Film Entertainment

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.

March 20, 2019 marked the end of an era - Disney took ownership of the movie empire that was Fox. For almost a century before that historic date, Twentieth Century-Fox was one of the preeminent producers of films, stars, and filmmakers. Its unique identity in the industry and place in movie history is unparalleled - and one of the greatest stories to come out of Hollywood.

This is the story of the voice of a generation, the legend—Kishore Kumar. Beginning with his time spent in Khandwa, Bhagalpur and Indore and going on to Bombay where Kishore moved to try his luck in cinema, this new biography by Parthiv Dhar and Anirudha Bhattacharjee tells it all. A product of over thirty years of research, it goes beyond Kishore's nearly three thousand songs and his varied contributions to cinema, and reveals unknown facts about his four marriages, his run-ins with the government in the 1970s, and his health issues.

Growing up in a small town in Oregon, I was always searching for something to keep me occupied. Luckily, I discovered the joy of video games and the thrill of embarking on wild adventures outside. It was a welcome escape from reality, and a way to enter another world entirely. As I got older, movies became another avenue for me to immerse myself in different worlds and become one with the main character, living their story as if it was my own.

Movies (And Other Things) is a book about, quite frankly, movies (and other things). One of the chapters, for example, answers which race Kevin Costner was able to white savior the best, because did you know that he white saviors Mexicans in McFarland, USA, and white saviors Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, and white saviors Black people in Black or White, and white saviors the Cleveland Browns in Draft Day? Another of the chapters creates a special version of the Academy Awards specifically for rom-coms, the most underrated movie genre of all.

Today's most acclaimed film directors reveal intimate behind-the-scenes details of their most influential work and their unique approaches to their art. In the companion to the Silver Plaque-winning Starz/Encore documentary series, this book offers interviews with 13 top filmmakers. Contains each director's filmography, complete listings of major awards, and cast credits for all films discussed.

Why would anyone want to watch horror movies? Why would Christians, in particular, bother with the genre? In Fear Not!, critic Josh Larsen makes the case that monster movies, creature features, slashers, and other fright films artfully reflect our deep worries in a way that resonates with the Christian experience. Combining critical observation and theological reflection, Larsen devotes each chapter to a different horror subgenre, connecting that subgenre to a commonly shared fear.

Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s glamour. A legendary "Love Goddess", she was a huge box-office star, and her sultry beauty and sensational figure made her into one of Hollywood's greatest sex-symbols: a pin-up so incendiary that GIs pasted it on to the first atom bomb ever detonated.

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."

Is the Dude a bowling-loving stoner or a philosophical genius living the good life? Naturally, it's the latter, and The Big Lebowski and Philosophy explains why. Enlisting the help of great thinkers like Plato and Nietzsche, the book explores the movie's hidden philosophical layers, cultural reflection, and political commentary.

The saga behind The Blues Brothers, as Daniel de Visé reveals, is epic, encompassing the colorful childhoods of Belushi and Aykroyd; the comedic revolution sparked by Harvard’s Lampoon and Chicago’s Second City; the birth and anecdote-rich, drug-filled early years of Saturday Night Live, where the Blues Brothers were born as an act amidst turmoil and rivalry; and, of course, the indelible behind-the-scenes narrative of how the film was made, scene by memorable scene.

In the spring of 1987, over 60 million viewers tuned in to watch Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and David Addison (Bruce Willis) “get together” in one of the most famously controversial scenes in television history on Moonlighting, ABC’s groundbreaking series about an epically mismatched pair of private detectives. Two years later, the show was canceled due to low ratings. What happened?

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.

In December 2016, the world was shaken by the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, two unspeakable losses. The stunned public turned for solace to Debbie’s only remaining child, Todd Fisher. The son of "America’s Sweethearts" Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Todd grew up amid the glamorous wealth and pretense of Hollywood. Thanks to his mother, Todd remained down to earth, his own man, but always close to his cherished mom, and to his sister through her meteoric rise to stardom and her struggle with demons that never diminished her humor, talent, or spirit.

In 1969, Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words - "That's what it's all about, man" - to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper-middle-class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives.

Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood presents a look back at four decades of the successful, spooky soap opera that made sympathetic vampire Barnabas Collins a pop-culture phenomenon and prompted the big-budget big-screen Warner Bros. revival starring longtime fan Johnny Depp, directed by Tim Burton, that premiered May 11, 2012. With the ongoing fascination for all things vampiric, this audiobook about the making of the new film and the history of the original series will be an enticing volume for new and old fans alike.

At last, everything you ever wanted to know about "Gilligan's Island" from the Professor himself, Russell Johnson. Sit right back and take a nostalgic, first-hand look into the world of Gilligan's Island. Directly from the ship's log, Russell Johnson takes you the day when Sherwood Schwartz shipwrecked seven strangers on a tiny desert isle—and America hasn't been the same since.

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.

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.

Hosts Mike Kalinowski and Brad Gilmore team up in this comprehensive breakdown of the longest running film series in the history of cinema. In Bond, James Bond, they explore the cinematic history of the James Bond collection to celebrate everything it got right and reflect on everything it got wrong.