The 100 Best Movies You've Never
Seen
By Richard Crouse
ook
Description:
Offbeat movie buffs, discerning video renters, and critical viewers will
benefit from this roll call of the best overlooked films of the last 70 years.
Richard Crouse, film critic and host of television's award-winning Reel to
Real, details his favorite films, from the sublime Monsoon Wedding to the
ridiculous Eegah! The Name Written
in Blood. Each movie is featured with a detailed description of plot,
notable trivia tidbits, critical reviews, and interviews with actors and
filmmakers. Featured interviews include Bill Wyman on a little-known Rolling
Stones documentary, schlockmeister Lloyd Kaufman on
the history of the Toxic Avenger, reclusive writer and director Hampton Fancher on his film The Minus Man,
and B-movie hero Bruce Campbell on playing Elvis Presley in Bubba Ho-Tep. Sidebars feature quirky details, including legal
disclaimers and memorable quotes.
Crime Wave: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Crime
Movies
by Howard Hughes
One of Hollywood's most triumphant successes is the crime movie. Crime Wave
offers an authoritative and entertaining guide to the crime movie genre from
its beginnings to the present, charting its history, its sub-genres, and its
developments. The book focuses on the most interesting and influential films,
from Little Caesar,The
Maltese Falcon, Point Blank, and The Godfather trilogy to L.A. Confidential,
Ocean's Eleven, and many others.
Crime Wave covers gangster and heist movies, blaxploitation,
noir, murder mystery, and vigilante and buddy cop movies. Hughes explores each
film's sources and influences, its impact on the crime genre and current
fashion, including spin-offs, copies and sequels, themes, style, and box office
fortunes. Detailed cast lists are provided for each of the main films, as are
biographies and filmographies of the key personnel,
along with background details of the films' production, locations, and sets.
The Filmmaker's Guide to Production Design
By Vincent LoBrutto
Book Description
Learn to turn a simple screenplay into a visual masterpiece! Top production
designers share their real-life experiences to explain the aesthetic,
narrative, and technical aspects of the craft. Step by step, aspiring
filmmakers will discover sound instruction on the tools of the trade, and
established filmmakers will enjoy a new outlook on production design. They will
learn, for example, the craft behind movie magic-such as how to create a design
metaphor, choose a color scheme, use space, and work within all genres of film,
from well-funded studio projects to "guerilla filmmaking." This
indispensable resource also contains a history of movie mak 828i822i ing and guidelines
for digital production design. For the experienced filmmaker seeking new design
ideas to the struggling newcomer stretching low-budget dollars, this book makes
the processes and concepts of production design accessible.
Shoot Me: Independent Filmmaking from Creative Concept to
Rousing Release
By Rocco Simonelli, Roy Frumkes
Book Description
When the script says "shoot me" and
Witty, original, and ruthlessly on the mark, this unvarnished look at
independent filmmaking chronicles both the creative intricacies of
collaboration and the tricks of staying in budget and out of court. The authors
compare notes as they describe the entire filmmaking process, with coverage
including:
* Targeting the audience for the script-and tailoring the script for the
audience
* Raising money-your friends, your family, and the millionaire next door
* Casting-names, no-names, and personality nightmares
* Locations-finding them, securing them, and sometimes even stealing them
* Producing-creating a budget, scheduling the shoot, and dealing with unions
* Directing-working with actors and protecting your vision
* Editing-or dropping that scene you thought was a gem
* Celebrating, publicizing, and distributing the finished product
For any film student or indie buff seeking an insider's perspective of the art
and business of independent filmmaking, it doesn't get any closer than this.
Videohound's Golden
Movie Retriever 2008 (Videohound's Golden Movie
Retriever Series
by Jim Craddock
Book Description:
VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2008 is the most
comprehensive single-volume film guide you can buy. It contains capsule reviews
of more than 22,000 movies, written with wit and good humor; the films are
rated in a range from "four bones" to "WOOF!" Each entry notes
the year the film was released; its running time; its availability on
videocassette, laserdisc, and DVD; its chief credits; and whether the film was
made in black and white or color. Unlike many rival guides, the Retriever
includes made-for-television movies, straight-to-video releases, miniseries,
and television shows that are currently available on video. But that's not all:
the second half of the volume is an enormous book of lists, making it a
valuable film encyclopedia as well. The award index covers not only the Oscars,
the BAFTA Awards, and the Cannes Film Festival winners, but also the Golden
Globe, the Canadian Genie, the Independent Spirit, and the MTV Movie Awards. VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2008 categorizes films
by their country of origin and by director, star, writer, cinematographer, and
composer. If you want to find information on the World Wide Web, check out the
directory of the best film Web sites. Best of all is the category index, which
catalogues movies according to conventional genres ("Comedy,"
"Film Noir," "Romance") and also under topics as wild and
diverse as "Murderous Children," "Flatulence," "Satire
and Parody," "Cyberpunk," "Marriage," "L.A."
and "Nuns with Guns." VideoHound's Golden
Movie Retriever 2008 is a lively and entertaining guide that will point you
toward new experiences in film and strengthen your cinematic expertise.
Film's Musical Moments (Music and the Moving Image
by Ian Conrich
Book Description:
The authors are concerned with both the relationship between performance,
music, and film and the specificity of national, historical, social, and
cultural contexts. Subjects include: cinematic representations of music forms;
celebrities, fan culture, and intertextuality; the
importance of popular music and the soundtrack movie; and specific national
contexts.
Theatrical Translation And Film Adaptation: A
Practitioner's View
By Phyllis Zatlin
Book Description
Translation and film adaptation of theatre have received little study. In
filling that gap, this book draws on the experiences of theatrical translators
and on movie versions of plays from various countries. It also offers insights
into such concerns as the translation of bilingual plays and the choice between
subtitling and dubbing of film.
The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming
Techniques
By Joseph V. Mascelli
Schirmer Encyclopedia of
Film
By Barry Keith Grant
Film Remakes
by Cinstantine Verevis
he Philosophy of Film
Noir
by Robert Porfirio, Mark T. Conard
Book Description:
From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), the classic film noir
is easily recognizable for its unusual lighting, sinister plots, and feeling of
paranoia. For critics and fans alike, these films defined an era.
The Philosophy of Film Noir explores philosophical themes and ideas inherent in
classic noir and neo-noir films, establishing connections to diverse thinkers
ranging from Camus to the
Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film
By Chris Desjardins
Book Description
Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film offers an extraordinary close-up of the
hitherto overlooked golden age of Japanese cult, action and exploitation cinema
from the early 1950s through to the late 1970s, and up to the present day.
Having unique access to the top maverick filmmakers and Japanese genre film
icons, Chris D. brings together interviews with, and original writings on, the
lives and films of such transgressive directors as Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honour and Humanity), Seijun Suzuki
(Branded to Kill) and Koji Wakamatsu (Ecstasy of the Angels) as well as
performers like Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba (The Streetfighter,
Kill Bill Vol. 1) and glamorous actress Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood). Bringing
the story up to date with an overview of such Japanese "enfants terrible" as Takashi Miike
(Audition) and Kiyoshi Kurasawa (Cure), the book also
provides a compendium of facts and extras including filmographies,
related bibliographies on genre fiction including Manga,
and a section on female yakuzas. Illustrated with
fantastic stills and posters from some of
Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster Film
by Jack Shadoian
Book Description
The second edition of this classic study provides a reintroduction to some of
the major films and theoretical considerations of film noir and gangster films
in twentieth-century
reader through twenty classic movies of the genre.
His approach is to use brief introductions to introduce distinct eras of the gangster
films in each of seven chapters. Moving chronologically, he offers plot
synopses and close readings of such definitive examples as Bonnie and Clyde,
The Public Enemy, D.O.A. and The Godfather, each accompanied by
photographs and author's critiques. Compenendia of
facts on each film are also provided. This updated version looks a newer films as well as how the genre has moved into the new
century. Appendices look at the movie Criss Cross as
an epitome of the genre while others offer different lists of
gangster films, including the author's top fourteen alltime,
fifty post-Godfather films worth seeing, and fifty vintage films.
Acting for Film
By Cathy Haase
Book Description
In this must-have guide for aspiring performers, a veteran film actor shares
her secrets for success when performing for film and television. Readers will
discover exercises for relaxing the face to achieve maximum expressiveness;
maintaining proper eye focus in front of the camera and conveying the
"beats" of a scene, even in the shortest takes. They'll also discover
tested techniques for adapting to the styles of different directors; modulating
voice and breath for maximum effect; preparing for the first day on the set;
enduring multiple takes and on-the-set waiting; and much, much more. For any
performer who intends to make a living in front of the camera, Acting for Film
is the most authoritative resource!
American Drama in the Age of Film
by Zander Brietzke
Book Description
American Drama in the Age of Film examines the strengths and weaknesses of both
the dramatic and cinematic arts to confront the standard arguments in the
film-versus-theater debate. Using widely known adaptations of ten major plays, Brietzke seeks to highlight the inherent powers of each
medium and draw conclusions not just about how they differ, but how they ought
to differ as well. He contrasts both stage and film productions of, among other
works, David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, Sam Shepard's
True West, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Margaret Edson's Wit, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Arthur Miller's Death of
a Salesman, and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. In reading the dual
productions of these works, Brietzke finds that
cinema has indeed stolen much of theater's former thunder, by making drama more
intimate, and visceral than most live events.
The Films of Woody Allen (
by Sam B. Girgus
Book Description:
Sam Girgus argues that Allen has consistently been on
the cutting edge of contemporary critical and cultural consciousness. Allen
continues to challenge notions of authorship, narrative, perspective,
character, theme, ideology, gender and sexuality. This revised and updated
edition includes two new chapters that examine Allen's work since 1992. Girgus thoughtfully asserts that the scandal surrounding
Allen's personal life in the early 1990s has altered his image in ways that
reposition moral consciousness in his work.
The Films of Ingmar Bergman (
By Jesse Kalin
Book Description:
This concise overview of the career of one of the modern masters of world
cinema defines Ingmar Bergman's conception of the human condition as a struggle
to find meaning in life as it is played out. After examining six existential
themes explored repeatedly in Bergman's films--judgment, abandonment,
suffering, shame, a visionary picture, and a turning toward or away from
others--Jesse Kalin shows how these themes are
expressed in eight of his films, including well known favorites such as Wild
Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, and Fanny and
Alexander. Other important but lesser known films covered include Naked Night,
Shame, Cries and Whispers, and Scenes from a Marriage.
New Brutality Film: Race and Affect in Contemporary
Hollywood Cinema
By Paul Gormley
Book Description
The 1990s saw the emergence of a new kind of American cinema, which this book
calls the "new-brutality film." Violence and race have been at the heart of
This book analyses and connects both of these developments, arguing that films
like Falling Down, Reservoir Dogs, Se7en, and Strange Days sought to reanimate
the affective impact of white Hollywood cinema by miming the power of
African-American and particularly hip-hop culture. The book uses several films
as case-studies to chart these developments
. Falling Down both appropriates of the political black rage of the
'hood film and is a transition point between the white postmodern blockbuster
and the new-brutality film.
. Gangsta films like Boyz N
the Hood and Menace II Society provided the inspiration for much of the
new-brutality film's mimesis of African-American culture
. The films of Quentin Tarantino (including Reservoir Dogs and Pulp
Fiction) are new-brutality films that attempt to reanimate the affective power
of Hollywood cinema.
. Se7en, Strange Days, Fight Club,and
The Matrix trilogy signify both the development and the demise of the
new-brutality film.
This book charts and analyses an important period of
European Cinema: Face to Face with
by Thomas Elsaesser
Book Description:
Has European cinema, in the age of globalization, lost contact not only with
the world at large, but with its own audiences? Between the thriving
festival circuit and the obligatory late-night television slot, is there
still a public or a public sphere for European films? Can the cinema be the
appropriate medium for a multicultural
Is there a division of representational labor, with
stars and spectacle, the Asian countries exotic color and choreographed
action, and
This collection of essays by an acclaimed film scholar examines how
independent filmmaking in Europe has been reinventing itself since the 1990s
faced by renewed competition from
national cinemas by the fall of the Wall in 1989. Elsaesser
reassesses the
debates and presents a broader framework for understanding the
forces at work since the 1960s. These include the interface of "world
cinema" and the rise of Asian cinemas, the importance of the international
film festival circuit, the role of television, and the changing
aesthetics of auteur cinema. New audiences have different allegiances, and
new technologies enable networks to reshape identities, but European cinema
still has an important function in setting critical and creative agendas
even as its economic and institutional bases are in transition.
Crime Films (Genres in American Cinema
by Thomas Leitch
Book Description:
Focusing on ten films that span the range of the twentieth century, Thomas Leitch traces the transformation of three figures common to
all crime films: the criminal, the victim and the avenger. He shows how the
distinctions among them become blurred throughout the course of the century,
reflecting and fostering a deep social ambivalence towards crime and criminals.
The criminal, victim and avenger characters effectively map the shifting
relations between subgenres (such as the erotic thriller and the police film)
within the larger genre of crime film.
Beyond the Epic: The Life & Films of David Lean
by Gene D. Phillips
Book Description
Two-time Academy Award winner Sir David Lean (1908-1991) was a prominent
director in the world of twentieth-century cinema, responsible for such
classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Lawrence of Arabia. British-born Lean asserted
himself in
Lean's approach to filmmaking was far different from that of his
contemporaries. He carefully chose his projects and, as a result, directed only
sixteen films in a span of more than forty years. Those films, however, are
some of the landmarks of motion-picture history. In addition to his epics, Lean
also made adaptations of well-known novels, including Great Expectations, Oliver
Twist, and A Passage to
Using elements of both biography and film criticism,
author Gene D. Phillips examines the screenplays and production histories
central to Lean's body of work and interviews actors and directors who worked
with Lean. Phillips also explores Lean's lesser-studied films, such as The
Passionate Friends, unearthing new details. This in-depth examination of Lean
in a cultural, historic, and cinematic context makes Beyond the Epic truly unique-a
vital assessment of a great director's artistic process and his place in an
evolving film industry.
Hollywood's New Radicalism: War, Globalisation
and the Movies from Reagan to George W. Bush (Cinema and Society)
by Ben Dickenson
Book Description:
Mixing political and film analysis with exclusive interviews with Hollywood
movers and shakers, Ben Dickenson dissects the social context of the last
twenty-five years, from Reagan's Presidency to George W. Bush. He uncovers
significant political realignments in the movie industry, in its aesthetic
values and in the make-up of Hollywood talent and traces how successive
presidents and globalization have opened the way for the anti-globalization
movement in Hollywood, which in turn has led to changes in film output. The
book brings the story of
Multicultural Films: A Reference Guide
by Janice R. Welsch, J. Q. Adams
Book Description
From its earliest beginnings, the
The Art Direction Handbook for Film
by Michael Rizzo
Understanding exactly what anyone does professionally is not easily described.
Considering how many areas of knowledge are required in Art Direction, it's
daunting to try. Nonetheless, Michael Rizzo gets well beyond the job
description.
He offers not just insight about the technical and artistic worlds of art
direction, but suggests that entire other world of underlying, temporary
social, economic and artistic relations that unfold as a production takes on a
life of it's own. It's a more interesting read than
one might expect.
Rizzo paints with a broad brush, adding bits of detail, insight and includes
the basics too. He rounds out a very recognizable portrayal of the competing
technical, managerial and artistic demands.
The realm of perspective, perseverance and judgment are often a matter of
individual experience, where are no maps are provided.
Helpfully, Rizzo touches on these areas through interviews and advice, pointing
to a larger sense of the demands on one's personal responsibility.
It becomes apparent throughout the book, that regardless of how movies may
actually be created, effectively yoking the artistic and technical
sensibilities are an absolute necessity. Rizzo makes
it clear that the sine qua non of art direction, the artistic chops to envision
and execute the visual concept, is the touchstone.
Fine Cuts: The Art of European Film Editing
by Roger Crittenden
Roger Crittenden reveals the experiences of many of the greatest living
European film editors through his warm and perceptive interviews which offer a
unique insight into the art of editing - direct from masters of the craft.
In their interviews the editors relate their experience to the directors they
have worked with, including:
Agnes Guillemot- (Godard, Truffaut, Catherine Breillat)
Roberto Perpignani- (Welles, Bertolucci,
Tavianni Brothers)
Sylvia Ingemarsson- (Ingmar Bergman)
Michal Leszczylowski- (Andrei Tarkovsky,
Lukas Moodysson)
Tony Lawson (Nic Roeg, Stanley Kubrick, Neil Jordan)
and many more
Foreword by Walter Murch three-time Oscar-winning
Editor of Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, American Graffiti, The
Conversation and The Godfather Part II and III.
· In this book Roger Crittenden reveals the experiences of many of the greatest
living European film editors
· Foreword by the incomparable Film Editor, Walter Murch
· Living exponents reach back to reveal the radical shift in approach created
by the French New Wave and trace the patterns of editing practice into this new
century
Religion and Film: An Introduction
by Melanie J. Wright
Book Description
Studies of religion and film have long been dominated by the question of a
film's fidelity to a religious text or worldview, or its value as a tool in
ministry and mission. Religion and Film seeks to redress this balance, and will
have strong appeal to students as well as general readers interested in all
aspects of the inter-relationship of religion and the cinema. Drawing on
cultural studies approaches, and focusing on such films as La Passion de Jeanne
D'Arc, Lagaan, My Son the
Fanatic, The Wicker Man and The Passion of the Christ, Melanie Wright looks at
varied screen representations of religion; at films shaped by strong
convictions about the place of religion in society; and at the roles that
people play as consumers of film.
Visionary Film: The American
Avant-Garde, 1943-2000
By P. Adams Sitney
Critics hailed previous editions of Visionary Film as the most complete work
written on the exciting, often puzzling, and always controversial genre of
American avant-garde film. This book has remained the standard text on American
avant-garde film since the publication of its first edition in 1974. Now P.
Adams Sitney has once again revised and updated this
classic work, restoring a chapter on the films of Gregory J. Markopoulos and
bringing his discussion of the principal genres and major filmmakers up to the
year 2000.
Code:
Nanna Verhoeff, "The West in Early Cinema: After the
Beginning (
Amsterdam University Press | ISBN 905356831X | June 5, 2006 | 464 Pages | PDF |
4.3MB
The Western film is inextricably tied to American
culture: untamed landscapes, fiercely independent characters, and an unwavering
distinction between good and evil. Yet Westerns began in the early twentieth
century as far more fluid works of comedy, adventure, and historical
explorations of the frontier landscape. Nanna Verhoeff examines here the earliest films made in the
Western genre and proposes the thought-provoking argument that these
little-studied films demand new ways of considering Westerns and the history of
cinema.
By: Pat Brereton
ISBN: 1841501174
Book Description
Utopianism, alongside its more prevalent
dystopian opposite together with
ecological study has become a magnet
for interdisciplinary research and is used
extensively to examine the most
influential global medium of all time. The
book applies a range of interdisciplinary
strategies to trace the evolution of
ecological representations in
film from 1950s to the present, which
has not been done on this scale before.
Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to Dead End
(Cinema & Society)
By Sarah Smith
Using original research, this book explores the recurring debates in Britain
and America about children and how they use and respond to the media, focusing
on a key example: the controversy surrounding children. It explores the
attempts to control children's viewing, the theories that supported these
approaches and the extent to which they were successful. The author develops
her challenging proposition that children are agents in their cinema viewing,
not victims; showing how these angels with dirty faces colonized the cinema.
She reveals their distinct cinema culture and the ways in which they subverted
or circumvented official censorship including the Hays Code and the British
Board of Film Censors, to regulate their own viewing of a variety of films,
including Frankenstein, King Kong and The Cat and the Canary.
Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in
Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968
By Stephen Prince
Stephen Prince has written the first book to examine the interplay between the
aesthetics and the censorship of violence in classic Hollywood films from 1930
to 1968, the era of the Production Code, when filmmakers were required to have
their scripts approved before they could start production. He explains how
Prince shows that many choices about camera position, editing, and blocking of
the action and sound were functional responses by filmmakers to regulatory
constraints, necessary for approval from the PCA and then in surviving scrutiny
by state and municipal censor boards.
This book is the first stylistic history of American screen violence that is
grounded in industry documentation. Using PCA files, Prince traces the
negotiations over violence carried out by filmmakers and officials and shows
how the outcome left its traces on picture and sound in the films.
Almost everything revealed by this research is contrary to what most have
believed about
Jesus of
By Adele Reinhartz
Since the advent of the cinema, Jesus has frequently appeared in our movie
houses and on our television screens. Indeed, it may well be that more people
worldwide know about Jesus and his life story from the movies than from any
other medium. Indeed, Jesus' story has been adapted dozens of times throughout
the history of commercial cinema, from the 1912 silent From the Manger to the
Cross to Mel Gibson's 2004 The Passion of the Christ. No doubt there are more
to come.
Drawing on a broad range of movies, biblical scholar Adele Reinhartz
traces the way in which Jesus of Nazareth has become Jesus of Hollywood. She
argues that Jesus films both reflect and influence cultural perceptions of
Jesus and the other figures in his story. She focuses on the cinematic
interpretation of Jesus' relationships with the key people in his life: his
family, his friends, and his foes. She examines how these films address
theological issues, such as Jesus' identity as both human and divine, political
issues, such as the role of the individual in society and the possibility of
freedom under political oppression, social issues, such as gender roles and
hierarchies, and personal issues, such as the nature of friendship and human
sexuality.
Reinhartz's study of Jesus' celluloid incarnations
shows how Jesus movies reshape the past in the image of the present. Despite
society's profound interest in Jesus as a religious and historical figure,
Jesus movies are fascinating not as history but as mirrors of the concerns,
anxieties, and values of our own era. As the story of Jesus continues to
capture the imagination of filmmakers and moviegoers, he remains as significant
a cultural figure today as he was 2000 years ago.
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