Evil Spirits: The Life of Oliver Reed


Cliff Goodwin - 2000
    Having risen through Hammer Horror films to international stardom as Bill Sykes in Oliver!, Reed became, in his own works, 'the biggest star this country has got'. With his legendary off-screen exploits and blunt opinions - especially of his co-stars - he was also one of the most infamous.Bestselling author Cliff Goodwin uses material from first-hand interviews with Reed's family, friends and colleagues and never before seen photographs to explore Reed's eventful career. But he also reveals another side to this unique and complex man.

Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects


Thomas G. Smith - 1986
    From its early days in a large empty warehouse in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, to its Oscar-winning accommplishments creating special effects for the STAR WARS trilogy, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, ET, POLTERGEIST, and a host of others.

Mad Dogs And Englishmen: An Expedition Round My Family


Ranulph Fiennes - 2009
    Sir Ranulph Fiennes takes a journey around his eccentric family tree, and reveals how he came to be described by the Guinness Book of Records as 'the world's greatest living explorer'.

The Rough Guide to Horror Movies 1


Alan Jones - 2005
    The guide includes all the icons, from Boris Karloff to Wes Craven and Frankenstein to Freddie Kruger, including classics from Argentina, Pakistan, South Africa and the recent chillers from East Asia. The canon of fifty essential horror movies features The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Switchblade Romance, via Psycho and The Exorcist. Everything you need to know is covered from festivals, adaptations, magazines and merchandise. The guide tells the stories behind the movies that have scared us throughout the twentieth century.

Truffaut: A Biography


Antoine de Baecque - 1996
    But his personal story—from which he drew extensively to create the characters and plots of his films—is itself an extraordinary human drama. Now, with captivating immediacy, Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana give us the definitive story of this beloved artist. They begin with the unwanted, mischievous child who learned to love movies and books as an escape from sadness and confusion: as a boy, Francois came to identify with screen characters and to worship actresses. Following his early adult years as a journalist, during which he gained fame as France's most iconoclastic film critic, the obsessive prodigy began to make films of his own, and before he was thirty, notched the two masterpieces The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim. As Truffaut's dazzling body of work evolves, in the shadow of the politics of his day, including the student uprisings of 1968, we watch him learning the lessons of his masters Fellini and Hitchcock. And we witness the progress of his often tempestuous personal relationships, including his violent falling-out with Jean-Luc Godard (who owed Truffaut the idea for Breathless) and his rapturous love affairs with the many glamorous actresses he directed, among them Jacqueline Bisset and Jeanne Moreau. With Fanny Ardant, Truffaut had a child only thirteen months before dying of a brain tumor at the age of fifty-two. Here is a life of astonishing emotional range, from the anguish of severe depression to the exaltation of Oscar victory. Based on unprecedented access to Truffaut's papers, including notes toward an unwritten autobiography, de Baecque and Toubiana's richly detailed work is an incomparably authoritative revelation of a singular genius.

The Tom Hanks Enigma: The Biography of the World's Most Intriguing Movie Star


David Gardner - 2000
    With an array of stunning performances in blockbusters as diverse as Big, The Da Vinci Code, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, and Saving Private Ryan to his name, he has an outstanding reputation as one of the world's greatest leading men. Yet behind the many roles lies an intensely complex figure. This wonderful portrait of a dedicated family man and professional explores Tom Hanks' fractured childhood, the breakdown of his first marriage, his friendship with Princess Diana, his relationship with Bill Clinton, his moral and political stances, his family life, and the highs and lows of his stellar career.

The Unforgiven: The Story Of Don Revie's Leeds United


Rob Bagchi - 2002
    'The Unforgiven' reveals how far the eccentric Revie was responsible for Leeds' outlaw status, using carpet bowls sessions for team building and exorcising a gypsy's curse at their ground.

Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls: From McMahon to McMahon


James J. Dillon - 2005
    Dillon.

Peter Jackson: A Film-Maker's Journey


Brian Sibley - 2006
    Now, he is the newest member of Hollywood's elite fellowship, with his name on the most successful movie trilogy of all time. Written with Jackson's full participation, this extensive biography, illustrated with never-before-seen photos from Jackson's personal collection, tells the inside story of how a New Zealander became Hollywood's hottest property—from the early cult classics, through Academy Award-winning success with Kate Winslet's Heavenly Creatures, the abandoned King Kong remake, and the filming of The Lord of the Rings—a project which was abandoned two years into pre-production, rejected by most of the other studios, and then picked up by New Line Cinema in the biggest gamble in film history. Drawing upon interviews with 50 of Peter Jackson's colleagues and contemporaries, author Brian Sibley paints a portrait of a true auteur, a man gifted with single-minded determination and an artist's vision. Jackson himself is both revealing and insightful about his entire filmmaking life, from his first childhood steps filming in Super 8 to the grand realisation of his life's dream: King Kong. Together, these joint narratives provide a truly unique and compelling insight into one of the finest cinematic minds at work today.

Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman


Patricia Bosworth - 2006
    At the top of her game she risked all, rising against the Vietnam War and shocking the world with a trip to Hanoi. Later, while becoming one of Hollywood’s most committed feminists, she financed her husband Tom Hayden’s political career in the ’80s with exercise videos that began a fitness craze and brought in millions of dollars. Just as interesting is Fonda’s next turn, as a Stepford Wife of the Gulfstream set, marrying Ted Turner and seemingly walking away from her ideals and her career.Fonda’s is a story of the blend of deep insecurity, magnetism, bravery, and determination that fuels the most inspiring and occasionally infuriating public lives. Finally here is Fonda and all the women she’s been.

By Any Means Necessary: Trials And Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X


Spike Lee - 1992
    Original.

Horror Films of the 1970s


John Kenneth Muir - 2002
    This detailed filmography covers these and 225 more. Section One provides an introduction and a brief history of the decade. Beginning with 1970 and proceeding chronologically by year of its release in the United States, Section Two offers an entry for each film. Each entry includes several categories of information: Critical Reception (sampling both '70s and later reviews), Cast and Credits, P.O.V., (quoting a person pertinent to that film's production), Synopsis (summarizing the film's story), Commentary (analyzing the film from Muir's perspective), Legacy (noting the rank of especially worthy '70s films in the horror pantheon of decades following). Section Three contains a conclusion and these five appendices: horror film cliches of the 1970s, frequently appearing performers, memorable movie ads, recommended films that illustrate how 1970s horror films continue to impact the industry, and the 15 best genre films of the decade as chosen by Muir.

Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of Handmade Films


Robert Sellers - 2003
    His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong... This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders’ story of what happened...

Movies Based on True Stories: What Really Happened? Movies versus History


Alan Royle - 2015
    A look at over 400 of the best historical movies (and some of the worst) purporting to be ‘factual’ or ‘based on actual events’; and how Hollywood has distorted, altered, manipulated, exaggerated, even falsified history under the all-encompassing premise…based on a true story…

Ken Burns: The Kindle Singles Interview (Kindle Single)


Tom Roston - 2014
    In this illuminating, in-depth Q & A, “America’s storyteller” lets readers in on his philosophical approach to understanding our nation’s past, as well as a little family secret for overcoming your fears.Tom Roston is a veteran journalist who began his career at The Nation and Vanity Fair magazines, before working at Premiere magazine as a senior editor. He writes a regular blog about nonfiction filmmaking on PBS.org and he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City. Cover design by Adil Dara.