Showing titles in Film & TV

Despite being underestimated due to his accent and origins, Desi Arnaz’s legacy is monumental. Purdum’s biography, enriched with unpublished materials and interviews, reveals the man behind the legend and highlights his enduring contributions to pop culture and television. This book is a must-hear biography about innovation, resilience, and the relentless drive of a man who changed TV forever.

Kristin and Jenny’s marriage started with an ultimatum: to further their relationship, Kristin must watch Jenny's favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With the terms set, they began a journey that has led them through seven seasons of the beloved genre show, a podcast rewatching the series with their newly minted listenership of “Scoobies,” unexpected success, and a divorce. Through it all, their love for Buffy and their commitment to their community held them together against the odds.

Esper worked closely with Meisner for 17 years and has spent decades developing his famous program for actor's training. The result is a rigorous system of exercises that builds a solid foundation of acting skills from the ground up, and that is flexible enough to be applied to any challenge an actor faces, from soap operas to Shakespeare.

From Moon Unit Zappa, the daughter of musical visionary Frank Zappa, comes a memoir of growing up in her unconventional household in 1970s Los Angeles, coming of age in the Hollywood Hills in the 1980s as the “Valley Girl,” gaining momentum as an accidental VJ on a new network called MTV, and finding herself after losing her father, then her mother, and the testing of her most important relationships.

From such cult hits as Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski to major critical darlings Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and Inside Llewyn Davis, Ethan and Joel Coen have cultivated a bleakly comical, instantly recognizable voice in modern American cinema. Film critic Adam Nayman carefully sifts through their complex cinematic universe in an effort to plot, as he puts it, "some Grand Unified Theory of Coen-ness." The book combines critical text with a visual aesthetic that honors the Coens' singular mix of darkness and levity.

With over 500,000 readers a month at her enormously popular blog, AwesomelyLuvvie.com, Luvvie Ajayi is a go-to source for smart takes on pop culture. I'm Judging You is her debut book of humorous essays that dissects our cultural obsessions and calls out bad behavior in our increasingly digital, connected lives - from the importance of the newest Shonda Rhimes television drama to serious discussions of race and media representation to what to do about your fool cousin sharing casket pictures from Grandma's wake on Facebook.

Easy Rider, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the 70s - an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both on screen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme.

For almost a century, movie fans have been riveted by the Academy Awards and the stars who have won Oscars. 50 Oscar Nights takes listeners behind the scenes of Hollywood’s most storied awards show through new and exclusive interviews with dozens of A-list actors, filmmakers, and craftspeople spanning sixty years of the Oscars. Here these artists reflect on their winning work and recount all the details of how they got ready, how they felt when they heard their name and got up on stage to accept their award, what they wore, how the entire experience impacted their life, and more.

In a career spanning more than 30 years, David Letterman redefined the modern talk show with an ironic comic style that transcended traditional television. While he remains one of the most famous stars in America, he is a remote, even reclusive figure whose career is widely misunderstood. In Letterman, Jason Zinoman, the first comedy critic in the history of the New York Times, mixes groundbreaking reporting with unprecedented access and probing critical analysis to explain the unique entertainer's titanic legacy.

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.

Film noir was the dark side of the movies’ happily-ever-after mythology. Sinister and sexy, it forged a new icon: the tough, independent dame. Determined, desirable, dangerous when cornered, she could handle trouble—or deal out some of her own. If you thought these women were something special onscreen, wait until you meet the genuine articles. In Dark City Dames, acclaimed film historian Eddie Muller takes listeners into the world of six women who made a lasting impression in this cinematic terrain.

Most screenwriting books tend to focus on story structure, scene writing, navigating the business, and other parts of the craft that come after the initial choice of the central concept for a story. Multiple Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning writer/producer Erik Bork (HBO’s Band of Brothers) takes a different approach. His experience in the industry and as a screenwriting professor and coach have led him to recognize that it's the selection of the initial idea that is the most important part of the process - with the most impact on the project's chance of success.

Encounter Jesus the way his followers did. Every follower of Jesus in the gospels had a not-so-great “before”: A brash fisherman. A pious religious leader. A demon-possessed woman. A thieving tax collector. Christ’s love saw beyond their brokenness and forgave. Jesus revolutionized the lives of those who followed him. And He’s still doing it today. Each of the forty devotions in The Chosen contains a scripture, a unique look into a gospel story, suggestions for prayer, and questions that lead you further in your relationship with Christ.

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.

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.

Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him - the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood - he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door.

Now, for the first time, the entire history of the slime-soaked franchise is told in A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever. The cohesion of talent during the mid-'70s comedy revolution, the seat-of-their-pants creation of the first Ghostbusters, the explosive success that seemed to mandate a franchise, the five year struggle to make Ghostbusters II, the thirty-one-year struggle to make Ghostbusters III—it’s all here, with incredible attention to detail.

Rich in hilarious anecdote, this audiobook tells the story of Niven's school and Sandhurst days, his posting to Malta with the Highland Light Infantry, and how he escaped the army for a new life in the States. There he joined New York high society, before crossing the continent, lured by Hollywood. He returned to Britain to serve during the Second World War, but then made Hollywood his home.

Since its final episode aired in 2008, HBO's acclaimed crime drama The Wire has only become more popular and influential. The issues it tackled, from the failures of the drug war and criminal justice system to systemic bias in law enforcement and other social institutions, have become more urgent and central to the national conversation. But while there has been a great deal of critical analysis of the show and its themes, until now there has never been a definitive, behind-the-scenes take on how it came to be made.

Every aspect of screenwriting is covered with an authority and credibility never seen in any book to come before. Told with honesty, humor, and vulnerability from the real-world perspective of a working, professional screenwriter, Kill the Dog reveals the secrets of what it takes to have a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.