Challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence.

    Both a history of film theory and an introduction to the work of the most important writers in the field, Andrew's volume reveals the bases of thought of such major theorists as Munsterberg, Arnheim, Eisenstein, Balazs, Kracauer, Bazin, Mitry, and Metz.

    Here is a celebration (illustrated in glorious black and white) of the best of the worst cinematic catastrophes -- the shimmering stars, the dreadful directors, and the dubious dialogue that made these movies so abysmal.Remember John Travolta as a melting monster in The Devil's Rain? Henry Fonda as a fearless bee battler in The Swarm? Mary Tyler Moore as a heartsick nun in love with Elvis Presley in Change of Habit? How about Scuttlebutt the Talking Duck in Everything's Ducky?See if you can guess the winners in each of the 30 award categories -- from The Most Obnoxious Child Performer of All Time to the Life Achievement Awards: Worst Actor, Actress, and Director. Applaud the winner in a national poll for The (very) Worst Film of All Time and The Worst Films Compendium, an annotated index of the best of the unbelievable baddies.MC'd by the Brothers Medved--Harry, author of The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, and Michael, author of What Really Happened to the Class of '65? -- The Golden Turkey Awards is a cornucopia of cinemediocrity.WARNING: Over 425 actual films are described in this book, but one is a complete hoax. Can you find it?

    Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man) is one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of our time, and Fitzcarraldo is one of his most honored and admired films.  More than just Herzog’s journal of the making of the monumental, problematical motion picture, which involved, among other things, major cast changes and reshoots, and the hauling (without the use of special effects) of a 360-ton steamship over a mountain, Conquest of the Useless is  a work of art unto itself, an Amazonian fever dream that emerged from the delirium of the jungle.  With fascinating observations about crew and cast - including Herzog’s lead, the somewhat demented internationally renowned star Klaus Kinski - and breathtaking insights into the filmmaking process that are uniquely Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless is an eye-opening look into the mind of a cinematic master.

    Throngs of fans jam into air-conditioned multiplexes to escape for two hours in the dark, blissfully lost in Hollywood's latest glittery confection complete with megawatt celebrities, awesome special effects, and enormous marketing budgets. The world is in love with the blockbuster movie, and these cinematic behemoths have risen to dominate the film industry, breaking box office records every weekend. With the passion and wit of a true movie buff and the insight of an internationally renowned critic, Tom Shone is the first to make sense of this phenomenon by taking readers through the decades that have shaped the modern blockbuster and forever transformed the face of Hollywood. The moment the shark fin broke the water in 1975, a new monster was born. Fast, visceral, and devouring all in its path, the blockbuster had arrived. In just a few weeks Jaws earned more than $100 million in ticket sales, an unprecedented feat that heralded a new era in film. Soon, blockbuster auteurs such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and James Cameron would revive the flagging fortunes of the studios and lure audiences back into theaters with the promise of thrills, plenty of action, and an escape from art house pretension. But somewhere along the line, the beast they awakened took on a life of its own, and by the 1990s production budgets had escalated as quickly as profits. Hollywood entered a topsy-turvy world ruled by marketing and merchandising mavens, in which flops like Godzilla made money and hits had to break records just to break even. The blockbuster changed from a major event that took place a few times a year into something that audiences have come to expect weekly, piling into the backs of one another in an annual demolition derby that has left even Hollywood aghast. Tom Shone has interviewed all the key participants -- from cinematic visionaries like Spielberg and Lucas and the executives who greenlight these spectacles down to the effects wizards who detonated the Death Star and blew up the White House -- in order to reveal the ways in which blockbusters have transformed how Hollywood makes movies and how we watch them. As entertaining as the films it chronicles, Blockbuster is a must-read for any fan who delights in the magic of the movies.

    Slated for production immediately following the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s "Napoleon" was to be at once a character study and a sweeping epic, replete with grandiose battle scenes featuring thousands of extras. To write his original screenplay, Kubrick embarked on two years of intensive research; with the help of dozens of assistants and an Oxford Napoleon specialist, he amassed an unparalleled trove of research and preproduction material, including approximately 15,000 location scouting photographs and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. No stone was left unturned in Kubrick's nearly-obsessive quest to uncover every piece of information history had to offer about Napoleon. But alas, Kubrick’s movie was not destined to be: the film studios, first M.G.M. and then United Artists, decided such an undertaking was too risky at a time when historical epics were out of fashion. TASCHEN’s tribute to this unmade masterpiece makes Kubrick’s valiant work on "Napoleon" available to fans for the first time. Based on the original 2009 limited edition which featured ten books hidden inside of a carved out reproduction of a Napoleon history book, this publication brings all the original elements together in one volume. Herein, all of the books from the original edition are reproduced in facsimile: correspondence, costume studies, location scouting photographs, research material, script drafts, and more. Kubrick’s final draft is reproduced in its entirety. The text book features the complete original treatment, essays examining the screenplay in historical and dramatic contexts, an essay by Jean Tulard on Napoleon in cinema, and a transcript of interviews Kubrick conducted with Oxford professor Felix Markham. The culmination of years of research and preparation, this unique publication offers readers a chance to experience the creative process of one of cinema’s greatest talents as well as a fascinating exploration of the enigmatic figure that was Napoleon Bonaparte. *Includes access to searchable/downloadable online research database: Kubrick's complete picture file of nearly 17,000 Napoleonic images*

    Lucier explains in detail how each piece is made, unlocking secrets of the composers' style and technique. The book as a whole charts the progress of American experimental music from the 1950s to the present, covering such topics as indeterminacy, electronics, and minimalism, as well as radical innovations in music for the piano, string quartet, and opera. Clear, approachable and lively, Music 109 is Lucier's indispensable guide to late 20th-century composition. No previous musical knowledge is required, and all readers are welcome.

    Covering hundreds of movies from America, Europe and Asia, this history chronicles the zombie's on-screen evolution from Caribbean bogeyman to flesh-eating corpse.

    "A first rate book and a joy to read...It's doubtful that a complete understanding of the director's artistry can be obtained without reading this book...Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to detective fiction."—Variety"For the lover of Kurosawa's movies...this is nothing short of must reading...a fitting companion piece to his many dynamic and absorbing screen entertainments."—Washington Post Book World

    Illustrated throughout with behind-the-scenes photos.

    Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.

    From the medieval mock-epic Monty Python and the Holy Grail to the mythic, paranoid worlds of The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam has pursued a totally personal, uncompromising vision. This has led to legendary battles with studios and financiers, notably over The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Brazil, which is now widely considered a classic. Gilliam is a famously candid commentator on his own work, and in these specially recorded interviews he reflects on how his Midwestern childhood and early career as an animator prepared him to undertake his extraordinary adventures in cinema.

    Miraculously, he got it. For one year Dunne went everywhere there was to go and talked to everyone worth talking to within the studio. He tracked every step of the creation of pictures like "Dr. Dolittle," "Planet of the Apes," and "The Boston Strangler." The result is a work of reportage that, thirty years later, may still be our most minutely observed and therefore most uproariously funny portrait of the motion picture business.Whether he is recounting a showdown between Fox's studio head and two suave shark-like agents, watching a producer's girlfriend steal a silver plate from a restaurant, or shielding his eyes against the glare of a Hollywood premiere where the guests include a chimp in a white tie and tails, Dunne captures his subject in all its showmanship, savvy, vulgarity, and hype. Not since F. Scott Fitzgerald and Nathanael West has anyone done Hollywood better."Reads as racily as a novel...(Dunne) has a novelist's ear for speech and eye for revealing detail...Anyone who has tiptoed along those corridors of power is bound to say that Dunne's impressionism rings true."--Los Angeles Times

    Long considered the bible for storytellers, Aristotle's Poetics is a fixture of college courses on everything from fiction writing to dramatic theory. Now Michael Tierno shows how this great work can be an invaluable resource to screenwriters or anyone interested in studying plot structure. In carefully organized chapters, Tierno breaks down the fundamentals of screenwriting, highlighting particular aspects of Aristotle's work. Then, using examples from some of the best movies ever made, he demonstrates how to apply these ancient insights to modern-day screenwriting. This user-friendly guide covers a multitude of topics, from plotting and subplotting to dialogue and dramatic unity. Writing in a highly readable, informal tone, Tierno makes Aristotle's monumental work accessible to beginners and pros alike in areas such as screenwriting, film theory, fiction, and playwriting.

    Its notoriety is so great that its title has become a generic term for disaster, for ego run rampant, for epic mismanagement, for wanton extravagance. It was also the film that brought down one of Hollywood’s major studios—United Artists, the company founded in 1919 by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin. Steven Bach was senior vice president and head of worldwide production for United Artists at the time of the filming of Heaven's Gate, and apart from the director and producer, the only person to witness the film’s evolution from beginning to end. Combining wit, extraordinary anecdotes, and historical perspective, he has produced a landmark book on Hollywood and its people, and in so doing, tells a story of human absurdity that would have made Chaplin proud.