Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally


Bob Zmuda - 2014
    Some say he died in 1984, while others believe he performed the ultimate vanishing act.In Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally, Bob Zmuda, Andy’s writer and best friend, and Lynn Margulies, the love of Andy’s life, reveal all—including surprising secrets that Andy made Lynne and Bob promise never to tell until both of his parents had died.Hilarious and poignant, this book separates fact from fiction, and includes a candid inside look at the Milos Forman film Man on the Moon, which Zmuda coexecutive produced and featured Jim Carrey as Andy, Paul Giamatti as Zmuda, Courtney Love as Margulies, and Danny DeVito as Andy’s manager, George Shapiro.Finally, Bob Zmuda shares in detail the reasons he believes Andy Kaufman did, in fact, fake his own death, including exactly how he did it and why he will return.

Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror


Jason Zinoman - 2011
     Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but at the same time as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film-aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, The New York Times's critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age. By the late 1960s, horror was stuck in the past, confined mostly to drive-in theaters and exploitation houses, and shunned by critics. Shock Value tells the unlikely story of how the much-disparaged horror film became an ambitious art form while also conquering the multiplex. Directors such as Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter, and Brian De Palma- counterculture types operating largely outside the confines of Hollywood-revolutionized the genre, exploding taboos and bringing a gritty aesthetic, confrontational style, and political edge to horror. Zinoman recounts how these directors produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween, creating a template for horror that has been imitated relentlessly but whose originality has rarely been matched. This new kind of film dispensed with the old vampires and werewolves and instead assaulted audiences with portraits of serial killers, the dark side of suburbia, and a brand of nihilistic violence that had never been seen before. Shock Value tells the improbable stories behind the making of these movies, which were often directed by obsessive and insecure young men working on shoestring budgets, were funded by sketchy investors, and starred porn stars. But once The Exorcist became the highest grossing film in America, Hollywood took notice. The classic horror films of the 1970s have now spawned a billion-dollar industry, but they have also penetrated deep into the American consciousness. Quite literally, Zinoman reveals, these movies have taught us what to be afraid of. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of the most important artists in horror, Shock Value is an enthralling and personality-driven account of an overlooked but hugely influential golden age in American film.

Stanley Kubrick's a Clockwork Orange


Stuart Y. McDougal - 1999
    The volume also includes two contemporary and conflicting reviews by Roger Hughes and Pauline Kael, a detailed glossary of nadsat and reproductions of stills from the film.

Godard on Godard: Critical Writings


Jean-Luc Godard - 1985
    This collection of essays and interviews, ranging from his early efforts for La Gazette du Cinéma to his later writings for Cahiers du Cinéma, reflects his dazzling intelligence, biting wit, maddening judgments, and complete unpredictability. In writing about Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, Truffaut, Bresson, and Renoir, Godard is also writing about himself—his own experiments, obsessions, and discoveries. This book offers evidence that he may be even more original as a thinker about film than as a director. Covering the period of 1950–1967, the years of Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Alphaville, La Chinoise, and Weekend, this book of writings is an important document and a fascinating study of a vital stage in Godard’s career. With commentary by Tom Milne and Richard Roud, and an extensive new foreword by Annette Michelson that reassesses Godard in light of his later films, here is an outrageous self-portrait by a director who, even now, continues to amaze and bedevil, and to chart new directions for cinema and for critical thought about its history.

Expanded Cinema


Gene Youngblood - 1970
    In the book he argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness. He describes various types of filmmaking utilising new technology, including film special effects, computer art, video art, multi-media environments and holography." - wikipedia

The Dresden Dolls Companion


Amanda Palmer - 2006
    This Boston-based alternative pop/German-like cabaret duo hand-designed this book which includes art, photos, commentary and 11 songs from their 2004 release. Songs included are: Bad Habit * Coin Operated Boy * Girl Anachronism * Good Day * Gravity * Half Jack * The Jeep Song * Missed Me *Perfect Fit * Slide * Truce.

The Citizen Kane Book


Pauline Kael - 1971
    Mankiewicz and Orson Welles --Notes on the shooting script / prepared by Gary Carey --RKO cutting continuity of the Orson Welles production, Citizen Kane.

The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968


Andrew Sarris - 1968
    Sarris's The American Cinema, the bible of auteur studies, is a history of American film in the form of a lively guide to the work of two hundred film directors, from Griffith, Chaplin, and von Sternberg to Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, and Jerry Lewis. In addition, the book includes a chronology of the most important American films, an alphabetical list of over 6000 films with their directors and years of release, and the seminal essays "Toward a Theory of Film History" and "The Auteur Theory Revisited." Over twenty-five years after its initial publication, The American Cinema remains perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject.

On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director


Alexander Mackendrick - 2004
    Alexander 'Sandy' Mackendrick directed classic Ealing comedies plus a Hollywood masterpiece, Sweet Smell of Success. But after retiring from film-making in 1969, he then spent nearly 25 years teaching his craft at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.Mackendrick produced hundreds of pages of masterly handouts and sketches, designed to guide his students to a finer understanding of how to write a story, and then use those devices peculiar to cinema in order to tell that story as effectively as possible. Gathered and edited in this collection, Mackendrick's teachings reveal that he had the talent not only to make great films, but also to articulate the process with a clarity and insight that will still inspire any aspirant film-maker.

Infographic Guide to the Movies


Karen Krizanovich - 2013
    Mixing cinematic fact with legend, it features infamous and often ludicrous tales of Hollywood, Bollywood, European cinema, underground and indie film making.More than just a book of words with graphs, Venn diagrams and charts included, this book is packed with over 100 original artworks and illustrations, at-a-glance facts to amaze and astound readers, graphics on every major movie genre, and every major movie market around the world.With surprising and enlightening secrets of the industry, Infographics Guide to the Movies has global scope, universal appeal and is visually impressive.

Harry Potter: Film Wizardry


Brian Sibley - 2010
    Rowling's wizarding world to the big screen. Step off Platform Nine and Three Quarters and into the hidden world behind the scenes of the Harry Potter film series. Brian Sibley is the author of other bestselling behind-the-screen books, like The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy and The Land of Narnia. The book includes Producer's Diaries from the Harry Potter films' executive producer David Heyman.

Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton


Aurélien Ferenczi - 2008
    1958) is the youngest of Hollywood's most successful directors. He has the knack of making films with a very broad appeal, taking the silliness out of the representation of children, while remaining in touch with the child within himself and his audiences. Burton emerged as a director and storyteller after working as an animator for Disney. His meeting with Johnny Depp enabled him to give physical form to the heroes of his imaginary worlds, where fear is mixed with laughter, strange is normal and those who are not normal, such as "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), must be preserved. After "Beetlejuice" (1988) and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005), the resolutely boyish Burton, now in his fifties, presents his version of "Alice in Wonderland" (2010).

Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: Seasons 1 2 (Game of Thrones Book, Book about HBO Series)


Bryan Cogman - 2012
    This official companion book gives fans new ways to enter this fictional world and discover more about the beloved (and reviled) characters and the electrifying plotlines. Hundreds of set photos, production and costume designs, storyboards, and insider stories reveal how the show's creators translated George R. R. Martin's best-selling fantasy series into the world of Westeros. Featuring interviews with key actors and crew members that capture the best scripted and unscripted moments from the first two seasons, as well as a preface by George R. R. Martin, this special volume, bound in a lavishly debossed padded cover, offers exclusive access to this unprecedented television series.

Pulp Fiction


Dana Polan - 2000
    He shows how broad Tarantino's points of reference are, and analyzes the narrative accomplishment and complexity. In addition, Polan argues that macho attitudes celebrated in film are much more complex than they seem.

Eyes Wide Shut


Michel Chion - 2002
    To appreciate this, though it is necessary to look at what happens on the screen without bringing preconceptions to bear.