Movie Criticism

Based on very real and practical commentary, life experience, and occasionally, tongue-in-cheek-misfortunes of horror legends, Necessary Death explores how the horror genre offers individuals a unique opportunity for insight and understanding of their own lives.

In this wholly original work of film criticism, David Thomson, celebrated author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, probes the many ways in which sexuality has shaped the movies - and the ways in which the movies have shaped sexuality.

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.

1974 was a busy year for Mel Brooks. Although still recovering after a series of failed projects threatened his career, he pulled off a one-two punch that saw the release of two of the most beloved American comedies ever made: Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Although both films are well-known, the stories beyond the making of each movie are less so. How did they come to be, and how did the era's culture and politics not only permit them to be made, but help them to become enduring comedy classics?

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.

On December 26, 1973, The Exorcist was released. Within days it had become legend. Moviegoers braved hours-long lines in winter weather to see it. Some audience members famously fainted or vomited. Half a century later, the movie that both inspired and transcends the modern horror genre has lost none of its power to terrify and unsettle. The Exorcist Legacy reveals the complete story of this cultural phenomenon, from the real-life exorcism in 1949 Maryland that inspired William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel on which the movie is based, to its many sequels, prequels, TV series, and homages.

Owen Gleiberman has spent his life watching movies-first at the drive-in, where his parents took him to see wildly inappropriate adult fare like Rosemary's Baby when he was a wide-eyed 9 year old, then as a possessed cinemaniac who became a film critic right out of college. In Movie Freak, his enthrallingly candid, funny, and eye-opening memoir, Gleiberman captures what it's like to live life through the movies, existing in thrall to a virtual reality that becomes, over time, more real than reality itself.

Irresistible and authoritative, The Movie Musical! is an in-depth look at the singing, dancing, happy-making world of Hollywood musicals - an essential audiobook for anyone who's ever laughed, cried, or sung along at the movies. Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical - in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed audiobook of her long and remarkable career.

Unearth the terrifying and true tales behind some of the scariest horror movies to ever haunt our screens, including the Enfield poltergeist case that was retold in The Conjuring 2 and the serial killers who inspired Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. Behind the Horror dissects these and other bizarre tales to reveal haunting real-life stories of abduction, disappearance, murder, and exorcism.

With the success of the Wonder Woman movies and the results following the outcry of the #MeToo movement, now is the time to highlight the female influences in film history previously left unheard!

In Your Favorite Scary Movie, journalist Ashley Cullins examines the legacy and making of the Scream films with behind-the-scenes insight from cast, creators, and crew, as well as sharp analysis on how the movies’ special blend of gruesome violence and humorous self-awareness rewrote the horror playbook.

"The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions", said the existentialist thinker Albert Camus. And no less a philosopher than Woody Allen has wondered: "How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?" The essays in Movies and the Meaning of Life look at popular and cult movies, examining their assumptions and insights on meaning-of-life questions....

In 1991, Thelma & Louise, the story of two outlaw women on the run from their disenchanted lives, was a revelation. Suddenly, a film in which women were, in every sense, behind the wheel. It turned the tables on Hollywood, instantly becoming a classic, and continues to electrify audiences as a cultural statement of defiance. But if the film's place in history now seems certain, at the time its creation was a long shot.

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.

Lucas: His Hollywood Legacy is the first collection to bring a sustained scholarly perspective to the iconic filmmaker and his legacy beyond the Star Wars films. Edited by Richard Ravalli, this volume analyzes Lucas's overall contribution and importance to the film industry, diving deep into his use and development of modern special effects technologies, the history of his Skywalker Ranch production facilities, and more.

When a major Hollywood studio released Five Fingers of Death to thrill-seeking Times Square moviegoers on March 21, 1973, only a handful of Black and Asian American audience members knew the difference between an Iron Fist and an Eagle's Claw. That changed overnight as kung fu movies kicked off a craze that would earn millions at the box office, send TV ratings soaring, sell hundreds of thousands of video tapes, influence the birth of hip hop, reshape the style of action we see in movies today, and introduce America to some of the biggest non-White stars.

Some Like It Hot occupies a unique place in American culture. This beloved classic showcases five comic geniuses: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, I. A. L. Diamond, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. It has been honored by the American Film Institute as the funniest film of all time. It has contributed quotes, styles, and stories to film lore. Yet the full story of its making has never been told - until now.

The movies were flying blind in 1980. “New Hollywood” was over and the era of auteur-driven, personal films that had defined moviemaking since the late ‘60s came to a symbolic end with Heaven’s Gate (1980), replaced by a new world of multiplex blockbusters supported by massive marketing campaigns. But beyond the high-school comedies and hardbody action films came a new wave of cinematic excitement—an era defined by Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Purple Rain, When Harry Met Sally, E.T., and Top Gun, each of which are now classics for a new generation of nostalgic movie lovers.

A must-listen for movie buffs, The Trouble with Love in the Movies is a painfully honest account of labouring in the fields of film production, of loving and losing, living and learning. Through six movies, across three continents, in clashes on and off the set: It's a romance.

In his first memoir, Ander Monson guides listeners through a scene-by-scene exploration of the 1987 film Predator, which he has watched 146 times. Some fighters might not have time to bleed, but Monson has the patience to consider their adventure, one frame at a time. He turns his obsession into a lens through which he poignantly examines his own life, formed by mainstream white male American culture.