I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution


Craig Marks - 2011
    It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined.I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real World in 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business. Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTV is a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.

Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark


Brian Kellow - 2011
    During her tenure at the New Yorker from 1967 to 1991 she was a tastemaker, a career maker, and a career breaker. Her brash, vernacular writing style often made for an odd fit at the stately New Yorker.Brian Kellow gives us a richly detailed look at one of the most astonishing bursts of creativity in film history and a rounded portrait of this remarkable (and often relentlessly driven) woman. Pauline Kael is a book that will be welcomed by the same audience that made Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution and Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls bestsellers, and by anyone who is curious about the power of criticism in the arts.

Hit and Run


Nancy Griffin - 1996
    Veteran reporters Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters chronicle the rise of Jon Peters, a former hairdresser, seventh-grade dropout, and juvenile delinquent, and his soulless soul mate, Peter Guber -- and all the sex, drugs, and fistfights along the way. It is the story of the ultimate Hollywood con job and the standard by which every subsequent business blunder has been measured. Hit and Run delivers rock-solid business reporting liberally laced with inside gossip and outrageous scandal -- plus a new afterword bringing us up to date on the latest fallout from the Guber-Peters legacy.

Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker


Barry Sonnenfeld - 2020
    Fear the Present. Dread the Future." Told in his unmistakable voice, Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother is a laugh-out-loud memoir about coming of age. Constantly threatened with suicide by his over-protective mother, disillusioned by the father he worshiped, and abused by a demonic relative, Sonnenfeld somehow went on to become one of Hollywood's most successful producers and directors.Written with poignant insight and real-life irony, the book follows Sonnenfeld from childhood as a French horn player through graduate film school at NYU, where he developed his talent for cinematography. His first job after graduating was shooting nine feature length pornos in nine days. From that humble entrée, he went on to form a friendship with the Coen Brothers, launching his career shooting their first three films.Though Sonnenfeld had no ambition to direct, Scott Rudin convinced him to be the director of The Addams Family. It was a successful career move. He went on to direct many more films and television shows. Will Smith once joked that he wanted to take Sonnenfeld to Philadelphia public schools and say, "If this guy could end up as a successful film director on big budget films, anyone can." This book is a fascinating and hilarious roadmap for anyone who thinks they can't succeed in life because of a rough beginning.

Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations


Peter Evans - 2013
    But this riveting account of her storied life, including her marriage to Frank Sinatra, and career had to wait for publication until after her death—because Gardner feared it was too revealing."I either write the book or sell the jewels," Gardner told coauthor Peter Evans, "and I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels." The legendary actress serves up plenty of gems in these pages, reflecting with delicious humor and cutting wit on a life that took her from rural North Carolina to the heights of Hollywood's Golden Age. Tell-all stories abound, especially when Gardner divulges on her three husbands: Mickey Rooney, a serial cheater so notorious that even his mother warned Gardner about him; bandleader Artie Shaw, whom Ava calls "a dominating son of a bitch - always putting me down" and Frank Sinatra ("We were fighting all the time. Fighting and boozing. It was madness. But he was good in the feathers")."Her story is a raw-nerved revelation. . . . A vivid portrait" (Chicago Tribune)."Witty, penetrating, unique in its voice, it is impossible to put down - A complete delight" (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild


David Stenn - 1988
    She catapulted to fame after winning Motion Picture magazine's 1921 "Fame and Fortune" contest. The greatest box-office draw of her day she once received 45,000 fan letters in a single month, Clara Bow's on screen vitality and allure that beguiled thousands, however, would be her undoing off-camera. David Stenn captures her legendary rise to stardom and fall from grace, her success marred by studio exploitation and sexual scandals.

Alien Vault: The Definitive Story of the Making of the Film


Ian Nathan - 2011
    From the gore of the infant alien bursting from Kane’s chest to the mounting claustrophobia as Ripley discovers the monster has followed her into the escape shuttle, Alien is a chilling masterpiece.Now, Alien Vault: The Definitive Story of the Making of the Film opens a portal into the making of this legendary film, tracing its path from embryonic concept to fully fledged box office phenomenon.Featured herein are director Ridley Scott’s own annotated storyboards, Polaroids and script pages; the elegant but disturbing concept artwork of H.R. Giger; sketches and construction blueprints for the Nostromo; costume designs by Moebius; a treasure trove of never-before-seen photographs of the cast and crew; and ten meticulously reproduced artifacts, enclosed in vellum envelopes, for readers to remove and examine more closely.Fully authorized and illustrated throughout, Alien Vault is the ultimate tribute to a movie that changed cinema forever.

Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream


Sam Staggs - 2002
    Close-up on Sunset Boulevard features unforgettable anecdotes about every player: from silent queen Gloria Swanson in her poignant comeback to the cheerful ingenue Nancy Olson (who had never heard of the great and glamorous Gloria), from henpecked, handsome---and hungover---William Holden to the raucous writing team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Close-up on Sunset Boulevard is a fascinating, unputdownable movie history.

Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words


Preston Sturges - 1990
    At the height of his career, Sturges had not only won an Academy Award but was also one of the most highly paid executives in the country.The only account of his life in his own words, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges unveils the source of his extraordinary creativity: a life that was every bit as antic and unconventional as his movies.

The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune


Stuart Galbraith - 2002
    The Emperor and the Wolf is an in-depth look at these two great artists and their legacy that brims with behind-the-scenes details, many never before known, about their tumultuous lives and stormy relationships with the studios and with one another. More than just a biography, though, The Emperor and the Wolf is also an impromptu history of Japanese cinema -- its development, filmmakers, and performers -- and a provocative look at postwar American and Japanese culture and the different lenses through which two great societies viewed each other.

The Wes Anderson Collection


Matt Zoller Seitz - 2013
    A true auteur, Anderson is known for the visual artistry, inimitable tone, and idiosyncratic characterizations that make each of his films—Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom—instantly recognizable as “Andersonian.”The Wes Anderson Collection is the first in-depth overview of Anderson’s filmography, guiding readers through his life and career. Previously unpublished photos, artwork, and ephemera complement a book-length conversation between Anderson and award-winning critic Matt Zoller Seitz. The interview and images are woven together in a meticulously designed book that captures the spirit of his films: melancholy and playful, wise and childish—and thoroughly original.

Little Girl Lost


Drew Barrymore - 1990
    At ten she took up marijuana, and by twelve she began snorting cocaine. Here is her gripping, heart-wrenching story--a story of a childhood gone awry and a young woman battling to restore order to her chaotic life.

Herzog on Herzog


Paul Cronin - 2003
    The sheer number of false rumors and downright lies disseminated about the man and his films is truly astonishing. Yet Herzog's body of work is one of the most important in postwar European cinema. His international breakthrough came in 1973 with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, in which Klaus Kinski played a crazed Conquistador. For The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog cast in the lead a man who had spent most of his life institutionalized, and two years later he hypnotized his entire cast to make Heart of Glass. He rushed to an explosive volcanic Caribbean island to film La Soufrière, paid homage to F. W. Murnau in a terrifying remake of Nosferatu, and in 1982 dragged a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo. More recently, Herzog has made extraordinary "documentary" films such as Little Dieter Needs to Fly. His place in cinema history is assured, and Paul Cronin's volume of dialogues provides a forum for Herzog's fascinating views on the things, ideas, and people that have preoccupied him for so many years.

The Lonely Life


Bette Davis - 1962
    The Hollywood legend talks about her four marriages, her leading men, her feud with a well-known co-star, her longing to have a child, and her favorite roles.

Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey


Richard Ayoade - 2014
    It wouldn't. In fact, it's actually pretty insulting that this so-called 'Community' hasn't done more to acknowledge (or even begin to repay) its undoubted debt to me.Richard Ayoade is many things - film director (of Submarine and the forthcoming The Double), comedy actor (The IT Crowd), comedian and TV presenter (Gadget Man). Ayoade on Ayoade captures the director in his own words: pompous, vain, angry and very, very funny.