.

The definitive biography of movie executive and philanthropist Sherry Lansing traces her groundbreaking journey to become the first female head of a major motion picture studio, shares behind-the-scenes tales from movie sets and Hollywood boardrooms, and explains what inspired her to walk away from it all to start the Sherry Lansing Foundation.

Fifty years after her death, Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe still beguiles the world, her image enthralling millions. Many books have attempted to explain her allure and tell her story, but none has succeeded as well as this work by acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto. Spoto’s exhaustive research uncovers a conspiracy of silence, allowing him to present the facts, free from often-repeated myths and speculation. Granted access to more than thirty-five thousand pages of formerly sealed files containing letters, diaries, appointment books, and other intimate papers, he also interviewed nearly two hundred people who had never before spoken on record.

In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend - and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony, and two Emmys. Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea voyage with her mother and wound up in the harsh barrios of the Bronx, where she discovered dancing, singing, and acting as ways to escape a tumultuous childhood.

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors, and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend?

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream.