Bing Crosby dominated American popular culture in a way that few artists ever have. From the dizzy era of Prohibition through the dark days of the Second World War, he was a desperate nation's most beloved entertainer. But he was more than just a charismatic crooner: Bing Crosby redefined the very foundations of modern music, from the way it was recorded to the way it was orchestrated and performed. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the universally acclaimed first volume, NBCC Winner and preeminent cultural critic Gary Giddins now focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story of White Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this groundbreaking work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war. Over a decade in the making and drawing on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to numerous archives, Giddins brings Bing Crosby, his work, and his world to vivid life -- firmly reclaiming Crosby's central role in American cultural history.

    Illustrated.

    Spirited Away, directed by the veteran anime film-maker Hayao Miyazaki, is Japan’s most successful film, and one of the top-grossing ‘foreign language’ films ever released.  Set in modern Japan, the film is a wildly imaginative fantasy, at once personal and universal.  It tells the story of a listless little girl who stumbles into a magical world where gods relax in a palatial bathhouse; where there are giant babies and hard-working soot sprites, and where a train runs across the sea. Andrew Osmond’s insightful study describes how Miyazaki wrote, storyboarded and directed Spirited Away with a degree of creative control undreamt of in most popular cinema, using the film’s delightful, freewheeling visual ideas to explore issues ranging from personal agency and responsibility to what Miyazaki sees as the lamentable state of modern Japan.  Osmond unpacks the film’s visual language, which many Western (and some Japanese) audiences find both beautiful and sometimes bewildering.  He traces connections between Spirited Away and Miyazaki’s prior body of work, and provides an account of the film’s production and the creative differences between Miyazaki and his collaborators, arguing that Spirited Away uses the cartoon medium to create a compellingly immersive drawn world.

    This is a clever and informative look at the styles of the six major studios--and several independents--of the '30s and '40s. 62 black-and-white photographs.

    Now, for the first time ever, Vanity Fair presents a one-of-a-kind collection featuring thirteen behind-the- scenes stories on some of cinema's most iconic films-including pictures as varied as All About Eve, Cleopatra, Sweet Smell of Success, Rebel Without a Cause, and Saturday Night Fever. For pop-culture fanatics and movie buffs alike, Vanity Fair's Tales of Hollywood is an irresistible glimpse at how classic films-and box office bombs-are made.

    Most have never been published before. Taken to provide a unique record of whole districts of London as they were vanishing, each of the photographs is a full-plate image, a stunning work of art in its own right.

    Set to release in March, 2010, the film combines live-action and CGI technology with the exquisite talents of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne Hathaway, Alan Rickman, Crispin Glover, and more. With these twisted and disturbed minds behind the scenes, Alice in Wonderland is sure to be a feast for audiences young and old.The DK Visual Guide brings the imagery, action, and characters to you with superb photographs and stills, incredible insights into the script, story, and actors, and anything else you can think of that might occur down the rabbit hole!

    This text shows how The Big Sleep signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema, as the director Howard Hawks shot extra scenes, "fun" scenes, to replace the ones in which the murders are explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved.

    At a time when the moral universe was shifting and advances in scientific knowledge promised humans dominion over that which had been God's alone, Mary Shelley envisioned a story of human presumption and its misbegotten consequences. Two centuries later, that story is still constantly retold and reinterpreted, from Halloween cartoons to ominous allusions in the public debate, capturing and conveying meaning central to our consciousness today and our concerns for tomorrow. From Victorian musical theater to Boris Karloff with neck bolts, to invocations at the President's Council on Bioethics, the monster and his myth have inspired everyone from cultural critics to comic book addicts. This is a lively and eclectic cultural history, illuminated with dozens of pictures and illustrations, and told with skill and humor. Susan Tyler Hitchcock uses film, literature, history, science, and even punk music to help us understand the meaning of this monster made by man.

    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.

    Today, urban art has traveled to nearly every corner of the globe, shifting and morphing into a highly complex and ornate art form. Displaying their art within what is effectively the largest, most open museum in the world, urban artists unveil their beliefs and imaginations to a public unable to avoid their work. Yet, at its best, urban art is not simply an aesthetic based on slogans, political posturing, or personal promotion: it is an art form deeply committed to the diversity of the street and to a spontaneous creativity that is topographically connected to the architecture of the metropolis.From Inkie in Bristol to Steve Powers in Philadelphia, and from JR in Paris to Os Gêmeos in Brazil and Drewfunk in Australia, The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti is the definitive reference guide to international urban art. It focuses on the most influential and significant urban artists across the world and identifies the key locations of their work. Organized geographically, the text focuses on the individual practitioners within each country or region and explores the historical background to their works. This book strives toward a more nuanced understanding of what has become a widespread art practice.Since the lives and works of urban artists are inextricably bound to streets and places, this definitive reference locates the meeting point between art and atlas, between urban artists and their personal understanding of public spaces, not via a cartographic bird’s-eye view, but through a more intimate, human-centered perspective that challenges contemporary ideas about the mapping of urban space.

    Every word and gesture made headlines and garnered controversy. Her serious gifts as an actor were sometimes eclipsed by her notoriety—and by the way the camera fell helplessly in love with her.Beyond the headlines—and the too-familiar stories of heartbreak and desolation—was a woman far more curious, searching, witty, and hopeful than the one the world got to know. Now, for the first time, readers can meet the private Marilyn and understand her in a way we never have before. Fragments is an unprecedented collection of written artifacts—notes to herself, letters, even poems—in Marilyn's own handwriting, never before published, along with rarely seen intimate photos.Jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel letterhead, these texts reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect her craft. They show a Marilyn Monroe unsparing in her analysis of her own life, but also playful, funny, and impossibly charming. The easy grace and deceptive lightness that made her performances indelible emerge on the page, as does the simmering tragedy that made her last appearances so affecting.

    I learned a lot.” —Hedy LamarrHollywood Beauty. Brilliant inventor. The incredible story of a remarkable and misunderstood woman.Hedy Kiesler, Austrian actress of Jewish heritage, scandalizes Europe with her nudity in the art film Ecstasy. Her hasty marriage to a wealthy munitions merchant disintegrates as he grows increasingly controlling and possessive. Even worse—he supplies deadly weapons to Hitler’s regime.She flees husband and homeland for Hollywood, where Louis B. Mayer transforms her into Hedy Lamarr, an icon of exotic glamour. Professional success clashes with her personal life as marriage and motherhood compete with the demands of studio and stardom. Motivated by the atrocities of World War II, Hedy secretly invents a new technology intended for her adopted country’s defense—and unexpectedly changes the world.

    This private album of rare snapshots—many never published before—show Hepburn in her everyday life as she strolls around the city, alone or with her family, arriving at or leaving the airport, buying postcards and flowers; walking her Yorkie Mr. Famous, carrying pastries to a Sunday lunch with her mother-in-law, having breakfast, and more. This is Audrey as we have never seen her before.Divided into three distinct parts—the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s, Audrey in Rome captures day-to-day moments of this iconic actress’s life all the while examining the evolution of her personal style. Throughout, renowned fashion editor Sciascia Gambacini provides knowledgeable commentary on Hepburn’s covetable look and the designers of her clothing, accessories, and hairstyles, pointing both to the styles of times as well as to Audrey’s aesthetics and influence. Fans will love seeing how Audrey dressed off screen and stage—her minimalist approach to elegance is in full view. Each chapter discusses the actress’s life, films, and style during each decade. Key aspects of her style are pointed out and explored throughout the book: the basket bag, the little black dress, the pill box hat with a scarf tied around it, her array of ballet flats, loafers, cropped trousers, day dresses and coats, even evening wear. The book also contains set photographs of the films she made during her Rome years (Roman Holiday, War and Peace, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's), including images of Audrey with her directors, costars, and even on break in costume. Irresistible as the actress herself, Audrey in Rome opens the door to Hepburn's personal world.

    Allison; Cape Fear; The Longest Day; Farewell, My Lovely; and The Winds of War. Mitchum's powerful presence and simmering violence combined with hard-boiled humor and existential detachment to create a new style in movie acting: the screen's first hipster antihero-before Brando, James Dean, Elvis, or Eastwood-the inventor of big-screen cool.Robert Mitchum: "Baby, I Don't Care" is the first complete biography of Mitchum, and a book as big, colorful, and controversial as the star himself. Exhaustively researched, it makes use of thousands of rare documents from around the world and nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with Mitchum's family, friends, and associates (many going on record for the first time ever) ranging over his seventy-nine years of hard living. Written with great style, and vividly detailed, this is an intimate, comprehensive portrait of an amazing life, comic, tragic, daring, and outrageous.