From this was born The Wizard of Oz, a film that, 60 years later, continues to captivate us. It seems we can never get enough of the dishy inside details, the amazing feats of production that made it such a spectacle, and the personalities both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Now, timed to coincide with the theatrical rerelease -- which will include never-before-seen footage -- this is the book Oz aficionados will turn to for more information on America's favorite movie. A bestselling classic since it was first published in 1977, The Making of The Wizard of Oz is as ageless as the film itself jam-packed with fascinating facts and telling asides.

    Loden’s 1970 film Wanda is a masterpiece of early cinema vérité, an anti-Bonnie-and-Clyde road movie about a young woman, adrift in rust-belt Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, who embarks on a crime spree with a small-time crook.How to paint a life, describe a personality? Inspired by the film, a researcher seeks to piece together a portrait of its creator. In her soul-searching homage to the former pin-up girl famously married to Hollywood giant Elia Kazan, the biographer’s evocative powers are put to the test. New insights into Loden’s sketchy biography remain scarce and the words of Marguerite Duras, Georges Perec, Jean-Luc Godard, Sylvia Plath, Kate Chopin, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald come to the narrator’s rescue. As remembered scenes from Wanda alternate with the droll journal of a flailing research project, personal memories surface, and with them, uncomfortable insights into the inner life of a singular woman who is also, somehow, every woman.

    Louise Brooks left Wichita, Kansas, for New York City at age fifteen and lived the kind of life of which legends are made. From her beginnings as a dancer to her years in Hollywood, Berlin, and beyond, she was hailed and reviled as a new type of woman: independent, intellectually daring, and sexually free. In this widely acclaimed, first and only comprehensive biography, Barry Paris traces Brooks's trajectory from her childhood through her fall into obscurity and subsequent "resurrection" as a brilliant writer and enduring film icon.

    Yes, you totally recognize her. And, odds are, you already feel like she’s your friend. In her first book of essays, I Don’t Know What You Know Me From, Greer writes about everything you would hope to hear from your best friend: how a midnight shopping trip to Walgreens can cure all; what it’s like to wake up one day with stepchildren; and how she really feels about fans telling her that she’s prettier in person. Yes, it’s all here—from the hilarious moments to the intimate confessions.But Judy Greer isn’t just a regular friend—she’s a celebrity friend. Want to know which celebs she’s peed next to? Or what the Academy Awards are actually like? Or which hot actor gave her father a Harley-Davidson? Don’t worry; Greer reveals all of that, too. You’ll love her because, besides being laugh-out-loud funny, she makes us genuinely feel like she’s one of us. Because even though she sometimes has a stylist and a makeup artist, she still wears (and hates!) Spanx. Because even after almost twenty years in Hollywood, she still hasn’t figured everything out—except that you should always wash your face before bed. Always.

    Here she tells her story.

    (“Every single frame,” declared Cate Blanchett, “is burned into my retina.”) As Dyer guides us into the zone of Tarkovsky’s imagination, we realize that the film is only the entry point for a radically original investigation of the enduring questions of life, faith, and how to live. In a narrative that gives free rein to the brilliance of Dyer’s distinctive voice—acute observation, melancholy, comedy, lyricism, and occasional ill-temper—Zona takes us on a wonderfully unpredictable journey in which we try to fathom, and realize, our deepest wishes.Zona is one of the most unusual books ever written about film, and about how art—whether a film by a Russian director or a book by one of our most gifted contemporary writers—can shape the way we see the world and how we make our way through it.

    But on July 23, 1982, a spectacular explosion on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie knocked a helicopter out of the sky and into the path of two small children and veteran actor Vic Morrow, crushing one child and decapitating Morrow and the other youngster.How could this tragedy occur? Was anyone to blame? Outrageous Conduct reveals the facts behind the accident, when skilled movie-makers exceeded the bounds of safety; the anxiety, when Hollywood closed ranks to protect its own; and the raucous and very public trial, when countercharges of "outrageous conduct" flew between the attorney and the furious film director, John Landis.Here are the intimate stories of the people behind the headlines: Landis, the driven young director of Animal House and other hits; Steven Spielberg, the superstar co-producer; Deputy District Attorney Lea D'Agostino, who accused Landis of manslaughter, but would have preferred a charge of murder; Vic Morrow, the fading star who would risk everything to salvage his career; and Renee Chen, six, and Myca Lee [sic], seven, whose parents had emigrated to the United States in search of a better life only to lose their children in a "make-believe" war. Here too are the opinions of top Hollywood professionals, forced to choose sides in a legal battle that tore the movie world apart.Outrageous Conduct probes the boundaries between art and safety, daring and responsibility. Like Indecent Exposure and Final Cut, it exposes the excesses and hubris of the world's most glamorous and seductive profession.STEPHEN FARBER was the film critic for New West magazine. He has also written for The New York Times, Esquire, and Film Comment.MARC GREEN was the film critic for Books and Arts and has written for California Magazine. He and Stephen Farber have reported on the Hollywood scene for almost twenty years and are the authors of Hollywood Dynasties.

    The legendary Jay Ward and Bill Scott produced the gleeful wonder and cumulative joy that transcended the crude drawings and occasionally muddy sound. Jay Ward was the magnificent visionary, the outrageous showman, while Bill Scott was the genial, brilliant head writer, coproducer, and all-purpose creative whirlwind. With exclusive interviews, original scripts, artwork, story notes, letters and memos, Keith Scott has written the definitive history of Jay Ward Productions.The Moose That Roared tells the story of a rare and magical relationship between two artists wildly, exuberantly ahead of their time, and a fascinating account of the struggle to bring their vision of bad puns and talking animals to unforgettable life.

    The Film That Changed My Life captures that epiphany. It explores 30 directors’ love of a film they saw at a particularly formative moment, how it influenced their own works, and how it made them think differently. Rebel Without a Cause inspired John Woo to comb his hair and talk like James Dean. For Richard Linklater, “something was simmering in me, but Raging Bull brought it to a boil.” Apocalypse Now inspired Danny Boyle to make larger-than-life films. A single line from The Wizard of Oz--“Who could ever have thought a good little girl like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness?”--had a direct impact on John Waters. “That line inspired my life,” Waters says. “I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.” In this volume, directors as diverse as John Woo, Peter Bogdanovich, Michel Gondry, and Kevin Smith examine classic movies that inspired them to tell stories. Here are 30 inspired and inspiring discussions of classic films that shaped the careers of today’s directors and, in turn, cinema history.

    The sun is rising behind Downton Abbey, a great and splendid house in a great and splendid park. So secure does it appear that it seems as if the way it represents will last for another thousand years. It won't.   Millions of American viewers were enthralled by the world of Downton Abbey, the mesmerizing TV drama of the aristocratic Crawley family--and their servants--on the verge of dramatic change. On the eve of Season 2 of the TV presentation, this gorgeous book--illustrated with sketches and research from the production team, as well as on-set photographs from both seasons--takes us even deeper into that world, with fresh insights into the story and characters as well as the social history.

    She was the first woman to twice win an Academy Award for screenwriting. From 1916 to 1946 she wrote over two hundred scripts covering every conceivable genre for stars such as Mary Pickford, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Marion Davies, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Marion Davies, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, and Marie Dressler. Irving Thalberg "adored her and trusted her completely, " William Randolph Hearst named her for the head of west coast production for his Cosmopolitan studios, and in 1928, Sam Goldwyn raised her salary to an unparalleled $3,000 a week. Her stories were directed by George Cukor, John Ford, Alan Dwan, and King Vidor, and she went on to direct and produce a dozen films on her own. On top of all this, she painted, sculpted, spoke several languages fluently, and played "concert caliber" piano. Though she married four times, had two sons, and a dozen lovers, Frances's life story is mostly the story of her female friendships. As talented, successful, and prolific as Frances Marion was, these relationships were as legendary as her scripts. Without Lying Down is an eminently readable and meticulously documented portrait of a previously hidden era that was arguably one of the most creative and supportive for women in American history.

    I think you and I are going to get along just fine.Life is full of choices. Right now, yours is whether or not to buy the autobiography of a mid-grade, kind of hammy actor.Am I supposed to know this guy? you think to yourself.No, and that's exactly the point. Bookstores are chock full of household name actors and their high stakes shenanigans. I don't want to be a spoilsport, but we've all been down that road before.Case in point: look to your left - see that Judy Garland book? You don't need that, you know plenty about her already - great voice, crappy life. Now look to your right at the Charlton Heston book. You don't need to cough up hard-earned dough for that either. You know his story too - great voice, crappy toupee.The truth is that though you might not have a clue who I am, there are countless working stiffs like me out there, grinding away every day at the wheel of fortune.If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor is my first book, and I invite you to ride with me through the choppy waters of blue collar Hollywood.Okay, so buy the damned book already and read like the wind!Best, Bruce CampbellP.S. If the book sucks, at least there are gobs of pictures, and they're not crammed in the middle like all those other actor books.

    Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror explores all of these enduring characters, chronicling both the mythology behind the films and offering behind-the-scenes insights into how the films were created. Universal Studios Monsters is the most complete record of the horror films of this legendary studio, with biographies of major personalities who were responsible for the most notable monster melodramas in film history. The stories of these films and their creators are told through interviews with surviving actors and studio employees. A lavish photographic record, including many behind-the-scenes shots, completes the story of how these classics were made. This is a volume no fan of imaginative cinema will want to be without.

    Born in 1928 in southern California, Shirley Temple was extraordinary from the start. At the age of three, she began acting, often in exploitative films directed and produced by some abusive studio executives. But Shirley's talent and perseverance could not be thwarted, and she soon entered a fruitful relationship with Twentieth Century Fox. Before long she was making films with the top stars of the day, including Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Lionel Barrymore, Joel McCrea and many others. There was something magical about Shirley Temple that cheered the soul of America during the Depression. She was the number one movie star of the nation for four consecutive years, from 1935 through 1938. In Child Star Shirley Temple Black reveals the whole story, the ups and downs of life as a Hollywood prodigy--including numerous kidnap threats and even a murder attempt against her.

    As the mystery of “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” played out on television sets across the world, another compelling drama was unfolding in the everyday lives of the show’s cast and crew. Twenty-five years later, Reflections goes behind the curtain of Twin Peaks and documents the series’ unlikely beginnings, widespread success, and peculiar collapse. Featuring first-hand accounts from series cocreator Mark Frost and cast members including Kyle MacLachlan, Joan Chen, Sherilyn Fenn, Piper Laurie, Michael Ontkean, Ray Wise, Billy Zane, and many more – Reflections explores the magic and mystique of a true television phenomenon, Twin Peaks.