Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film


Zack Carlson - 2010
    Plus hundreds of stills, posters, covers, candid shots and images, many in full color! The most comprehensive and insane book ever made about punk and/or movies!!!

Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento


Maitland McDonagh - 1994
    Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds, which dissects such Argento cult films as Two Evil Eyes, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, and Deep Red, includes a new introduction discussing Argento’s most recent films, from The Stendahl Syndrome to Mother of Tears; an updated filmography; and an interview with Argento.

Are You in the House Alone?: A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999


Amanda Reyes - 2017
    Made specifically for the small screen, within the tight constraints of broadcasting standards, what these humble movies lacked in budget and star appeal, they made up for in other ways. Often they served as an introduction to genre films, particularly horror, mirroring their theatrical counterparts with a focus on sinister cults, women in prison, haunted houses and even animals in revolt. They were also a place to address serious contemporary issues - drugs, prostitution, sexual violence and justice -albeit in a cosy domestic environment. Production of telefilms continues to this day, but their significance within the history of mass media remains under-discussed. Are You in the House Alone? seeks to address this imbalance in a series of reviews and essays by fans and critics. It looks at many of the films, the networks and names behind them, and also specific genres - everything from Stephen King adaptations to superheroes to true-life dramas. So, kickback and crack open the TV guide once more for the event that is the Movie of the Week!

Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation


Beverly Gray - 2017
    . . The book as a whole offers a fascinating look at how this movie tells a timeless story.” —The Washington PostMrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you? When The Graduate premiered in December 1967, its filmmakers had only modest expectations for what seemed to be a small, sexy art-house comedy adapted from an obscure first novel by an eccentric twenty-four-year-old. There was little indication that this offbeat story—a young man just out of college has an affair with one of his parents’ friends and then runs off with her daughter—would turn out to be a monster hit, with an extended run in theaters and seven Academy Award nominations. The film catapulted an unknown actor, Dustin Hoffman, to stardom with a role that is now permanently engraved in our collective memory. While turning the word plastics into shorthand for soulless work and a corporate, consumer culture, The Graduate sparked a national debate about what was starting to be called “the generation gap.” Now, in time for this iconic film’s fiftieth birthday, author Beverly Gray offers up a smart close reading of the film itself as well as vivid, never-before-revealed details from behind the scenes of the production—including all the drama and decision-making of the cast and crew. For movie buffs and pop culture fanatics, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson brings to light The Graduate’s huge influence on the future of filmmaking. And it explores how this unconventional movie rocked the late-sixties world, both reflecting and changing the era’s views of sex, work, and marriage.

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.

The Big Lebowski


J.M. Tyree - 2007
    Its fans tend to be fanatical, congregating at 'Lebowski Conventions' in bowling alleys across American and Britain, and even dressing up as characters from the film. Among the funniest films of the last twenty-five years, and one of the high-water marks of 1990s genre recycling and pastiche, The Big Lebowski is also littered with playful and subversive references to film history, especially to Raymond Chandler's world of hardboiled detective classics and the world of film noir. The Big Lebowski is the rarest kind of film, a comedy whose jokes become funnier with repetition. The same goes for its multitudinous jukebox-like references to other films, many of which open up vistas for intertextual interpretation. Underneath the film's breakneck pacing and foul-mouthed characters, a farcical collection of flakes, losers, and phonies, is a surprisingly humane account of what fools we mortals be. It is one of the oddest buddy films ever made, with extraordinary performances by Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. In this study, The Big Lebowski is set into the context of 1990s Hollywood cinema, anatomised for its witty relationship with the classics which it satirises, and discussed in terms of its key theme: the hopeless flailing of ridiculously unmanly men in the world of discombobulated, mixed-up, or put-on identities that is Los Angeles.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Expanded and Updated


David Thomson - 1975
    In addition to the new “musts,” Thomson has added key figures from film history–lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies. Personal, opinionated, funny, daring, provocative, and passionate, it is the one book that every filmmaker and film buff must own. Time Out named it one of the ten best books of the 1990s. Gavin Lambert recognized it as “a work of imagination in its own right.” Now better than ever–a masterwork by the man playwright David Hare called “the most stimulating and thoughtful film critic now writing.”

Best Movies of the 80's (Taschen 25)


Jürgen Müller - 2003
    Step right up and get your fill of 80s nostalgia with the movie bible to end all movie bibles. We’ve diligently compiled a list of 140 of the most influential movies of the 1980s that’s sure to please popcorn gobblers and highbrow chin-strokers alike. The 80s was a time for adventurers, an era of excess, pomp, and bravado. In the era when mullets and shoulder pads were all the rage, moviegoers got their kicks from flicks as wide-ranging as Blade Runner, When Harry Met Sally, and Blue Velvet. Without a doubt, sci-fi was the most important genre of the decade, with non-human characters like E.T. winning the hearts of millions while the slimy creatures from Aliens became the stuff of nightmares and movies like Ghostbusters and Back to the Future fused comedy and sci-fi to the delight of audiences everywhere. In fact, the 1980s saw the invention of a new reality, a movieworld so convincingly real - no matter now far-fetched - that spectators could not help but abandon hemselves to it. Now that’s entertainment, folks.

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror


David J. Skal - 1993
    Skal chronicles one of our most popular and pervasive modes of cultural expression. He explores the disguised form in which Hollywood's classic horror movies played out the traumas of two world wars and the Depression; the nightmare visions of invasion and mind control catalyzed by the Cold War; the preoccupation with demon children that took hold as thalidomide, birth control, and abortion changed the reproductive landscape; the vogue in visceral, transformative special effects that paralleled the development of the plastic surgery industry; the link between the AIDS epidemic and the current fascination with vampires; and much more. Now with a new Afterword by the author that looks at horror's popular renaissance in the last decade, The Monster Show is a compulsively readable, thought-provoking inquiry into America's obsession with the macabre.

Inside The Wicker Man: How Not to Make a Cult Classic


Allan Brown - 2000
    Allan Brown describes the filming and distribution of the cult masterpiece as a 'textbook example of How Things Should Never Be Done'. The omens were bad from the start, and proceeded to get much, much worse, with fake blossom on trees to simulate spring, actors chomping on ice-cubes to prevent their breath showing on film, and verbal and physical confrontations involving both cast and crew. The studio hated it and hardly bothered to distribute it, but today it finds favour with critics and fans alike, as a serious—if flawed—piece of cinema. Brown expertly guides readers through the film's convoluted history, attempting along the way to explain its enduring fascination, and providing interviews with the key figures—many of whom still have an axe to grind, and some of whom still harbour plans for a sequel.

Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide


John Stanley - 1997
    From features, made-for-televsion, and straight-to-video, here are all the films you love and hate; the films you forgot about and never knew existed. Horror and science fiction fans will find films that matter and films that splatter in one critical and humorous guide.Featuring * Thousands of capsulized reviews * A five-star rating system * Hundreds of obscure and rare titles * Video distribution informaton (including mail order) *Cross-references to secondary titles, sequels and tricky retitlings * And more.

Incredibly Strange Films


V. Vale - 1986
    Mikels, Larry Cohen, and others who dared to make independent feature films their way, without bowing to a committee or focus group. This is an oblique how-to manual, covering everything from financing, distribution, lighting, camerawork and acting, to publicity, marketing and screenwriting. Would-be filmmakers as well as scholars will find much inspiration and enlightenment in this volume, which has been used in college film classes. In-depth interviews focus on philosophy, while anecdotes entertain as well as illuminate theory. Lists of recommended films, an A-Z directory, and quotations are also included.

Monsters in the Movies


John Landis - 2011
    He also surveys the historical origins of the archetypal monsters, such as vampires, zombies, and werewolves, and takes you behind the scenes to discover the secrets of those special-effects wizards who created such legendary frighteners as King Kong, Dracula, and Halloween's Michael Myers. With more than 1000 stunning movie stills and posters, this book is sure to keep even the most intense fright-seekers at the edge of their seats for hours!

Hitchcock's Films Revisited


Robin Wood - 1965
    When Robin Wood returned to his writings in Hitchcock's films and published Hitchcock's Films Revisited in 1989, the multidimensional essays took on a new shape―one tempered by Wood's own development as a critic.This revised edition of Hitchcock's Films Revisited includes a substantial new preface in which Wood reveals his personal history as a film scholar―including his coming out as a gay man, his views on his previows critical work, and how his writings, his love of film, and his personal life have remained deeply intertwined through the years. This revised edition includes all eighteen original essays and a new chapter on Marnie titled "You Freud, Me Hitchcock: Does Mark Cure Marnie?"

A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series


David Kalat - 1997
    This work also covers various political and social subtexts of the movies.