Showing titles in History & Criticism

When Charles Chaplin signed a record-setting contract with the Mutual Film Corporation in February 1916, it was the culmination of events that changed the motion picture business. Mutual's founders redefined how films were bought, sold, and distributed. Chaplin redefined screen comedy with a character that leapt into the hearts of moviegoers around the world. Together they established the value of star power and created 12 magnificent comedies that have endured for generations.

On February 7, 2010, the CBS television series Undercover Boss premiered to a staggering 38.6 million viewers, the largest post–Super Bowl audience for a new series and the most-watched premiere episode of any reality series in the history of television. Now, for the first time, the bosses and employees featured on Undercover Boss share the lessons they learned as well as the formative experiences that resulted from being on the show.

Beyond Bombshells analyzes the cultural importance of strong women in a variety of current media forms. Action heroines are now more popular in movies, comic books, television, and literature than they have ever been. Their spectacular presence represents shifting ideas about female agency, power, and sexuality. This book explores how action heroines reveal and reconfigure perceptions about how and why women are capable of physically dominating roles in modern fiction.

Una trentina d'anni fa negli Stati Uniti si scopriva che spingendo una DeLorean a 88 miglia orarie, senza dimenticare di azionare il flusso canalizzatore, si poteva coronare un vecchio sogno dell'uomo mai tramontato, quello del viaggio nel tempo. Il 3 luglio 1985 era infatti arrivato nelle sale americane il primo capitolo della saga Back to the Future, una delle trilogie cinematografiche più amate degli ultimi anni.

Quarto Potere è il capolavoro del regista americano Orson Welles. Il film è una riflessione sul potere nella società capitalistica americana e, in par-ticolare, sul potere svolto dalla stampa e dell'informazione incarnato nella pelli-cola dal magnate Kane. Il titolo originale infatti è Citizen Kane, che fa esplicito riferimento all'ingombrante figura del protagonista, il magnate dell'editoria poi approdato in politica Charles Foster Kane, interpretato dallo stesso Welles nelle diverse stagioni della sua vita.

One hundred and thirty years ago Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography, anticipating and making possible motion pictures. He was the first to capture time and play it back for an audience, giving birth to visual media and screen entertainments of all kinds. Yet the artist and inventor Muybridge was also a murderer who killed coolly and meticulously, and his trial is one of the early instances of a media sensation.

While every new TV series has to face some problems, no show had to overcome greater obstacles than Gilligan's Island. In spite of that, no series has achieved greater success, as measured by the fact that Gilligan's Island has given rise to three TV movies, two animated series, and is the most rerun program in the entire history of television.

The Barrymores were “The Royal Family of Broadway”, and Ethel Barrymore was their queen. Along with her brothers, Lionel and John, she was a legendary presence in the theatre and in motion pictures during the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the Barrymores and the Drews were a theatrical family that dated back many generations.

Un viaggio affascinante e intenso nelle pellicole che hanno fatto la storia del cinema per esplorare il sentimento della paternità. Affettuosi e gentili, oppure irascibili e brutali, colpevoli o redenti, indulgenti o moralisti, attesi o rimpianti, guerrieri o sconfitti, i tanti padri narrati in questo libro disegnano un unico grande ritratto composto di infiniti volti in cui cercare anche quello della propria famiglia.

Fifty years ago, a little boy was cast in a movie with some of Hollywood's brightest stars. The movie: It's a Wonderful Life; the boy: Jimmy Hawkins; today, he tells his story. Through personal recollection, careful research, and interviews with cast and crew, actor Jimmy Hawkins, who played four-year-old Tommy Bailey, takes you behind the scenes for a first-hand look at the American movie classic It's a Wonderful Life.

Music composed for television had, until recently, never been taken seriously by scholars or critics. Catchy TV themes, often for popular weekly series, were fondly remembered but not considered much more culturally significant than commercial jingles. Yet noted composers like John Williams, Henry Mancini, and Jerry Goldsmith learned and/or honed their craft in television before going on to major success in feature films.

This follow-up to the 2021 best-seller, The Dark Shadows Daybook Unbound is an all-new collection of passionate, insightful, and occasionally raucous reviews and reflections, with brand new material and an introduction by the Emmy-winning producer of the upcoming Dark Shadows television series, Dark Shadows Resurrection, Mark B. Perry.

The 1920s was a bustling time in Hollywood, as starry-eyed young women sought fame and fortune—only to discover that their dreams did not match the reality of the film industry. Edgcumb Pinchon was there to report on it all. He interviewed women who worked as “extras” in Hollywood, and was himself involved in the film business as a screenwriter and author. He describes here the hierarchy of those on set (in front of and behind the camera) with first-hand knowledge and humor.

The right reasons to fall in love with The Bachelor When it debuted in 2002, The Bachelor raised the stakes of first-wave reality television, offering the ultimate prize: true love. Since then, thrice yearly, dozens of camera-ready young-and-eligibles have vied for affection (and roses) in front of a devoted audience of millions. In this funny, insightful examination of the world’s favorite romance-factory, Suzannah Showler explores the contradictions that are key to the franchise’s genius, longevity, and power and parses what this means for both modern love and modern America.

What did President Ronald Reagan think of Rocky IV? How did the Matthew Broderick film WarGames inform America's missile defense system? What Michael J. Fox movie made such an impression on President Reagan that he felt compelled to mention it in a speech to the Joint Session of Congress? Over the course of eight years, Mark Weinberg travelled to Camp David each weekend with Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

In their third and final screen teaming, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly starred together in the MGM musical Summer Stock. In C'mon, Get Happy, authors David Fantle and Tom Johnson present a comprehensive study of this 1950 motion picture. The production coincided at a critical point in the careers of Kelly and an emotionally spent Garland. Kelly, who starred in An American in Paris just one year later, was at the peak of his abilities.

Una serie TV può cambiare la percezione di intere nazioni su tematiche sociali, scientifiche, politiche, relazionali, dando voce a persone che nella nostra società sono ancora invisibili, a cui non viene mai data la parola. Il merito di Marina Pierri è la capacità di mettere insieme mondi che fanno fatica a parlarsi: quello del femminismo intersezionale e quello della psicologia del profondo. In "Eroine", Marina Pierri prende il testimone da una vasta letteratura filosofica, cinematografica e psicologica, e compie un'operazione ancora inedita.

Fifty Years of 60 Minutes shares the secret of what's made the program exceptional for all these years and how it has maintained such high quality to this day: why founder Don Hewitt believed "hearing" a story is more important than seeing it (and thus why he closed his eyes in the screening room), why competition was encouraged to preserve a sense of urgency, why the "small picture" is the best way to illuminate a larger one, and why the most memorable stories are almost always those with a human being at the center.

When Anna Broinowski learned that fracking had invaded downtown Sydney, she had a brilliant idea: she would seek guidance for a kryptonite-powerful, anti-fracking movie from the world's greatest propaganda factory - apart from Hollywood. After two years of trying, she was allowed to make her case in Pyongyang and was granted full permission to film. She worked closely with the leading lights of North Korean cinema, even playing an American in a military thriller.

Scott Jordan (author) seized the opportunity to appear on ABC's Shark Tank and is remembered as being one of the most popular - and controversial - people to appear on the show. Shark Bites was created from his unique experiences, access to past show guests, and relationships in the entrepreneurial world. It includes dozens of controversial interviews with past Shark Tank entrepreneurs.