Entertainment History

Down and Dirty Pictures chronicles the rise of independent filmmakers and of the twin engines - the Sundance Film Festival and Miramax Films - that have powered them. Peter Biskind profiles the people who took the independent movement from obscurity to the Oscars, most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax an indie powerhouse.

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. 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.

Married . . . With Children writer-producer Richard Gurman takes us behind the scenes of this boundary-breaking show to reveal how its inner workings were at times as disruptive and contentious—yet at other times, as hysterical and raunchy—as the Bundy family themselves.

Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.

Christina Crawford's book was an immediate bestseller, addressing the infrequently discussed topic of child abuse. When Paramount Pictures released the film, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford, it was critically panned, and remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. The lavish, big-screen adaptation drew unexpected laughter in the scenes depicting life in the Crawford household. Rarely have such good intentions been met with such ridicule.

A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis spent his childhood raising hell in Ferriday, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi; galvanized the world with hit records like "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On" and "Great Balls of Fire", that gave rock and roll its devil’s edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his 13-year-old second cousin - his third wife of seven - and ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women.

One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry.

In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy - the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age 32 from the effects of an eating disorder.

On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they’d ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize—the first ever awarded to a film critic—for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement.

Among a crop of fresh filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola revolutionizing Hollywood in the ’70s, Brian De Palma—a director from Philadelphia with a few social satires under his belt—charted a cinematic path unlike any of his peers. At times he was unfairly dismissed as a Hitchcock copycat; other times he was misunderstood for his peculiar mix of sexuality, humor, music, and violence. But, over the course of ten years, he created a new cinematic language.

In this cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would come to unravel over the course of her career. But out west, show business beckoned.

“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and best-selling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space

Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working-class kids and the white-collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs, and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn't start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn't have the word classic in mind as the cameras were rolling.

From the early development of recorded and transmitted sound, DJs have been shaping the way we listen to music and the record industry. This book tracks down the inside story on some of music's most memorable moments. Focusing on the club DJ, the book gets firsthand accounts of the births of disco, hip-hop, house, and techno. Visiting legendary clubs like the Peppermint Lounge, Cheetah, the Loft, Sound Factory, and Ministry of Sound, and with interviews with legendary DJs, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is a lively and entertaining account of musical history.

In 1785, when the great German poet Friedrich Schiller penned his immortal “Ode to Joy,” he crystallized the deepest hopes and dreams of the European Enlightenment for a new era of peace and freedom, a time when millions would be embraced as equals. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony then gave wing to Schiller’s words, but barely a century later these same words were claimed by Nazi propagandists and twisted by a barbarism so complete that it ruptured, as one philosopher put it, “the deep layer of solidarity among all who wear a human face.”

In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend - and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony, and two Emmys. Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea voyage with her mother and wound up in the harsh barrios of the Bronx, where she discovered dancing, singing, and acting as ways to escape a tumultuous childhood.

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

George Miller made his first film, Mad Max, in 1976 after hiring unknown Mel Gibson and editing it in his kitchen. It would become the most profitable film ever made. Miller and Max is the story of two heroes. One, a globally recognised dystopian warrior. The second, the artist who created him. Written with the cooperation of a role call of cast, crew, family and associates, author Luke Buckmaster gets behind the scenes of both the set and the man: revealing the Max in Miller.

It has been three decades since Nirvana upended the pop cultural landscape with Nevermind, the landmark album that became the soundtrack of Generation X, capturing its confusion, frustration, and passion. In 1993, Michael Azerrad published what stands as the definitive biography of this revolutionary band and its star-crossed leader Kurt Cobain. Written with the band’s complete cooperation—the only book to feature interviews with Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl—it became a massive bestseller and, in the words of Cobain, "the best rock book I’ve ever read.”

A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood's first superagent - one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s, whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen. Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers.