Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting

by William Goldman

As befits more than twenty years in Hollywood, Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman's sparkling memoir is as entertaining as many of the films he has helped to create. From the writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men and Marathon Man, Adventures in the Screen Trade is an intimate view of movie-making, of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman and Hoffman, and of the... (more)

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

by Peter Biskind

Based on hundreds of interviews with directors such as Coppola, Scorsese, Hopper and Spielberg, as well as producers, stars, studio executives, writers, spouses, ex-spouses, and girlfriends, this is the story of the crazy world that the directors ruled.

Hollywood gothic: The tangled web of Dracula from novel to stage to screen

Hollywood gothic: The tangled web of Dracula from novel to stage to screen

by David J. Skal

he primal image of the black-caped vampire Dracula has become an indelible fixture of the modern imagination. It's recognition factor rivals, in its own perverse way, the familiarity of Santa Claus. Most of us can recite without prompting the salient characteristics of the vampire: sleeping by day in its coffin, rising at dusk to feed on the blood of the living; the ability to shapeshift into a bat, wolf, or mist;... (more)

The Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema

The Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema

by Andrew Migliore, John Strysik, Bernie Wrightson, Lee Moyer

The definitive guide to film and television influenced by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. From Alien to Hellboy to Rough Magik it's all here. Coverage of feature films, television shows, independent films, interviews with Guillermo del Toro, John Carpenter and more.

Above the Line: Conversations about the Movies

Above the Line: Conversations about the Movies

by Lawrence Grobel

A Da Capo Original: "A diverse and lively collection, the highest art of the interview."--Joyce Carol Oates. Above the Line is a dazzling gathering of insights and anecdotes from all corners of the film industry. The interviews (portions of which have originally appeared in Playboy and Movieline) explore from the inside the skills, intelligence, experiences, and emotions of eleven key players who produce,... (more)

The Bfi Companion to the Western (A Da Capo paperback)Edward Buscombe, Richard Schickel

The Bfi Companion to the Western (A Da Capo paperback)

by Edward Buscombe, Richard Schickel

In addition to the obligatory annotated list of best Western movies, this entertaining compendium from the British Film Institute provides a fascinating "Dictionary of Culture and History," which compares the real West to its celluloid counterpart. "Scalping," "prostitution," "Bat Masterson," "Dalton Gang," and "Springfield Rifle" are some of the 400 biographical/thematic entries, which give not only historical... (more)

Scorsese on Scorsese (Directors on Directors)

Scorsese on Scorsese (Directors on Directors)

by David Thomson

Martin Scorsese's challenging and often controversial films are a record of his personal achievement in modern cinema. Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull--these titles conjure up a world and a style of filmmaking that Scorsese has made his own. The interviews that make up this book reveal a man who, like Michael Powell and Francois Truffant, has an unbridled passion for film that is evident in every frame of... (more)

Kings of the Bs Working Within the Hollywood System

Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen (Short Cuts (Wallflower))

Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen (Short Cuts (Wallflower))

by Timothy Shary

Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen is a detailed look at the depiction of teens on film and its impact throughout film's history. Timothy Shary looks at the development of the teen movie -- the rebellion, the romance, the sex and the horror -- up to contemporary portrayals of ever-changing youth. Films studied include Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Splendor in the Grass (1961), Carrie (1976), The... (more)

The Bad Mirror: A Creation Cinema Collection Reader (Creation Cinema Collection)

The Bad Mirror: A Creation Cinema Collection Reader (Creation Cinema Collection)

An edited collection of writings from the first 19 volumes of the best-selling Creation Cinema Collection, which documents the world of cult, exploitation, and underground cinema by genre, and arguably forms the best library of alternative film studies in the world. Forming a crucial sampler to the series as a whole, The Bad Mirror includes exclusive interviews with such directors as: John Waters and Herschell... (more)

Star Trek The Motion Picture : Make-Your-Own Costume BookLynn Edelman Schnurnberger

Star Trek The Motion Picture : Make-Your-Own Costume Book

by Lynn Edelman Schnurnberger

Step-by-step directions for creating complete outfits just like those worn in the motion picture "Star Trek." Includes background "historical" data about the Star Trek worlds.

Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing (Suny Series, Interruptions - Border Testimony(Ies) and Critical Discourse/S)

Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing (Suny Series, Interruptions - Border Testimony(Ies) and Critical Discourse/S)

by Isabel Cristina Pinedo

In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in... (more)

Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong

Dying to Belong: Gangster Movies in Hollywood and Hong Kong

by Martha Nochimson

This fascinating book begins with a new definition of the gangster film and a challenging exploration of the Hong Kong and Hollywood screen traditions. Illuminates the way gangster films deal with the ambiguities of modern life, correcting the notion that this genre is inconsequential sensationalism Contends that both American and Hong Kong gangster films are against-the-grain reactions to the central fable... (more)

Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era

Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era

by Susan Jeffords

"An important and original book with dazzling insights . . . it challenges some widely held views of both the political and cinematic components of contemporary America, and it should certainly evoke a goodly share of indignation as well as admiration."--H. Bruce Franklin, author of MIA or Mythmaking in America "Hard Bodies is a real page-turner in which Susan Jeffords reveals how in the 1980s Ronald Reagan,... (more)

Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies

Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies

"Too violent? Too sexy? Too passive? Too tough? The first book-length treatment of violent women in the movies, Reel Knockouts aims to provoke engagement and launch debate. What do women want these days? Who wants violent women? How? Why? From Hong Kong to Hollywood, contributors track criminals and tail cops, scrutinizing the mixed messages proffered by noir, horror, action, activist, and even porn pix in light... (more)

Technoscience In Contemporary American Film: Beyond Science Fiction

Technoscience In Contemporary American Film: Beyond Science Fiction

by Aylish Wood

Technoscience in Contemporary American Film is an innovative analysis of images of science and technology from popular films of the 1980's and 1990's. It argues that films such as Twelve Monkeys , Lawnmower Man , and Strange Days explore the complex social, cultural, and economic intersections that lead to the generation of scientific knowledge, and the different ways that such knowledge emerges within the... (more)

Memory and Popular Film (Inside Popular Film)

Memory and Popular Film (Inside Popular Film)

Taking Hollywood as its focus, this timely book provides a sustained, interdisciplinary perspective on memory and film from early cinema to the present. Considering the relationship between official and popular memory, the politics of memory, and the technological and representational shifts that have come to effect memory's contemporary mediation, the book contributes to the growing debate on the status and... (more)

Vintage Monster MoviesRobert Marrero

Vintage Monster Movies

by Robert Marrero

A history of the vintage monster movie, from the silent era to the 1950s, which includes facts, anecdotes, production history, cast and credit information, plot synopses and reviews of hundreds of movies.

Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (Inside Popular Film)

Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (Inside Popular Film)

by Harry M. Benshoff

Monster in the Closet is a history of the horrors film that explores the genre's relationship to the social and cultural history of homosexuality in America. Drawing on a wide variety of films and primary source materials including censorship files, critical reviews, promotional materials, fanzines, men's magazines, and popular news weeklies, the book examines the historical figure of the movie monster in... (more)

Film and Comic Books

by Ian Gordon

In Film and Comic Books contributors analyze the problems of adapting one medium to another; the translation of comics aesthetics into film; audience expectations, reception, and reaction to comic book-based films; and the adaptation of films into comics. A wide range of comic/film adaptations are explored, including superheroes (Spider-Man), comic strips ( Dick Tracy ), realist and autobiographical comics (... (more)

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Tags: american film