The Great Movies


Roger Ebert - 2002
    The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm–or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing. Ebert’s selections range widely across genres, periods, and nationalities, and from the highest achievements in film art to justly beloved and wildly successful popular entertainments. Roger Ebert manages in these essays to combine a truly populist appreciation for our most important form of popular art with a scholar’s erudition and depth of knowledge and a sure aesthetic sense. Wonderfully enhanced by stills selected by Mary Corliss, film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, The Great Movies is a treasure trove for film lovers of all persuasions, an unrivaled guide for viewers, and a book to return to again and again.The Great Movies includes: All About Eve • Bonnie and Clyde • Casablanca • Citizen Kane • The Godfather • Jaws • La Dolce Vita • Metropolis • On the Waterfront • Psycho • The Seventh Seal • Sweet Smell of Success • Taxi Driver • The Third Man • The Wizard of Oz • and eighty-five more films.From the Hardcover edition.

Cary Grant: A Touch of Elegance


Warren G. Harris - 1988
    Cary Grant...Hollywood's ultimate ladies' man...the silver screen's most ardent lover. But beyond his portrayal of the sophisticated romantic hero in movies like "The Philadelphia Story" and "Notorious" was a man haunted by fear and self-doubt which affected his career as well as his personal life.

The Other Side Of Nowhere


Danniella Westbrook - 2006
    For a while she was the nation's most famous drug addict. This is her story of recovery from the despair of addiction, told with total emotional honesty and courage.

Sahir Ludhianvi - The peoples poet


Akshay Manwani - 2013
    So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.

Se7en


Richard Dyer - 1999
    A serial killer on a warped moral mission who turns his victims' "sins" into the means of their murder. The movie Seven is analyzed here covering topics such as sin, story, structure, seriality, sound, sight and salvation.

From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film


Siegfried Kracauer - 1947
    Siegfried Kracauer--a prominent German film critic and member of Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's intellectual circle--broke new ground in exploring the connections between film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer's pioneering book, which examines German history from 1921 to 1933 in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel, has never gone out of print. Now, over half a century after its first appearance, this beautifully designed and entirely new edition reintroduces Kracauer for the twenty-first century. Film scholar Leonardo Quaresima places Kracauer in context in a critical introduction, and updates the book further with a new bibliography, index, and list of inaccuracies that crept into the first edition. This volume is a must-have for the film historian, film theorist, or cinema enthusiast.In From Caligari to Hitler, Siegfried Kracauer made a startling (and still controversial) claim: films as a popular art provide insight into the unconscious motivations and fantasies of a nation. In films of the 1920s, he traced recurring visual and narrative tropes that expressed, he argued, a fear of chaos and a desire for order, even at the price of authoritarian rule. The book has become an undisputed classic of film historiography, laying the foundations for the serious study of film.Kracauer was an important film critic in Weimar Germany. A Jew, he escaped the rise of Nazism, fleeing to Paris in 1933. Later, in anguish after Benjamin's suicide, he made his way to New York, where he remained until his death in 1966. He wrote From Caligari to Hitler while working as a "special assistant" to the curator of the Museum of Modern Art's film division. He was also on the editorial board of Bollingen Series. Despite many critiques of its attempt to link movies to historical outcomes, From Caligari to Hitler remains Kracauer's best-known and most influential book, and a seminal work in the study of film. Princeton published a revised edition of his Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality in 1997.

Yankee Fighter: The Story Of An American In The Free French Foreign Legion


John F. Hasey - 1942
    Hasey was the first American citizen to shed his blood to free France from the oppression of the Nazi Regime. For his actions he became the first American to receive France’s highest World War II honor and become a Companion of the Ordre de la Libération. But why was Hasey fighting for France and why was he spilling his blood for the cause of the French people? John F. Hasey’s remarkable memoir Yankee Figher is a brilliant account of his life in Europe in the late 1930s and through the beginning of the Second World War. Yet, Hasey’s first taste of conflict was not during that terrible global war, as in 1939 he joined the Iroquois Ambulance Corps, with other young Americans, to assist the Finns during the Russo-Finnish War. When Hitler’s forces launched their attacks upon Western Europe Hasey immediately signed up with De Gaulle’s Free French Forces and headed to the Middle East to fight for France. The value of his contribution to France’s war effort can be demonstrated in these comments from his citations: “He has the qualities of a man, of a soldier, and of a leader. He has won a place in the hearts of his comrades. Loved and respected by them, as well as by his leaders, Lieutenant John Hasey is the perfect type of foreigner, for whom the love of France is not vain words.” “In the Battle of the Enghiahat … his Captain and First Lieutenant being wounded, he remained the only officer valid. His absolute indifference to danger inspired and galvanized his men.” “During the siege of Massawa, he led his platoon with magnificent bravery in an assault upon enemy positions, which he captured along with a large number of prisoners.” This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the fascinating story of one man’s fight to preserve freedom in the early years of the Second World War and the much less well known Russo-Finnish War. “A young American reports on his part, as ambulance man and then as a fighter for de Gaulle, in the campaigns of Finland, Ethiopia and Syria. An unpretentious yet revealing book.” Foreign Affairs After the events of Yankee Fighter: The Story of an American in the Free French Foreign Legion John F. Hasey worked as a liaison between de Gaulle and Eisenhower. In August 1943, he became an aide-de-camp on the staff of General Marie Pierre Koenig, and remained with Koenig during his term as military Governor of Paris, August 1944. After the war he worked for the CIA and passed away in 2005. Joseph F. Dinneen was co-author of the book and worked as a journalist for the Boston Globe, he passed away in 1964. Yankee Fighter: The Story of an American in the Free French Foreign Legion was first published in 1942.

Visual And Other Pleasures


Laura Mulvey - 1989
    The essays collected in this book reflect some of the commitments and changes during the period that saw the women's movement shift into feminism and the development of feminism's involvement with the politics of representation, psychoanalytic film theory and avant-garde aesthetics.

Shhh! Don't Talk About Mental Health


Arjun Gupta - 2019
    Follow the journey of Yashasvi and millions of other people who are tormented by their own minds. This is not a self-help book. Mental health is no longer just about helping yourself. It is a movement against an invisible crisis that breeds inside our minds. A crisis that makes you question the voice in your head. Yes, the same voice that is reading this out to you.True stories, research, statistics, and facts. This book will convince you why mental health cannot be just about self-help anymore, and why people like Yashasvi need our help.

Salad Days


Charles Romalotti - 2000
    Now in its fifth printing, this is a sma...see site for more info.

Break-up Boss


Zoë Foster Blake - 2018
    But you don't have to suck at break-ups. Break-ups are awful, and tough, and they're very real, but that doesn't mean they get to take over your whole life. YOU can take charge. YOU can be the boss of your break-up. YOU can choose to see it as a gift. And you must.Break-up Boss gives you all the tools and techniques (and lots of lectures - cute!) to deal with each stage of your break-up. This is a Real Life, no-nonsense picture of a break-up, and an enthusiastic, empowered and positive view of how to deal with it.

The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies


Vito Russo - 1981
    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.

Keri Karin: Part 2: The Shocking true story continued further


Kat Ward - 2014
     However, as readers of the first two volumes of this series will know, her childhood was hardly the loving, supportive, preparatory period it should have been. Instead of family dinners and piano recitals, there were shattered dishes and abusive parents. Instead of trips to the museum, there were trips to TV studios - to be molested by celebrities. In short, her childhood was nothing short of a nightmare. Should it really be any surprise then, after such a traumatic baptism into life, that her first foray into the adult world was hardly an unmitigated success? From living in squalor to racking up debts, her new-found independence forced her face-to-face with many of life's grim realities. And despite waiting all her life for her freedom, she soon realised that a world without the institutional bars she was so accustomed to was just too much of a jungle. And every jungle has its predators... But what was a girl to do? Regress back to an abusive enslavement? Or continue moving forward in a world that seemed so backward? She needed a friend - and fast. Naturally, her understandable distrust of others didn't make things easy. Not to mention her warped idea of love. In the end though, her determination proved the deciding factor. As far as she was concerned, she'd performed her final "favour", and cried the last of her tears. But just when she thought she'd finally left her demons behind, she found herself at the mercy of unsavoury characters yet again - and this time, without anyone to turn to... DISCLAIMER: This is a true story of child abuse, and as such, reader discretion should be advised. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Guide to Screenplay Structure


Dan O'Bannon - 2012
    O’Bannon also includes his insights on subjects such as the logic of the three-act structure, the role of the producer in screenplay development, and the psychological principle known as “hedonic adaptation,” which has a unique effect on the structuring of screen stories.

Anger Management for Beginners: A Self-Help Course in 70 Lessons


Giles Coren - 2010
    Star of BBC's Supersizers and hugely popular Times columnist's works through his anger about everything from dogs to cycle helmets.