Mostrando títulos en Historia y Crítica

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.

Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau's scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, "I have to do a scene with this guy." That impulse changed both of their lives. The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" ( Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon.

Even 150 years later, we are haunted by the Civil War---by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary W. Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an anachronistic judgment.

We all know and love The Sopranos, one of the most important television dramas to ever hit the small screen, having run for six seasons on HBO. The story of the Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano balancing his family life with his role as the leader of a criminal organization pioneered decades of genre-bending "peak TV". Now, Off the Back of a Truck takes you one step further into the world of Tony Soprano and his families, offering an Italian potluck of fresh and fun takes that any true fan can get lost in for hours.

The landscape that the Brat Pack memorialized is rich with cultural themes and significance, and has influenced an entire generation who still believe that life always turns out like an '80s movie. You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried takes us back to that era, through Susannah Gora's interviews with key players such as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and John Cusack, and mines all the material from the movies to the music to the way the films were made to show how they helped shape our visions for romance, friendship, society, and success.

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It’s also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great - and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the 20th century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent-star Gloria Swanson’s comeback picture.

In We Promised You a Great Main Event, longtime sports journalist Bill Hanstock pulls back the curtain to give a smart fan’s account of WWE and Vince McMahon’s journey to the top. Untangling the truth behind the official WWE storyline, Hanstock does a deep dive into key moments of the company’s history, from the behind-the-scenes drama at the Montreal Screwjob, to the company’s handling of the Jimmy Snuka scandal, to the real story of the Monday Night Wars.

How did we get from an age of dignified nightly news broadcasts on three national networks to the age of 24-hour channels and constantly breaking news? The answer - thanks to Ted Turner and an oddball cast of cable TV visionaries, big league rejects, and nonunion newbies - can be found in the basement of an abandoned country club in Atlanta. Because it was there, in 1980, that this motley crew somehow, against all odds, launched CNN. Up All Night is an inside look at the founding of the upstart network that set out to change the way news was delivered and consumed.

The story of how The Godfather was made is as dramatic, operatic, and entertaining as the film itself. Over the years, many versions of various aspects of the movie’s fiery creation have been told - sometimes conflicting, but always compelling. Mark Seal sifts through the evidence, has extensive new conversations with director Francis Ford Coppola and several heretofore silent sources, and complements them with colorful interviews with key players including actors Al Pacino, James Caan, Talia Shire, and others.

In this intensive, intimate, and anything-but-glamorous behind-the-scenes account, film insider and cinephile Paul M. Sammon explores how Ridley Scott used his creative genius to transform the work of science fiction's most uncompromising author into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic that would reinvent the genre.

Raised in the Hollywood of the 1920s as the privileged son of a pioneer studio mogul, Budd Schulberg went on to win fame as a distinguished novelist, short story writer, playwright, Oscar-winning screenwriter, and boxing historian.

In this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays, and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade and his sixth decade of making movies.

Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early 20th century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers - Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack - arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood.

Based on exclusive interviews with the surviving cast and crew, friends and families of the stars, and other Hollywood insiders, Killin' Generals is a riveting must-listen for film buffs, military fans, and anyone who loves a down-and-dirty adventure tale. Detailed, insightful, and gossipy, Epstein's homage spotlights the movie's endless barrage of cinematic gold.

The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator.

Take an unforgettable journey with the man George Bernard Shaw called "the only genius to come out of the movie industry" as he moves from his impoverished South London childhood to the heights of Hollywood wealth and fame; from the McCarthy-era investigations to his founding of United Artists to his "reverse migration" back to Europe.

The Black Guy Dies First explores the Black journey in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the Oscar-​winning cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond. This eye-opening book delves into the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines in iconic moments from the enactment of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April. This timely book is a must-listen for cinema and horror fans alike.

In 1969, Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words - "That's what it's all about, man" - to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper-middle-class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives.

In the spring of 1987, over 60 million viewers tuned in to watch Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and David Addison (Bruce Willis) “get together” in one of the most famously controversial scenes in television history on Moonlighting, ABC’s groundbreaking series about an epically mismatched pair of private detectives. Two years later, the show was canceled due to low ratings. What happened?

It's one of the greatest movie romances of all time. Yet the friction and controversy surrounding The Way We Were was so enormous, the movie was nearly never made at all. Drawing on Laurents's and Pollack's unpublished writings, as well as interviews with Streisand, Redford, and other key players, this is the definitive account of a film that changed the rules of moviemaking and defined romance ever since.