Linson is the ideal guide through this heavily land-mined, high-stakes industry, pausing for a moment here or there to explain some aspect or pitfall of the business, to wax nostalgic about film days past, or to serve up a compelling inside Hollywood tale of woe. Whether you love the movies or not, you won't be able to resist the stories behind them.

    At the forefront of that movement were six innovative and daring directors whose films pushed the boundaries of moviemaking and announced to the world that something exciting was happening in Hollywood. Sharon Waxman of the New York Times spent the decade covering these young filmmakers, and in Rebels on the Backlot she weaves together the lives and careers of Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction; Steven Soderbergh, Traffic; David Fincher, Fight Club; Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights; David O. Russell, Three Kings; and Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich.

    Not content to choose his own top films (though they are here), Thomson has created a list that will surprise and delight you—and send you to your best movie rental service.But he also probes the question: after one hundred years of film, which ones are the best, and why?“Have You Seen . . . ?†suggests a true canon of cinema and one that’s almost completely accessible now, thanks to DVDs. This book is a must for anyone who loves the silver screen: the perfect confection to dip into at any point for a taste of controversy, little-known facts, and ideas about what to see. This is a volume you’ll want to return to again and again, like a dear but argumentative friend in the dark at the movies.

    The dramatic life of the incomparably beautiful and swashbuckling Ava Gardner--one of Hollywood's most beautiful actresses and lover of many men, from bullfighters to Frank Sinatra--by The New York Times bestselling author of ROBERT MITCHUM: Baby, I Don't Care

    The tapes, gathering dust in a garage, did indeed exist, and this book reveals for the first time what they contain.Here is Welles as he has never been seen before: talking intimately, disclosing personal secrets, reflecting on the highs and lows of his astonishing Hollywood career, the people he knew—FDR, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier, David Selznick, Rita Hayworth, and more—and the many disappointments of his last years. This is the great director unplugged, free to be irreverent and worse—sexist, homophobic, racist, or none of the above— because he was nothing if not a fabulator and provocateur. Ranging from politics to literature to movies to the shortcomings of his friends and the many films he was still eager to launch, Welles is at once cynical and romantic, sentimental and raunchy, but never boring and always wickedly funny.Edited by Peter Biskind, America's foremost film historian, My Lunches with Orson reveals one of the giants of the twentieth century, a man struggling with reversals, bitter and angry, desperate for one last triumph, but crackling with wit and a restless intelligence. This is as close as we will get to the real Welles—if such a creature ever existed.

    Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing the roles of mother and movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, "Moon River" composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to Breakfast at Tiffany's.In this meticulously researched gem of a book, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany's as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on a beloved film and its incomparable star.

    Rebello takes us behind the scenes for every step in the creation of this cinematic masterpiece-from the story's original inspiration to the controversy surrounding the creation of the famous shower scene. Drawing on new in-depth interviews as well as Hitchcock's private files, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is an eye-opening portrait of the artist at work.

    He draws on a wide range of sources, including the films in which each star appeared, to illustrate how each star's persona was constructed, and goes on to examine each within the context of particular issues in fan culture and stardom. Students of film and cultural studies will find this an invaluable part of there course reading.

    Despite only a year and a half of schooling, Harpo, or perhaps his collaborator, is the best writer of the Marx Brother. Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A funny, affectionate and unpretentious autobiography done with a sharply professional assist from Rowland Barber." -New York Times Book Review

    Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight movies. Through dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, this greatly expanded new edition examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, full summaries of both men's careers and more than 250 photographs, some in color.

    A remarkably handsome young boy, still a teenager, gets "discovered" by a big-time movie agent. Because when he takes his shirt off young hearts beat faster, because he is the picture of innocence and trust and need, he will become a star. It seems almost preordained. The open smile says, "You will love me," and soon the whole world does. The young boy's name was Tab Hunter—a made-up name, of course, a Hollywood name—and it was his time. Stardom didn't come overnight, although it seemed that way. In fact, the fame came first, when his face adorned hundreds of magazine covers; the movies, the studio contract, the name in lights—all that came later. For Tab Hunter was a true product of Hollywood, a movie star created from a stable boy, a shy kid made even more so by the way his schoolmates—both girls and boys—reacted to his beauty, by a mother who provided for him in every way except emotionally, and by a secret that both tormented him and propelled him forward. In Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, Hunter speaks out for the first time about what it was like to be a movie star at the end of the big studio era, to be treated like a commodity, to be told what to do, how to behave, whom to be seen with, what to wear. He speaks also about what it was like to be gay, at first confused by his own fears and misgivings, then as an actor trapped by an image of boy-next-door innocence. And when he dared to be difficult, to complain to the studio about the string of mostly mediocre movies that were assigned to him, he learned that just like any manufactured product, he was disposable—disposable and replaceable. Hunter's career as a bona fide movie star lasted a decade. But he persevered as an actor, working continuously at a profession he had come to love, seeking—and earning—the respect of his peers, and of the Hollywood community. And so, Tab Hunter Confidential is at heart a story of survival—of the giddy highs of stardom, and the soul-destroying lows when phone calls begin to go unreturned; of the need to be loved, and the fear of being consumed; of the hope of an innocent boy, and the rueful summation of a man who did it all, and who lived to tell it all.

    It is full of glamorous moments, heart-warming episodes, and exciting personalities.

    Since all journalists and writers were barred from the shooting of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, actor Bob Balaban's diary is a rare on-the-spot account of the making of Steven Spielberg's classic sci-fi film.

    Like a novel but Ava really lived it.In this chatty autobiography, Gardner tells of her upbringing in a poor but proud Southern family, her sudden success in early-'40s Hollywood--mainly because of her beauty--and rails against MGM, which played up her cheesecake potential. She neatly sums up the problems in each of her three short marriages: Mickey Rooney was a blatant womanizer; Artie Shaw was cool and overbearing; Frank Sinatra (the two were the loves of each other's lives) was as jealous as she, leading to drunken marathon fights. Gardner also sketches a creepy portrait of Howard Hughes, who for years stopped at no machination in an unsuccessful attempt to bed and marry her. A shy woman who used drink to feel comfortable socially, Gardner seems very likable, down-home, spontaneous and sadly derogatory toward her intelligence, acting abilities--and even her beauty. Of the seven included "eulogies" from friends and colleagues, Stephen Birmingham's best captures the joy and tragedy of Gardner's life.

    These women infiltrated the all-male domain of Disney Studios and used early technologies to create the rich artwork and iconic storylines that would reach millions of viewers across generations. Over the decades--while battling sexism, domestic abuse, and workplace harassment--these women also fought to influence the way female characters are depicted to young audiences.Based on extensive interviews and exclusive access to archival and personal documents, The Queens of Animation tells the story of their vital contribution to Disney's golden age and their continued impact on animated filmmaking, culminating in the record-shattering Frozen, Disney's first female-directed full-length feature film.