Film History

Serving as the sequel to Gene Roddenberry's original television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation pushed the boundaries of the "final frontier." At the same time, the show continued the franchise's celebrated exploration of the human experience, reflecting current social and political events. ST: TNG became immensely successful, spawning four feature films and several television spin-offs. This collection of new essays explores both the series' characters and its themes.

Ever wish you could have your very own lightsaber like Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or that you could fly through space at the speed of light like Han Solo and Poe Dameron? Well, those ideas aren't as outlandish as you think. In The Physics of Star Wars, you'll explore the mystical power of the Force using quantum mechanics, find out how much energy it would take for the Death Star or Starkiller Base to destroy a planet, and discover how we can potentially create our very own lightsabers.

On the eve the 20th century, in Thomas Edison’s laboratory, one of the earliest attempts at a sound film depicted two men dancing together as a third plays the violin. It’s only a few minutes long, but this cornerstone of early cinema captures a queer moment on film. It would not be the last. Hollywood Pride is a tale spanning from “pansy craze” of the 1930s to the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, all the way up to today.

In 1911, famed cartoonist Winsor McCay debuted one of the first animated cartoons, based on his sophisticated newspaper strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, itself inspired by Freud’s recent research on dreams. McCay is largely forgotten today, but he unleashed an art form and the creative energy of artists from Otto Messmer and Max Fleischer to Walt Disney and Warner Bros.’ Chuck Jones. Wild Minds is an ode to our colorful past and to the creative energy that later inspired The Simpsons, South Park, and BoJack Horseman.

From the author of Phantasm Exhumed comes Slash of the Titans, a revealing look at why it took New Line Cinema nearly 10 years and four-million-dollars to find the right screenplay for Freddy vs Jason. Featuring new interviews with the original writers and filmmakers, Slash details the production's troubled history from the surprise ending of Jason Goes to Hell all the way to the crossover’s red carpet premiere.

At a time when the studio is making a stunning comeback, film historian Thomas Schatz provides an indispensable account of Hollywood's traditional blend of business and art. Working from industry documents, Schatz traces the development of house styles, the rise and fall of careers, and the making - and unmaking - of movies, from Frankenstein to Spellbound to Grand Hotel. The Genius of the System gives the definitive view of the workings of the Old Hollywood and the foundations of the New.

In this companion volume to The Discoverers, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin brings to life more than three thousand years of human artistic achievement, examining painting, sculpture, architecture, theology, philosophy, history, poetry, drama, literature, dance, music, and film.

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?

In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....

Saul Goodman v. Jimmy McGill: The Better Call Saul Critical Companion collects chief TV critic at Rolling Stone Alan Sepinwall's critical essays on every episode of the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated series. Sepinwall covered Better Call Saul from start to finish, and conducted exhaustive interviews with creator Vince Gilligan and stars Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seahorn, reproduced here alongside new interviews with series cocreator Peter Gould.

It’s been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans’ lives, reminding San Diego to “stay classy” while lampooning a time gone by—although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal, comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, and so many more.

As the 100th anniversary of the fateful night approaches, Palmer follows up innumerable conflicting stories and theories that still, to this day, surround the doomed liner. Charles Herbert Lightoller, Palmer’s great uncle, was the highest-ranking surviving officer from the disaster. It was only after the great man’s death in 1952 that his sister, Gertrude, Palmer’s eccentric grandmother, began to hint to her young grandson of the contradictory accounts of both her brother’s supposed heroism and his suspect testimonies at the investigations into the sinking.

Discover the science behind the most popular sci-fi franchise of all time. Capturing the imagination and hearts of crowds worldwide, Star Wars is a fantastic feat of science fiction and fantasy. We marvel at the variety of creatures and technology and the mystery behind the force. But how much of the Star Wars world is rooted in reality? Could we see some of the extraordinary inventions materialize in our world?

Based on years of astonishing research, Natalie Wood (previously published as Natasha) raises the curtain on Wood’s turbulent life. Award-winning author Suzanne Finstad conducted nearly 400 interviews with Natalie Wood’s family, close friends, legendary costars, lovers, film crews, and virtually everyone connected to her death. Through these firsthand accounts, Finstad reconstructs a life of emotional abuse and exploitation, of unimaginable fame, great loneliness, and loss.

Molding a Jurassic Universe is a collection of essays exploring the space where nostalgia and geek culture collide, all through the lens of Jurassic Park and the Jurassic Park franchise. The 21 essays muse on traumatized heroes, dinosaur martyrdom, the ethical implications of having a theme park full of extinct creatures brought back to life, cynicism as form and function in filmmaking, a shaving cream can as a foundation to worldbuilding, and more.

Almost everything you know about Mickey Mouse is wrong: He wasn’t Disney’s first star; Steamboat Willie wasn’t his first movie; Mickey wasn’t a nice guy - and Walt Disney didn’t invent him. In 1928, two very different best friends invented Mickey Mouse. And the success tore them apart. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’ friendship is a story of betrayal, love, war, money, power, tragedy, intrigue, humor, despair, and hope. You’ll love them both - when you don’t want to drop anvils on their heads.

Based on characters created by Archie Comics, Josie and the Pussycats was a box office disappointment for MGM and Universal who produced and distributed the movie but has gone on to become a cult classic in the years since. Best Movie Ever is the product of dozens of hours of interviews with members of the movie’s cast and crew, as well as industry analysts, comic book creators, and the fans who helped keep the movie alive after the filmmakers had been told it was “dead on arrival".

Born to immigrant parents and raised in the slums of Toronto during the Depression, Ted Kotcheff learned storytelling on the streets before taking a stagehand job at CBC Television. Discovering his skills with actors and production, Kotcheff went on to direct some of the greatest films of the freewheeling 1970s, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Wake in Fright, and North Dallas Forty.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African-American experience, a powerful new history of the Black church in America as the Black community's abiding rock and its fortress.

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.