Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years, by Cari Beauchamp. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2009. Hardcover $35.00. 528pp. ISBN: 1-400-04000-0. Previous books on Joseph Patrick Kennedy, of which there are many,[…]
Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series), ed. Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad. Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2007. Paperback $16.95. 288pp. ISBN: 0-812-69634-4. The aim[…]
Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds, by Jeffrey Richards. New York: Continuum, 2008. Hardcover $29.95. 227pp. ISBN: 1847250076 The “ancient world” epic has been one of cinema’s most curious. For every major auteur and[…]
“Have You Seen . . .?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Film, by David Thomson. New York: Knopf, 2008. Hardcover, $39.95, 1,024 pages. ISBN: 0-307-26461-0. One entertains the vague possibility that our dismal[…]
Encyclopedia Shatnerica: An A to Z Guide to the Man and His Universe, by Robert Schnakenberg. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2008. Paper $16.95, 290pp. ISBN: 1-594-74230-8. William Shatner, it may be[…]
Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M‑G‑M, by Mark Vieira. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008. Cloth $50.00. 240pp. ISBN: 978-0-8109-7234-6. Not a conventional biography, though all[…]
Over time it becomes more and more obvious that as a species humans really aren’t much more than a bunch of monkeys. And our monkey brains, motivated with banana dreams[…]
The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in Film Theory, by Patricia Pisters. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Cloth $60.00, Paper $26.95, 307pp. ISBN: 0-8047-4028-3. In contemporary film[…]
Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema, by Geneviève Sellier. Translated by Kristin Ross. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Paperback, $22.95, 280pp. ISBN: 0822341921. When it comes to feminist film[…]
The Impossible David Lynch Todd McGowan. New York: Tarcher/Group, 2007. Paperback, $26.50, 280pp. ISBN: 0-231-139551 The wacky world of David Lynch has seemed to grow into a cottage industry in[…]
Books · Experimental & Underground
Art in Cinema: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society, Scott MacDonald. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2006. Hardcover, $63.50, 465pp. ISBN: 1-592-134254 Reading the more or less official correspondence of a film[…]
Harlan Ellison’s Watching (Reissue) Harlan Ellison. Milwaukee: M Press, 2008 (1989). Paperback, $12.95, 465pp. ISBN: 978-1-59582-056-3 We want to believe that great writing happens in solitude, during nighttime hours in which[…]
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood Mark Harris. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Cloth, $27.95, 496pp. ISBN 1-594-20152-8. Observers of the Academy Awards[…]
Actors & Personalities · Books
“I’m not a star, I’m a woman, and I want to get fucked!” A combination clotheshorse/workhorse, Kay Francis made 67 films from 1929 to 1946. Her life and career are a splurging[…]
Books · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics
“The butler did it … to everyone!”
German National Cinema, by Sabine Hake. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Trade paper, $22.95, 232pp. ISBN 0-41508-902-6 It is certainly astonishing, although not unexpected, that it has taken almost[…]
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Cloth, $35.00, 963pp. ISBN 0-375-41128-3. Hours will be lost, then days. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is[…]
Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography, by Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002. Cloth, $27.50, 294pp. ISBN 0-8131-2254-6. Joan Crawford was not Mommie Dearest.[…]
Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness, ed. and with an introduction by Daniel J. Bernardi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Trade paper. 516pp. ISBN 0-8166-3239-1. Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness continues the project[…]
Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, by Simon Sheridan. London: Reynolds and Hearn, 2002. Trade paper. $24.95, 208pp. ISBN 1-90311-121-8. For those not in the know,[…]
