Movie Criticism

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.

Celebrate the greatest saga ever told: All of us who are deeply influenced by the epic saga of Star Wars have our favorite moments. Each time the screen goes black and you see those words - "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" - the music blasts through you, and you're a kid again. Ken Napzok, expert appreciator of Star Wars, counts down each one of those special moments that makes this series not just the best movies of all time, but the greatest saga ever told.

COME BACK TO THE WORLD OF "B" MOVIES AND GENRE FILMS AS WILLIAM SCHOELL OF "GREAT OLD MOVIES" REVIEWS HUNDREDS OF CLASSIC AND NOT-SO-CLASSIC PICTURES IN THE CATEGORIES OF HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION, INTRIGUE, MONSTER MOVIES, ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILMS, SPIES, EXPLOITATION, CLIFFHANGER SERIALS, AND VINTAGE TV SHOWS IN A LIVELY, INFORMATIVE, AND ENTERTAINING FASHION. ILLUSTRATED. WILLIAM SCHOELL IS THE AUTHOR OF DOZENS OF BOOKS INCLUDING "CREATURE FEATURES: NATURE TURNED NASTY IN THE MOVIES;" AND "MARTINI MAN: THE LIFE OF DEAN MARTIN." A CULT HORROR AUTHOR, HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN SUCH NOVELS AS "...

Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, wrote biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offered a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send listeners back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm–or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing.

The Sound of Music is a classic film cherished in the hearts of millions. It won five Oscars, including Best Picture, upon its release in 1965. This tribute to a Hollywood classic is sure to thrill everyone who's ever sung along to "My Favorite Things" at one of the many screenings that still take place today. Through interviews with the cast and crew, in-depth access to memorabilia and personal scrapbooks, and archival research at Fox Studios, author Julia Antopol Hirsch reveals the lively human story behind the making of the von Trapp family film.

Few filmmakers, if any, make the kind of impact that Martin Scorsese has made on American cinema. The winner of every prestigious film award, including the Oscar, Scorsese is a living legend. Bestselling author and award-winning filmmaker Mary Pat Kelly’s groundbreaking biography reveals how this working-class boy from Manhattan’s Little Italy became one of our most acclaimed, celebrated, and influential filmmakers. Martin Scorsese: A Journey maps Scorsese’s personal and artistic evolution.

Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life.

A collection of his finest writing on horror cinema by the acclaimed critic and journalist, Jon Towlson. Essays range from studies of auteurs Tod Browning and George A. Romero to reflections on Universal horror, analysis of the 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead, and commentaries on contemporary international horror cinema. The volume contains reviews of over 25 modern horror films, including Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) and Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (2020). Plus, interviews conducted with leading creatives in horror cinema: Jason Blum (Blumhouse Productions), Scott Derrickson (...

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.

Salka Viertel's autobiography tells of a brilliant, creative, and well-connected woman's pilgrimage through the darkest years of the 20th century, a journey that would take her from a remote province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Hollywood. The Kindness of Strangers is, to quote the New Yorker writer S. N. Behrman, "a very rich book. It provides a panorama of the dissolving civilizations of the 20th century. In all of them the author lived at the apex of their culture and artistic aristocracies."

From the earliest days of silent films and the swinging era of the Roaring Twenties, through the Golden Age of the studio system and the patriotic call of WWII, to the Red Scare paranoia of the McCarthy years, the history of the Schenck brothers is the story of Hollywood itself—and the enduring power of the American Dream. Moguls is a must-listen for film fans, history buffs, and anyone who loves the movies.

Buster Keaton was a master silent film comedian in the 1920s comparable to Charlie Chaplin. After 15 years, the advent of sound and his personal troubles with alcohol and interference from the studio caused the swift and sudden crash of his career and personal life. Recognized later by film historians and the public for his hilarious movies, Keaton continued to work until his death. In The Persistence of Comedy Imogen Sara Smith brings together all the historical research on Keaton and his films with a discerning, but loving eye and wonderfully readable prose. Illustrated with stills from ...

When movies cost hundreds of millions to make and market, the magnitude of the wagers is astonishing. Vast riches rain down on those who gamble wisely, and careers are made and lost in one weekend. But never is this box-office race more feverish than during the summer blockbuster season, when the studios roll out their most expensive, effects-laden pictures in a feverish race to win the box-office derby. Peter Bart here brings us a marvelously entertaining behind-the-scenes portrait of moviemaking.

Life is full of choices. Right now, yours is whether or not to buy the autobiography of a mid-grade, kind of hammy actor.

On a cold Saturday afternoon in 1975, two men (who had known each other for eight years before they’d ever exchanged a word) met for lunch in a Chicago pub. Gene Siskel was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. Roger Ebert had recently won the Pulitzer Prize—the first ever awarded to a film critic—for his work at the Chicago Sun-Times. To say they despised each other was an understatement.

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.

To avoid fainting, keep repeating It's only a move ..only a movie ..only a movie ..only a movie If you grew up believing that Planet of the Apes told you all you needed to know about politics, that Slade in Flame was a savage exposé of the pop world, and that The Exorcist revealed the meaning of life, then you probably spent far too many of your formative years at the cinema. Just as likely, you soon would have realised that there was only one career open to you - you'd have to become a film critic.

When the head of Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, got caught forging Cliff Robertson's name on a $10,000 check, it seemed, at first, like a simple case of embezzlement. It wasn't. The incident was the tip of the iceberg, the first hint of a scandal that shook Hollywood and rattled Wall Street.

How can it be true love when Connor and Danny are forced into being Romeo and Juliet? It was meant to be the perfect gay teenage love story: Connor, an unhappy queer sixteen-year-old, wins a competition to interview Danny O’Hara – a reclusive former child star, and according to the tabloids the most eligible teen celebrity in Britain. When a winter storm hits Danny’s Scottish Castle, the boys are snowed in for a week, and their feelings for one another start to heat up. But as the writer of the story tries to push the action into a heteronormative romance, Connor refuses to go on ...

Baseball has always been a symbol as much as a sport. With a blend of individual confrontation and team play, a luxurious pace, and an immaculate urban parkland setting, it offers a sunny rendering of the American Dream, both the hard work that underpins it and the rewards it promises. Film, America's other national pastime, which magnifies and mythologizes all it touches, has long been the ideal medium to canonize this aspirational idea.