In the Silent Era, film reissues were a battle between rival studios--every Mary Pickford new release in 1914 was met with a Pickford re-release. For 50 years after the Silent Era, reissues were a battle between the studios, who considered old movies "found money," and cinema owners, who often saw audiences reject former box office hits. In the mid-1960s, the return of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)--the second biggest reissue of all time--altered industry perceptions, and James Bond double features pushed the revival market to new heights. In the digital age, reissues have continued to confound the critics. This is the untold hundred-year story of how old movies saved new Hollywood. Covering the booms and busts of a recycling business that became its own industry, the author describes how the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart and Alfred Hitchcock won over new generations of audiences, and explores the lasting appeal of films like Napoleon (1927), Gone with the Wind (1939), The Rocky Horror Show (1975) and Blade Runner (1982).

It is in the nature of today's movie business that while Hollywood blockbusters invade every megaplex, smaller, quality films often don't get screen time. Fans of finer films have to count on catching up with them on video and DVD, but even the most hard-core devotees have trouble remembering what sounded good when a film was originally released. Never Coming to a Theater Near You will remedy that situation. This selection of renowned film critic Kenneth Turan's absorbing and illuminating reviews, now revised and updated to factor in the tests of time, point viewers toward the films they can't quite remember, but should not miss. Moviegoers know they can trust Turan's impeccable taste. His eclectic selection represents the kind of sophisticated, adult, and entertaining films intelligent viewers are hungry for. More importantly, Turan shows readers what makes these unusual films so great, revealing how talented filmmakers and actors have managed to create the wonderful highs we experience in front of the silver screen.

The "Los Angeles Times" and NPR's "Morning Edition" film critic Kenneth Turan profiles the most intelligent, original, and enjoyable movies--and illuminates what makes them so good.

Typescript, dated Rehearsal Draft April 7, 2018. Without music. Unmarked typescript of a musical that opened April 8, 2018, at the August Wilson Theatre, New York, N.Y., directed by Casy Nicholaw.

“Movie criticism's Dostoyevsky . . . Taylor reveals a national identity forged from the innocence we claim to have lost but never had in the first place.” --Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville When we think of '70s cinema, we think of classics like The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and The Wild Bunch . . . but the riches found in the overlooked B movies of the time, rolled out wherever they might find an audience, unexpectedly tell an eye-opening story about post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America. Revisiting the films that don't make the Academy Award montages, Charles Taylor finds a treasury many of us have forgotten, movies that in fact "unlock the secrets of the times." Celebrated film critic Taylor pays homage to the trucker vigilantes, meat magnate pimps, blaxploitation "angel avengers," and taciturn factory workers of grungy, unartful B films such as Prime Cut, Foxy Brown, and Eyes of Laura Mars. He creates a compelling argument for what matters in moviemaking and brings a pivotal American era vividly to life in all its gritty, melancholy complexity.

Hair and makeup can transform actors, placing them in a different time and place, or even altering their age. This book explores the ways these artists lend their talents to the stage and how they work with others on the theater team to give each play a distinctive look.

As students regularly read and perform this reader's theater of voices from the Civil War, they improve decoding, interpretation, fluency, and comprehension. Students will want to read, reread, and perform these engaging and enjoyable selections.