Movies Books

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!

In this 1910 story of Edwardian England, Forster illustrates the conflicts between the superior attitudes of the aristocracy and a developing feeling of obligation toward the "lower" classes which World War I will soon bring into sharp relief. Margaret and Helen Schlegel are intellectual and sensitive to the arts, with compassionate hearts for those less fortunate.

When Margaret, at age twenty-nine, is affianced to a much older widower, Henry Wilcox, this conflict of attitudes is brought to the fore. Henry, insensitive and believing himself actually entitled to his family's privileges, is cold and reserved, though Margaret believes that "Henry must be forgiven and made better by love."

Helen, her sister, a 21-year-old with an enthusiasm for the life of the imagination, has no sympathy for Henry's staid pronouncements and failure to pay attention to the people "below him" who are dependent upon his whims. When a young clerk finds himself out of his bank job as a result of something Henry has said, Henry refuses his wife's entreaties to give the destitute Leonard a job.

Immensely sympathetic to the economic position of the poor and women, Forster illustrates their financial dependence on others. Margaret, who secures the reader's total sympathy, must try to educate a close-minded dolt like Henry, but she achieves only limited success. Later, his belief that Helen reflects negatively upon himself and his family inspires a disaster with far-reaching consequences.

Filled with incisive observations and great wit, the novel follows the narrative pattern of a melodrama, but Forster's sensitivity to both sides--the practical and conservative values of Henry vs. the emotional and idealistic sides of Margaret and Helen--elevates the novel above the tawdry. With the action centered around the Wilcox home at Howard's End, the reader realizes that the estate is a microcosm for the conflicts of the nation.

This edition, thoroughly annotated, is the definitive critical edition containing resource material and an explication of references. Comprehensive background material for the period, critical analysis of Forster's themes, and careful notes throughout this novel provide a wealth of research materials for the literary critic and historian. Mary Whipple

E.M. Forster's novel is a wonderful allegorical masterpiece which deals with the need (or consequences of failure) to connect. Exploring the tumultuous interactions of the Wilcoxes, Schelgels and Basts, Forster is compassionate with his characters as they explore the question: "who will inherit England."

A masterpiece, magical and elegant in style.

Most of us connect the notion of "home" or "childhood home" with one particular place, that innocent paradise we have since had to give up and keep searching for forever after. In Ruth Wilcox's world, Howards End is that place; the countryside house where she was born, where her family often returns to spend their vacations, and which, everyone assumes, will pass on to her children when she is dead.

But will it really? Unbeknownst to Ruth's family, the issue is put into question when Ruth forms a friendship with her neighbor-to-be Margaret Schlegel, like Ruth herself from a middle class background but nevertheless separated from Ruth's world by several layers of society and politics: That of the Wilcox is epitomized by pater familias/businessman Henry - rich, conservative and without any sympathy whatsoever for those less fortunate than themselves ("It's all part of the battle of life ... The poor are poor; one is sorry for them, but there it is," Henry Wilcox once comments); while the Schlegels, on the other hand, have just enough income to lead a comfortable life, were brought up by their Aunt Juley, support suffrage (women's right to vote) and surround themselves with actors, "blue-stockings" (feminists), intellectuals and other members of the avantgarde. Further complexity is added when Margaret's sister Helen brings to the Schlegel home Leonard Bast, a poor but idealistic young clerk who loves music, literature and astronomy - and with him, his working class wife Jacky, the embarrassment of having to interact with her, and the even more embarrassing revelation which she has in store for Henry Wilcox; eventually leaving her disillusioned husband to comment that "books aren't real," and that in fact they and music "are for the rich so they don't feel bad after dinner."

An allegory on the question who will ultimately inherit England - the likes of the Wilcox, the Schlegels, or the Basts - E.M. Forster's novel is one of the early 20th century's finest pieces of literature; a masterpiece of social study and character study alike, in which the author brings his protagonists and their environment to life with empathy and a fine eye for detail. The story's strongest character is undoubtedly Margaret Schlegel, a young woman "filled with ... a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encounter[s] in her path through life," as Forster describes her, and whose friendship with Ruth Wilcox, even at the beginning, already brings the two families back together again after Helen has endangered their as-yet tentaive acquaintance by engaging in a near-scandalous affair with Ruth's younger son Paul.

Ultimately, Margaret and Ruth become so close that Ruth eventually decides to give Meg "something worth [her] friendship" - none other than Howards End, a wish that has her panicking family scramble most ungentlemanly for every reason in the book to invalidate the codicil setting forth that bestowal, from its lacking date and signature to the testatrix's state of mind, the ambiguity of the writing's content, the question why Meg should want the house in the first place since she already has one, and the fact that the writing is only in pencil, which "never counts," as Dolly, wife of the Wilcox' elder son Charles is quick to point out, only to be reprimanded by her father in law "from out of his fortress" (Forster) not to "interfere with what you do not understand." And so it is that Meg will only see the house (and be instantly mistaken for Ruth because she has "her way of walking around the house," as the housekeeper explains) when she and her siblings have to look for a new home and Henry Wilcox, who has started to court her after Ruth's death, suggests that the Schlegel's furniture be temporarily stored there - a fateful decision. And while Meg and Henry slowly and painfully learn to adjust to each other, the complexity of their families' relations, and their interactions with the Basts, finally come crashing down on them in a dramatic conclusion.

Also recommended:
Great Novels and Short Stories of E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster: A Life (A Harvest Book)
Howards End - The Merchant Ivory Collection
A Room with a View (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Brideshead Revisited
The W. Somerset Maugham Reader: Novels, Stories, Travel Writing

Hugo Friedhofer, one of the great Hollywood film composers, was more than the consumate musician. His wit and his loving personality are shown in this engaging book. His analysis of music, composers, producers, films, actors and actresses is captivating. Hugo worked with George Gerswhin, was close friends with Oscar Levant and had Bud Powell play piano in his living room!

In his interview for the Film Music Archive, Hugo Friedhofer tells it like it is, and the book shows that he is not fake, but was a real giant in the Hollywood that used to be littered with talent and quality. Even if you know little about film music, this book is great history of the Hollywood of yesterday.

Hugo Friedhofer, one of the great Hollywood film composers, was more than the consumate musician. His wit and his loving personality are shown in this engaging book. His analysis of music, composers, producers, films, actors and actresses is captivating. Hugo worked with George Gerswhin, was close friends with Oscar Levant and had Bud Powell play piano in his living room!

In his interview for the Film Music Archive, Hugo Friedhofer tells it like it is, and the book shows that he is not fake, but was a real giant in the Hollywood that used to be littered with talent and quality. Even if you know little about film music, this book is great history of the Hollywood of yesterday.

It's so satisfying to learn about the life of the film composer who wrote the score to such movies as "The Best Years of Our Lives," "The Adventures of Marco Polo" and "The Young Lions" - some of my favorite Hollywood film scores. Much of this book contains the story of Hugo Friedhofer as told by himself through interviews and his own personal correspondence. With droll and witty comments and a collection of truly wonderful photos Ms. Danly has truly presented a well-thought-out book. Hugo was well-respected by everyone in Hollywood (he had a photographic memory and a reputation for knowing the classical literature to a fault) and now with this biography we know why.

This book was fantastically entertaining! The man is as chaotic, eccentric, and strange as you would probably guess but did you know he was funny as well! Of course it is a bizarre sense of humor and some of it very nonsensical but it is interesting nonetheless. I couldn't put it down and since it is not written as an autobiography but snippets of interviews on a variety of topics--you can pick it up and begin reading on any page. I loved this book. A huge book for a huge personality and the pictures are amazing! Black and white rare photos of actors and scenes from his most memorable movies. Many of these are worthy of framing.

This book arrived in perfect condition and I received a very warm e-mail from the seller acknowledging my order and the shipment. Perfect!

This deluxe edition of what renowned Fellini specialist Tullio Kezich describes as the Maestro's "spiritual testament" (in his superb foreword to the book) is bona fide Fellini-esque. Hilarious anecdotes are squeezed in beside a number of very moving meditations on old age, sex, LSD, unemployment, Trivial Pursuit, God, Dante, death and the Hereafter. The newly restored black-and-white photos capturing the Italian director's surreal world are well-served by an excellent English translation. The final entry in the lexicon is a fairy tale titled "Zio Lupo" or "Uncle Wolf" and it pretty much defines Fellini's insatiability. Highly recommended.