On The Exorcist: From Novel to Film


William Peter Blatty
    Includes the Academy Award winning screenplay. The original controversial ending of the novel. Many exclusive photos never published before.

A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power


Paul Fischer - 2015
    Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi)-South Korea's most famous actress-and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.Madam Choi vanished first. When Shin went to Hong Kong to investigate, he was attacked and woke up wrapped in plastic sheeting aboard a ship bound for North Korea. Madam Choi lived in isolated luxury, allowed only to attend the Dear Leader's dinner parties. Shin, meanwhile, tried to escape, was sent to prison camp, and "re-educated." After four years he cracked, pledging loyalty. Reunited with Choi at the first party he attends, it is announced that the couple will remarry and act as the Dear Leader's film advisors. Together they made seven films, in the process gaining Kim Jong-Il's trust. While pretending to research a film in Vienna, they flee to the U.S. embassy and are swept to safety.A nonfiction thriller packed with tension, passion, and politics, author Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production offers a rare glimpse into a secretive world, illuminating a fascinating chapter of North Korea's history that helps explain how it became the hermetically sealed, intensely stage-managed country it remains today.

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.

Mr Wilder & Me


Jonathan Coe - 2020
    On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new life will change her for good.While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his new film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich for the shooting of further scenes, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history.In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia. When the world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life or decide it's time to let go?

Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age


Michael Barrier - 1999
    Coyote, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, and many other cartoon favorites. Beginning with black-and-white silent cartoons, Barrier offers an insightful account, taking us inside early New York studios and such Hollywood giants as Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM. Barrier excels at illuminating the creative side of animation--revealing how stories are put together, how animators develop a character, how technical innovations enhance the realism of cartoons. Here too are colorful portraits of the giants of the field, from Walt and Roy Disney and their animators, to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. Based on hundreds of interviews with veteran animators, Hollywood Cartoons gives us the definitive inside look at this colorful era and at the creative process behind these marvelous cartoons.

Now


Lauren Bacall - 1994
    Her writing echoes her deep, sardonic, no-nonsense timbre and jazzy tempo....Bacall is at her best when talking about friends she has loved and watched die. Bernstein, she says, was more than a little seductive; Huston, more than a little remote; Olivier, a survivor to the end."--Chicago Sun-Times"HER PROSE IS SPARE AND HONEST....A kaleidoscope of thoughts and ideas on loneliness, aging, and above all, surviving...There are also poignant reminiscences of the golden years of Hollywood and many of its leading creators."--The Washington Post Book World"SHE REMINDS US OF SOME FAMILIAR TRUTHS WORTH ATTENDING TO. . . .What she's writing about, Ms. Bacall explains, is 'life' and indeed her musings about getting older, about intimations of mortality, about living solo, about letting go of one's children will resonate with women who, like her, are of a certain age."--The New York Times Book Review"ENGROSSING. . .POIGNANT."--PeopleFrom the Paperback edition.

The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes


Scott Frost - 1991
    Discover the secrets, never before seen on television, of Twin Peaks' most-wanted man, who scored a perfect 100 on his marksmanship test and once let a gentle, beautiful woman lead him astray. He's Dale Cooper - the man who seems too good to be true - and this is his story.

Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story


Arnold Schwarzenegger - 2012
    Within ten years, he was a millionaire businessman. After twenty years, he was the world’s biggest movie star. In 2003, he was elected governor of California and a household name around the world.Chronicling his embodiment of the American Dream, Total Recall covers Schwarzenegger’s high-stakes journey to the United States, from creating the international bodybuilding industry out of the sands of Venice Beach, to breathing life into cinema’s most iconic characters, and becoming one of the leading political figures of our time. Proud of his accomplishments and honest about his regrets, Schwarzenegger spares nothing in sharing his amazing story.

Tarantino: A Retrospective


Tom Shone - 2017
    The script for his first movie took him four years to complete: My Best Friend’s Birthday, a seventy-minute film in which he both acted and directed. The script for his second film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), took him just under four weeks to complete. When it debuted, he was immediately hailed as one of the most exciting new directors in the industry. Known for his highly cinematic visual style, out-of-sequence storytelling, and grandiose violence, Tarantino’s films have provoked both praise and criticism over the course of his career. They’ve also won him a host of awards—including Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTA awards—usually for his original screenplays. His oeuvre includes the cult classic Pulp Fiction, bloody revenge saga Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and historical epics Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight . This stunning retrospective catalogs each of Quentin Tarantino’s movies in detail, from My Best Friend’s Birthday to The Hateful Eight. The book is a tribute to a unique directing and writing talent, celebrating an uncompromising, passionate director’s enthralling career at the heart of cult filmmaking.

The Making of Some Like It Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie


Tony Curtis - 2009
    . . Some Like It Hot occupies a unique place in American culture. This beloved classic showcases five comic geniuses: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, I. A. L. Diamond, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. It has been honored by the American Film Institute as the "Funniest Film of All Time". It has contributed quotes, styles, and stories to film lore. Yet the full story of its making has never been told—until now.

The Art of Hammer: The Official Poster Collection From the Archive of Hammer Films


Marcus Hearn - 2010
    This lavish hardcover brings together rare artwork from around the world. Featuring Hammer’s greatest films, including The Curse of Frankenstein, the Dracula series, and many more.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers


Roger Lewis - 1994
    Recognized as the greatest British comic since Charlie Chaplin, Sellers was the grand master of fifty-five films - from Dr. Strangelove, to Being There and the Pink Panther hits. But shadowing his phenomenal career was a history of increasingly bizarre behavior involving psychotic violence, compulsive promiscuity, drug abuse and humiliating self-destructive obsessions with people including Princess Margaret, Sophia Loren, Liza Minnelli and each of his four wives (Ann Hayes, Britt Ekland, Miranda Quarry and Lynne Frederick). He alternately showered his wives and children with gifts and then threatened to kill them. Sellers' fluidity as an actor made for a terrifying madness that grew like a slow metastasizing cancer throughout his adult life. The story of Peter Sellers concludes with his premature death at the age of 54, "sick at heart and alone in those sunless hotel rooms, " so recoiled from intimacy that no one really knew him anymore.

Ways of Seeing


John Berger - 1972
    First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has."Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of TellingWinner of the 1972 Booker Prize for his novel, G., John Peter Berger (born November 5th, 1926) is an art critic, painter and author of many novels including A Painter of Our Time, From A to X and Bento’s Sketchbook.

Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present


Peter Bondanella - 1983
    Voted an "outstanding academic book" by Choice, and winner of the Presidential Book Award from the American Association for Italian Studies, this classic book on Italian films and filmmakers has now been revised and brought completely up-to-date.

Sanford Meisner on Acting


Sanford Meisner - 1987
    Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years."This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck