This study analyzes Chinatown in the context of the figure of the detective in literature and film from Sophocles to Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock.

    Lynch's unique universe of the "ridiculous sublime" is interpreted as a simultaneous playful staging and traversing of the fundamental ideological fantasies that sustain our late capitalist society.A master of reversals, Zizek invites the reader to reexamine with him easy assumptions, received opinion, and current critical trends, as well as pose tough questions about the ways in which we understand our world and culture. He offers provocative readings of Casablanca, Schindler's List, and Life Is Beautiful in the process of examining topics as diverse--and as closely linked--as ethics, politics, and cyberspace.

    Dilip Kumar (born as Yousuf Khan), who began as a diffident novice in Hindi cinema in the early 1940s, went on to attain the pinnacle of stardom within a short time. He came up with spellbinding performances in one hit film after another – in his almost six-decade-long career – on the basis of his innovative capability, determination, hard work and never-say-die attitude. In this unique volume, Dilip Kumar traces his journey right from his birth to the present. In the process, he candidly recounts his interactions and relationships with a wide variety of people not only from his family and the film fraternity but also from other walks of life, including politicians. While seeking to set the record straight, as he feels that a lot of what has been written about him so far is ‘full of distortions and misinformation’, he narrates, in graphic detail, how he got married to Saira Banu, which reads like a fairy tale! Dilip Kumar relates, matter-of-factly, the event that changed his life: his meeting with Devika Rani, the boss of Bombay Talkies, when she offered him an acting job. His first film was Jwar Bhata (1944). He details how he had to learn everything from scratch and how he had to develop his own distinct histrionics and style, which would set him apart from his contemporaries. After that, he soon soared to great heights with movies such as Jugnu, Shaheed, Mela, Andaz, Deedar, Daag and Devdas. In these movies he played the tragedian with such intensity that his psyche was adversely affected. He consulted a British psychiatrist, who advised him to switch over to comedy. The result was spectacular performances in laugh riots such as Azaad and Kohinoor, apart from a scintillating portrayal as a gritty tonga driver in Naya Daur. After a five-year break he started his ‘second innings’ with Kranti (1981), after which he appeared in a series of hits such as Vidhaata, Shakti, Mashaal, Karma, Saudagar and Qila.

    A comprehensive, fun to browse, and easy-to-use source for everything you need to know about movies and the people behind them. From Hollywood to Bollywood, this book's unique approach will explore every aspect of film and provide pointers on how to watch and understand films of different types, styles, and periods.

    Few are so angelically androgynous and masculine in the same breath. From teen hearth-throb to an accomplished actor who has worked with art house directors such as Emir Kusturica, Terry Gilliam, Roman Polanski, Jim Jarmusch, and John Waters, Depp has built himself wildly successful and unconventional career. Movie Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars.

    Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a unique self-portrait of this uncompromising filmmaker that offers a revealing account of his life and work. In a series of rare, in-depth interviews, Allen brings us onto the sets and behind the scenes of all his films. Since its original publication, Woody Allen on Woody Allen has been the primary source of Allen's own thoughts on his work, childhood, favorite films, and inspirations. Now updated with one hundred pages of new material that brings us up to his Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen on Woody Allen is a required addition to any cinephile's library.

    Now the founder of the Church of the Latter-Day Dude has brought together his own prophetic insights along with the advice of his top disciples to show readers how they, too, can lead a more relaxed, laid-back life based on the ways of Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski.The Abide Guide is a self-help resource that believes The Big Lebowski is more than a movie; it’s a way of life. Packed full of tips and far-out facts related to the movie, The Abide Guide holds the answers to all life’s questions by including moral and inspirational life lessons from key scenes in the movie, the seven habits of highly lazy yet totally successful Dudes, and great Dudes from history who changed the world without trying. Now when life throws a gutter ball, it’s easy to just ask, What would the Dude do?

    Illustrated.

    But the environmental emergency is also a crisis for our philosophical habits of thought, confronting us with a problem that seems to defy not only our control but also our understanding. Global warming is perhaps the most dramatic example of what Timothy Morton calls “hyperobjects”—entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place. In this book, Morton explains what hyperobjects are and their impact on how we think, how we coexist with one another and with nonhumans, and how we experience our politics, ethics, and art.Moving fluidly between philosophy, science, literature, visual and conceptual art, and popular culture, the book argues that hyperobjects show that the end of the world has already occurred in the sense that concepts such as world, nature, and even environment are no longer a meaningful horizon against which human events take place. Instead of inhabiting a world, we find ourselves inside a number of hyperobjects, such as climate, nuclear weapons, evolution, or relativity. Such objects put unbearable strains on our normal ways of reasoning.Insisting that we have to reinvent how we think to even begin to comprehend the world we now live in, Hyperobjects takes the first steps, outlining a genuinely postmodern ecological approach to thought and action.

    This work also covers various political and social subtexts of the movies.

    

    This revised edition contains material on GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and other projects up to Casino.

    By the end of the following year, moviegoers couldn't get enough of him and his iconic persona, the Little Tramp. Perpetually outfitted with baggy pants, a limp cane, and a dusty bowler hat, the character became so beloved that Chaplin was mobbed by fans, journalists, and critics at every turn. Although he never particularly liked giving interviews, he accepted the demands of his stardom, giving detailed responses about his methods of making movies. He quickly progressed from making two-reel shorts to feature-length masterpieces such as The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin: Interviews offers a complex portrait of perhaps the world's greatest cinematic comedian and a man who is considered to be one of the most influential screen artists in movie history. The interviews he granted, performances in and of themselves, are often as well crafted as his films. Unlike the Little Tramp, Chaplin the interviewee comes across as melancholy and serious, as the titles of some early interviews-"Beneath the Mask: Witty, Wistful, Serious Is the Real Charlie" or "The Hamlet-Like Nature of Charlie Chaplin"-make abundantly clear. His first sound feature, The Great Dictator, is a direct condemnation of Hitler. His later films such as Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight obliquely criticize American policy and consequently generated mixed reactions from critics and little response from moviegoers. During this late period of his filmmaking, Chaplin granted interviews less often. The three later interviews included here are thus extremely valuable, offering long, contemplative analyses of the man's life and work.

    Even events off-set can conspire to stop the mightiest movies in their tracks. Witness the collapse of Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" in the aftermath of 9/11, or the demise of "Something's Got to Give" following the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe (leaving the most famous sequence in the history of unmade movies). In exhaustive detail, this book untangles the misfortune, quarrels, and twists of fate that doomed some of the greatest movies you'll never see. With doyens of directing from Kubrick to the Coen Brothers and stars from Salvador Dali to the Sex Pistols, the eye-opening entries in "The Greatest Movies You'll Never See" unravel just why unmade masterpieces are stuck in "development hell" and assess the chances of them ever being completed and released. Each ill-fated work--from Charlie Chaplin's pet project on Napoleon to David Fincher's foray into sex and mutation--is examined in an in-depth essay. Selected entries boast script extracts, test footage frames, and concept art. Sidebars shine a spotlight on related movies, stars, and sources. Acclaimed designers and illustrators have executed spectacular original poster artwork--loyal to the vision of each original director--to accompany each of the unmade films.

    Scorsese by Ebert offers the first record of America’s most respected film critic’s engagement with the works of America’s greatest living director, chronicling every single feature film in Scorsese’s considerable oeuvre, from his aforementioned debut to his 2008 release, the Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light.In the course of eleven interviews done over almost forty years, the book also includes Scorsese’s own insights on both his accomplishments and disappointments. Ebert has also written and included six new reconsiderations of the director’s less commented upon films, as well as a substantial introduction that provides a framework for understanding both Scorsese and his profound impact on American cinema."Given their career-long back-and-forth, this collection makes perfect sense. . . . In these reconsiderations, Ebert invites us into his thought processes, letting us see not just what he thinks, but how he forms his opinions. Ebert’s insights into Scorsese are terrific, but this book offers the bonus of further insights into Ebert himself."—Time Out Chicago"Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, is an unabashed fan of Scorsese, whom he considers ‘the most gifted director of his generation.’ . . . Of special note are interviews with Scorsese over a 25-year period, in which the director candidly discusses his body of work."—Publishers Weekly