Film Studies

Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the "Hollywood Renaissance" or "New Hollywood" period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries.

Do you watch movies with your eyes open? You buy your tickets and concessions, and you walk into the theater. Celluloid images flash at 24 frames per second, and the hypnotic sequence of moving pictures coaxes you to suspend disbelief and be entertained by the implausible. Unfortunately, many often suspend their beliefs as well, succumbing to subtle lessons in how to behave, think, and even perceive reality.

With humor and honesty, Girls on Film looks at the good, the bad, and the unfairly written women in film. A celebration of the power of cinema and the hidden messages within media and culture, this collection of personal essays explores the women who inspired and confused a young film enthusiast.

Audrey Hepburn is an icon like no other, yet the image many of us have of Audrey - dainty, immaculate - is anything but true to life. Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings....

Back in January 1995 in Los Angeles, California, a Singaporean pornstar named Annabel Chong took cultural rebellion to an extreme, on terms that had never been negotiated before. She was filmed having sex with a long receiving line of men, servicing them 251 times over a ten-hour period to set a new world record: The World’s Biggest Gangbang.

Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the "honorable detective" from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America’s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a "deeply personal...voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of storytelling" (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times).

David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in today's bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable tradition - one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960.

With an in-depth look at the two most empowering years in the life of Marilyn Monroe, The Girl details how The Seven Year Itch created an icon and sent the star on an adventure of self-discovery and transformation from a controlled wife and contract player into a businesswoman and unlikely feminist whose power is still felt today. When Marilyn Monroe stepped over a subway grating as The Girl in The Seven Year Itch and let a gust of wind catch the skirt of her pleated white dress, an icon was born.

The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist. Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood.

Edit Better was made for video editors who consider themselves advanced hobbyists or growth-minded professionals, artists who know that the tools of editing matter far less than the knowledge of how to use those tools powerfully. This audiobook does not illuminate the workings of Avid, Final Cut, or Premiere, and is not a meditation on film editing. What it is: a provocative, wide-ranging collection of strategies and tactics for the creative application of TV and video editing, no matter your editing tools.

SCIENTOLOGY A Handbook for Interaction and Study of the Church of L. Ron Hubbard & David Miscaivage: On Dianetics, Auditing, E-Meters, RPF, Operation Snow White, Narcanon, Xenu, and the Free Zone --- This book is a simple book of facts concerning the beliefs and operations of Scientology. It is meant for a quick analysis of the new religious movement that can be used as a handbook for interaction and further study. Please be cautious if you are to begin engaging in comprehensive interaction with this new religious movement, but also keep in mind that this is a group of human beings involved...

This collection of children’s stories offers a mix of some best-loved tales as well as newer favorites. Included are “Puss in Boots”, read by Robby Benson; “A Day at Santa’s Workshop”, read by Betty White; “Elfis, the Elf Who Saved Christmas”, read by Brian Austin Green; “Jack and the Beanstalk”, read by John Ritter; “Peter Pan”, read by Sandy Duncan; and “The Wild Swans” and “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, both read by Michael York.

In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.

Can Christians discover spiritual meaning in a superhero movie!? As the culmination of twenty-plus movies, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame made a massive cultural impact and broke all sorts of records on its march to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. Endgame earned $2.8 billion in the box-office, making it one of the most watched and most influential films in popular culture. For that reason, Marvel’s box-office bombshell is worth examining through the lens of faith. How does Endgame sit alongside the Christian faith? Does it echo the gospel in some fashion? Join award-winning ...

Can learning about bullies in the movies help end real-life bullying? In this book, you’ll read about characters from many of your favorite movies who bully and are bullied, and you’ll also learn about common tropes about bullies in film- good and bad. Then each chapter ends with discussion questions to ignite conversation about bullying in the real world and about how to stop bullying in your local community today.

Instead of focusing on one service, like HBO, Pandora’s Box asks, “What did HBO do, besides give us The Sopranos?” The answer: It gave us a revolution. Biskind bites off a big chunk of entertainment history, following HBO from its birth into maturity, moving on to the basic cablers like FX and AMC, and ending up with the streamers and their wars, pitting Netflix against Amazon Prime Video, Max, and the killer pluses—Disney, Apple TV, and Paramount.

The perfect book for all student journalists, this young learners adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters' Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's New York Times best-selling She Said will inspire a new generation of investigative journalists.

How to be a Man? That question—and all the anxiety, anger, and resentment it stirs up—is the starting point for a crisis in masculinity that today manifests as misogyny, nativism, and corporate greed; gives rise to incels and mass shooters; and leads to panic over the rights of women and minorities. According to Jessa Crispin, it is the most important question of our time, and the answer to it might be found in an unlikely place: the films of Michael Douglas.

A short story about filming a snuff film when the actors aren't cooperating. And they both hit her again. Hard. Every time she gets more weepy. She keeps trying to get up, but she's slipping and they keep her on her knees. So she just shuts off. Yes, like a robot. Ok, now she looks at the camera and she's a blank like all the shit in her life and all the bad times just led up to this. She doesn't care about Kathy or her parents or her brother Todd who keeps fucking her boyfriend like she doesn't know. She is not giving the director the finger. Blank. Totally blank. Like she gave up. Come on...