Movies Books

Chances are if you are looking to buy this book it's because of class, so I'll keep this short. As a textbook, it wasn't as bad as nearly every other one out there. Hence the 4 star review. As mentioned in another review, they do a decent job of not making is so boring and dry. However, the ridiculous amount of lame and stupid jokes they make is really annoying. Every page literally has at least 2 footnotes telling a dumb joke along with some in the paragraphs as well...just a little heads up

Although I have only had this book for about two weeks, it seems interesting. I'll be curious to see how it integrates popular culture with politics.

I adopted this book for my intro to political science course after several trials of other introductory texts. The problem with "textbooks" in general is they tend to be rather dry, hard to follow and fail to capture the spirit of the material (a.k.a. boring). Introductory texts are even more of a challenge as they lump a large body of knowledge into a condensed version. Ultimately, as a professor, even I have a hard time digesting the material in most textbooks. The Van Belle and Mash text is the exception to the rule. The book is entertaining and easy to read. While the authors do stretch at times to make a joke (sometimes at the cost of actually learning something), they provide a refreshing and very accessible look at political science. It is a text students will actually read (one can hope) and enjoy.

Review from a student's perspective:
This book was used as our course textbook for my political science 101 class. It has some ridiculous entertainment value at first that makes it more accessible versus your "just the facts" textbook, and is very up to date in terms of current world events. When it comes down to wanting to study for a test, though, there's some passages that are overextended or just plain unrelated. This isn't to say learning does not occur--at the heart it's your average textbook. However, in an attempt to keep the zany humor going, some inaccuracies occur, much to the displeasure of my professor (he's decided not to use the text again).

Review from an average reader's perspective:
This book is, as earlier stated, ridiculously funny. You can read, be entertained, and actually learn a thing or two about politics and the functions of government. So what if much of it seems like a rehash of your high school American government class; admit it, you don't remember half of it, anyway. The footnotes in this book are hilarious--they are more like comedic asides than footnotes.

However, I am very much concerned by the typos in the tables used in this book. In the first chapter, the name "Darth Vader" is correctly spelled, while in two tables in Chapter Ten it's misprinted as "Darth Vadar." Also, the state of Washington seems to have conquered Utah in a map of the US in another chapter, with "WA" appearing on both. (It's mostly the misspelling of Darth Vader that has me worried--for a book that prides itself on pop culture references, what else could the authors be getting wrong--though this is probably a problem at the copy-editing level.)

To sum up: the "novelty" began to wear off the further I got in to the book--especially when the authors gave their shameless plug for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book) Teacher's Edition: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction in Chapter 8. An average person could find this enjoyable, but I'm not sure why the average person might buy it, as it is a college textbook.

One last warning: printed in a non-serif font (similar to Arial). Eyestrain and/or drowsiness can occur more quickly this way. Serif fonts (like Times New Roman) are easier to read in printed form--hence why most books you pick up are in serif fonts. (This truly is a reason why I'm disappointed with this book--it might not matter to you, but it matters to me, as a book must be readable.)

I liked this book overall, sure the scientific facts weren't exact and the whole Sadie and Maria story line was way too short. This story wasan't about the actual scientific facts or Maria, but just where does Liz fit into Max's life and is the relationship worth saving, does Max still love her and just how deep that love goes. I liked the fact that Liz decided to put herself first for a change even if for a little while. And I felt that Max's actions in this book mimic the second and third seasons of the tv series where Max is selfish, self-absorbed, unreasonable but is also loving,caring and compassionate. In this book Liz tells Max about future Max, but in a later book Liz tells Max about it again..Obviously the author of the later book never took this book into account....But it's worth the read.

I've read several of the books in this series, and was a real fan of the show, but I feel it's only fair to give warning about this one. It was so out of touch with the show and its viewers, it offended. The only way it *was* in keeping with the show, was that the 'science' was laughable--below the level of a grade-school child. The story dealt with curbing an epidemic, yet the author couldn't be bothered to check out basic facts about, say, DNA. And Maria is chided because a total stranger shows up with a claim on her, pushes his way into her home (in the absence of her mother) and stays, and she doesn't bow and show him hospitality. This was so appalling, I actually tossed it in the trash after I read it, instead of donating it to the library. Didn't want the infection to spread.

i am making a plea to the author/authors/publishers of this book to re-release or issue a reprint of this CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT book as like i many people only need this book to complete their roswell book collection and because it's out of print the only way to get/buy it is to pay stupidly high prices for it which no sane person can afford!!!
so i'm asking you to issue a reprint of this book, and i can assure you there are plenty of us that would buy this book if you did, which would bring in high revenues for you!!!
SO HEAR MY PLEAS AND REPUBLISH THIS BOOK

when a new chemial company comes to town, they offer a scholarship and a summer job to one lucky applicant. liz parker
wins. but from the beginning she senses that things are not quite
right here. the scientist she is assigned to work with is down right rude and nasty to her. little does she know that they are covering up a bigger plot that will cause a townwide disease that causes the whole town to be quarantined.

as a subplot a little girl starts following maria around town. upon further investigation she finds out that the girl is her half sister. this brings up a bunch of complicated issues that maria thought long buried with her father who left her so many years ago.

the story has a good plot but i think the writer missed the best
parts of the michael and maria relationship. the writer has them
getting along a little too well. when did that ever happen on the show? the plot does come to a peak about 12 pages from the end and hurries with a solution. i did not like that part too much. it reminded me of the last4 episodes of roswell when they hurried up and tied up loose ends instead of drawing them out into a better story.

overall it is a good book and i think roswell fans will enjoy it.

"Radical Hollywood" is both fabulously entertaining and enlightening. For movie fans (who isn't) and students of American history, it provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the radical politics of the directors, screen writers, and actors who were part of the Hollywood mainstream until McCarthyism drove them out. When you reflect on the greatness of their work, you realize that the witch-hunt was our loss as well as theirs.

The cover photo of "Radical Hollywood" suggests that many of these figures were not ordinarily associated with the left. With James Cagney placing his hand somewhat menacingly on Jean Harlow in "The Public Enemy", you have to wonder what the connection is. As it turns out, the script was written by William Bright, who was one of the first left-wing innovators in Hollywood. Hailing from Chicago, he was part of a group of youngsters around Dr. Ben Reitman, Emma Goldman's longtime lover. During the Great Depression, he worked for a time as a smalltime bootlegger and was inspired by this experience to write about criminal life, emphasizing how social relations are distorted by capitalism.

Cagney threw his support to the burgeoning labor movement in the 1930s on Bright's prompting. He signed on to a support committee for strikers in the San Joaquin Valley in 1934. When the Hearst press began to redbait Cagney, he pulled back from future involvement with the left. If witch-hunting had not been a factor in Hollywood from the beginning, it is not too difficult to imagine much more willingness on the part of movie stars to speak out on social and political questions.

To see how figures such as Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn are stigmatized in the equivalent of the Hearst press today for having the temerity to speak out about US foreign policy, you can only appreciate the scholarly effort that went into "Radical Hollywood". For in the final analysis its authors demonstrate that radicalism is very much a phenomenon that grew out of the American soil and was not imported by agents of a foreign power.

Radical Hollywood, by Paul Buhle and David Wagner, is an exhaustively (if at times exhaustingly) comprehensive and, as far as I can tell, mostly accurate (if at times chronologically confusing) catalog of the many U.S. motion pictures created during the brief cinematic "Golden Age" from roughly the beginning of the New Deal to the onset of the Cold War by what could loosely be called the Hollywood Left -- or the Left in Hollywood, such as it was.

The fact, though, that Buhle and Wagner had to write a book largely to explain the alleged "radical" subtext in these films by their non-monolithic screenwriters illustrates how the "threat" posed to U.S. society (read: the capitalist class) by such pictures was wildly exaggerated by right-wing anti-communists for political reasons. (Was Lassie Come Home, for example, going to undermine the foundations of capitalism simply because it was adapted for the screen by a Communist?) And yet, maybe that perceived subtlety (where present, enforced perhaps at least as much by studio economics and cultural restraints as by national politics) was the kind of "subversion" the inquisitors found so dangerous to the interests of the social class they actually represented.

Or maybe it was a case of guilt by either membership or association, with the work of any Communist -- or anyone associated however remotely with a Communist or the Communist Party -- being cast under suspicion, whatever the nature of his or her work. But just as Freud is reputed to have said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes, say, an expressly comedic film is just that, and nothing more. And even from a Leftist perspective, that is not necessarily bad. Consider, though, Sullivan's Travels, which oddly political yet intriguing picture instead of self-consciously being "an answer to communism," actually makes a case for it in spite of itself, and which despite its intentions (or perhaps because of them), may be more politically effective than many a more tendentiously political piece of cinema, even when the title character keenly observes that, "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh," it being "all some people have." (Curiously, the opening scene-within-a-scene of this 1941 comedy -- written and directed by Preston Sturges, who, like this film, is not mentioned by Buhle and Wagner nor is he identified by them as being a part of the Hollywood Left community -- anticipated the ending of the 1948 drama Ruthless, co-scripted by one of the Hollywood Ten and discussed by the authors.) Indeed, there is nothing inherently wrong or reactionary with making people laugh, provided one sees that culture can and should be for the edification as well as the entertainment of the public. And this is where skilled and honest Leftist cultural workers are in their element. But just as an artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery, according to the great Paul Robeson, so, ultimately, must an artist's audience.

However, Buhle and Wagner betray a kind of not so much discernibly anti-communist as anti-Communist (or anti-Communist Party) subtext of their own throughout the book -- typical of that tendency of neo-Left thought developing in the 1960s which, by intent or in effect, sought the very break with the historical continuity of the Communist Left that Buhle and Wagner see as a consequence of the Hollywood blacklist, as when they blame "Party bureaucrats" for the demise of the Hollywood Left (or what passed for it), when were it not for the (albeit imperfect) agency of the Communist Party (often in the midst of internal struggle as well as external attack, the effect of the former evidently not sufficiently and fairly understood or appreciated by the authors), most of those who became the radical screenwriters and filmmakers of Hollywood would likely never have even thought of attempting what they somehow managed in some form to bring to the movie screen.

This is a good look at the often ignored early radicals of hollywood. It gives a good history of the time leading up to and the aftermath of the Blacklist and it's antisemitic tendencies. Paul Buhle, et al seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject but I found their method of sharing the information a little overwhelming and pedantic. Every page is dotted with references to very obscure films, many with alternative titles, that are impossible to find. It's difficult to envision many of the situations and influential aspects of the films when you can find no more information on them much less see them. Taking all of the authors information on faith is not the usual film studies method. In contrast to many books about hollywood this one dosn't have many salacious details about harlets and moguls. I would recommend this book to serious film/hollywood history buffs only.

It's quite true that the authors' knowledge of Hollywood film history is encyclopedic, and this alone makes the book an indispensable reference to the stories behind the stories of innumerable great and less-than-great films. Described elsewhere as "the Abbott and Costello of film studies," these two spew forth gallons of embarrassingly wrongheaded and outmoded leftie humbug; nevertheless this is exactly what makes their work so useful. Yes, all those "paranoid" right-wingers were right all along about the real motives and agendas in Hollywood "back then." And not much has changed...it's still "Fantasyland" in more ways than one, which ought to be an important clue to the etiology of leftism. My only real objection to this work is that being so thoroughly deluded by their own political fantasies as they are, the authors attempt to claim almost everyone in Hollywood as a real, potential, or lapsed leftie, whether or not there was ever much actual evidence of it...a kind of triple-reverse McCarthyism. One final tip: buy this book second-hand. I'd hate to think I'd given one red cent (no pun intended) to either of these authors or their publisher.

Updated edition has a glossier cover. Corrected some of the issues from an earlier edition noted by some readers, but the book is basically the same as the earlier one - minus any small production errors. Has a great behind the scenes look at The Crow and Twilight Zone-The Movie and a rare look behind Bette Davis' last film The Wicked Stepmother. Also Amityville Horror story look at the real killings ands the movies tale.

Not to be confused by Reel Terror, a book containing the stories that influenced several sc-fi and horror movies. This book focuses on the tragic real life events surrounding some recognizable movies.

Be warned, the book is cheaply made and is 8.5 x 11, not a standard paperback size as I was expecting. For the price, I would recommend trying to find it at your local library over purchasing. But a good read, nonetheless.

The book was kind of interesting. The first few stories "The Crow" and "Twilight Zone, The Movie," were definitely eerie and gruesome. Loaded with details I didn't previous know. But for a book with the title Reel 'Horror', some of the stories were just plain boring. I thought the book was about actual deaths that took place during the filming of various movies. Only the first few movies were about mysterious or nasty deaths. The rest were just stories of production woes. Poltergeist did have deaths, but none occurring on set. Who cares about the production problems on Bette Davis' last film? It doesn't qualify as 'horror' in any way (although the director and producers probably disagree). The Jaws story wasn't terrifying at all. What was it doing in the book? And I couldn't get past the various typos throughout the book. There are at least 5 on every page. Some mistakes are too grievous to be overlooked. The author refers repeatedly to the director of Poltergeist as Tobe Cooper! (it's Hooper!!). Out of sheer curiosity, I looked up the cinematographer named on the Bette Davis story, and couldn't find his name in the database. His name is also not the name listed on the official credit of cinematographer who worked on the film. Hmmm...I simply had to check references after the Hooper incident! It makes me wonder about the credibility of the authors' references. While there may be an explanation for certain questions (perhaps the cinematographer quit halfway through production and was replaced?), I can't believe they mispelled a directors' name....Not very interesting. I'd try a different title than this for some real 'reel horror'.

Not all inclusive but this book has some interesting stories that I havent seen before. It's not the usual horror stuff that tries to talk about the themes or hidden meanings. This book is fun because it goes into the making of the movie. Some good coverage of Twilight Zone the movie, the Crow and the rare Bette Davis flick Wicked Stepmother. It also covers the usual making of big flicks like Exorcist, Jaws and Psycho, but it's the rare ones that make the book a treat. Small publisher so there's not a lot of money put into the printing. Quality is ok. Some nice pics, some typos, but overall an interesting read. I recommend if you like back story stuff around hollywood flicks.

This book tells in great detail the relationship of violence in Sam Peckinpaugh's films and it's predecessors today. While I would recommend it to Peckingpaugh fans, critically-minded and socially-aware Hollywood types, and for academic purposes, this book is a little lengthy and tedious for those seeking a quick and easy read. Thought-provoking and meticulous.

Savage Cinema surprised me. Usually, books on Peckinpah focus on his relationship with the Western genre and put The Wild Bunch as his chief accomplishment.

Savage Cinema, however, looks at Peckinpah's relationship with violence and focuses instead on Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Ride the High Country and Major Dundee are barely mentioned, and Stephen Prince viewed The Wild Bunch as something that Peckinpah had grown past in these three later films.

The result was a book that viewed Peckinpah through a fresh set of eyes, instead of one that plowed over the same ground. I found the book very fascinating and convincing. The reason I gave it four stars instead of five is that Prince's chapter on the use of montage became hard for me to follow. But apart from that, this is a very interesting book that shows how Peckinpah was a major filmmaker and different from the "ultraviolence" of today's cinema.

Prince doesn't get the fifth star only because the book is a little underwritten in parts (like the conclusion), and because I feel his analysis of "Straw Dogs", while well-intentioned and mostly solid, seems a little unbalanced with regard to David Sumner (Hoffman). Nevertheless, this is a a MUST-HAVE for students of Peckinpah and/or cinematic violence. Particularly fascinating is Prince's unique view of "Peckinpah's great trilogy on the toxic nature of violence" (re: "Straw Dogs", "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid", and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"), which represents a significant breakthrough in the literature. The freshness and clarity of 90 percent of this book make it worthwhile, and the other 10 percent is still readable. Don't expect Vonnegut, after all this is a critical volume. Highly recommended to students and cinephiles.

Prince's book is a rich, deep study of Peckinpah's own serious and humanitarian concerns with violence, and how his films were a personal crusade against Man's inhumanity to Man. The author convincingly argues the director grew away from the catharsis philosophy and developed a more uncompromising style. A masterpiece, and a must!

This is a straight forward and simple review. I feel it would be redundant going into the detail that the other reviews (who explained the book perfectly) already did. This book changed my life. I read it as a senior in high school in a film noir class. It opened my mind up to enjoying film beyond the crappy new-age Hollywood hit list.

If you enjoy a more realistic movie: a grittier, hard-edged, unapologetic look at urban drama, then I think this book will open your eyes. It changed the way I looked at film (for the better) and I think it will for anyone else who reads it.

Especially in the early going, the book suffers from cloyingly pretentious prose and laborious plot summary, but eventually Christopher gets around to saying some interesting things about the genre. The book is a perfectly imperfect illustration of the difficulty in finding a middle ground between academic and popular writing. Still, worth having if only for the extensive filmography.

This isn't the perfect book on film noir, but it is very interesting because Christopher touches on films that don't get discussed in a lot of books on film noir.

Chief among these are two Val Lewton horror films, Cat People and The Seventh Victim. It is nice to see someone discussing Lewton from a film noir perspective. Also, Christopher left me burning to see Breakdown, a 1965 film dealing with a scientist's mental crisis that he makes sound fascinating.

He also does a good job talking about more famous noirs, particularly Criss Cross, which he examines from the Dan Dureyea character's perspective. That brings a fresh approach to his discussion of this classic film noir.

This should not be anyone's first book on film noir, but it takes interesting positions and makes the reader look at things differently. Recommended for the person deeply into noir.

"Somewhere in the Night" is a treatise on film noir focusing on the characteristics of the post-WWII urban environment which spawned and defined the style. Novelist and poet Nicholas Christopher draws on a wider variety of sources to explain film noir than most film theorists do, including social pundits, historians, artists, and film critics. The discussion of film noir's influences goes so far beyond the traditional expressionism and post-War conditions that the connection is sometimes dubious, but always interesting. "Somewhere in the Night" almost overlooks the first 5 or so years of film noir, picking it up as the style peaks, in the mid-1940s. Each of the book's 8 chapters discusses a characteristic of the Noir City, and most include in-depth analysis of a few films that exemplify that quality. Most discussion is of classic film noir until the last chapter, which is dedicated to neo-noir. Readers will benefit from having some knowledge of film noir theory and history before embarking on this book, since the author presents an elaborate and personal picture of the social circumstances into which film noir emerged but doesn't cover the basics. "Somewhere in the Night" is a thoughtful dissertation for film noir buffs, by a film noir buff. The films mentioned below are not by any means the only films discussed, but the ones which receive exhaustive treatment.

Chapter 1, "Into the Labyrinth", introduces the reader to the literal and figurative urban labyrinth, a man-made web of treachery, which the heroes of film noir are compelled to navigate. "Out of the Past" (1947) and "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) get in-depth analysis. Chapter 2, "Night and the City", discusses how the aftermath of WWII -the fears of the nuclear age, the paranoia of the Cold War, and the disillusionment of veterans- influenced film. Chapter 3, "Postcards from the Ruins", analyses 3 films that feature Americans in devastated European cities: "Berlin Express" (1948), "The Third Man" (1949), and "Night and the City" (1950). Chapter 4, "Office Buildings and Casinos", explores the increased sense of isolation produced by technologies and the corporate "rat race", reflected in characters' gravitation to omnipresent office buildings or casinos. 3 office work films are analyzed: "Forces of Evil" (1948), "The Big Clock" (1948), and "The Blue Gardenia" (1953), as well as 4 casino films: "Dead Reckoning" (1947), "Criss Cross" (1949), and "The Shanghai Gesture" (1941), and "Gilda" (1946). Chapter 5, "Grafters, Grifters, and Tycoons", discusses money as the foundation of the noir city, manifested as artwork, gangsters, or political corruption. Films analyzed are "The Street with No Name" (1948), "T-Men" (1947), "The Set-Up" (1949), and "Caught" (1949). Chapter 6, "The Dark Mirror: Sex, Dreams, and Psychoanalysis", talks about noir's sexual obsessions, previously not depicted in film, the femme fatale, and Freudian psychoanalysis in cinema. "Gun Crazy" (1950), "Nightmare Alley" (1947), "The Accused" (1949), and "Cat People" (1942) are analyzed. Chapter 7, "Black and White in Color", talks about the symbolic use of color in color film noir, going back to 1945's "Leave Her to Heaven". Chapter 8, "Paint It Black", is about neo-noir. The failure of re-made classic noirs and the success of original material and never-before-adapted pulp novels are discussed, with analysis of "The Usual Suspects" (1995). There are 2 Selected Filmographies in the back of the book, 1940-1959 and 1960-1997, both in alphabetical, not chronological, order.

I was terrified of starting this book because the author, Greg Cox. In Tales of the Slayer volume 2, his big monster, is an overly massive vampire squid???! Vampire Squid? You're kidding me, right? Luckily this book wasn't so crazy. Most parts were pretty realistic, except for the end. I enjoyed it, but the most of the other books in the series. Read it if you want, but not 100% neccesary unless you're a fan.

Nice enough story, but if you include German in your book, please please do NOT run it through some online translator but get someone who actually speaks it.
page 190 : "Töten Sie sie! Lassen Sie sie entkommen nicht!" should be: "nicht entkommen!".
page 195 : "Verdammen sie!" Is just the literal translation of Damn you. "Verdammt noch mal" might be what's used in stead but that's more of a general curse.

I liked this book. It had a lot of action and was not hard to follow. Some parts in the book where a little out there. I also like how it follows the tv series. I won't tell you what happened because I have read some of there and had the ending spoiled so I won't do that. I would read this book if given the chance.

A top secret prototype plane has been stolen. It just took off and kept flying. Recovering it is the top priority of the CIA.

APO has received a lead from an unlikely source. Maya Rao is an Indian assassin who has crossed paths with Sydney in the past. But she steps forward with a lead and a request to work together with Sydney. Naturally, Sydney doesn't like the idea, but what else can she do? Even more disturbing are Maya's constant comments that she and Sydney are more alike then different. Can this be true? What are Maya's real motives? Will they track down the plane?

This book started out well, but died under the weight of its story. It felt entirely too long. Maybe it's just that this is longer then the prequels were, but I was ready for it to be done long before the climax came. I was also distracted by the constant references to events from the show. While a few are good, it got to the point of excess very quickly. The climax did stretch believability; I didn't have as big a problem with it as I might have, probably because I was ready for the book to be over.

While never classic literature, I have enjoyed the Alias tie in novels in the past. Hopefully this is an exception and the next will be back to the enjoyable quick reads that the others have been.

Always being an avid follower of Combat/War Films, I thought that this book would aid me in being very selective concerning purchases and objective reviews.

As a neophyte, I trusted that this title "WAR MOVIES" would be comprehensive enough to give me a great scope of the films in this genre. If nothing else, this book made me seek out the GREAT films that this volume never covers . . . this volume is severely in need of an overhaul and update!!! Trust me!

I could never understand the misuse of close to 100 pages of cast names and useless cross references to other useless data at the conclusion of the book.

Face it - this book is a good start, but it is not COMPREHENSIVE! Bring down the price or make a revision - at this stage I could redo the thing!!!

I do not regret buying the book, but sometimes one has to admit that you have purchased a 'READER'S DIGEST CONDENSED VERSION!'

This book is really a hit and miss when it comes to the quality and understanding of the reviews.

On one hand, there are some good reviews that put insight into the background of a film as well as the meaning behind it. I particularly enjoyed the review of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" as well as the review of "Yojimbo," and I commend Mike Mayo for speaking against the racism and bland nature of "Gone With the Wind."

On the other hand, some of the reviews make me raise an eyebrow. For example, in the review of "Hamburger Hill" Mike Mayo puts down the film because seemingly it wants to put handsome men on the screen with out their shirts off. Yeah, OK Mike...that was like five minutes of the film. It sounds like you're hiding some repressed feelings. I didn't walk away from "Hamburger Hill" with the same feelings I did when I left "Wild America."

The very fact he includes some films like "Yojimbo" makes me wonder what he considers a war film. There is nothing war-like about "Yojimbo," except for the fact it is a "war" between two rival merchants. But then if he considers that to be a war film, why not include the movie "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre," which was about the war between two rival gangs in Chicago. Including Yojimbo and not a film like "Heaven and Earth," a great Japanese film and one of the best for the Sengoku Jidai period, confuses me and frankly disappoints.

So in the end, I wouldn't say this is an aweful book, but I don't rate it too highly.

This is supposed to be a movie guide, but when I started looking through it I was so fascinated that I read it cover-to-cover, just like a novel. But I have always been a great fan of war movies. This is an outstanding reference, the only one of its kind I have seen. I hope that the author will give us Volume II, which will include many other great movies not included. This book is comprehensive and LARGE, and I realize it would be difficult to put together a single source covering all the movies of this genre and also include the wealth of information on each move as included here. This book contains far more information than your usual movie guide. The book includes pictures, quotes, cast, story lines, historical background, and special salutes to outstanding actors and directors. The indices in the back are given by several categories, which make finding things fast and easy. Thanks to this book, I learned there are a few gems out there that I have missed! The book also gives recognition to outstanding overlooked films such as "When Trumpets Fade" and "The Boys in Company C", to name a few. If you want an excellent war movie reference guide: here it is! The author rates movies from one to four bones. I give it a five. Woof! Woof!

A good portion of the author's introduction is spent preparing faithful war movie fans for the shock of finding out their personal favorite(s) have gone missing. Sacrifices were made to leave room for the requirements of a new kind of omnibus video guide, one with a sense of historical accuracy. Sidebars in this book don't just celebrate the stars or throw out 'didjaknow' trivia. Some of these war films were made in *wartime*, with inevitable effects otherwise unnoticeable to the average civilian. There's a reason why both versions of Henry V are included; so you can appreciate the textual differences between Ken Branagh's 1989 portrait of a young man who grows up fast and Olivier's hand-made (of papier-mache and metal paint no less) epic, photographed throughout the worst of the Nazi's 'Gott strafe England' campaign. International sections cover British, French, Japanese and Russian war stories, while times between the World Wars, during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, and postwar adjustment periods are also given unique treatments.

It's a good idea to read even the sections you usually skip in a reference book. The video resource section will tip you off to the Belle and Blade, a really specialized war/action/conflict tape dealer. Captain Dale Dye's foreword breaks with the dry standard of an academic overview or the typical celebrity's bout of name-dropping and in-jokes. It's a free-standing autobiography that retells, in a self-deprecating but unaffected style, his journey from disillusioned early retirement (as, he says, 'a man without a plan') to the Oscar-caliber experience of Saving Private Ryan by way of an intense collaboration with fellow Viet Vet, Oliver Stone.

Breaks in the tension (of realistic films like Zulu, or stories about hardened vets like Sam Fuller, who filmed his platoon's liberation of a Czech concentration camp) allow for humor, too. Chuckle at the title cards from silent dogfight film Wings. Note how Waterloo is like a spaghetti western. Find out why John Wayne's directorial oddity, The Alamo, prefigured Blazing Saddles! Mayo's personally compiled list of war genre cliches is a Cook's Tour of international stereotypes... It's a small world, after all!

Like the Death of Sleep I do not think that this book is one of the better works of Anne McCaffrey. I had read almost all of her other books when I read this one, and I was very disappointed. It had a very hard time just finishing it. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is expecting something on par with Dragonriders of Pern Series or the Powers That Be Series...

As far as sequels go, this has to be the best I've read. It is not McCaffrey's best work, but a real page turner nonetheless. Since the protagonasts wake up 40 years after the first book ended, the plot is fresh (not good guys against bad guys revisted as with many sequels). The descendants of the original bad guys may not be bad at all, and McCaffrey draws the point beautifully that "the sins of the father should not visited upon the son." In addition, McCaffrey masterfully links these books to her other series involving Sassinak! It was a great tie in and answered many questions with surprising insights. To often, authors stories take place "galaxies apart." It's nice to see an author bring separate stories/series together without writing a 15 book saga. I recommend all McCaffrey's books, particularly her non-fantasy works such as "The Lady."

I am a fan of Anne McCaffrey, and I liked this book. But I am also a fan of dinosaur stories, and there were, again, not enough dinosaurs for me in this book. Understandable, given all the starship technology, aliens and such, but with a name like Dinosaur Planet Survivors, you'd expect more, well, dinosaurs. Again I doff my hat to Hopp's Dinosaur Wars and its sequel, Counterattack, as having better coverage of the big beasties. McCaffrey gets the nod for sheer imaginativeness.

As far as sequels go, this has to be the best I've read. It is not McCaffrey's best work, but a real page turner nonetheless. Since the protagonasts wake up 40 years after the first book ended, the plot is fresh (not good guys against bad guys revisted as with many sequels). The descendants of the original bad guys may not be bad at all, and McCaffrey draws the point beautifully that "the sins of the father should not visited upon the son." In addition, McCaffrey masterfully links these books to her other series involving Sassinak! It was a great tie in and answered many questions with surprising insights. To often, authors stories take place "galaxies apart." It's nice to see an author bring separate stories/series together without writing a 15 book saga. I recommend all McCaffrey's books, particularly her non-fantasy works such as "The Lady."

In every movie they list, the plot from beginning to end is given away. I just didn't really like knowing what exactly happenend at the end of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or any other movie I might rent after viewing this book. No complaints otherwise.

"Cult Movies" isn't so much a rumination on the existence and proliferation of cultish behavior around certain movies as it is a guide to some of the more venerated and talked-about cult films. It really works best as bathroom reading, where you can open to any page and read about "Blade Runner," "La Jetee," "A Clockwork Orange," "The Italian Job" and so on and so forth. A light diversion, and maybe that's all it was intended to be. And it works very well on that level. One thing really stands out: British film scholars have the foresight to include BOTH "Bill & Ted" movies in this tome?

Hmmmm... How about The Crow, Somewhere in Time, The Princess Bride, or Labrynth? Or how about a film from Kevin Smith? Or- I dunno- STAR WARS!! Yes I know its very well known, but so are The Exorcist and Apocolypse Now. The same goes for The Godfather Part I and II. And howabout an anime movie? Ghost in the Shell or Akira or one from Studio Ghibli would be excellent choices. Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan would have been a great choice to cover the cult Star Trek franchise. Another lesser known movie that I would have liked to see, but wouldn't have anticipated would be the MST3K classic, Manos the Hands of Fate. It gives the included Showgirls and Plan 9 from Outerspace a run for their money in its badness. Also, if you had to give a Hitchcock movie a space for his status as a cult director, I would have listed Vertigo or Psycho. Heck, even The Birds is more culturally relevant than Dial M for Murder, which was included.

Don't get me wrong, this is really worth buying, but I just would recommend the authors to write a sequel to cover all the stuff they excluded.