The Office: The Scripts, Series 2


Ricky Gervais - 2003
    His slow descent into semi-madness is chronicled here, in The Office, The Scripts volume 2. Following on from the phenomenal success of series 1 voted Comedy of the Year at the British Comedy Awards the second series averaged over 4 million viewers, with a 25% audience share. This book features the scripts from all six episodes and contains over 500 picture screengrabs taken from the broadcast masters and available exclusively in this BBC publication. Original and accurate and painfully funny: it will have every office in the country twitching with spasms of recognition This is a gem. The Times

The Filmmaker's Eye: Learning (and Breaking) the Rules of Cinematic Composition


Gustavo Mercado - 2010
    This book has struck a chord worldwide and is being translated into several languagesAfter a short introduction to basic principles, a variety of shots are deconstructed in the following format:- Why It Works: an introduction to a particular type of shot- How It Works: callouts point out exactly how the shot works the way it does--the visual rules and technical aspects in action- Technical Considerations: the equipment and techniques needed to get the shot.- Breaking the Rules: examples where the rules are brilliant subverted

Steven Spielberg: Interviews


Lester D. Friedman - 2000
    Phrases like "phone home" and the music score from Jaws are now part of our cultural script, appearing in commercials, comedy routines, and common conversation.Yet few scholars have devoted time to studying Spielberg's vast output of popular films despite the director's financial and aesthetic achievements. Spanning twenty-five years of Spielberg's career, Steven Spielberg: Interviews explores the issues, the themes, and the financial considerations surrounding his work. The blockbuster creator of E.T., Jaws, and Schindler's List talks about dreams and the almighty dollar."I'm not really interested in making money," he says. "That's always come as the result of success, but it's not been my goal, and I've had a tough time proving that to people."Ranging from Spielberg's twenties to his mid-fifties, the interviews chart his evolution from a brash young filmmaker trying to make his way in Hollywood, to his spectacular blockbuster triumphs, to his maturation as a director seeking to inspire the imagination with meaningful subjects.The Steven Spielberg who emerges in these talks is a complex mix of businessman and artist, of arrogance and insecurity, of shallowness and substance. Often interviewers will uncover the director's human side, noting how changes in Spielberg's personal life -- marriage, divorce, fatherhood, remarriage -- affect his movies. But always the interviewers find keys to the story-telling and filmmaking talent that have made Spielberg's characters and themes shape our times and inhabit our dreams."Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about," he says. "Whether you watch eight hours of Shoah or whether it's Ghostbusters, when the lights go down in the theater and the movie fades in, it's magic."

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story


John O'Dowd - 2007
    Gutsy, vulnerable--and doomed--Barbara Payton blazed across the motion picture stratosphere in record-time, only to collapse in a catastrophic free-fall from which she would never recover.

Songs My Mother Taught Me


Marlon Brando - 1994
    An honest, revealing self-portrait by the critically acclaimed, fiercely independent actor, discusses his early life, career, world travels, social activism, and profiles of friends, lovers, and professional colleagues.

Hot Toddy: The True Story of Hollywood's Most Sensational Murder


Andy Edmonds - 1989
    Set against the Hollywood industry where Toddy worked and played--an industry infiltrated by the Mob. 21 photos.

Conversations with Wilder


Cameron Crowe - 1999
    In his distinct voice we hear Wilder's inside view on his collaborations with such stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo (he was a writer at MGM during the making of Ninotchka. Here are Wilder's sharp and funny behind-the-scenes stories about the making of A Foreign Affair, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and Ace in the Hole, among many others. Wilder is ever mysterious, but Crowe gets him to speak candidly on Stanwyck: "She knew the script, everybody's lines, never a fault, never a mistake"; on Cary Grant: "I had Cary Grant in mind for four of my pictures . . . slipped through my net every time"; on the "Lubitsch Touch": "It was the elegant use of the super-joke." Wilder also remembers his early years in Vienna, working as a journalist in Berlin, rooming with Peter Lorre at the Chateau Marmont -- always with the same dry wit, tough-minded romanticism, and elegance that are the hallmarks of Wilder's films. This book is a classic of Hollywood history and lore.

Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes


Deana Martin - 2004
    Even when I was very small. Dad was such a positive influence on people’s lives that to be so closely associated with him was always a blessing. People can’t help but smile when they think of my father, which has to be the greatest legacy of all. When people hear my name for the first time, they usually ask the same question: “Any relation?” “Yes,” I reply proudly, “he’s my father.” They smile and cry, “Oh, I love your father! I’ve loved him all my life.” Sometimes, just sometimes, they ask me the most important question of all: “Was he a good father?” To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. “No,” I reply. “He wasn’t a good father, but he was a good man.” Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more.So begins Deana Martin’s captivating and heartfelt memoir of her father, the son of an Italian immigrant from modest beginnings who worked his way to the top of the Hollywood firmament to become one of the greatest stars of all time.Charming, debonair, and impeccably attired in a black tuxedo, Dean Martin was coolness incarnate. His music provided the soundtrack of romance, and his image captivated movie and television audiences for more than fifty years. His daughter Deana was among his most devoted fans, but she also knew a side of him that few others ever glimpsed.In page-turning prose, Deana recalls her early childhood, when she and her siblings were left in the erratic care of Dean’s loving but alcoholic first wife. She chronicles the constantly changing blended family that marked her youth, along with the unexpected moments of silliness and tenderness that this unusual Hollywood family shared. Deana candidly reveals the impact of Dean’s fame and characteristic aloofness on her efforts to forge her own identity, but delights in sharing wonderful, never-before-told stories about her father and his pallies known as the Rat Pack. It may not have been a normal childhood, but Deana’s enchanting account of life as the daughter of one of Hollywood’s sexiest icons will leave you entertained, delighted, and nostalgic for a time gone by.

WKW: The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai


Wong Kar-Wai - 2016
    Wong Kar Wai is known for his romantic and stylish films that explore—in saturated, cinematic scenes—themes of love, longing, and the burden of memory. His style reveals a fascination with mood and texture, and a sense of place figures prominently. In this volume, the first on his entire body of work, Wong Kar Wai and writer John Powers explore Wong’s complete oeuvre in the locations of some of his most famous scenes. The book is structured as six conversations between Powers and Wong (each in a different locale), including the restaurant where he shot In the Mood for Love and the snack bar where he shot Chungking Express. Discussing each of Wong’s eleven films, the conversations also explore Wong’s trademark themes of time, nostalgia, and beauty, and their roots in his personal life. This first book by Wong Kar Wai, lavishly illustrated with more than 250 photographs and film stills and featuring an opening critical essay by Powers, is as evocative as walking into one of Wong’s lush films.

Errol Flynn Slept Here: The Flynns, the Hamblens, Rick Nelson, and the Most Notorious House in Hollywood


Robert Matzen - 2009
    Its story spans five continents and includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Fidel Castro, Humphrey Bogart, Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Billy Graham, Johnny Cash, Roy Rogers, the Rolling Stones, and of course, the three owners of Mulholland Farm: wicked Errol Flynn; Christian singer, songwriter, and radio star Stuart Hamblen; and rock n roll legend Rick Nelson. On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Errol Flynn, authors Robert Matzen and Michael Mazzone tell this remarkable story for the first time, revealing the peep holes, two-way mirrors, secret passageways, and wild parties...not to mention a bodysnatching. Errol Flynn lived in this house during his most prosperous years at Warner Brothers and through the course of the rape trial that would eventually ruin him. Errol Flynn Slept Here also documents the haunting of Mulholland Farm as described by the people who lived in this, the most notorious house in Hollywood.

Grace Kelly: A Life in Pictures


Pierre-Henri Verlhac - 2007
    Although her career was brief, she lit up the screen in films like High Society, Rear Window, and The Country Girl, for which she won an Oscar. She was not only a fine actress, great beauty, and icon of American style, but she was also a passionate philanthropist, known for her generosity and kindness. Published on the 25th anniversary of her death, Grace Kelly: A Life in Pictures is the definitive photographic portrait—160 images capturing the early years, film career, royal marriage, and private life of this remarkable woman.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood


Quentin Tarantino - 2021
    Will a phone call from Rome save his fate or seal it?CLIFF BOOTH – Rick’s stunt double, and the most infamous man on any movie set because he’s the only one there who might have gotten away with murder. . . .SHARON TATE – She left Texas to chase a movie-star dream, and found it. Sharon’s salad days are now spent on Cielo Drive, high in the Hollywood Hills.CHARLES MANSON – The ex-con’s got a bunch of zonked-out hippies thinking he’s their spiritual leader, but he’d trade it all to be a rock ‘n’ roll star.HOLLYWOOD 1969 – YOU SHOULDA BEEN THERE

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner


Paul M. Sammon - 1996
    Dick's brilliant and troubling SF novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, still rules as the most visually dense, thematically challenging, and influential SF film ever made. Future Noir is the story of that triumph.The making of Blade Runner was a seven-year odyssey that would test the stamina and the imagination of writers, producers, special effects wizards, and the most innovative art directors and set designers in the industry.A fascinating look at the ever-shifting interface between commerce and the art that is modern Hollywood, Future Noir is the intense, intimate, anything-but-glamerous inside account of how the work of SF's most uncompromising author was transformed into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic.

All my best friends


George Burns - 1989
    The reader gets the inside scoop on those who created and shaped show business--from Al Jolson and Jimmy Durante to Jack Benny and the Marx Brothers, All My Best Firends shows them as they really were: their loves and feuds, their gimmicks and real talents. Photographs.

Leslie Nielsen: The Naked Truth


Leslie Nielsen - 1993
    Leslie Nielsen is a true veteran of the Hollywood scene and one of America's funniest slap-stick film star. He is well-known in Britain for his movies and appearances in cider commercials and the movie "Naked Gun 33 1/3" is on its way from Paramount. From the frozen wilds of northern Canada to New York, Los Angeles, and the flashiest bars all around the world, Leslie Nielsen tells the dramatic, heart-wrenching, explosively erotic, sleazy, entirely truthful, and hilarious story of his life.