Be More Unicorn: How to Find Your Inner Sparkle


Joanna Gray - 2018
    A mascot for the millennials and a symbol of magical positivity, there is a lot we can learn from these fabulous mythical beasts. Be More Unicorn offers a dose of glittery escapism. It teaches you to let go by embracing your inner unicorn and gain a deeper understanding of yourself and others. Unleash your playfulness and uncover the secret to positivity, through a collection of practical rainbow-colored tips, mystical exercises, and witty, whimsical quotes. So polish your hooves, shake your luscious mane, and get ready to become the all-new, powerful you, and Be More Unicorn!

Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion


Matt Zoller Seitz - 2015
    This book collects TV and movie critic Matt Zoller Seitz’s celebrated Mad Men recaps—as featured on New York magazine's Vulture blog—for the first time, including never-before-published essays on the show’s first three seasons. Seitz’s writing digs deep into the show’s themes, performances, and filmmaking, examining complex and sometimes confounding aspects of the series. The complete series—all seven seasons and ninety-two episodes—is covered.   Each episode review also includes brief explanations of locations, events, consumer products, and scientific advancements that are important to the characters, such as P.J. Clarke’s restaurant and the old Penn Station; the inventions of the birth control pill, the Xerox machine, and the Apollo Lunar Module; the release of the Beatles’ Revolver and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds; and all the wars, protests, assassinations, and murders that cast a bloody pall over a chaotic decade.  Mad Men Carousel is named after an iconic moment from the show’s first-season finale, “The Wheel,” wherein Don delivers an unforgettable pitch for a new slide projector that’s centered on the idea of nostalgia: “the pain from an old wound.” This book will soothe the most ardent Mad Men fan’s nostalgia for the show. New viewers, who will want to binge-watch their way through one of the most popular TV shows in recent memory, will discover a spoiler-friendly companion to one of the most multilayered and mercurial TV shows of all time. It's the perfect gift for Mad Men fans and obsessives. Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: The Oliver Stone Experience, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.

James Bond: 50 Years of Movie Posters


Alastair Dougall - 2012
    From 1962's Dr. No to 2012's Skyfall, this lavish film-by-film guide, written by Bond Production Designer Dennis Gassner, boasts the most impressive visual collection of James Bond movie posters to date. Featuring a gallery of rare and sought-after posters, as well as spectacular unused concept artwork, and unique teasers and lobby cards from virtually every country where Bond movies have screened, this is a gorgeous collection of the images that have defined cinema's most famous superspy. 007 (Gun Logo) and related James Bond Trademarks© 1962-2012 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. All rights reserved. 007 (Gun Logo) and related James Bond Trademarks are trademarks of Danjaq, LLC, licensed by EON Productions Limited.

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick


Mallory O'Meara - 2019
    But for someone who should have been hailed as a pioneer in the genre there was little information available. For, as O’Meara soon discovered, Patrick’s contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague, her career had been cut short and she soon after had disappeared from film history. No one even knew if she was still alive.As a young woman working in the horror film industry, O’Meara set out to right the wrong, and in the process discovered the full, fascinating story of an ambitious, artistic woman ahead of her time. Patrick’s contribution to special effects proved to be just the latest chapter in a remarkable, unconventional life, from her youth growing up in the shadow of Hearst Castle, to her career as one of Disney’s first female animators. And at last, O’Meara discovered what really had happened to Patrick after The Creature’s success, and where she went.A true-life detective story and a celebration of a forgotten feminist trailblazer, Mallory O’Meara’s The Lady from the Black Lagoon establishes Patrick in her rightful place in film history while calling out a Hollywood culture where little has changed since.

Universally Challenged: Quiz Contestants Say the Funniest Things


Wendy Roby - 2010
    This hilarious compendium of stupidity is guaranteed to have readers of any age howling in disbelief, and is the ideal gift for anyone who's ever shouted answers at the TV and thinks they could do better.

John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood


Michael D. Sellers - 2012
    It took Disney Studios just ten days to declare the film a flop and lock it away in the Disney vaults. How did this project, despite its quarter-billion dollar budget, the brilliance of director Andrew Stanton, and the creative talents of legendary Pixar Studios, become a calamity of historic proportions?Michael Sellers, a filmmaker and Hollywood insider himself, saw the disaster approaching and fought to save the project – but without success. In John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood, Sellers details every blunder and betrayal that led to the doom of the motion picture – and that left countless Hollywood careers in the wreckage.John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood examines every aspect of Andrew Stanton's adaptation and Disney's marketing campaign and seeks to answer the question: What went wrong? it includes a history of Hollywood's 100 year effort to bring the film to the screen, and examines the global fan movement spawned by the film.

MGM: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot


Steven Bingen - 2010
    During its Golden Age, the studio employed the likes of Garbo, Astaire, and Gable, and produced innumerable iconic pieces of cinema such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Ben-Hur.It is estimated that a fifth of all films made in the United States prior to the 1970s were shot at MGM studios, meaning that the gigantic property was responsible for hundreds of iconic sets and stages, often utilizing and transforming minimal spaces and previously used props, to create some of the most recognizable and identifiable landscapes of modern movie culture.All of this happened behind closed doors, the backlot shut off from the public in a veil of secrecy and movie magic. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot highlights this fascinating film treasure by recounting the history, popularity, and success of the MGM company through a tour of its physical property.Featuring the candid, exclusive voices and photographs from the people who worked there, and including hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs (including many from the archives of Warner Bros.), readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining virtual tour of Hollywood’s most famous and mysterious motion picture studio.

Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema


Lindy West - 2020
    In Shit, Actually, Lindy returns to those roots, re-examining beloved and iconic movies from the past 40 years with an eye toward the big questions of our time: Is Twilight the horniest movie in history? Why do the zebras in The Lion King trust Mufasa-WHO IS A LION-to look out for their best interests? Why did anyone bother making any more movies after The Fugitive achieved perfection? And, my god, why don't any of the women in Love, Actually ever fucking talk?!?!From Forrest Gump, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Bad Boys II, to Face/Off, Top Gun, and The Notebook, Lindy combines her razor-sharp wit and trademark humor with a genuine adoration for nostalgic trash to shed new critical light on some of our defining cultural touchstones-the stories we've long been telling ourselves about who we are. At once outrageously funny and piercingly incisive, Shit, Actually reminds us to pause and ask, "How does this movie hold up?", all while teaching us how to laugh at the things we love without ever letting them or ourselves off the hook.Shit, Actually is a love letter and a break-up note all in one: to the films that shaped us and the ones that ruined us. More often than not, Lindy finds, they're one and the same.

To Air is Human: One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist


Björn Türoque - 2006
     The true story of how mildly successful guitarist and New York Times writer Dan Crane relinquished his instrument and became Björn Türoque (pronounced "b-yorn too-RAWK"), the second greatest air guitarist in the nation. This exploration of the international air guitar sub-culture addresses the issue of dedicating oneself to an invisible art in order to achieve the ultimate goal of "airness"-that is, when air guitar transcends the "real" art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself.

Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball


Stefan Kanfer - 2003
    As Lucy Ricardo she was the ultimate screwball housewife, getting herself into and out of scrapes with unmatched comic finesse. Indeed, she was so funny, and so central to the cultural landscape, that we often overlook Ball's role in shaping that turf: as producer of her own show and a cofounder of a major studio, she was a pioneer, rewriting the rules and forging new paths for women in the boardroom and on the sound stage. In Ball of Fire, Stefan Kanfer goes beyond the icon to examine the difficult life and enduring work of the most influential woman in modern American comedy. Kanfer traces the arc of her career from its unlikely beginnings in a lonely and desolate childhood in upstate New York. There she discovered that making people laugh could ease the pains of a fragmented family life. But she was more than amusing. She was also beautiful, and when Lucy's adolescent attempts to crack Broadway ended in failure, she became a runway model and on a fluke, journeyed out to California to be an extra in one film. That led to another, and another, and another bottom-of-the-bill movie, until she became, in her own words, "The Queen of the B's." Ball of Fire tracks Lucy's pursuit of the superstardom that eluded her on the big screen and follows the actress through a series of disappointing affairs and sorrows until she meets a Cuban conga drummer six years her junior, and falls headlong in love with Desi Arnaz. Working with her husband, Lucille Ball becomes a different kind of comic artist in a program called "I Love Lucy," the show that is still running in more than eighty countries aroundthe globe. Taking us through the development of television both as technology and cultural phenomenon, Kanfer chronicles the difficult birth of the sitcom that changed the world. He details the early executive meetings, the rocky first productions, the shaky first weeks and the unpredicted triumph. We see all of Lucy's behind-the-scenes battles for creative control of the show; her surprising confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee when it was discovered that she had once registered to vote as a Communist; her groundbreaking on-air pregnancy; and a series of in-depth analyses of the classic scenes and Chaplinesque slapstick that guarantee her a permanent place in the pantheon of American comedy. Finally, we see the aftermath of her hard-won fame: the turbulent marriage and painful split from Desi, the man she never stopped loving; her second marriage; and her sad last years out of the limelight and away from the applause. This is the first biography to examine the legendary Lucille Ball in all her many dimensions: her personal struggles and the torments that forged a comic genius; and, at last, her posthumous influence on television comedy, on feminist scholars and cultural critics, and on the public at large. Ball of Fire is the definitive biography Lucy fans have been waiting for.

Gimson's Presidents: Brief Lives From Washington to Trump


Andrew Gimson - 2020
    Helping to bring these forgotten figures into the light, Andrew Gimson's illuminating accounts are accompanied by sketches from Guardian sartirical cartoonist, Martin Rowson, making this the perfect gift for all lovers of history and politics.

The Anthology Part 1 Limited Edition


Garth Brooks - 2017
    

City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s


Otto Friedrich - 1986
    Its cast includes actors, writers, musicians and composers, producers and directors, racketeers and labor leaders, journalists and politicians in the turbulent decade from World War II to Korea.

The Sopranos, The Vanity Fair Oral History


Graydon Carter - 2012
    On the fifth anniversary of the show’s hotly debated series finale, in 2007, Vanity Fair releases a 20,000-word e-book, the untold, behind-the-scenes story of The Sopranos. With this oral history, expanded from the article in the magazine’s April 2012 issue, The Sopranos cast and crew—from creator David Chase and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano), to Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano) and Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Melfi)—give their unexpurgated thoughts on the show’s ambiguous ending and the possibilities of a Sopranos movie. Sam Kashner and Jim Kelly lead readers through the writers’ room where Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner and Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter cut their teeth, through the grueling shooting schedules during which the late Nancy Marchand (Tony Soprano’s mother, Livia), behind the cameras, slapped herself with pepperoni to try to lighten the mood, and through the “whackings” of Big Pussy, Adriana La Cerva, and Bobby “Bacala.” The book discusses the show’s soundtrack (which ranged from Bruce Springsteen to Britney Spears, from Journey to The Rolling Stones) and influences (from Goodfellas to The Three Stooges) and, above all else, how much it is the creation of a singular genius, David Chase. Much more than a show about the Mafia, The Sopranos is an American cultural phenomenon—as much about the domestic family as the Mob family—that succeeded against all odds. As Edie Falco recalls, “After we shot the pilot, David [Chase] said, ‘Well, that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, no one will ever watch this show, but you guys have been great.’ And that was the end. Or so we thought.”

Hollywood Love Stories: True Love Stories from the Golden Days of the Silver Screen


Gill Paul - 2014
    The magic of the movies made audiences pulses quicken, but what was really happening in the lives of the actors up on the silver screen? Hollywood Love Stories looks at 14 real-life love affairs across the golden age of the movies, from the 1920s to the 1970s. From the swashbuckling romance between Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and the poignant lifelong affair between Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn, to the scandalous liaison between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, each account offers insights and surprises, accompanied by wonderful images and ephemera that bring every love affair vividly alive.