Book picks similar to
There Will Be Blood: Final Shooting Script by Paul Thomas Anderson
movies
screenplays
historical
scripts
The Music Man: A Musical Comedy
Hal Leonard Corporation - 1957
18 vocal selections from the Broadway classic, including: Gary, Indiana * Goodnight, My Someone * Marian the Librarian * Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little/Goodnight Ladies * Seventy Six Trombones * Till There Was You * The Wells Fargo Wagon * Ya Got Trouble * and more.
Crooked Hearts
Robert Boswell - 1987
An extraordinarily moving first novel about a charming, gifted, but doomed American family in Arizona.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Peter Hedges - 1991
1,091 and dwindling) is eating Gilbert Grape, a twenty-four-year-old grocery clerk who dreams only of leaving. His enormous mother, once the town sweetheart, has been eating nonstop ever since her husband's suicide, and the floor beneath her TV chair is threatening to cave in. Gilbert's long-suffering older sister, Amy, still mourns the death of Elvis, and his knockout younger sister has become hooked on makeup, boys, and Jesus--in that order, but the biggest event on the horizon for all the Grapes is the eighteenth birthday of Gilbert's younger brother, Arnie, who is a living miracle just for having survived so long. As the Grapes gather in Endora, a mysterious beauty glides through town on a bicycle and rides circles around Gilbert, until he begins to see a new vision of his family and himself.
Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood
Todd McCarthy - 1997
Sometime partner of the eccentric Howard Hughes, drinking buddy of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, an inveterate gambler and a notorious liar, Hawks was the most modern of the great masters and one of the first directors to declare his independence from the major studios. He played Svengali to Lauren Bacall, Montgomery Clift, and others, but Hawks's greatest creation may have been himself.As The Atlantic Monthly noted, "Todd McCarthy . . . has gone further than anyone else in sorting out the truths and lies of the life, the skills and the insight and the self-deceptions of the work." "A fluent biography of the great director, a frequently rotten guy but one whose artistic independence and standards of film morality never failed." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Hawks's life, until now rather an enigma, has been put into focus and made one with his art in Todd McCarthy's wise and funny Howard Hawks." -- The Wall Street Journal; "Excellent . . . a respectful, exhaustive, and appropriately smartass look at Hollywood's most versatile director." -- Newsweek.
American Beauty: The Shooting Script
Alan Ball - 1999
But look closer. Lester Burnham's wife, Carolyn, regards him with contempt, his daughter, Jane, thinks he's a loser, and his boss is positioning him for the ax.Captivated by Jane's sultry high school friend Angela, Lester decides to make a few changes in his mere existence—changes that are less mid-life crisis than a life reclaimed. The freer he gets, the happier he gets, which is even more maddening to his wife and daughter. Complicating matters, Lester finds an unexpected ally in Ricky, the teenage son of the new next-door neighbors, who sees life through a camera lens that has lately focused on Jane Burnham.In pursuit of his new vision of the American dream, Lester is about to learn that the ultimate freedom comes at the ultimate price.The 1999 winner of five Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, American Beauty boasts an accomplished cast led by two-time Academy Award® Best Actor winner Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects) and Oscar® nominee Annette Bening (The Grifters). The ensemble cast also includes Thora Birch (Ghost World), Wes Bentley (The Claim), Mena Suvari (American Pie), Peter Gallagher (Mr. Deeds), Allison Janney (NBC's The West Wing), Scott Bakula (NBC's Quantum Leap), Sam Robards (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), and Chris Cooper (Adaptation).American Beauty marks the feature film directorial debut of award-winning theater director Sam Mendes (The Blue Room, Cabaret). The film is produced by Dan Jinks (Nothing to Lose) and Bruce Cohen (The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas) from an original screenplay by Alan Ball (HBO's Six Feet Under). Stan Wlodkowski (One Hour Photo) and Alan Ball are the co-producers.
The Dig
John Preston - 2007
But on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind: Mrs Pretty, the widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear though that this is no ordinary find ... and soon the discovery leads to all kinds of jealousies and tensions.John Preston's recreation of the Sutton Hoo dig - the greatest Anglo-Saxon discovery ever in Britain - brilliantly and comically dramatizes three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivaly flourished in equal measure.
The Lonesome Gods
Louis L'Amour - 1983
Johannes Verne was soon to be rescued by outlaws, but no one could save him from the lasting memory of his grandfather’s eyes, full of impenetrable hatred. Raised in part by Indians, then befriended by a mysterious woman, Johannes grew up to become a rugged adventurer and an educated man. But even now, strengthened by the love of a golden-haired girl and well on his way to making a fortune in bustling early-day Los Angeles, the past may rise up to threaten his future once more. And this time only the ancient gods of the desert can save him.
Seascape With Sharks and Dancer
Don Nigro - 1985
The play is set in a beach bungalow. The young man who lives there has pulled a lost young woman from the ocean. Soon, she finds herself trapped in his life and torn between her need to come to rest somewhere and her certainty that all human relationships turn eventually into nightmares. The struggle between his tolerant and gently ironic approach to life and her strategy of suspicion and attack becomes a kind of war about love and creation which neither can afford to lose. This is an offbeat, wonderful love story. Note: The play contains a wealth of excellent monologue and scene material.
The Guys
Anne Nelson - 2002
Paralyzed by grief and unable to put his thoughts into words, Nick, a fire captain, seeks out the help of a writer to compose eulogies for the colleagues and friends he lost in the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001. As Joan, an editor by trade, draws Nick out about “the guys,” powerful profiles emerge, revealing vivid personalities and the substance and meaning that lie beneath the surface of seemingly unremarkable people. As the individual talents and enthusiasms of the people within the small firehouse community are realized, we come to understand the uniqueness and value of what each person has to contribute. And Nick and Joan, two people who under normal circumstances never would have met, jump the well-defined tracks of their own lives, and so learn about themselves, about life, and about the healing power of human connection, through talking about the guys.
Max
Howard Fast - 1982
— In particular, it is the story of Max Britsky -- born in the East Side ghetto of New York, penniless -- and of his struggle to survive and to conquer the world he had entered. It is also the story of the woman he married, of love and hate and fraud and financial piracy and infighting, of loyalty and betrayal.In other words, it is just the kind of tale you would expect from one of the master storytellers of our time. It is not a book to be put down easily. Once you enter the world of New York at the turn of the century, the world of Rector's and Delmonico's and Boss Murphy of Tamany Hall and Monk Eastman, that king of hoodlums, you will partake of a wonderfully rewarding feast.And you will welcome Max Britsky into the world of literary immortals. Like Dan Lavette of San Francisco, Max Britsky is a man for all seasons, and you will live with him, laugh with him, and weep with him.The story told in this novel, the story of the creation of the film industry, an industry that changed the world, has never been told in fiction. It is one of the great stories of the twentieth century, narrated here by a man who is one of the most widely read novelists of the twentieth century. We think it is the best, the most fulfilled, of all Howard Fast's novels.
Evening
Susan Minot - 1998
Now, with Evening, she gives us her most ambitious novel, a work of surpassing beauty. During a summer weekend on the coast of Maine, at the wedding of her best friend, Ann Grant fell in love. She was twenty-five. Forty years later--after three marriages and five children--Ann Lord finds herself in the dim claustrophobia of illness, careening between lucidity and delirium and only vaguely conscious of the friends and family parading by her bedside, when the memory of that weekend returns to her with the clarity and intensity of a fever-dream. Evening unfolds in the rushlight of that memory, as Ann relives those three vivid days on the New England coast, with motorboats buzzing and bands playing in the night, and the devastating tragedy that followed a spectacular wedding. Here, in the surge of hope and possibility that coursed through her at twenty-five--in a singular time of complete surrender--Ann discovers the highest point of her life. Superbly written and miraculously uplifting, Evening is a stirring exploration of time and memory, of love's transcendence and of its failure to transcend--a rich testament to the depths of grief and passion, and a stunning achievement.
Titanic: James Cameron's Illustrated Screenplay
James Cameron - 1996
An invaluable reference for film students and fans, this book details the evolution of the epic romance from script to screen, including scenes and dialogue cut from the final film, as well as annotations explaining footage seen in the final cut, yet not contained in the screenplay. Never-before-seen photographs of the stars, storyboards for sequences never filmed, and an in-depth interview with Cameron make Titanic: James Cameron's Illustrated Screenplay an essential companion to the #1 bestseller James Cameron's Titanic.
The Bridges of Madison County
Robert James Waller - 1992
The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere-and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.
Selected Works of the Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre / Villette / Wuthering Heights / Agnes Grey / The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Charlotte Brontë - 1998
Although Charlotte Brontë's heroine is outwardly plain, she possesses an indomitable spirit, and great courage. Forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order which circumscribes her life when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic Mr Rochester.Villette is based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. It is a moving tale of repressed feelings and cruel circumstances borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the confinement of a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved.Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's wild, passionate tale of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and, wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, he leaves Wuthering heights. When he returns years later as a wealthy man, he proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.Agnes Grey, Ann Brontë's deeply personal novel, is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century.The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shows Ann Brontë's bold, naturalistic and passionate style. It is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious 'tenant' of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.