Showing titles in History & Criticism

Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. Wheeler Winston Dixon's A History of Horror is the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre. Arranged by decades, with outliers and franchise films overlapping some years, this one-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman and their various incarnations in film from the silent era to comedic sequels.

How to Score in Hollywood reveals the secrets to a movie’s success and profitability. Entertainment research expert Kevin Goetz shares how smart, data-driven decisions—from development to release—help filmmakers minimize risks and maximize returns. How to Score in Hollywood reveals the...

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.

"Remembering Roots highlights the indomitability of the human spirit; and reminds us that, like our ancestors, as long as we continue to breathe, there's hope."—LEVAR BURTON, award-winning actor, director, author, and original cast member of Roots Discover how the book and TV miniseries Roots...

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.  

Actor Rob Lowe's memoir presents a wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye. A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles...

Is the top still spinning? Was it all a dream? In the world of Christopher Nolan's four-time Academy Award-winning movie, people can share one another's dreams and alter their beliefs and thoughts. Inception is a metaphysical heist film that raises more questions than it answers: Can we know what is real? Can you be held morally responsible for what you do in dreams? What is the nature of dreams, and what do they tell us about the boundaries of "self" and "other"?

They've traded punches in knockdown brawls, crashed biplanes through barns, and raced to the rescue in fast cars. They add suspense and drama to the story, portraying the swimmer stalked by the menacing shark, the heroine dangling 20 feet below a soaring hot air balloon, or the woman leaping nine feet over a wall to escape a dog attack. Only an expert can make such feats of daring look easy, and stuntwomen with the skills to perform - and survive - great moments of action in movies have been hitting their mark in Hollywood since the beginning of film.

Afrofuturism is a cultural movement that seeks to explore and transform the experience of the African diaspora. Stretching across multiple art forms and genres, the movement taps into the limitless potential of creativity and the imagination to envision Black liberation through stories, music, architecture, fashion, music, and so much more.

A first-time-ever exploration of the 290 songs from the entirety of Twin Peaks, sure to entice fans of the David Lynch-Mark Frost's cult classic that revolutionized TV, with brand-new interviews with Frost and several of the key composers and musicians involved.

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.

What does it mean for someone to "turn to the dark side"? Discover a profound real-world interpretation of the Star Wars saga, exploring the seminal story of how a good person can lose themselves and what it takes to bring them back. Through a close analysis of Episodes I–VI, the parallel arcs of Anakin and Luke Skywalker reveal how someone who feels too deeply can either surrender to fear and unresolved anger or rise above them.

The “shocking” (The Wall Street Journal), must-read story of Charlie Chaplin’s years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film career, from bestselling biographer Scott Eyman. Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman...

Bloomsbury presents The Exorcist written and read by Mark Kermode. Inspired by an alleged real case of demonic possession in 1949, The Exorcist became an international phenomenon on its release in 1973. A blockbusting adaptation of a best-selling novel, it was praised as ‘deeply spiritual’...

Trans woman and screenwriter Tilly Bridges takes you through the trans allegories of the Matrix franchise, with deep dives into The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Animatrix, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections, tracking one person’s transition journey—from Thomas Anderson, to Neo… to Trinity. Each movie’s allegory is deeply layered, building from movie to movie, and speaks to a different aspect of trans existence.

"This is a fascinating book. It will educate you. Schwartzel has done some extraordinary reporting." — The New York Times Book Review “In this highly entertaining but deeply disturbing book, Erich Schwartzel demonstrates the extent of our cultural thrall to China. His depiction of the craven...

15 years after Ondi Timoner’s film Dig! shot The Brian Jonestown Massacre to international fame comes the first ever book on the controversial band and their leader, Anton Newcombe, who together have been at the forefront of the resurgence of psychedelic rock in recent decades — and become one of the most infamous and controversial bands around in the process.

The first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, The Good Neighbor tells the story of this utterly unique and enduring American icon. Drawing on original interviews, oral histories, and archival documents, Maxwell King traces Rogers’s personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work, including a surprising decision to walk away from the show to make television for adults, only to return to the neighborhood with increasingly sophisticated episodes, written in collaboration with experts on childhood development.

In the exclusive behind the scenes look, sports fans can unlock the fascinating history of the channel that changed the way people watch and interact with their favorite teams. It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of...

When he was 17 years old, Audie Murphy falsified his birth records so that he could enlist in the army and help defeat the Nazis. When he was 19, he single-handedly turned back the German army at the Battle of Colmar Pocket by climbing on top of a tank with a machine gun, a moment immortalized in the classic film To Hell and Back, starring Audie himself.