Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Film & TV

One question can unlock your entire story. Are you struggling to build a riveting plot? Layered characters? How about fortify that saggy middle? Create that powerful ending? You can build an entire book by asking one powerful question and then plugging it into an “equation” that makes your plot and characters come to life. You’ll learn how to build the external and internal journey of your characters, create a theme, build story and scene tension, create the character change journey, and even pitch and market your story.

A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks, covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television, films, and theater, from Patrick McGilligan, the acclaimed author of Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light.

Looking for a way out of the rat race? Tired of your ho-hum, workaday life? Have an inexplicable love of turning human beings into inanimate objects? Then professional supervillainy might just be for you! With tips from the renowned founder and overlord of the International Society of Supervillains, The Supervillain Handbook is your one-stop-shop for everything evil. Gain invaluable insight on the art of revenge, choosing your evil name, where to find the perfect lair, and much more!

An outspoken personality who divides opinion, Jeremy Clarkson has made a successful career out of his love of cars and speed.

Since becoming Top Gear supremo, the programme has become one of the most widely distributed TV shows on the planet. His candid views on practically every subject under the sun have often landed him in hot water. Love him or loathe him, this fascinating biography tells his far-from-over life story.

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.

A special compilation of highlights from cuddly Ken’s television and radio shows.

Kenny Everett was one of radio’s great innovators, the funniest DJ of our time and a one-off whose madcap comedy burst the boundaries of broadcasting. Introduced and presented by Barry Cryer, this recording features the definitive Kenny Everett: the jokes, the jingles and the high-jinks, the interviews, the comic characters – and some naughty bits.

When it was finally released, Heaven's Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood's auteur era. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven's Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair.

Joan Crawford's remarkable forty-five-year motion picture career is one of the industry's longest. Signing her first contract in 1925, she was crowned an MGM star four years later and by the mid-1930s was the most popular actress in America. In the early 1940s, Crawford's risky decision to move to Warner Bros. was rewarded with an Oscar for Mildred Pierce. This triumph launched a series of film noir classics. She teamed with rival Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, proving that Crawford, whose career had begun by defining big-screen glamor, had matured into a dramatic actress.

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."

For more than three decades, director Ken Kwapis has charted a career full of exceptional movies and television, from seminal shows like The Office to beloved films like He’s Just Not That into You. He is among the most respected directors in show business, but getting there wasn’t easy. He struggled just like everyone else. With each triumph came the occasional faceplant. Using his background and inside knowledge, But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct tackles Hollywood myths through Ken’s highly entertaining experiences.

The amazing story of TV presenter Louise Minchin's journey from the BBC Breakfast sofa to representing Great Britain at the World Triathlon Championships. This is a warmly written and wonderfully honest adventure through sport that will both entertain and inspire. It started out as a fun BBC Breakfast cycling stunt in 2012 and culminated in Louise Minchin wearing the colours of Team GB at the World Triathlon Championship in 2015.

To millions of fans, All About Eve represents all that’s witty and wonderful in classic Hollywood movies. Its old-fashioned, larger-than-life stars - including Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, and Celeste Holm - found their best roles in this movie, and its sophisticated dialogue has entered the lexicon. But there’s much more to know about All About Eve. Sam Staggs has written the definitive account of the making of this fascinating movie and its enormous influence on both film and popular culture.

This manual provides a review of the tactical combat advantages enjoyed by zombies and gives the listener a step-by-step guide to adopting them for him or herself. Have you wondered where the great military leaders of modern history have found their collective inspirations? Well look no further. It is the walking dead upon whom the most important tactical infantry innovations of the last three hundred years have been based.

This is the story of how John Madden and Pat Summerall got to CBS and, although very different, how they became the greatest broadcast team of all time. It is told by Rich Podolsky, who worked alongside them both at CBS. Separately, they were great. Together, they were the greatest ever. Madden & Summerall is about two stalwarts of the game, but their story is not without controversy.

Young, cocksure, handsome and absurdly talented, Australian actor Heath Ledger shot to prominence with his first Hollywood film "10 Things I Hate About You": and a star was born. With huge charisma and smouldering looks lighting up the screen in a series of subsequent films, Heath was soon established as Hollywood A-list, dating a series of beauties such as Heather Graham and Naomi Watts, and living every young man's dream.

"Everything about me is in my films," Steven Spielberg has said. Taking this as a key to understanding the hugely successful moviemaker, Molly Haskell explores the full range of Spielberg's works for the light they shine upon the man himself. Through such powerhouse hits as E.T., Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones, to less-appreciated movies like the haunting Schindler's List, Haskell shows how Spielberg's uniquely evocative filmmaking and story-telling reveal the many ways in which his life, work, and times are entwined.

Why does the cinema have the power to move the heart, stimulate the mind, and dazzle the imagination? How did the art of film develop from its origins to the present day? This course covers the history and aesthetics of the movies. It traces the experiments and innovations that gave rise to the modern cinema, developing a vocabulary that helps explain the variety of choices filmmakers make when they construct shots and edit them together.

Since premiering in 2009, the groundbreaking television sitcom Modern Family has garnered tens of millions of devoted fans, earning 75 Emmy nominations and 22 Emmy Awards, including five in a row for Outstanding Comedy Series (one of only two sitcoms to ever achieve that feat). Professors have written about it. Psychologists have lectured on it. Leading publications, such as The New York Times and Washington Post, have explained their love for it.

Brainstorm is an amazing five-year probe into the mysterious death of beloved movie star Natalie Wood by a real-life criminal law authority who determinedly pursued the truth in the face of Los Angeles County officials hell-bent on keeping it buried forever. Brainstorm: An Investigation of the Mysterious Death of Film Star Natalie Wood is the first-person account of Sam Perroni’s probing investigation of the actress’s death.

How does an immortal deal with death? What kind of person makes the best companion? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud "got on very well"? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what can looking at an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box explores these questions and many more.