Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System Review

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Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System ReviewIf you felt a little let down by Peter Biskind's recent look at 90's indie film, "Down & Dirty Pictures," this juicier but also more personal book might be closer to what you were hoping to find there.
Instead of focusing primarily on Sundance and Miramax, Waxman focuses on the six men responsible for some of the biggest movies of the past decade: Quentin Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction"), P.T. Anderson ("Boogie Nights," "Magnolia"), Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), David O. Russell ("Three Kings"), David Fincher ("Fight Club") and Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic").
They're a mixed bag of personalities and Waxman tells their stories with detail and relish, and also touches on other interesting filmmakers such as Wes Anderson, Roger Avary, Charlie Kaufman, Alexander Payne and others (though some are conspicuously absent -- Spike Lee and especially Richard Linklater, who isn't even mentioned).
It's hard to miss with a collection of stories like this: Tarantino's rise to power; Hackman cursing Wes Anderson on the set of "Tenenbaums"; Avary's attempts to buy a famous French film studio; Russell headbutting George Clooney on the set of "Kings" and P.T. Anderson admitting that "Magnolia" was probably too long.
"Rebels" (very deliberately) rises to the same sordid, "print the legend" heights as Biskind's "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." But it also suffers from some of the same weaknesses - occasionally questionable accounts; some poor copy editing and more than a few awkward sentences that feel like they were written the Sunday night before the term paper was due: "Traffic" screenwriter Stephen Gaghan's high school drug problems are introduced twice in three pages; Wes Anderson's debut was "Bottle Rocket" not "Rushmore"; and what can one say about lines such as, "Soderbergh questioned his own questioning" and "The director kept the obituary about his father printed in the local paper framed in his office in Los Angeles" ? Waxman also has a strange storytelling habit of explaining the results of a situation, then backtracking once or twice to tell the circumstances that led to the results.
Nevertheless, it is absolutely impossible to deny the appeal of this book, and it was equally impossible for me to put the damn thing down for the past week.
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Monster Rally Review

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Monster Rally Review
Because you have clicked this link for product info for MONSTER RALLY I would discern you must be a monster movie fan, and a heartily recommend this book to any and all monster movie fans. But it should be noted that the term "Monster" in the title of this book covers a really broad area. Scattered among the more traditional essays on Jackson's King Kong, Dark Shadows and Lovecraft, Jason and Freddy, Yeti films, 50s' sci-fi, Lugosi's Rue Morgue and the like are more esoteric genres: UFOs, Satanism on screen, Mexican wrestling flicks, Hollywood weirdness, serial killers and their celluloid counterparts, fx maestro Paul Blaisdell and an informative chapter on how Argento "stole" the plot for THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PULMAGE from Fredric Brown's novel SCREAMING MIMI. I thought the blending of "psychotronic-like" topics and classic monsters gave the book great flavor and ensured an unpredictable, yet highly enjoyable read.
Monster Rally OverviewS. Michael Wilson has unearthed lost gems from vintage zines and commissioned reams of new material to brew up a devil's cauldron of monsteriffic entertainment! Explore, if you dare, a sampling of the demonic delights within:The Black Pope of Satan's favorite fear films! The mindbending connections between DARK SHADOWS and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos! The perverse paganism of LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM! The links between mobster Tony Soprano and GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE's Caleb Croft! Shoot down Peter Jackson's overstuffed remake of KING KONG! Trip out on the truth about LSD, Commies and THE ANGRY RED PLANET! Survey apeman savagery on film with a genuine Bigfoot expert!They're all here: Karloff and Lugosi, Freddy, Jason, Argento, Craven, Romero, werewolves, vampires and zombies; Criswell, Santo, psycho-killers, cannibals, Big Bugs and so much more!

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Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics Review

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Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics ReviewExcellent collection of essays on various cult cinema topics, including a chapter on Doris Wishman, an argument for "Friday the 13th" as para-paracinema, and a really funny and fascinating examination of boredom in the giallo (specifically Umberto Lenzi's "Spasmo"). Highly recommended.Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics OverviewBad Girls Go to Hell. Cannibal Holocaust. Eve and the Handyman. Examining film culture's ongoing fascination with the low, bad, and sleazy faces of cinema, Sleaze Artists brings together film scholars with a shared interest in the questions posed by disreputable movies and suspect cinema. They explore the ineffable quality of "sleaze" in relation to a range of issues, including the production realities of low-budget exploitation pictures and the ever-shifting terrain of reception and taste.Writing about horror, exploitation, and sexploitation films, the contributors delve into topics ranging from the place of the "Aztec horror film" in debates about Mexican national identity to a cycle of 1960s films exploring homosexual desire in the military. One contributor charts the distribution saga of Mario Bava's 1972 film Lisa and the Devil through the highs and lows of art cinema, fringe television, grindhouse circuits, and connoisseur DVD markets. Another offers a new perspective on the work of Doris Wishman, the New York housewife turned sexploitation director of the 1960s who has become a cult figure in bad-cinema circles over the past decade. Other contributors analyze the relation between image and sound in sexploitation films and Italian horror movies, the advertising strategies adopted by sexploitation producers during the early 1960s, the relationship between art and trash in Todd Haynes's oeuvre, and the ways that the Friday the 13th series complicates the distinction between "trash" and "legitimate" cinema. The volume closes with an essay on why cinephiles love to hate the movies.Contributors. Harry M. Benshoff, Kay Dickinson, Chris Fujiwara, Colin Gunckel, Joan Hawkins, Kevin Heffernan, Matt Hills, Chuck Kleinhans, Tania Modleski, Eric Schaefer, Jeffrey Sconce, Greg Taylor

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Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre Review

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Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre ReviewI read "Uncanny Bodies" because I am such a big fan of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", the films that most of the text is committed to studying. However, I ended up learning a lot more than I bargained for about an era in film history that is often ignored -- the four years of transition between "The Jazz Singer" and the end of silent film production from the major studios. "Dracula" was made during the end of the transition era, and by the time "Frankenstein" was produced, Universal had ended all silent film production.
The book cites many primary sources and critical writing of the era to shed light on the uncertain responses of a 1931 viewer to the novelty of sound film, and does an excellent job supporting its thesis that the producers of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" played off of their audience's experiences of early sound films to heighten the terror of the living dead who are threatening the protagonists. Well-written and accessible, while exhaustively researched and remaining very academic, Spadoni's book uses reception study to reveal a lot about the often hailed, derided, and misunderstood early horror masterpieces.Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre OverviewIn 1931 Universal Pictures released Dracula and Frankenstein, two films that inaugurated the horror genre in Hollywood cinema. These films appeared directly on the heels of Hollywood's transition to sound film. Uncanny Bodies argues that the coming of sound inspired more in these massively influential horror movies than screams, creaking doors, and howling wolves. A close examination of the historical reception of films of the transition period reveals that sound films could seem to their earliest viewers unreal and ghostly. By comparing this audience impression to the first sound horror films, Robert Spadoni makes a case for understanding film viewing as a force that can powerfully shape both the minutest aspects of individual films and the broadest sweep of film production trends, and for seeing aftereffects of the temporary weirdness of sound film deeply etched in the basic character of one of our most enduring film genres.

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Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era Review

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Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era Reviewi liked how this book captured the time period and showed the images and spoke on how preception was. you feel the atmosphere and see a shift from the way things were. of course hollywood is and will always be color struck, however there was a certain manner at presenting actors and actress's during this time. very compelling book.Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era OverviewThis is the second volume of Thomas Cripps's definitive history of African-Americans in Hollywood.It covers the period from World War II through the civil rights movement of the 1960s, examining this period through the prism of popular culture.Making Movies Black shows how movies anticipated and helped form America's changing ideas about race.Cripps contends that from the liberal rhetoric of the war years--marked as it was by the propaganda catchwords brotherhood and tolerance--came movies that defined a new African-American presence both in film and in American society at large.He argues that the war years, more than any previous era, gave African-American activists access to centers of cultural influence and power in both Washington and Hollywood. Among the results were an expanded black imagery on the screen during the war--in combat movies such as Bataan, Crash Dive, and Sahara; musicals such as Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky; and government propaganda films such as The Negro Soldier and Wings for this Man (narrated by Ronald Reagan!).After the war, the ideologies of both black activism and integrationism persisted, resulting in the 'message movie' era of Pinky, Home of the Brave, and No Way Out, a form of racial politics that anticipated the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. Delving into previously inaccessible records of major Hollywood studios, among them Warner Bros., RKO, and 20th Century-Fox, as well as records of the Office of War Information in the National Archives, and records of the NAACP, and interviews with survivors of the era, Cripps reveals the struggle of both lesser known black filmmakers like Carlton Moss and major figures such as Sidney Poitier. More than a narrative history, Making Movies Black reaches beyond the screen itself with sixty photographs, many never before published, which illustrate the mood of the time.Revealing the social impact of the classical Hollywood film, Making Movies Black is the perfect book for those interested in the changing racial climate in post-World War II American life.

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Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film (Screen Classics) Review

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Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film (Screen Classics) ReviewOn a personal level, I liked this book. It was a pleasant surprise to find a study which contrasted Lamarr's questionably ghost written autobiography (ECSTACY AND ME)with known facts and debateable 'truths' that have become urban legend.
As for Hedy, like most celebrities, a lot of her personal background was doctored up by the publicity department at her first studio MGM. Deciphering the truth was no small feat. Ruth Barton researched her subject so thoroughly that whatever was able to be confirmed was (i.e., Hedy's jewish heritage) and she demonstrated extreme reserve with the questionable aspects of Lamarr's history such as the true parentage of Lamarr's adopted son James. Barton's digging was fruitful and presents a much clearer picture of Lamarr than has been seen before.
While this book may not have been as detailed as I would have liked in some respects and I wish Barton might have provided more information regarding all of Lamarr's husbands and her children, this is definitely a good first look at Hedy that presents her at her finest moments and her lowest and addresses her involvement as an inventor. It looks into Lamarr's life and career without sensationalizing the more negative aspects.Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film (Screen Classics) OverviewHedy Lamarr's life was punctuated by salacious rumors and public scandal, but it was her stunning looks and classic Hollywood glamour that continuously captivated audiences. Born Hedwig Kiesler, she escaped an unhappy marriage with arms dealer Fritz Mandl in Austria to try her luck in Hollywood, where her striking appearance made her a screen legend. Her notorious nude role in the erotic Czech film Ecstasy (1933), as well as her work with Cecil B. DeMille (Samson and Delilah, 1949), Walter Wanger (Algiers, 1938), and studio executive Louis B. Mayer catapulted her alluring and provocative reputation as a high-profile sex symbol.In Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film, Ruth Barton explores the many facets of the screen legend, including her life as an inventor. Working with avant-garde composer and film scorer George Antheil, Lamarr helped to develop and patent spread spectrum technology, which is still used in mobile phone communication. However, despite her screen persona and scientific success, Lamarr's personal life caused quite a scandal. A string of failed marriages, a lawsuit against her publisher regarding her sensational autobiography, and shoplifting charges made her infamous beyond her celebrity.Drawing on extensive research into both the recorded truths of Lamarr's life and the rumors that made her notorious, Barton recognizes Lamarr's contributions to both film and technology while revealing the controversial and conflicted woman underneath. Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film illuminates the life of a classic Hollywood icon.

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Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism Review

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Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism ReviewIn a critical writing course I taught in Spring 2002, I used Channels of Discourse, Reassembled as the core text for the course readings. The many chapters within are written by the best of the best in the fields of media studies and cultural studies, and the methodologies are presented in an easy-to-read manner which is informative and full of examples and case studies. This is an excellent book for media studies students, as its chapters lay out the basic information they should know about many of the methodologies often used in media criticism.Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism OverviewChannels of Discourse fills a significant gap in the critical literature on television. The eight distinguished scholars whose essays make up the collection consider commercial televisionin relation to the major strands of contemporary literary, cultural and cinematic criticism.

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3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema (McFarland classics) Review

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3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema (McFarland classics) ReviewThe first part of this book covers the historic aspects of Stereoscopic film making and is well written and interesting but the majority of the book is a reference guide to 3D movies. It is a great reference guide for anyone interested in 3D movies but it is not the greated book if you are looking for an in depth historical look at this genre. If you are a true 3D movie fan, this book is an indespensable reference.3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema (McFarland classics) Overview

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Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication) Review

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Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication) ReviewThe early motion picture industry didn't just entertain audiences, it enticed them into movie palaces with spectacle, sex, and (increasingly) lurid tales of sin and seduction. This combination proved so successful that, by the early 1930s, a conservative religious movement emerged with an aim to "clean up" Hollywood's excesses, led by the Catholic Church but supported by preachers, ministers, and spiritual spokesmen nationwide. The Catholic Church's League of Decency became the first cultural crusade against what was perceived as a threat to the national character. Wielding an authority of equal parts religion and politics, the League saw to it that movies were banned outright, content was snipped and clipped, and production scripts were combed over for hints of immorality. Classic novels were re-written for the screen to pass the scrutiny of the hastily-created, reactionary Hays Office. Is this a good thing? There was a backlash among Hollywood writers; Black's recounting of William Faulkner creating the story of "Sanctuary" in three weeks ("the most horrific tale" Faukner could imagine, Black writes, "a morbid tale of rape, murder, sexual impotence and perversion") certainly seems like an outright challenge to the Paramount studio writers and censors, and the rewritten, completed film ("The Story of Temple Drake") turns the story inside out for a relatively less-scandalous ending.
Over the course of years, the Legion of Decency and the Hays Office's Production Code (which functioned as a presumptive industry watchdog) ensured that onscreen crime would not pay and immorality would be punished. Realism in Hollywood films got bleached out, but as the book makes clear the industry preferered to deal with religious moralists, and to police themselves with a nebulous code, rather than face government interference. In that regard America hasn't come very far, as the religious right's contemporary battles over entertainment and the morality of content in movies, TV, and the internet make clear. Recommended.Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication) OverviewIn response to a series of sex scandals that rocked the movie industry in the early 1920s, the Production Code Administration and the Catholic Legion of Decency implemented a code stipulating that movies stress proper behavior, respect for government, and "Christian values."Based on an extensive survey of original studio records, censorship files, and the Catholic Legion of Decency archives (whose contents are published here for the first time), Hollywood Censored examines how hundreds of films were expurgated to promote a conservative political agenda during the 1930s.By taking an innovative view of how movies were made, and the conditions that made them, Hollywood Censored brings together such chapters as "Movies and Modern Literature," "Beer, Blood and Politics," and "Film Politics and Industry Policy" to form a rare look at America's most famous industry.

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) Review

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) ReviewAs Alain Silver explains in the book's Introduction, "Film Noir Reader 4" is different in purpose from the previous Film Noir Readers. It focuses on key films and key themes, rather than attempting to be inclusive or comprehensive. In that spirit, Silver has included a few lists of the most important film noirs according to himself and others in the Introduction. "Film Noir Reader 4" contains 23 mostly modern essays, many apparently not previously published, presented in two parts. The paper the book is printed on is pure white, instead of the off-white of previous volumes, so the black-and-white stills look better.
Part I, "Case Studies", includes 12 essays on key films. The films discussed are: "Double Indemnity", "Detour", "The Big Sleep", "Out of the Past", "The Unsuspected", "Gun Crazy", "D.O.A", "The Big Night", "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Big Heat", "The Big Combo", and "Touch of Evil". Glenn Erickson's enthusiastic and insightful essay "Fate Seeks the Loser: Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour" is particularly interesting. The same can be said for Kevin Hagopian's study of "The Big Sleep" and Stephen B. Armstrong's history of "Touch of Evil". Both films were radically altered by recuts, with the result of making them nonsensical. These carefully researched essays explain what was changed and why.
Part II focuses on "Noir Themes", although I don't think that most of these can reasonably be called "key" themes. Eleven essays discuss a variety of themes that can be found or projected upon classic noir films, including psychodrama, images of women, noir antecedents, horror-noir, war noirs, left-wing politics in noir and crime films, hybrid noir-westerns, and noir title sequences. In other words, Part II is a catch-all. "Cat People", "Rancho Notorious" (in comparison to "The Big Heat"), and "Double Indemnity" are discussed in the most depth.
I'm giving "Film Noir Reader 4" a lower rating than I gave the previous Film Noir Readers, because it is overwhelmed by the sort of absurd ideological readings that I haven't heard this much of since I studied film in college. The reader can't get far without running into dogmatic -and, I might add, eternally ill-defined- terminology like "patriarchal capitalism" and "misogyny". For grown persons to legitimize their socio-economic hang-ups by deliberately misrepresenting 60-year-old movies is pitiful. I am reminded of the reason director Fritz Lang left Germany: The Nazi Party liked his films so much that they offered Lang the opportunity to run the German film industry. His films were anti-fascist. Anyway, there are some good, informative, essays in "Film Noir Reader 4", and it's useful to present different interpretations. But these aren't so different, and I get the impression of scraping the bottom of the barrel.Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) OverviewThe earlier Film Noir Readers, which now boast a combined sale of well over 30,000 copies, have all quite deliberately conveyed a sweeping overview of the classic period, demonstrating how broad and inclusive noir movies are. Film Noir Reader 4 moves in a different direction. Its purpose is to identify the key films and motifs of noir and to analyze in depth the prototypical pictures that, while vivid examples of certain cinematic themes, bend and break their molds to find new ways to enthrall and frighten us. Like its predecessors, Film Noir Reader 4 is generously illustrated and features essays by such respected film critics and scholars as Robin Wood, J.P. Telotte, R. Barton Palmer, and Robert Porfirio. All have as their purpose to explain why and how these classic films work; the way screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, editing and all the other filmmaking crafts blended together to produce work that exemplifies both a particular movement in film history and the innovations that keep the noir style fresh and compelling.

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Slow Fade to Black (Galaxy Books) Review

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Slow Fade to Black (Galaxy Books) ReviewEverything arrived in perfect orderSlow Fade to Black (Galaxy Books) OverviewSet against the backdrop of the black struggle in society, Slow Fade to Black is the definitive history of African-American accomplishment in film--both before and behind the camera--from the earliest movies through World War II.As he records the changing attitudes toward African-Americans both in Hollywood and the nation at large, Cripps explores the growth of discrimination as filmmakers became more and more intrigued with myths of the Old South: the "lost cause" aspect of the Civil War, the stately mansions and gracious ladies of the antebellum South, the "happy" slaves singing in the fields.Cripps shows how these characterizations culminated in the blatantly racist attitudes of Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and how this film inspired the N.A.A.C.P. to campaign vigorously--and successfully--for change.While the period of the 1920s to 1940s was one replete with Hollywood stereotypes (blacks most often appeared as domestics or "natives," or were portrayed in shiftless, cowardly "Stepin Fetchit" roles), there was also an attempt at independent black production--on the whole unsuccessful. But with the coming of World War II, increasing pressures for a wider use of blacks in films, and calls for more equitable treatment, African-Americans did begin to receive more sympathetic roles, such as that of Sam, the piano player in the 1942 classic Casablanca.A lively, thorough history of African-Americans in the movies, Slow Fade to Black is also a perceptive social commentary on evolving racial attitudes in this country during the first four decades of the twentieth century.

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Where Dead Voices Gather Review

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Where Dead Voices Gather ReviewWe all have our obsessions that can lead to our downfalls. Our Moby Dicks. Our black pearls. For Nick Tosches, that obsession over the past quarter-century has been Emmett Miller, a now-obscure minstrel singer from Georgia who recorded for OkeH and Victor in the '20s and '30s. When Tosches first wrote about Miller in the mid-'70s (in his book "Country"), little was known of Miller. No photographs of the man were known to have survived, little biographical information existed, and his music was difficult to find in print. Over the course of the next 26 years, Tosches and a few associates tracked down leads and rumors about Miller's origins, until a somewhat better picture of the man started to emerge during the '90s. A few photographs turned up eventually. His grave was found in a bad section of Macon, Georgia. And one by one a scant few people who had known Miller or had worked with him turned up with hazy, somewhat unreliable tales of his career.Which raises the question of why Tosches would spend so much time and energy chasing after the ghost of an obscure singer who had died - alcoholic and penniless - in 1962? Part of the answer is that Miller was a truly gifted vocalist whose unique style influenced the likes of Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan, Leon Redbone, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, and others. Part of the answer is also that Miller's music is nearly uncategorizable; his unusual vocal style made a strong impression on country singers in years to come, but his music wasn't country by any stretch. In fact, with backing on his records by the likes of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, guitarist Eddie Lang, and drummer Gene Krupa, Miller was rubbing shoulders with some of the best jazz musicians of the era. Finally, Miller's career took place during the final years of minstrelsy (the history of which Tosches devotes musch space here), and Miller represented a last flickering spark in the embers of blackface musical comedy before dying completely during the Great Depression.Ultimately, Tosches' quest was only partially successful at best. We get a picture of the major events of Miller's life; his birth, the essentials of his career, his marriage (late in life), and his death. But of the man himself only dim hints; brief glances at the contents of a room in the split second after a light bulb flashes, then burns out. Gaps of knowledge still exist, as Tosches freely admits, but he's followed the trail as far as he thinks he can and leaves it now to younger scholars.A consistently fine work, in the now-well-established Tosches style. If one complaint can be made, it's that photographs of Miller and the book's other subjects might have been included. But perhaps it's for the best that none are present. Pictures of Miller aren't all that hard to find at this point - they're out there if you know where to look - and if anything the lack of photographs lends to the ghost-like portait of Miller that Tosches paints.Where Dead Voices Gather Overview

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Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 Review

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Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 ReviewThis book was a great read. I recommend it for folks, like me, who do not know much about early rock 'n' roll or its evolution. I really had a sense of awe and discovery at reading about 1940s and 1950s rock. The author effectively captures the excitement that the new music generated and the cultural revolution it spawned. The chapters on the early years, 1947 and Jump Blues, the 1950s and Elvis, and so on, were excellent and made me want to go out and buy some of these records. Believe me, no book has ever made me want to buy an Elvis recording, but this one has. Most of the book is taken up with the 1940s-60s, and are the best parts. I lost some interest at the point where I was familiar with the music personally, having started collecting records in 1972, and could relate to the 1970s music and artists myself.Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 Overview

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Star Wars (BFI Film Classics) Review

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Star Wars (BFI Film Classics) ReviewA through analysis of Star Wars from an academic standpoint (something sorely lacking in terms of Lucas's film). While much of the writing about Star Wars over the past 3o years has discussed its revolutionary special effects of its blockbuster status, Brooker analyzes Star Wars in terms of what it was for George Lucas the auteur director. In his early career, Lucas longed to be a maverick, separate from Hollywood and in control of his own projects. His first two experiences with the Hollywood system (THX-1138 and American Graffiti) left Lucas with a soured perspective of Hollywood. He began Star Wars by attempting to fashion a troupe of talented people all working together to create something that would out-do Hollywood at its own game. However, Brooker traces that in doing so, and so fiercely attempting to retain his control, Lucas's desire to create band of rebels gradually turns him into the empire itself as he must reign over and control an unruly cast, crew and special effects department. Brooker also examines Lucas's fascination with objects rather than people and demonstrates that Lucas, like the empire, prefers things that are cold and impersonal, less human, but longs for the wild improvisational spirit of creativity found in the rebels. Brooker's book demonstrates that Star Wars is a much more complex film that originally gleaned by demonstrating that Lucas, as the writer/director/editor, is identifying with both sides and while the narrative the film demonstrates a clear victory of the film, Lucas's direction does not reveal such a clear cut winnerStar Wars (BFI Film Classics) OverviewWill Brooker'silluminating study takes issue with many commonly held ideas about Star Wars. Heprovides a close cinematic analysis,carefully examiningits shots, its editing, its sound design, cinematography and performances.Brooker argues that Star Wars is not, as Lucas himself has claimed, a departure from his previous work, but a continuation of his experiments with sound and image.He reveals Lucas' contradictory desires for the total order and control ofthe Empire, and, on the other hand,for the raw energy and creative improvisation of the Rebels. Though at first Star Wars seems a simple fairy-tale, itbecomes far more complex when we realize that the director is rooting for both sides, creatinga tension unsettles the saga as a whole and illuminates new sides of Lucas' masterpiece.

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American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema) Review

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American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema) ReviewThis is not the equal of David A. Cook's "Lost Illusions," which examines 1970's American cinema for the 'History of the American Cinema' series. It is decidedly more superficial and constrained to theoretical fragmentation. The text breaks the decade up not only by year but also by concept, which is an almost impossible construct to uphold. (For example: "Jaws," which came out in 1975, is ideologically posited against Altman's "Nashville." Well, oh my. Eureka.) Despite this, the text is often illuminating about the background of the films discussed and their cultural implications. It simply tries too hard to links its narrative to the general cultural highlights of the decade. (Cinema and Hank Aaron breaking the home run record?) In all, a worthwhile text and a solid introduction to cinema in the 1970's, but not a theoretically groundbreaking work.American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema) OverviewA smug glance at the seventies-the so-called "Me Decade"-unveils a kaleidoscope of big hair, blaring music, and broken politics-all easy targets for satire, cynicism, and ultimately even nostalgia. American Cinema of the 1970s, however, looks beyond the strobe lights to reveal how profoundly the seventies have influenced American life and how the films of that decade represent a peak moment in cinema history.Far from a placid era, the seventies was a decade of social upheavals. Events such as the killing of students at Kent State and Jackson State universities, the Watergate investigations, the legalization of abortion, and the end of the American involvement in Vietnam are only a few among the many landmark occurrences that challenged the foundations of American culture. The director-driven movies of this era reflect this turmoil, experimenting with narrative structures, offering a gallery of scruffy antiheroes, and revising traditional genre conventions. Bringing together ten original essays, American Cinema of the 1970s examines the range of films that marked the decade, including Jaws, Rocky, Love Story, Shaft, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, Deliverance, The Exorcist, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Apocalypse Now.Lester D. Friedman is the Senior Scholar-in-Residence in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of numerous books on film.

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Review

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Reviewmolto interessante. I testi universitari italiani sono decisamente meno dettagliati ed appassionanti come un libro
di narrativaFilm Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia OverviewWheeler Winston Dixon engages readers in an overview of noir and fatalist film from the mid-twentieth century to the present, ending with a discussion of television, the Internet, and dominant commercial cinema. Beginning with the 1940s classics, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia moves to the "Red Scare" and other ominous expressions of the 1950s. The dark cinema of the 1960s reflected the tensions of a society facing a new and, to some, menacing era of social expression.

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Stanley Kubrick: A Biography Review

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Stanley Kubrick: A Biography ReviewI found Baxter's book an enjoyable read, lively and somewhat informative, though apparently not the work of awesome scholarship that Lubrutto's book is. I haven't read that tome yet, but will soon, fascinated as I am by all things Kubrick. I didn't have the reaction that others have had concerning Baxter's feelings toward Kubrick. As far as I could tell, he seemed to have an appropriate level of respect. Baxter is obviously not a film scholar or someone too well versed in the technical side of filmmaking, but he keeps the book moving along briskly. This certainly a good start-up for someone new to Kubrick's films.Stanley Kubrick: A Biography OverviewFor decades, the films of Stanley Kubrick have staked out a claim at the core of the cultural landscape. In the 1950s he was one of the few American filmmakers, with Paths of Glory, to achieve the gravitas of European cinema. To 1960s audiences he was the man who made Dr. Strangelove, the influential anti-war movie, and the counterculture favorite 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the 1970s he created his hymn to urban violence, A Clockwork Orange, and in the 1980s distilled the nature of private madness and collective insanity in The Shining and Full Metal Jacket.
Yet little is still known of the man and the influence exerted by his private life on his public art. Born in the Bronx, Kubrick has lived since 1961 in seclusion in rural England. From in-depth interviews with a range of people who have known the man best, from his childhood to the present, John Baxter has extracted the most complete account available of Kubrick's life: the conflicts with partners and stars, the failure to make Napoleon, the failed marriages and broken friendships, the use and abuse of writers and other creative collaborators.
Kubrick emerges from this detailed and complex telling as a man both sensitive and ruthless, petulant and generous: a man who adulates reason but whose films reflect the wildest excesses of passion and who, above all, has dared to live life on his terms, whatever the price.

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The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Culture And The Moving Image) Review

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The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Culture And The Moving Image) ReviewVery thought provoking and intelligently written. I wish every book stimulated me as much as this one. I highly recommend it to all film lovers.The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Culture And The Moving Image) OverviewAfter the Supreme Court's rejection of legal movie censorship in the 1950's and the demise of the Hays Production Code in the 1960's, various public groups have emerged as media watch dogs, replacing nearly all other sources of control. Responding to explicit violence against women, negative stereotypes of gay and lesbian images, "racist" representations, and "blasphemous" interpretations of the Bible, groups from both Left and Right have staged protests in front of theaters and boycotted movie studios."The New Censors" shows how groups on the Left empowered by social movements in the 1960's, and groups on the Right propelled by the successes of the New Christian Right and "The Moral Majority," have used similar strategies in attempting to control movie content. "The New Censors", the first study of the complex ways movies have been shaped in the years since the demise of the Code, covers a wide range of movies, protests, and government actions.From feminists against "Dressed to Kill," to religious campaigns against "The Last Temptation of Christ," to homosexuals' ire over "Basic Instinct," Lyons links a study of public outrage against movies to the broader culture wars over "family values," pornography, and various lifestyle issues. This book provides a contemporary history of controversial movies and a timely discussion of how cultural politics continues to affect the movie industry.Author note: Charles Lyons holds a Ph.D. in theatre and film from Columbia University. He is a development associate for Mud Pony Productions at The Walt Disney Company and a screenwriter. His editorials appear in the Los Angeles Times and New York Newsday, and he recently contributed to an anthology entitled Censorship and American Culture.

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Redefining Black Film Review

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Redefining Black Film Reviewtook forever to ship to me. i wish i would've just bought it in the store bc i missed out a week of reading for class. Order in advance in order to get it on time or else just buy in the store.Redefining Black Film Overview

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Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film Review

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Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film ReviewWhen I originally came to this page, it was to order another copy of this book for a friend. But then I saw two pretty unfair reviews here and felt the need to chime in with a much different take on the subject. Both seem to be upset about what they think is an obsessively encyclopedic bent in the book - a perception that seems unwarranted. This methodical rundown of the films of the directors (and two actors) is exactly why I bought the book - to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of these filmmakers' work. I more than got what I wanted. Brown's complaint in his review laments that there are plenty of other outlaw Japanese directors that are more deserving than those included - the book's author addresses this very subject in the introduction, naming scores of directors, actors and actresses he would have liked to have included but was unable to because of matters of space. I also have to rebut the complaints of "feeling at sea" with the book's approach to the films and Japanese film history and film industry. This book is written for people who already have seen a few Japanese genre movies, have picked up on several of the films of the "masters" included in the book and want to know more. And it delivers. No writer in English, to my knowledge, has ever bothered to investigate or write about the numerous films Seijun Suzuki made before 1963's YOUTH OF THE BEAST. But Chris D. gives descriptions of scores of Suzuki's fifties and early sixties output, and it was greatly illuminating to this reader. Likewise, his chapter (with a nice long interview) on enfant terrible underground filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu is one of the most detailed and in-depth ever to appear in English and covered twice as many of Wakamatsu's films as Jack Hunter's laudable but more scattershot approach in his "Eros In Hell" book. The Wakamatsu chapter - for me - was worth the price of the book alone! Likewise the chapters on such other filmmakers as Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY series), actress Meiko Kaji and lesser known filmmakers like Teruo Ishii, Junya Sato and Kazuo Ikehiro. When I purchased this book initially, I bought it at a booksigning at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles where author Chris D. works as a programmer. I met him, and I know from talking to him that night that he was disappointed in the publisher's use of the pictures that he had provided to them, using only a third of the number and reproducing them in a fairly slipshod manner. I've also heard that Chris D. was instrumental in bringing Miike's AUDITION, Shinoda's PALE FLOWER and the first of Meiko Kaji's FEMALE CONVICT films to cult DVD notoriety here in the USA. I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about these filmmakers...and I did! It has its faults, but it is well worth the purchase price - the author's more aesthetics-oriented (although he keeps it from ever getting too intellectual), less-mainstream, more serious approach is preferable (for me anyway) to the goofy fun and chaotic organization of books like Patrick Macias' "Tokyoscope" (which I still like, too). And yes, this Chris D. is the same guy who is singer/songwriter of The Flesh Eaters!Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film OverviewOutlaw Masters of Japanese Film offers an extraordinary close-up of the hitherto overlooked golden age of Japanese cult, action and exploitation cinema from the early 1950s through to the late 1970s, and up to the present day. Having unique access to the top maverick filmmakers and Japanese genre film icons, Chris D. brings together interviews with, and original writings on, the lives and films of such transgressive directors as Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honour and Humanity), Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) and Koji Wakamatsu (Ecstasy of the Angels) as well as performers like Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba (The Streetfighter, Kill Bill Vol. 1) and glamorous actress Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood). Bringing the story up to date with an overview of such Japanese "enfants terrible" as Takashi Miike (Audition) and Kiyoshi Kurasawa (Cure),the book also provides a compendium of facts and extras including filmographies, related bibliographies on genre fiction including Manga, and a section on female yakuzas. Illustrated with fantastic stills and posters from some of Japan's finest cult and action films, this is a veritable bible for fans and newcomers alike.

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