Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick de Semlyen

$32.99 AUD

Category: Film

Wild and Crazy Guys is the larger-than-life story of the much-loved Hollywood comedy stars that ruled the 1980s. As well as delving behind the scenes of classic movies such as Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and dozens more, it chronicles the off-screen, larger-than-l ife antics of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Candy et al. It's got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S Thompson, while tied to a lawn chair. It's akin to Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, following the key players through their highs and lows, and their often turbulent relationships with each other. Nick de Semlyen has already interviewed pretty much all the big names for Empire, as well as directors such as Walter Hill, John Landis and Carl Reiner, and is sitting on lots of unseen material. Taking you on a trip through the tumultous '80s, Wild And Crazy Guys explores the friendships, feuds, triumphs and disasters experienced by these iconic funnymen. Based on candid interviews from the stars themselves, as well as those who entered their orbit, it reveals the hidden history behind the most fertile period ever for screen comedy. ...Show more

Seven Big Australians - Adventures with Comic Actors by Anne Pender

$29.95 AUD

Category: Film | Series: Biography Ser.

Comic actors have made a particularly strong contribution to cultural life in Australia over the past sixty years. They have brought a range of memorable characters to the stage, television and film; they have transformed our image of ourselves, helped to overturn the crippling cultural cringe, and brou ght Australian humour and satire to the world. The Australian theatre, television and film industries are dynamic in ways that could never have been imagined fifty years ago. These industries have expanded and demonstrated extraordinary vitality, with actors, as the public face of the performing arts, carrying the immediate responsibility for the success of each show. It is the actors, and often the characters they play, that we remember when we recall a favourite television program, film or play, long after we have seen it. In spite of this they are frequently left out of history. This book draws on extensive interviews to present full, rounded portraits of seven significant Australian comic actors: Carol Raye, Barry Humphries, Noeline Brown, Max Gillies, John Clarke, Tony Sheldon, and Denise Scott. Taken together, these actors careers span the period from the Second World War until the present and contributed immensely to the cultural life of millions of Australians. ...Show more

Making a Meal of It: Writing About Film by Brian McFarlane; Ian Britain (Introduction by)

$29.95 AUD

Category: Film | Series: Cultural Studies

For more than forty years, readers of The Age newspaper have learned about the latest films through the interpretations and judgements of Brian McFarlane, now himself a Melbourne institution of sorts. Over that time, McFarlane's reviews of, and articles on, film have been featured in Australian Book Rev iew, Cinema Papers, Inside Story, Meanjin, Metro, Screening the Past, Senses of Cinema, Sight & Sound, and many other newspapers, magazines, and journals. This selection of McFarlane's writings on film, taken as a whole, tells a story about what has brought us back to the cinema again and again, from recent times to a now more distant past. In his attuned but easy style, sprinkled with wit and insight, this guide will bring back memories, fill gaps in the reader's knowledge, trigger conversations, and inspire delight and enthusiasm. Making a Meal of It is a first-rate resource for film buffs and excellent dinner-table company. (Series: Cultural Studies) [Subject: Film Studies, Journalism, Media Studies] ...Show more

Saturday Night at the Movies by Jennifer Nelson

$39.99 AUD

Category: Film

Broadsword Calling Danny Boy - On Where Eagles Dare by Geoff Dyer

$19.99 AUD

Category: Film

Where Eagles Dareis both a thrillingly realized Alpine Second World War adventure with tough, compelling acting from its two great stars, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, and a flippant travesty, infantilizing the central disaster in Europe's modern history in favour of huge explosions and camp SS off icers. Geoff Dyer has loved Where Eagles Daresince childhood and in 'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy'he twists and turns very entertainingly to both extoll and denigrate the acme of the late 1960s action movie. Like his earlier Zona- on Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker- this is a scene-by-scene reaction to watching the film. The book might have as an ideal reader somebody who has not even seen Where Eagles Dare,but who will enjoy it simply as a comic tour-de-force. But for the film's legions of fans, whose hearts will always belong to Ron Goodwin's theme tune and the opening shots of a snow-camouflaged Junkers Ju-52, this book will be the fulfilment of a dream. ...Show more

101 Marvellous Movies You May Have Missed by David Stratton

$24.99 AUD

Category: Film

Are you sick of trawling through movies you don't recognise on Netflix? Sick of reading short film descriptions that sound boring? Don't know what to watch next? Let much-loved film critic David Stratton introduce you to movies that you may not have heard of, and tell you why they are worth seeing.

In Such Good Company by Carol Burnett

$27.99 AUD

Category: Film

In In Such Good Company, Carol Burnett pulls back the curtain on the twenty-five-time Emmy-Award winning show that made television history, and she reminisces about the outrageously funny and tender moments that made working on the series as much fun as watching it. Carol delves into little-known storie s of the guests, sketches and improvisations that made The Carol Burnett Show legendary, as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. While writing this book, Carol rewatched all 276 episodes and screen-grabbed her favorite video stills from the archives to illustrate the chemistry of the actors and the improvisational magic that made the show so successful. Putting the spotlight on everyone from her costars to the impressive list of guest stars, Carol crafts a lively portrait of the talent and creativity that went into every episode. With characteristic wit and incomparable comic timing, she details hiring Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway; shares anecdotes about guest stars and close friends, including Lucille Ball, Roddy Mcdowell, Jim Nabors, Bernadette Peters, Betty Grable, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, and Betty White; and gives her take on her favorite sketches and the unpredictable moments that took both the cast and viewers by surprise.This book is Carol's love letter to a golden era in television history through the lens of her brilliant show. Get the best seat in the house for "eleven years of laughter, mayhem, and fun in the sandbox. ...Show more

Faber Book of French Cinema by C. DRAZIN

$35.00 AUD

Category: Film

In The Faber Book of French Cinema, Charles Drazin explores the rich film culture and history of the country that first established the cinema as the most important mass medium of the twentieth century. Offering portraits of such key figures as the Lumière brothers, Georges Méliès, Charles Pathé and Léon Gaumont, he looks at the early pioneers who transformed a fairground novelty into a global industry. The crisis caused by the First World War led France to surrender her position as the world's dominant film-making power, but French cinema forged a new role for itself as a beacon of cinematic possibility and achievement. Suggesting a Gallic attitude that has always considered the cinema to be as much a cause as a business, Drazin looks at the extraordinary resilience of the French film industry during the Second World War when, in spite of the national catastrophe of defeat and occupation, it was still able to produce such classics as Le Corbeau and Les Enfants du Paradis. Finally, he traces its remarkable post-war regeneration. He looks at the seminal impact of the New Wave of film-makers - typified by Truffaut and Godard - but also at the other waves that have followed since. As he brings the story into the twenty-first century - with Jacques Audaird's award-winning A Prophet - he seeks to capture the essence of the French film tradition and why it continues to matter to anyone who cares about the cinema. ...Show more

Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome by Shawn Levy

$55.00 AUD

Category: Film

From the ashes of the Second World War, Rome in the 1950s was reborn as the epicentre of film, fashion, tabloid media and bold-faced libertinism that made 'Italian' a global synonym for style and flair. A confluence of cultural contributions created a bright, burning moment in history: it was the heyday of fashion icons such as Pucci, whose superb craftsmanship set the standard for women's clothing for decades. Rome's huge movie studio, Cinecitta, also known as 'Hollywood on the Tiber', attracted a dizzying array of stars from Charlton Heston, Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra to that stunning and combustible couple, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who began their extramarital affair during the making of CLEOPATRA. And behind these stars trailed street photographers - Tazio Secchiaroli, Pierluigi Praturlon and Marcello Geppetti - who searched, waited and pounced on their subjects in pursuit of the most unflattering and dramatic portraits of fame. Fashionistas, exiles, moguls and martyrs flocked to Rome hoping for a chance to indulge in the glow of old money, new stars, fast cars, wanton libidos and brazen news photographers. The scene was captured nowhere better than in Federico Fellini's masterpiece, starring Marcello Mastroianni and the Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg. LA DOLCE VITA was condemned for its licentiousness, when in fact Fellini was satirizing the decadence of Rome's bohemian scene. Colourful and richly informed, DOLCE VITA CONFIDENTIAL recreates Rome's stunning ascent with vivid and compelling tales of its glitterati and artists, down to every last outrageous detail of the city's magnificent transformation. ...Show more

The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel

$19.99 AUD

Category: Film

In 1836 in East Texas, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches. She was raised by the tribe and eventually became the wife of a warrior. Twenty-four years after her capture, she was reclaimed by the U.S. cavalry and Texas Rangers and restored to her white family, to die in misery and obscurity. Cynthia Ann's story has been told and re-told over generations to become a foundational American tale. The myth gave rise to operas and one-act plays, and in the 1950s to a novel by Alan LeMay, which would be adapted into one of Hollywood's most legendary films, The Searchers, "The Biggest, Roughest, Toughest...and Most Beautiful Picture Ever Made!" directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. Glenn Frankel, beginning in Hollywood and then returning to the origins of the story, creates a rich and nuanced anatomy of a timeless film and a quintessentially American myth. The dominant story that has emerged departs dramatically from documented history: it is of the inevitable triumph of white civilization, underpinned by anxiety about the sullying of white women by "savages." What makes John Ford's film so powerful, and so important, Frankel argues, is that it both upholds that myth and undermines it, baring the ambiguities surrounding race, sexuality, and violence in the settling of the West and the making of America. ...Show more

Andre de Dienes. Marilyn Monroe by Steve Crist

$35.00 AUD

Category: Film

One day in 1945, fashion photographer Andre de Dienes met an aspiring model named Norma Jeane Dougherty. It was a momentous moment, both for his personal life and his photographic portfolio. Over the next few years, he would be briefly engaged to Norma Jeane, take a number of adventurous road trips with her, and build up a stunning series of portraits which would help launch her modelling, and later movie, career. Now available as part of TASCHEN's Bibliotheca Universalis series, this collection of de Dienes' photographs and private memoirs offers an intimate picture of Norma Jeane the woman, before she was Marilyn the icon. From their trip to see Norma Jeane's mother in a mental hospital to Marilyn's visit a few days before her death, de Dienes' emotion-laden archive, often annotated with handwritten notes, offers a deeply personal account of Monroe's transformation from a sensitive, ambitious girl into a deeply troubled global star. ...Show more

The Essential Marilyn Monroe: Milton H. Greene: 50 Sessions by Joshua Greene

$99.00 AUD

Category: Film

Milton H. Greene (1922-1985), famous for his fashion photography and celebrity portraits from the golden age of Hollywood, met Marilyn Monroe on a photo shoot for Look magazine in 1953. The pair developed an instant rapport, quickly becoming close friends and ultimately business partners. In 1954, after helping her get out of her studio contract with 20th Century Fox, they created Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc. Milton and Marilyn were much more then business partners, Marilyn became a part of the Greene family. By the time their relationship had ended in 1957, the pair had produced two feature films, in addition to more than 5,000 photographs of the iconic beauty. There was magic in Milton and Marilyn's working relationship. The trust and confidence they had in each other's capabilities was on full display in each photo. Greene passed in 1985, thinking his life's work was succumbing to the ravages of time. His eldest son, Joshua, began a journey to meticulously restore his father's legacy. A photographer himself, Joshua spent years researching ways to restore his father's photographs as well as cataloguing and promoting Milton's vast body of work all over the world.As a result, Joshua established "The Archives," a company committed to the restoration and preservation of photography. After spending nearly two decades restoring his father's archive, Joshua Greene and his company are widely regarded as one of the leaders in photographic restoration and have been at the forefront of the digital imaging and large-format printing revolution. Now Joshua Greene, in conjunction with Iconic Images, presents The Essential Marilyn Monroe, Milton H. Greene: 50 Sessions. With 280 photographs, including many never-before published and unseen images, newly scanned and restored classics, as well as images that have appeared only once in publication, Greene's Marilyn Monroe archive can finally be viewed as it was originally intended when these pictures were first produced more than 60 years ago. These classic sessions - 50 in all - cover Monroe at the height of her astonishing beauty and meteoric fame. From film-sets to the bedroom, at home and at play, Joshua has curated a lasting tribute to the work of a great photographer and his greatest muse.Poignant and powerful, joyful and stunning - these breath-taking images of an icon stand above all the rest and The Essential Marilyn Monroe, Milton H.Greene: 50 Sessions will sure to be a book that will become the platinum standard in photography monographs. Milton H. Greene, was one of the earliest and best photographers working in the early days of colour photography. Outside his outstanding Monroe images, he has worked with a plethora of other celebrities, from Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Audrey Hepburn, to Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Dizzy Gillespie and Judy Garland. ...Show more