Film Entertainment

Kenneth Turan discovered film as a child left undisturbed to watch Million Dollar Movie on WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York, a daily showcase for older Hollywood features. It was then that he developed a love of cinema that never left him and honed his eye for the most acute details and the grandest of scenes. Not to Be Missed blends cultural criticism, historical anecdotes, and inside-Hollywood controversy. Turan's selection of favorites ranges across all genres.

Women have been instrumental in the success of American cinema since its very beginning. One of the first people to ever pick up a motion picture camera was a woman, as was the first screenwriter to win two Academy Awards, the inventor of the boom microphone, and the first person to be credited with the title film editor. Throughout the entire history of Hollywood women have been revolutionizing, innovating, and shaping how we make movies. Yet their stories are rarely shared. This is what film reporter Alicia Malone wants to change. Backwards and in Heels tells the history of women in film in a different way.

Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainment was the most remarkable B-movie studio of the 1990s, responsible for a barrage of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror classics during the last true "golden age" of the home video era. From Puppetmaster to Trancers and beyond, Full Moon transformed the VHS experience for fans worldwide, bringing the inner workings of the movie-making process into the living room, and in turn creating a ravenous fan base that remains to this day.

Beginning with her harsh childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland, Warren Harris chronicles Audrey Hepburn's meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom: her chance encounter with Colette that led to the lead role in the Broadway version of Gigi, and her first starring role in Roman Holiday, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Hepburn played opposite the top leading men, worked for the best directors, and picked from a wide range of roles.

A presence in Third Reich cinema, Adolf Hitler also personally financed, ordered, and censored films and newsreels and engaged in complex relationships with their stars and directors. Here, Bill Niven offers a powerful argument for reconsidering Hitler's fascination with film as a means to further the Nazi agenda. In this first English-language work to fully explore Hitler's influence on and relationship with film in Nazi Germany, the author calls on a broad array of archival sources. Niven also explores Hitler's representation in Third Reich cinema, personally and through films focusing on historical figures with whom he was associated

On December 26, 1973, The Exorcist was released. Within days it had become legend. Moviegoers braved hours-long lines in winter weather to see it. Some audience members famously fainted or vomited. Half a century later, the movie that both inspired and transcends the modern horror genre has lost none of its power to terrify and unsettle. The Exorcist Legacy reveals the complete story of this cultural phenomenon, from the real-life exorcism in 1949 Maryland that inspired William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel on which the movie is based, to its many sequels, prequels, TV series, and homages.

From the authors who brought you TAKING SHAPE comes REIGN OF CHUCKY, an exhaustive new look at the cinematic history of everyone’s favorite Good Guy. Covering all seven films in the franchise, this is the book that Chucky fans have been waiting for. Go behind the scenes of the first film to learn how Don Mancini’s original Blood Buddy script evolved into Child’s Play as we know it, then listen about how the franchise was continually reinvented across a slew of clever sequels

In How to Start and Run Your Own Video Production Company, you will learn every aspect of the trade, from the initial setup to seeing the orders roll in and keeping customers happy. The book covers every aspect of the business, including: selecting your company structure, finding your first customers, pricing services, tips for setting up, following your financial plan, working with investors, forming a marketing strategy, and much more.

Best known for his horror/sci-fi/fantasy films including Phantasm, The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-tep, and John Dies at the End, now Don Coscarelli’s taking you on a white-knuckle ride through the rough and tumble world of indie film. This memoir fits an entire film school education into a single audiobook. It’s loaded with behind-the-scenes stories and will prove indispensable for fans of Coscarelli’s movies, aspiring filmmakers, and anyone who loves a story of an underdog who prevails while not betraying what he believes.

It’s harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model for making money with your film is broken, and there needs to be a change.

From former screen legends who have faded into obscurity to new revelations about the biggest movie stars, Valderrama unearths the most fascinating little-known tales from the birth of Hollywood through its Golden Age. The shocking fate of the world's first movie star. Clark Gable's secret love child. The film that nearly ended Paul Newman's career. A former child star who, at 93, reveals her #metoo story for the first time. Valderrama unfolds these stories, and many more, in a volume that is by turns riveting, maddening, hilarious, and shocking.

In this intensive, intimate, and anything-but-glamorous behind-the-scenes account, film insider and cinephile Paul M. Sammon explores how Ridley Scott used his creative genius to transform the work of science fiction's most uncompromising author into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic that would reinvent the genre.

Directors operate behind the scenes managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions onscreen that it is easy to forget the individual who is off-screen orchestrating the entire production - to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people's money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction.

From the Emmy Award-winning Squid Game to streaming sensations like The Glory and Crash Landing on You, Korean television has emerged onto the global pop culture scene as compelling television—but what exactly makes these shows so irresistibly bingeable? And what can we learn about our societies and ourselves from watching them? From stand-up comedian and media studies PhD Grace Jung comes a rollicking deep dive into the cultural significance of Korean television.

Since its publication in 1966, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls has reigned as one of the most influential pieces of commercial fiction. Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! digs deep into the creation of that hugely successful film - a journey nearly as cut-throat, sexually charged, tragic, and revelatory as Susann's novel itself - and uncovers how the movie has become a cherished, widely imitated camp classic, thanks to its over-the-top performances, endlessly quotable absurd dialogue, outre costumes and hairdos, despite the high aspirations, money, and talent lavished on it.

Her agent told her not to get on the plane. The male leads weren't even cast. The financing was shaky at best. The script had been rewritten countless times. And yet something about Wild Oats lured Shirley MacLaine to the film's location shoot in the far-off Canary Islands - and straight to the center of one of the most thrilling and paradigm-shifting adventures of her life.

The Star Wars films continue to revolutionize science fiction, creating new standards for cinematographic excellence and permeating popular culture around the world. The films feature many complex themes ranging from good versus evil and moral development and corruption to religious faith and pragmatism, forgiveness and redemption, and many others.

As a casting director for 23 years, Holly Powell witnessed the casting world from three different points of view: as an independent casting director, as head of casting for a studio, and as a network casting executive. From this unique perspective she formed Holly Powell Studios, with her mission being to demystify the audition process for actors.

In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood’s corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more.

From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented.