NCW Libraries

In Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris turned the story of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 into a landmark work of cultural history, a book about the transformation of an art form and the larger social shift it signified. In Five Came Back, he achieves something larger and even more remarkable, giving us the untold story of how Hollywood changed World War II, and how World War II changed Hollywood, through the prism of five film...

Chronicling the making and marketing of movies released in 2012, from low-budget indies to studio blockbusters, a reporter who has written about Hollywood for more than twenty-five years covers every aspect of the billion-dollar global motion picture industry.

"In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans--and all movie lovers--could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he...

"Disneyanity: Of Walt and Religion studies the manner in which popular entertainment can compete with conventional churches as a source of spirituality. Here is a work of film history, focusing on the Walt Disney Company from its inception until the present day, analyzing individual projects as well as their relationship to one another forming a thematic and aesthetic body of work. It is also a study of the manner in which popular culture, designed...

"Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore, and has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture. In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment...

Explores the making and meaning of Film, a 1965 short film starring Buster Keaton, that was written by Samuel Beckett, directed by Alan Schneider, and produced by Barney Rosset. Topics covered include the circumstances leading to the film's production, the production process itself, and the film's critical reception. Includes outtakes, never-before-heard audio recordings of production meetings, interviews, and other archival information.

"The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture. "They're not going to catch us," Dan Aykroyd, as Elwood Blues, tells his brother Jake, played by John Belushi. "We're on a mission from God." So opens the musical action comedy The Blues Brothers, which hit theaters on June 20, 1980. Their scripted mission was to save a local...