Best of
Movies

1998

Saving Private Ryan


Jacqueline Kehl - 1998
    While vast military forces converge for one of the most decisive battles of the war, a squad of U.S. Army soldiers undertake a mission to save one man: paratrooper James Ryan, the last survivor of a family of four brothers, the others having already been killed in action. Based on the screenplay by Robert Rodat and Frank Darabont.

Mulan (Disney Princess)


Walt Disney Company - 1998
    Will Mulan bring shame to her family for what she has done? Or will she help save China from the Huns? Find out in this 24-page Pictureback book that retells the classic Disney film Mulan, and features a dazzling foil cover!

A Beautiful Mind


Sylvia Nasar - 1998
    Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up—only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees).

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls


Peter Biskind - 1998
    This down-and-dirty romp through Hollywood in the 1970s introduces the young filmmakers--Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Altman, and Beatty--and recreates an era that transformed American culture forever.

The Big Lebowski


Joel Coen - 1998
    trying to do the right thing. Like the award winning Fargo, The Big Lebowski is suffused with a droll humor and a verbal felicity that is as delightful as it is startling.

Ever After: A Cinderella Story


Wendy Loggia - 1998
    A prince in search of a princess, a domineering baroness and her two daughters, and an orphaned servant girl who sleeps in the ashes by the fireplace....By the time Danielle is eight years old, her mother and father have died and she has been left in the care of her new stepmother, the Baroness Rodmilla of Ghent.  Twelve years later, the baroness and her two daughters have made Danielle their servant, giving her the nickname Cindersoot and ordering her every day to chop firewood, tend the grounds, and clean the manor house.When Prince Henry of France begins a search for a wife, the baroness intends to make sure her beautiful daughter Marguerite becomes his bride.  But when Danielle and the prince meet by chance one day, sparks fly.  The baroness will do everything within her power to keep her servant from becoming the Queen of France.Based on the classic story of Cinderella by Charles Perrault, Ever After is a historical romance that is certain to charm and delight modern readers.https://openlibrary.org/works/OL59463...

Chinatown


Robert Towne - 1998
    Jake Gittes is a successful 'bedroom dick': a private eye specialising in cases of marital infidelity. Paradoxically he might also be the last truly ethical man in a corrupt town. Lured into an investigation of the death-by-drowning of City Water Commissioner Hollis Mulwray, Gittes gets more than usually entwined with his new client, Mulwray's enigmatic widow Evelyn. He then finds himself crossing swords with Evelyn's redoubtable father, the aging business magnate Noah Cross, who has professional and personal reasons of his own for wanting both Hollis and Evelyn silenced.Academy Award-winner for Best Original Screenplay of 1974, Robert Towne's Chinatown is widely regarded as the finest American movie script of the post-war years. Complex in narrative design, infused with the sordid real-life history of Los Angeles' economic growth and unmistakably adult in its updating of the trademark violence and sexual intrigue of film noir, on the page Chinatown still shines - and cuts - like a blade.

Saving Private Ryan


Max Allan Collins - 1998
    Military forces converge on the beaches of Normandy for one of the most decisive battles of World War II. America would call it a victory. History would call it D-Day. But for Captain John Miler and his squad of young soldiers, this fateful day would become something much more. Washington has sent them on a personal mission to save one life. One paratrooper missing in action. One soldier who has already lost three brothers in the war. Captain Miller and his men quickly realize this is not a simple rescue operation. It is a test of their honor and their duty. Their sole obsession - and their last hope for redemption. In a war of devastating proportions, saving one life could make all the difference in the world.

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir


Eddie Muller - 1998
    A place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life. Eddie Muller, who led readers on a guided tour of the seamier side of motion pictures in Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema, now takes us on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-World War II years, when art, politics, scandal, style--and brilliant craftsmanship--produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural mythology. Dark City is a 1999 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Critical / Biographical Work.

All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from The Toxic Avenger


Lloyd Kaufman - 1998
    Lloyd Kaufman's spirited, outrageous, no-holds-barred look at low-budget, guerilla filmmaking is truly an inspiration to

The Official Godzilla Compendium: A 40 Year Retrospective (Official Godzilla)


J.D. Lees - 1998
    144 pp. Ages 14 and up. Pub: 3/98.

Elvis Presley: A Life in Music — The Complete Recording Sessions


Ernst Jorgensen - 1998
    With exclusive access to the RCA vaults, producer Ernst Jorgensen brings to intimate life every moment that Elvis spent in the studio--from the spontaneous joy of his early sessions to the intensely creative periods of his later career. At once the definitive recording session guide and a compellingly readable narrative, this is the ultimate companion to the singer and his songs.

Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World


Pete Tombs - 1998
    Fully illustrated, this book includes an Indian song-and-dance version of Dracula; Turkish version of Star Trek and Superman; China's "hopping vampire" films, and much more.

Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star


William J. Mann - 1998
    Offscreen, he was openly gay. This bestselling biography captures the rich gay subculture of Hollywood before the Production Code--before studio intimidation led to the establishment of the Hollywood closet. Alone among his contemporaries, Billy Haines (1900-1973) refused to compromise and was ultimately booted out by Louis B. Mayer. Forced to give up acting, Haines went on to become a top interior designer to the stars and to clients such as Nancy Reagan. By his side through it all was his lover, Jimmie Shields; their fifty-year relationship led their best friend, Joan Crawford, to call them the "happiest married couple in Hollywood." Wisecracker is an astounding piece of newly discovered gay history, a chronicle of high Hollywood, and--at its heart--a great and enduring love story.

Disney's The Parent Trap


Hallie Marshall - 1998
    When she leaves London to attend summer camp in California, she experiences more than culture shock when she runs into Hallie Parker, a girl who looks enough like her to be her twin! The two girls team up in this '90s version of the Disney classic in which two sisters, seperated at birth, plot to reunite their long-divorced parents.

Sophia Loren's Recipes and Memories


Sophia Loren - 1998
    Sophia has dedicated this book to her grandmother Luisa, with whom she lived in Pozzuoli, the small city near Naples, during World War II. Watching her grandmother turn their humble wartime rations into succulent dishes left a lasting impression on Sophia, and it is this spirit of improvisation that marks the recipes in her new cookbook.Along with Nonna Luisa's specialties, Sophia's recipes come from all over Italy: a wonderful bean soup from Tuscany, Neapolitan pizzas, a risotto from Venice, fish from Sicily and, vegetable preparations from the South. Many of the recipes are variations on the classics, such as Vermicelli alia Sophia (which features her own interpretation of pesto sauce) and Luisa's Minestrone (based on her grandmother's version of the essential vegetable soup). Sophia's love of pasta is well-known, and the book includes a wonderful selection of pasta recipes, as well as dishes of risotto and polenta. Simple antipasti and recipes for meat, poultry, and fish round out this collection. Among the homey desserts are a flourless apple cake and an irresistible ricotta pie.In addition to the recipes, Sophia shares poignant anecdotes about her Neapolitan childhood and her illustrious filmmaking career. She takes us behind the scenes of some of the many movies she made in Italy with such stars and dear friends as Marcello Mastroianni and Cary Grant and shares the recipes that she discovered on location for various movies. While making Two Women, in the mountains near Rome, she learned to make Spaghetti alla Carbonara from charcoal workers.

Sexual Politics & Narrative Film


Robin Wood - 1998
    Wood explores the relationships between narrative form and style and sexual politics, probing the political and sexual ramifications of fascism and cinema, marriage and the couple, romantic love, and representations of women, race and gender in films from the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Totally, Tenderly, Tragically


Phillip Lopate - 1998
    As an undergraduate at Columbia, he organized the school's first film society. Later, he even tried his own hand at filmmaking. But it was not until his ascent as a major essayist that Lopate found his truest and most lasting contribution to the medium. And, over the past twenty-five years, tackling subjects ranging from Visconti to Jerry Lewis, from the first New York Film Festival to the thirty-second, Phillip Lopate has made film his most cherished subject. Here, in one place, are the very best of these essays, a joy for anyone who loves movies.

On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder


Ed Sikov - 1998
    Now, drawing on new interviews, current research, and previously inaccessible archives, Ed Sikov offers endlessly entertaining portrait of one of this centurys most influential directors and screenwriters.

2001: Filming the Future


Piers Bizony - 1998
    Considering there are many books devoted to the films of Kubrick and particularly this film, this is quite possibly the best place to start if you are interested in the more visual aspects of the film: special effects, film making, and behind the scenes. The photographs are stunning, the articles are incredibly well researched, and the overall scope of the book is broad and thorough.

More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts


James Naremore - 1998
    More Than Night discusses such pictures. It also shows that the central term is more complex & paradoxical than realized. Film noir refers both to an important cinematic legacy & to an idea projected onto the past. This wide-ranging cultural history offers an original approach to the subject, as well as new production information & commentary on scores of films, including Double Indemnity, The Third Man, & Out of the Past, & such neo-noirs as Chinatown, Pulp Fiction & Devil in a Blue Dress. Naremore discusses film noir as a term in criticism; as an expression of artistic modernism; as a symptom of Hollywood censorship & politics in the 40s; as a market strategy; as an evolving style; as a cinema about race & nationality & as an idea that circulates across all information technologies. This interdisciplinary book has valuable things to say not only about film & tv, but also about modern literature, the fine arts & popular culture in general. In a field where much of what's published is superficial & derivative, this work is certain to be received as a definitive treatment.

Dark Shadows Movie Book: House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows


Kathryn Leigh Scott - 1998
    80 photos, 30 in color.

A Bug's Life: The Art and Making of an Epic of Miniature Proportions


Jeff Kurtti - 1998
    The eagerly awaited follow-up project from PIXAR, A Bug's Life, hits screens nationwide this fall. This book will capture the magical realm on and beneath the earth's surface with amazing details about the film's production. Recreated here is the work of animators, art directors, layout artists, lighting designers, and computer wizards. Readers are able to focus in on all of the secret elements of Ant Island, a world in which a bed of clover resembles a forest and a drop of rain takes on the power of a tidal wave. A Bug's Life is a lavish celebration of the innovative minds behind the film, the cutting-edge animation techniques, and the unforgettable, lovable characters.

Saving Private Ryan: The Men, the Mission, the Movie : A Film by Steven Spielberg


Steven Spielberg - 1998
    Includes excerpts from Stephen Ambrose's books, screenplay extracts, and commentary by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Janusz Kaminski and others. 100 illustrations, 130 color plates.

What it Is, What it Was: The Black Film Explosion of the 70's in Words and Pictures


Gerald Martinez - 1998
    Full color.

JAPAN'S FAVORITE MON-STAR: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF GODZILLA: An Unauthorised Biography of the Big G


Steve Ryfle - 1998
    More than forty years later, he reigns as the undisputed king of monsters, with legions of fans spanning several generations and countless international boundaries.But despite his icon status, Godzilla has been consistently maligned by critics and sci-fi purists who insist that a man in a rubber suit, stomping through intricately built miniature cities, is mere cheap camp. The vast contributions to the horror cinema made by Godzilla's creators - director Ishiro Honda and SFX director Eiji Tsuburaya among them - have gone largely unnoticed in the West, and relatively little information on Japan's greatest film star has ever been published in English. Until now.Godzilla: The Unauthorized Biography is the first authoritative guide to the Godzilla legend published in America. This thoroughly researched volume includes in-depth production details on all 22 Godzilla movies produced by Toho Co. of Japan between 1954 and 1995, including several "unmade" features, plus the upcoming May 1998 big-budget U.S. Godzilla remake by the producers of Independence Day. The book dispels the myths and illuminates the mysteries of Japan's enigmatic monstar, and is loaded with background information, trivia, and interviews with the people who created Godzilla - then and now.

Three More Screenplays: The Power and the Glory / Easy Living / Remember the Night


Preston Sturges - 1998
    In this third volume of scripts by one of Hollywood's wisest and wittiest filmmakers, the focus is on screenplays written but not directed by Sturges. This volume will be the perfect accompaniment to the re-release of Sturges films on home video. 8 illustrations.

Film Posters of the 70s: The Essential Movies of the Decade


Tony Nourmand - 1998
    Book by

The French New Wave


Jean Douchet - 1998
    Douchet... considers his subject from almost every possible angle."--Library Journal. "A landmark in film scholarship."--Cineaste

The Young and the Restless


Barbara Irwin - 1998
    Publication scheduled to coincide with the show's 25th anniversary in March 1998. Hundreds of color photos, many never before published (Pop Arts) .

The Prince of Egypt


Jane Yolen - 1998
    Each essential scene, from Moses' fateful journey in the basket to the wondrous parting of the Red Sea, is richly retold and stunningly rendered in a storybook that is a fine stand-alone as well as a splendid companion to the film. Adventure, sorrow, mischief, and miracles

Jackie Chan


Curtis F. Wong - 1998
    Drawing from "Inside Kung Fu" magazine's exclusive archives, every page is packed with rare pictures and unique insights on this comedy-kung-fu mega-star. From Jackie's personal reflections on his childhood through the evolution of his on-screen characters and his recent box-office smash successes, you'll get the real story and get to know the real Jackie Chan--the man behind the movie star. You'll hear Jackie talk about the issues and topics that mean the most to him, including: Childhood and his early training Martial arts and street fighting Health and fitness The philosophy behind every role Success and stardom The film industry and moviemaking Fight scene choreography and stunt coordination You'll also find an essential, complete filmography and Jackie's own "Top 10" list of his all-time greatest stunts. This book offers exciting insights and world-class photographs sure to entertain and enlighten Jackie Chan fans, martial artists, and action film buffs alike.

Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic


Dan Auiler - 1998
    Now, for the first time, the story of this remakable film is revealed. Writing with the full cooperation of the director's family and many crew members, Dan Auiler offers up a remarkable in-deph re-creation of Hitchcock's signature thriller. The result is one of the most thorough and illuminating studies of a single film ever published, and a testament to the enduring power of Hitchcock's masterwork of suspense.

Come and Knock on Our Door: A Hers and Hers and His Guide to "Three's Company"


Chris Mann - 1998
    On-screen, the trio's dilemmas were always just zany misunderstandings riddled with pratfalls and double entendres and resolved with hugs and kisses. But behind the scenes, the real-life tensions of fame and controversy plus personal, financial, and creative conflicts threatened to end the love and laughter.

Alan Clarke


Richard Kelly - 1998
    Yet Clarke enjoyed only a vague renown among the public, even though some of his most incendiary productions - Scum, The Firm, Made in Britain - attracted great controversy. But he was greatly admired by his fellow professionals: 'He became the best of all of us', Stephen Frears observed after Clarke's untimely death in 1990.In his work Clarke explored working-class lives and left-wing themes with unflinching directness and humour. He forged alliances with gifted writers and producers, and his facility for encouraging stunning performaces (from Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Ray Winstone) made him a hero amongst actors. As a man, Clarke's wit, vigour and generosity were legendary. Yet he retained a privacy which made him enigmatic and imbued his work with much of its austere radiance. This volume is a tribute to Clarke, made out of the thoughts and memories of those who worked with him and knew him best, and includes a celebatory essay by eminent critic, David Thomson.

Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 1999


Roger Ebert - 1998
    Presents detailed descriptions and reviews of virtually every movie that has opened nationally over the past year, reports from the major film festivals, interviews with important movie figures, and essays on the movie world.

Disney's Year Book 1998


Fern L. Mamberg - 1998
    Contents: King Tut the boy king --The shrimp squad --The blue box mystery --Hale-Bopp: the 'Wow' comet --Face painting --Puffin stuff --Beauty-ful music --A case of the giggles --Amazing but true --Hercules and the hero tree --Tara Lipinski: princess of the ice --They're just eggs-traordinary --A pencil garden --Temper, temper, Donald! --Mysterious maidens of the sea --In the middle of the action! --The joke's on you!

Disney's Mulan


Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld - 1998
    The book tells the courageous story of Mulan.

Rounders Screenplay m/tv: A Screenplay


David Levien - 1998
    Mike McDermott, a law student and master card-player, finds that law school is lacking the kind of thrills and excitement offered by backroom card games.

The Ingrid Pitt Bedside Companion for Vampire Lovers


Ingrid Pitt - 1998
    Cult film star Ingrid Pitt presents the horror film buffs guide to the vampire phenomenon on screen and off, in legend, literature and the movies.

John Barry: The Man with the Midas Touch


Geoff Leonard - 1998
    Chart aficionados point to commercial successes like "Hit and Miss" for TV's "Juke Box Jury" and "The Persuaders". But, for millions of film-goers, Barry's greatest achievements, apart from the memorable James Bond film themes and scores, have been the Oscar-winning scores for "Born Free", "The Lion in Winter", "Out of Africa" and "Dances with Wolves". In "John Barry - The Man With The Midas Touch", this astonishing 50-year career is celebrated in all its musical facets. The authors, each one an authority as well as a fan, draw not only on their own experience, but also on conversations with Barry himself and people who have known him since his formative years as performer, producer, arranger and writer. More than 300 photographs celebrate John Barry's entire career, including many never previously published. The most detailed and complete discography yet compiled is another feature of the book, making it an essential reference for enthusiasts and music historians.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age


Tom Weaver - 1998
    In Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Paul Mantees costar was a monkey named Barney who received billing as "Mona, the Woolly Monkey." Actress Randy Stuart played the wife of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Alan Caillou wrote the original pilot outline for televisions The Six Million Dollar Man. Asked to look over the final script six months later, he noticed that exactly one of his lines was being used (and that out of context) and that 27 writers were being given writing credit! Tom Weaver--author of Attack of the Monster Movie Makers, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes, They Fought in the Creature Features, and Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers--returns with a new collection of interviews that go behind the scenes of Golden Age science fiction, horror and fantasy filmmaking. Among the interviewed are Casey Adams, John Badham, Antony Carbone, Robert Clarke, Sidney Hayers, Lewis Allen, Gene Evans, Alex Gordon, Jackie Joseph, Ken Miller, John Moxey, Arthur Ross, Ariann Ulmer, Debra Paget and Edward Dmytryk.

Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 1999


Leonard Maltin - 1998
    To create this quintessential guidebook to the movies, Leonard Maltin has added some 400 new film entries, bringing the total to more than 19,000, and kept pace with video and laserdisc releases.

The Prince of Egypt Movie Scrapbook


Tommi Lewis - 1998
    It is a tale that encompasses universal themes of faith, heroism, deliverance and slavery.

The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s


Charles Drazin - 1998
    He also introduces readers to some lesser known, equally significant figures, like Robert Hamer, the maverick director of Kind Hearts and Coronets, and Filippo Del Giudice, flamboyant Italian genius.

American Movie Classics' Great Christmas Movies: Celebrating the Best Christmas Films of All Time


Frank T. Thompson - 1998
    Combining fascinating behind-the-scenes stories with insightful observations of favorite scenes, characters, and themes, American Movie Classics' Great Christmas Movies will delight readers of all generations for years to come.