Movies defined the 20th century but games are now pushing them aside as the medium that captures our time, fascination and money. Generation Xbox digs into the love-hate relationship between games and cinema that has led us to this point. It's a story of disaster, triumph and Angelia Jolie in hot pants. Learn how Steven Spielberg's game-making dreams fell apart and why Silicon Valley pioneers wooed Stanley Kubrick. Discover the story behind the failed Halo movie, how videogame tech paved the way for Avatar, and what companies like Ubisoft and Valve are doing to take gaming to the next level. Based on more than 100 interviews with leading figures from videogames and Hollywood, Generation Xbox is the definitive history of an epic power struggle that has reshaped the entertainment landscape. Are you ready to play?

    Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight movies. Through dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, this greatly expanded new edition examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, full summaries of both men's careers and more than 250 photographs, some in color.

    Sam Staggs' interviews with all the living cast members of each production will enhance what's known about the play and movie, and help make this book satisfying as both a pop culture read and as a deeper piece of thinking about a well-known story.Readers will come away from this book delighted with the juicy behind-the-scenes stories about cast, director, playwright and the various productions and will also renew their curiosity about the connection between the role of Blanche and Viven Leigh's insatiable sexual appetite and later descent into breakdown. They may also--for the first time--question whether the character of Blanche was actually mad or whether her anxiousness was symptomatic of another disorder.A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most haunting and most-studied modern plays. Staggs' new book will fascinate fans and richen newcomers' understanding of its importance in American theater and movie history.

    In 1979, Thatcher's Britain was a country crippled by strikes, joblessness, and economic gloom, divided by race and class—and skanking to a new beat: 2 Tone. The unruly offspring of white boy punk and rude boy ska, the Specials burst on to the scene. On stage they were electric, and at the heart of this energy was the vocal chemistry of the ethereal Terry Hall and Jamaican rude boy Neville Staple. In 1961, five-year-old Neville was sent to England to live with his father, a man for whom discipline bordered on child abuse. As he recounts here, growing up black in the Midlands of the 1960s and 1970s wasn't easy, and his youth was marked by scuffles with skins, compulsive womanizing, and a life of crime that led from shoplifting to burglary and eventually prison. But throughout there was music, and Nev reveals how he became part of the most important band of the 1980s. He remembers sound system battles; the legendary 2 Tone tour with the Selecter, Madness, and Dexy's, and their clashes with white nationalist thugs. He recalls the band's increasing tensions and eventual split; his subsequent foray into bubblegum pop with Fun Boy Three; and a newfound fame in America as godfather to Third Wave ska bands. Finally he reflects on the Specials' reunion and how even now, 30 years later, they can't help tearing themselves apart.

    The biographer pays special attention to Judy Garland's evolution as an artist as well as the ties between her emotional make-up and her performance.

    It's a distinction he's long been building, through a directing career that includes such cinematic landmarks as "The Terminator," "Aliens," "The Abyss," and the highest grossing movie of all time, "Titanic." The Futurist is the first in-depth look at every aspect of this audacious creative genius--culminating in an exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of "Avatar," the movie that promises to utterly transform the way motion pictures are created and perceived. As decisive a break with the past as the transition from silents to talkies, "Avatar" pushes 3-D, live action, and photo-realistic CGI to a new level. It rips through the emotional barrier of the screen to transport the audience to a fabulous new virtual world. With cooperation from the often reclusive Cameron, author Rebecca Keegan has crafted a singularly revealing portrait of the director's life and work. We meet the young truck driver who sees "Star Wars" and resolves to make his own space blockbuster--starting by building a futuristic cityscape with cardboard and X-Acto knives. We observe the neophyte director deciding over lunch with Arnold Schwarzenegger that the ex-body builder turned actor is wrong in every way for the Terminator role as written, but perfect regardless. After the success of "The Terminator," Cameron refines his special-effects wizardry with a big-time Hollywood budget in the creation of the relentlessly exciting "Aliens." He builds an immense underwater set for "The Abyss" in the massive containment vessel of an abandoned nuclear power plant--where he pushes his scuba-equipped cast to and sometimes past their physical and emotional breaking points (including a white rat that Cameron saved from drowning by performing CPR). And on the set of "Titanic," the director struggles to stay in charge when someone maliciously spikes craft services' mussel chowder with a massive dose of PCP, rendering most of the cast and crew temporarily psychotic. Now, after his movies have earned over $3 billion at the box office, James Cameron is astounding the world with the most expensive, innovative, and ambitious movie of his career. For decades the moviemaker has been ready to tell the "Avatar" story but was forced to hold off his ambitions until technology caught up with his vision. Going beyond the technical ingenuity and narrative power that Cameron has long demonstrated, "Avatar" shatters old cinematic paradigms and ushers in a new era of storytelling. The Futurist is the story of the man who finally brought movies into the twenty-first century.

    "Basil Rathbone's book about himself...is better written than most books by or about actors and is more intellectually vigorous...Sherlock Holmes fans will be much interested in his remarks on the character with whom he has been so closely identified." -Library Journal "Quite naturally full of memories, full of names, full of glimpses of stars of stage and screen of yesterday and today." -New York Times Book Review

    The book traces his immense impact on the portrayal of the leading stars year by year, from his arrival in California in 1925 until his departure in 1943. During that time he photographed all of the greatest personalities, at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, and Columbia as well as independently. The prints come from the Chapman Collection, one of the most extensive archives of original Hurrell photographs in the world, and they include a number of rarities and surprises. Although some photos by Hurrell are familiar and frequently reproduced, most of the images in this book will come as a revelation, since they have not been published in over half a century. The genesis of the pictures is examined in a remarkable text by Mark A. Vieira, himself a highly regarded portrait photographer, who came to know Hurrell well during the photographer's later years. Vieira explains in detail Hurrell's technical feats of lighting and retouching. And drawing on firsthand accounts, he vividly re-creates the lively interplay between the photographer and his subjects at the shooting sessions in which these portraits were taken.

    Scott Fitzgerald, DEADLY ILLUSIONS rips the lid off the studio cover-up with compelling evidence that Bern was murdered--and why."--from the front flap. From Publishers weekly: The death of Hollywood producer Bern has remained a mystery since his nude body was found near his swimming pool in 1932. MGM's Louis B. Mayer's declaration that Bern had committed suicide because he was impotent and could not satisfy his young wife, Harlow, was echoed in the official finding. MGM story editor Marx, one of the first people on the scene, and actress-ballerina Vanderveen here present their version of what happened. Interviewing those who knew the victim, Harlow and Mayer, and researching grand jury files, they conclude that Bern was murdered by a former lover, Dorothy Millette, and that Mayer covered up the crime to protect Harlow's career. A lively but helter-skelter account.

    Now, at last, he's opening up the Stan Winston Studio to collaborate on the first-ever book to reveal all the behind-the-scenes secrets of his groundbreaking and hugely influential artistry and effects work. Featuring an extensive array of sketches, production art, and photographs straight from the studio archives, this is the book his fans have been waiting for!

    " Fox has inspired millions of people over the past forty years through his simple, practical guidelines. In Diagrams for Living he presents valuable keys to living a more fulfilled life drawn from the eloquent spiritual wisdom of the Bible.If we read the Bible literally, cautions Fox, we miss the eternal power and personal relevance found in its symbols, allegories, and parables. "Whether you realize it or not," he writes, "you are on every page from Genesis to Revelation." Fox shows how to read dramatic biblical stories as symbolic diagrams for living that can "show you how to overcome difficulties and problems, and how to give expression to the deep aspirations that lie hidden in your soul." This power to reveal, inspire, and guide makes the Bible's teachings adaptable to everyone at every stage of spiritual development.Sensible, contemporary, and full of reassurance, Diagrams for Living offers sage counsel from a gifted teacher.

    With meticulous, beautiful detail, Trigiani paints a rich, historical landscape of 1930s Los Angeles, where European and American artisans flocked to pursue the ultimate dream: to tell stories on the silver screen. The movie business is booming in 1935 when twenty-one-year-old Loretta Young meets thirty-four-year-old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he’s already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress instantly. Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young’s assistant, the innocent and pious young Alda must navigate the wild terrain of Hollywood with fierce determination and a moral code that derives from her Italian roots. Over the course of decades, she and Loretta encounter scandal and adventure, choose love and passion, and forge an enduring bond of love and loyalty that will be put to the test when they eventually face the greatest obstacle of their lives.Anchored by Trigiani’s masterful storytelling that takes you on a worldwide ride of adventure from Hollywood to the shores of southern Italy, this mesmerizing epic is, at its heart, a luminous tale of the most cherished ties that bind. Brimming with larger-than-life characters both real and fictional—including stars Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, David Niven, Hattie McDaniel and more—it is it is the unforgettable story of one of cinema’s greatest love affairs during the golden age of American movie making.

    The model and actress describes life with her famed parents, Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, her acting and modeling careers, the men in her life, and other personal relationships.

    Whether posing kittenishly in a pinup shot or dramatically for a classic portrait, this shy, vulnerable, enormously insecure woman was transformed by the lens.Marilyn posed for nearly every major photographer of her day, and this pictoral chronicle of her affair with the camera, featuring shots from Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisentaedt, Elliott Erwitt, Philippe Halsman, Weegee, and thirty other artists, brings together the most beautiful and unusual images available. From her early days as a "fashion model" for ads and pinup calendars, through the film stills that follow her career as a minor actress and then major starlit, to the now-famous portraits by Avedon, and Cecil Beaton, as well as the paparazzi shots from the hordes of photographers who trailed her every move -- Marilyn emerges in all her many moods: girlish and gay, sexy and serious, glamorous and girl-next-door. And, in a fascinating and revealing interview with French writer George Belmont, Marilyn sets the record straight about much of her early life, and about her ambitions, fears, and dreams. Jane Russell, Marilyn's friend and costar in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, enhances this portrait with an affectionate foreword that describes what it was like to work with the young actress. Although we will never know the "real" Marilyn, this sumptuous volume goes a long way toward preserving the memory of an utterly unforgettable woman.

    If you want to learn more, this excellent 2nd-edition is detailed with hundreds of secrets that will help make your comps seamless. For beginners or experts, Ron walks you through the processes of analysis and workflows - linear thinking which will help you become deft and successfully tackle any shot. - Dennis Muren ASC, Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Industrial Light & MagicRon Brinkman's book is the definitive work on digital compositing and we have depended on this book as a critical part of our in-house training program at Imageworks since the 1999 Edition. We use this book as a daily textbook and reference for our lighters, compositors and anyone working with digital imagery. It is wonderful to see a new edition being released and it will certainly be required reading for all our digital artists here at Imageworks.- Sande Scoredos, Executive Director of Training & Artist Development, Sony Pictures ImageworksThe Art and Science of Digital Compositing is the only complete overview of the technical and artistic nature of digital compositing. It covers a wide range of topics from basic image creation, representation and manipulation, to a look at the visual cues that are necessary to create a believable composite. Designed as an introduction to the field, as well as an authoritative technical reference, this book provides essential information for novices and professionals alike. *17 new case-studies provide in-depth looks at the compositing work done on films such as Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Golden Compass, The Incredibles, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Sin City, Spider-Man 2, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Star Wars: Episode 3-Revenge of the Sith. *The accompanying DVD-ROM features bonus resources, including example footage from hit films and projects that give readers hands-on experience with real industry materials.*Includes new sections on 3D compositing, High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, Rotoscoping, and much more!