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General
Film Criticism, Theory & History
See also: Film: General History New & Featured;
Film: Criticism, Theory and History (more
academic); On Individual Films and Media
> Film Criticism
Backlist
Hollywood Cinema Second Edition
Richard Maltby
This comprehensive introduction to Hollywood cinema provides a
fascinating account of the world's most powerful film industry and
examines its cultural and aesthetic significance. For this new edition,
the book has been extensively revised, with the historical material
updated and references added to Hollywood movies after 1990. Softcover,
696 pp. $65.95.
Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip
Movies, Memory, and World War II
Richard Schickel
In this beguiling memoir, film critic and biographer Richard Schickel
recounts the details of the two most significant aspects of his childhood:
the movies, and World War II. Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip begins
as a personal treatise, but ultimately develops into a ubiquitous account
of the role of popular culture during wartime. A timely and highly
readable book. Hardcover, 329 pp. $44.00.
Videohound's Cult Flicks & Trash Pics
Carol Schwartz and Jim Olenski
These 1,313 expertly written reviews bring you up close and personal
with the underworld of fringe filmmaking. In addition, this volume contains
informative side-bars detailing the contributions of key filmmakers and
defining the pertinent terminology. Add an introduction written by Bruce
Campbell and you have a indispensible guide to the best and worst in cult
cinema. Softcover, 841 pp. $34.95.
Animals in Film
Jonathan Burt
From Salvador Dali to Walt Disney, animals have been a constant
-- yet little considered -- presence in film. Animals in Film is
a shrewd account of the politics of animals in cinema, of how
movies and video have developed as weapons for animal rights'
activists, and of the roles that animals have played in film,
from the avant-garde to Hollywood. Softcover, 232 pp. $26.95.
Fleshpot: Cinema's Sexual Myth Makers & Taboo
Breakers
Jack Stevenson
Fleshpot is an indispensible guide to the alternative realms
of erotic cinema, and a delirious sampling of the genres, personalities
and trends that have set screens aflame since the dawn of motion
pictures. This anthology of texts by an international group of
experts and cult film personalities provides a fascinating and
informative introduction to this multifarious subject. Softcover,
256 pp. $32.95.
Disney: The First 100
Years
Dave Smith & Steven Clark
Disney: The First 100 Years explores the Disney story --
the story of a man, a family, and a company. You'll meet the
people who helped Walt make his dreams come true, see a museum's
worth of classic photos, and be there for the opening of the
most famous tourist attraction on the planet. Beautifully illustrated
in colour and black & white. Softcover, 214 pp. $36.00.
The
New Biographical Dictionary of Film
David Thomson
More a bible than a dictionary, this revised edition of David Thomson's
definitive classic is required reading for anyone with even a passing interest
in film. With over 1300 concise yet astutely observed biographical sketches
of the most significant personalities in film history, this book is as intelligent
as it is comprehensive as it is entertaining. Essential. Hardcover, 963
pp. $53.00.
Afterglow:
A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael
Francis Davis
Davis, a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly, shares a most
illuminating and candid interview with the most passionate and iconoclastic
of film critics shortly before her death in September 2001. She talks about
her long life and love of and disenchantment with cinema. A fascinatingly
thought provoking book for the movie fan. Hardcover, $27.50.
Nobody's Perfect
Anthony Lane
As a film critic for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane
has established a reputation for himself as one of the wittiest
and most astute in the business. Collected in this volume are
some of his best critical reviews, of both films and books, as
well as a selection of topical essays. This is both an indispensible
primer and a rich resource to the verve and intelligence of one
of today's most talented cultural critics. Softcover, 752 pp.,
$25.95.
The
American Film Institute Desk Reference
Melinda Corey and George Ochoa
The American Film Institute Desk Reference is the most complete
one-volume source of everything you need to know about movies and
the people behind them. Comprehensive, informative, and visually
appealing, it is the perfect companion for anyone interested in
movies. Hardcover, 608 pp., $60.
All About Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels
Judith Roof
A meticulous rereading of Hollywood from the margins, All About Thelma
and Eve offers an inventive look at female comic secondary characters
who, though never on center stage, play an indispensible role in enriching
and complicating the course of the narrative. Softcover, 212 pp. $28.95.
Film Facts
Patrick Robertson
For anyone interested in films and their history, this book
is a treasure trove of the curious, the unexpected, the mind-boggling,
and the unimportant-but-nevertheless-intriging. If you are curious
about the first novelization of a movie script, the greatest
number of retakes of a single scene, the title of the top-grossing
silent film, or the identity of the actress who has taken the
starring role in over 1,000 movies, you will find the answers,
and thousands of other, in this fascinating book. Softcover,
256 pp. $29.95.
Silent Players
Anthony Slide
100 of the best, brightest, and most unusual silent film actors
and actresses are profiled in this illuminating collection of biographical
and autobiographical sketches. Silent Players also offers fascinating
insight into silent film performance, from makeup to acting techniques and
pantomine to the role of the director. A remarkable resource for fans of
the silent cinema. Hardcover, 439 pp. $65.95.
The Big Tomorrow
Lary May
In this daring reexamination of the connections between national
politics and Hollywood movies, Lary May offers a fresh interpretation of
American culture from the New Deal through the Cold War -- one in which
a populist, egalitarian ethos found itself eventually supplanted by a far
different view of the nation. Softcover, 348 pp. $29.95.
MGM's Greatest Musicals:
The Arthur Freed Unit
Hugh Fordin
A turbulent, behind-the-scenes, film-by-film account of the making
of the most outstanding series of musicals in motion picture history. From
1940 to 1970, M-G-M producer Arthur Reed produced The Wizard Of Oz, Show
Boat, Singin' In The Rain, Meet Me In St. Louis, An American In Paris, Kismet
and many others. Softcover, $34.95.
Miller's
Movie Collectibles
Rudy & Barbara Franchi
This book is both a catalogue of movie memorabilia and a beginner's
guide to the hobby and business of collecting. More than 300 photographs
show wide range of movie collectibles, from Gone With The Wind posters,
to Dorothy's ruby slippers. Hardcover, $36.95.
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The Gross
Peter Bart
It's summer and the stakes are high. Summertime is a season of career-endangering
gambles based on high concept plots and past track records. Bart's insider report
of one summer in Hollywood is better than any of the blockbusters he dissects. The
hits, the flops from the summer that ate Hollywood. $22.99.
Hollywood
Archive: The Hidden History of Hollywood In The Golden Age
Paddy Calistro and Fred E. Basten
This lavish book is a collection of gorgeous photos and accompanying
articles about Hollywood in the era between it's birth in 1896 and it's last
glamour years in1960.
Featuring original text from the children of celebrated personalities
such as Cecil B.DeMille, the notoriously fervent director, and Jesse L. Lasky,
the first Hollywood
film studio mogul, this book offers an engaging look at the heyday
of the silver screen and everything that was kept behind closed doors. Hardcover,
$85.00.
Hollywood's Revolutionary Decade
Charles Champlin
In 1968 Hollywood adopted a ratings system that revolutionized the form and content
of movies, allowing them to explore areas like sex, politics, and violence with bold
visual images, shocking language, and new ideas about how films are made. As American
movies in the 1970s captured a society in upheaval, Charles Champlin captured the
movies in his reviews. Here are 50 reviews of what he considers the most important
films of that decade. Softcover, $23.95.
Only Entertainment
Richard Dyer
The idea of entertainment is a guiding principle for both makers and audiences of
films, television programs and other media. Yet, while entertainment is often derided
or praised, the concept itself is often taken for granted. Only Entertainment
explores entertainment as entertainment, asking how and whether an emphasis on the
primacy of pleasure sets it apart from other forms of art. Softcover, $34.95.
The Great Movies
Roger Ebert
" This is a wonderful book, an appreciation of the greatest movies by the greatest
movie enthusiast - and also the shrewdest, the most humane and clear-sighted. I read
this book with pleasure, enlightenment, and a desire to see many of the movies again,
because I had missed what Roger saw." Paul Theroux
Hardcover, $41.95.
I
Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie
Roger Ebert
New from Roger Ebert...More scathing than a thumbs down, more inflamed than burning
film in an overheated projector, such are the reviews that Roger Ebert has penned
about bad movies. I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie collects more than two
hundred of this most biting, sarcastic and funny critiques, selected from those unlucky
movies that garnered a rating of a mere two stars or less. Softcover, $22.95.
Roger
Ebert's Book of Film
Roger Ebert
From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the finest writing from a century of film. Roger Ebert
has selected and introduced an international treasury of more than one hundred selections
that touch on every aspect of film-making and film going. There are the stars (Capote
on Monroe), the directors (John Huston on himself), the makers and shakers (Darryl
F. Zanuck), the critics and theorists (Pauline Kael) and the novelists (F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Larry McMurtry). Hardcover, $44.95.
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