Movies Books

I thoroughly enjoyed the great photos, and the interesting stories in this book. It's rare to find a golf book this entertaining, and well-researched.

I loved the photos, and thoroughly enjoyed the stories of Hollywood's elite. For golfers like me who play the local municipal course, I wish I could tee it up on these great courses, and swing away with the stars!

Terrific. A sleeper. Full of intriguing Hollywood golf lore and L.A. land history. Captivating photos, but what kept me up late was the text that brings the pictures alive. I found this a surprisingly substantive, well researched piece of work: a topical history of L.A. from an oblique angle--the conception, building and peopling of the city's great golf courses and golf clubs. On top of that it's an eyeball on the entertainment world through the leveling prism of golf: Stars, producers, directors striving to shine or at least //look// good at the maddening game. Easy, amusing writing. Who is the scratch-handicap actor who plays with his shoelaces untied so as not to overswing?

I read this one only in Japanese,but it has been one of my best storys. I think this is not as perfect as "Other voice,_" but,or therefor,I can feel something that I used to have,and now gone enywhere,from this novel.

I ESPECIALLY LIKED IT WHEN SISTER IDA CAME INTO TOWN.HER 15 CHILDREN NEEDED TO APPEAR MORE OFTEN.I WAS IN LOVE WITH THE CROSSED EYED TWIN

The Grass Harp is a perfect and beautiful piece of American fiction. I have read this novel at least ten times, and each time it moves me. The language is rich and textured, the characters are real and true, the story is simple and touching. To read Capote is to fall in love with an American South that is no more- a time and place that can only exist in the imagination.

Chick flick is just that, it's a night out with the girls, the movie is picked the food is picked and the discussion questions are picked all you need to do is gather a few volunteers to set up and invite the girls over!

This is such a fun and easy way to plan a Girls' Night Out! You get detailed meal ideas to go with your movie and decoration ideas as well! A must have!

Chick Flicks 2 came just in time! We've used nearly every movie in the original Chick Flicks book, and these Dinner and a Movie resources from Group have us spoiled. I've been asked several times "what movie would you suggest we use for a movie night?" and I always wonder why someone would want to choose a movie first and then create an event around the movie when it's already completely done for you. Great movies, great planning, great fun!

Love this book! My Youth group has started doing a movie a night once a week and this book has been a tremendous help...it's where I got the idea to do a movie night. So worth it.

If you're looking for the perfect family event, look no farther! Within the pages of this book are tons of ideas on how to plan, prepare and propel an incredible night for the families in your community. From a choice of older favorites ("Mary Poppins" & "Swiss Family Robinson") to brand-new releases ("Meet the Robinsons") you can immediately connect with all generations. All of the activities and ideas center around the movie; and the authors do a great ob of guiding us to learn how to see God in everything we are watching - what a valuable skill for parents to take home!

Love it! I have the entire Dinner and a Movie series, and I've nearly used all of the movies listed in the original Dinner and a Movie and Chick Flicks, so I'm thankful this one was released. All of these resources are extremely easy to use. Simply pick one of the movies (13 are included in G-Rated), turn to the chapter, and you'll find ideas for decorations, food, trivia, discussion questions, and more. All you have to do is invite people, create a comfortable place, and let everyone enjoy a movie afternoon or night. Great for small groups, families or churchwide events.

Being a long-time Grover fan, I had high hopes for "Grover's Own Alphabet" (which I ordered shortly after my son was born). Thankfully, I got what I wished for -- and then some! The folks behind this kid-sized book have captured Grover's whimsical nature in both the text and the illustration. He huffs and puffs and contorts his furry old body into letter after letter, using props from the ordinairy to the unusual to make his starting-letter points clear. Grover is drawn as the fuzzy creature he is (with none of the smoothed out edges that some illustrators give him), and his heart is as big as his body is flexible. I give this book the highest grade possible: "G" for (what else?) Grover!

This is a really cute book for young fans of Sesame Street. "Loveable, furry old Grover" uses his body and props to illustrate each letter of the alphabet. For example, he uses the reflection of himself in a mirror to create the letter M. He also uses words beginning with each letter in the text, e.g., for the letter A he uses four apples and says, "This is a little awkward, but is it not an absolutely adorable A?" It's a fun and creative book. I can imagine children tyring to use their own bodies to form the letters after reading this book. Excellent.

Great book! Especially fun for kids who are just getting the hang of the letters of the alphabet. And so nice to see Grover making a comeback. I for one have been saddened by the recent dominance of Elmo and the near disappearance of Grover. I don't know whether Rosie O'Donnell's histrionic shilling of Tickle-Me-Elmo was causitive or just another symptom of the craze, but I am not an Elmo-head. Elmo is too positive, too cute, too precious. When I watch Elmo doing his thing, I am forced to hold on to all my negativity and anxiety, it is very stressful. But Grover, he is much more human to me, even though I recognize they are technically both monsters. Grover struggles, he fails, he gets scared. I watch Grover and I can displace a wide range of emotions on him, it's far more freeing. And I never would have described Grover's voice as soothing before Elmo took over, Grover sounds like he could really use a mucolytic, but at least it is in a register that is not piercing.

So I highly endorse this book, not just from a pro-Grover stance but it also gives plenty of fodder for active reading with your children. You can focus on Grover trying to contort his body into all the letters and his eventually collapse into exhaustion, you can focus on the unnamed pictures on each page that start with the letter in question, or you can try and find how many words on each page start with the same letter.

Great gift for the young ones, yet I found myself envious not to be able to keep it for myself... :)
Great pictures and a good daily planner for keeping track of important items.

Unlike the other wall calenders, this daily planner calender is filled with pictures from the actual movie and is very enjoyable. It's nifty and dead useful, too!

Unlike the wall calendar, this desk calendar has actual movie photos, including some scenes I don't recall seeing (the waterfall, for example). It also includes a small typo: on the copyright page, it says it's the Prisoner Of Azkaban 2006 calendar. Oops. Looks like somebody forgot to update that page from last year.

I am writing a dual review about a book I read at least 20 years ago, Martha Weinman Lear's "Heart Sounds". And I am writing it because I read Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking."

I read the book, "Heart Sounds" as a relatively new, young nurse and I was really shocked to hear someone so clearly describe what it is like to be a patient in a hospital or their family member. I would like to believe that this book helped me to be a better nurse.

Both Lear and Didion write about the experience of being with husbands who have heart disease and die, though Lear's husband's day to day disability is much more profound in the last two or so years of his life.

In both books, you learn about the American citizen's expectation of what I have come to think of as "the routine medical miracle". But for all of us there comes a time when there are no more miracles.

Didion's book suffers from the fact that she was not afforded the luxury of mourning her husband, getting almost immediately swept up in her daughter's very serious illness (and, as another review alludes to, eventual death). Lear is much more articulate about her feelings about her husband's disability and death, having more aptly processed it.

Both of these books have much to say about health care, mortality, death and mourning. Didion's description of how modern society doesn't allow mourning is very articulate, bittersweet and moving. But all in all, Didion's book reflects scattered thoughts on a tumultous year; it is perhaps a book better written in a year or two. I believe it is her incomplete processing that leaves the book feeling a little flat, a little one dimensional.

If you want a book that exposes the raw heart of mourning a partner from a loving and imperfect relationship, go to your library or find a used copy of "Heart Sounds".

The sensations described are so lucid and palpable that it is like experiencing them for yourself. This book taught me a lot about what it must be like to become suddenly ill. I use it in my teaching to medical students.

Heartsounds is, quite simply, the best nonfiction book I have read in my life. Not a phoney word, each thought a moving testimonial to the human spirit. At the same time, highly realistic.

Response to Hitchcock's movies is a felt response. Hitchcock is a popular artist and, for that matter, Shakespeare was a popular artist. What an artist says about his work only has indirect relevance. French criticism of Hitchcock plays down the suspense and humor in his movies. The result is over-simlplification. There is a disturbing quality in many of Hitchcock's films. A function of art is to disturb. Suspense in Hitchcock has a characteristic moral quality.

REBECCA was Hitchcock's first Hollywood film. In LIFEBOAT there is a typical Hitchcock counterpoint of despair and optimism. ROPE was filmed in ten minute takes in a single apartment. It has unbroken continuity in terms of time and regard. There is attractiveness and danger in connivance at common guilt in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. REAR WINDOW is perhaps the first masterpiece of Alfred Hitchcock.

In late Hitchcock the viewers' reponses are controlled and organized. REAR WINDOW is Hitchcock's attempt to imprison viewers. VERTIGO is superior to its poor book. A zoom-in shot of Scottie's accident gives the spectator a sense of vertigo. Psychologists have explained that tension arises from a desire to fall and a dread of falling. Robin Wood feels that VERTIGO is the Hitchcock film nearest to perfection.

In contrast to James Bond films, Hitchcock films have depth, charm, integrity. NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a condensed version of NOTORIOUS. Mount Rushmore is dramatic rather than symbolic. PSYCHO is full of parent-child references. THE BIRDS is described as an ornithological ON THE BEACH.

In MARNIE concerns evident in Hitchcock's late work become fused. TORN CURTAIN is disappointing as Htichcock's 50th film. It is episodic. Hitchcock, though, fills that movie with his sense of the necessary moral impurity of action in an imperfect world. This is an excellent guide to Alfred Hitchcock's film career. There is a filmography at the end of the book.

Robin Wood is the Preeminent Authority on Hitchcock. Robin Wood is without question the greatest authority on the cinematic works of Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Years ago after seeing many films as I was growing up I decided to do some reading on the role of the Director. By pure chance I picked up and purchased Robin Wood's original edition of this book. Obviously it was at that time, myself still being in school very challenging reading for me. However, I was able to recognize brilliance over hypocrisy. Robin Wood has ever since remained the preeminent authority on Hitchcock's films. He has honestly admitted that his perspectives on some of his analysis have changed. This is not an outright statement that has had a change of heart or acquired a new taste in the aesthetics of Hitchcock's films. On the contrary, through ongoing analysis he has come even closer to the secret of Hitchcock's mastery of his art. An artist creates a work. A great portion of that work is constructed with conscious deliberate thought, some is intuitive and a small portion may be subconscious. Robin Wood, I believe has showed a continuum in his analysis of Hitchcock's work. Wood continues to explore the avenues of the intuitive and subconscious nature of Alfred Hitchcock, which manifests itself in his films. To this end I believe Wood has devoted a good portion of his life. The methods of the great pioneers have often puzzled conventional minds. I am not a great pioneer. I am puzzled. And what the heck does conventional mean? Happy reading!

Robin Wood is without question the greatest authority on the cinematic works of Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Years ago after seeing many films as I was growing up I decided to do some reading on the role of the Director. By pure chance I picked up and purchased Robin Wood's original edition of this book. Obviously it was at that time, myself still being in school very challenging reading for me. However, I was able to recognize brilliance over hypocrisy. Robin Wood has ever since remained the preeminent authority on Hitchcock's films. He has honestly admitted that his perspectives on some of his analysis have changed. This is not an outright statement that has had a change of heart or acquired a new taste in the aesthetics of Hitchcock's films. On the contrary, through ongoing analysis he has come even closer to the secret of Hitchcock's mastery of his art. An artist creates a work. A great portion of that work is constructed with conscious deliberate thought, some is intuitive and a small portion may be subconscious. Robin Wood, I believe has showed a continuum in his analysis of Hitchcock's work. Wood continues to explore the avenues of the intuitive and subconscious nature of Alfred Hitchcock, which manifests itself in his films. To this end I believe Wood has devoted a good portion of his life.

but harry medved writes the funniest books

Less pungent than their othe satirical works, this takes the Medved brothers into the realm of the hopelessly expensive financial flops of Hollywood. Thus Cleopatra, Heaven's Gate and the Fall of the Roman Empire all feature. Trouble is, few of these films are actually BAD films (I think highly of Cleopatra and FOTRE) so the previous rhythm and flow of the Turkeys is somewhat lost. Still, a fun account of what went wrong.

...come and see one of the most fascinating new museums on the planet! Come and see a museum dedicated to some of Hollywood's greatest disappointments! We got the Duke as Genghis Khan, Lord Laurence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur, and Howard Hughes failing to put his money where his mouth is! We got biblical disasters, sinking ships, and D.W. Griffith!
Come and join the Brothers Medved, Harry and Michael, as they take you on a tour through the greatest turkeys Hollywood has given us up to 1984. Among the museum's many exhibits are: the historicallly-hysterical Moonie Epic "Inchon," the belly-flopping western "Heaven's Gate," "Mohammad: Messenger of God," the disasterous Howard Hughes films "The Conqueror" (An RKO Radioactive Picture) and "Underwater!," and "Raise the Titanic," which raised the famous luxury liner, but truly sank at the box office!
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Seriously, though, this is an entertaining book that belongs in the collections of every film buff. It's sure to make you laugh.
Grade: A+

There is a photo of Barbara Eden (Page 147) and a chapter (Pages 139 thru 150) all about the movie "Ride The Wild Surf".

Tom Lisanti - the author of "Drive-In Dream Girls," "Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema," and "Film Fatales" - expands his horizons from '60s sexpots to covering the entire Beach Film genre which catered to teenagers between 1959 and 1968.

Lisanti profiles the following movies in depth: Gidget and its sequel Gidget Goes Hawaiian; the Elvis films Blue Hawaii and Girl Happy; the Frankie & Annette classics Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo, and How To Stuff A Wild Bikini; plus Where The Boys Are, For Those Who Think Young, The Horror Of Party Beach, Pajama Party, Ride The Wild Surf, Surf Party, Beach Ball, The Beach Girls And The Monster, Daytona Beach Weekend, The Girls On The Beach, One Way Wahine, A Swingin' Summer, Wild On The Beach, The Endless Summer, The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini, Out Of Sight, Catalina Caper, Don't Make Waves, It's A Bikini World, and The Sweet Ride. There's also the winter off-shoots Ski Party, Winter A Go-Go, and Wild Wild Winter which merit inclusion due to their use of beach film regulars, musical guest stars, and inane plots which merely substitute a ski slope for the beach. My own favorite beach films are Beach Blanket Bingo (probably the most fun) and Ride The Wild Surf (definitely the best made and owner of the best beach film theme song: the title cut by Jan & Dean).

Lisanti interviewed several of the stars of these films (including Peter Brown, Dave Draper, Shelley Fabares, Susan Hart, Aron Kincaid, Jody McCrea, Chris Noel, Quinn O'Hara, and William Wellman, Jr) and it is their frank and often bitchy comments about the filmmakers and their co-stars in the Behind the Scenes section of each film's chapter that makes this book must reading. I especially enjoyed the commentary supplied by Jody McCrea who played Deadhead/Bonehead in the Frankie & Annette Beach Party series. McCrea has a strong opinion on seemingly everyone he ever worked with, and his high opinion of himself is quite humorous.

After profiling the movies, Lisanti offers substantial bios of several of the stars of these films: actors John Ashley, Frankie Avalon, Peter Brown, James Darren, Sandra Dee, Don Edmonds, Shelley Fabares, Annette Funicello, Ed Garner, Aron Kincaid, Tommy Kirk, Jody McCrea, Yvette Mimieux, Mike Nader, Chris Noel, Quinn O'Hara, Bart Patton, Pamela Tiffin, Deborah Walley, William Wellman Jr., plus surfers Mickey Dora and Johnny Fain. The other female stars of the beach films that aren't profiled here - like Mary Hughes and Salli Sachse - are covered in Lisanti's other books so make sure you check those out as well if you haven't already.

All of you land-lubbers will love this one; surfers are warned not to swim. Anyone who loved watching these moronic movies while necking in a drive-in or doing your homework will be glad to realize that he or she is not missing big plot points! But no one watched beach movies for storylines; fans wanted to see the hunks and honeys shaking like a bee victims to an annoying bonga beat while resisting physical intimacy. All of them are here ... Gidget, Nancy Sinatra, James Darren, Elvis, and, of course, Annette and Frankie! The text is frank about the movies' lifeless plots or mediocre musical talents, but the author is unapologetically enthusiastic about this genre. One complaint: no color pictures!