Peter Bradshaw's finest film reviews--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Peter Bradshaw is an excellent film reviewer for intelligent, curious filmgoers. He's a true journalist who has served as The Guardian's film critic for 20 years and who understands what his readers want to know. His reviews carry his deep experience, knowledge, and understanding of film lightly. Films That Made Me... allows Peter Bradshaw to share his knowledge and guidance directly with readers. His reviews are the substance of this book--from 20 years-worth of Guardian reviewing. Selections are themed, each with a personalized entry-point introduction. Sample contents include: Films that make me sad. Films that make me laugh. Films that make me think. Films that made me feel. Films that make me run for the hills. Films that I want to show to my son. Films that make me think about my parents. Films that make me squirm (in a good way). Films that make me scared. Films that make me Google the real-life people involved (and think about true-life stories.) Films that have me on the edge of my seat.

'Like a pizza delivery driver who travels everywhere by moped, or a volcanologist who keeps turning the central heating up, I'm a film critic who loves going to the cinema.' - Peter Bradshaw. Peter Bradshaw is the film reviewer for intelligent, curious cinemagoers; he has worked at the Guardian for twenty years. The Films That Made Me collates his finest reviews from the last two decades, which carry with them his deep experience, knowledge and understanding of film. Introducing each section with a brief introductory article in his light, humorous tone, and ranging from The Cat in the Hat and the Twilight Saga to Synecdoche: New York, Bradshaw shares the films that he loved, the films that he hated, the films that made him laugh, cry, swoon and scared. Bradshaw's reviews range from the insightful and introspective to the savage and funny. The Films That Made Me is a must read for all film fanatics.

Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout—involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis—in the heart of New York’s diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a master’s take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote. For in this book, Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, gives us both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on forty years of experience on movies that range from Long Day’s Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict—and with such stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino—Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic.

From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film--an essential work on the preeminent, indispensable movie directors and the ways in which their work has forged, and continues to forge, the landscape of modern film. Directors operate behind the scenes, managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions on-screen that it is easy to forget the individual who is off-screen orchestrating the entire production--to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people's money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction. With his customary candor about his own delights and disappointments, Thomson analyzes both landmark works and forgotten films from classic directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, and Jean-Luc Godard, as well as contemporary powerhouses such as Jane Campion, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino. He shrewdly interrogates their professional legacies and influence in the industry, while simultaneously assessing the critical impact of an artist's personal life on his or her work. He explores the male directors' dominance of the past, and describes how diversity can change the landscape. Judicious, vivid, and witty, A Light in the Dark is yet another required Thomson text for every movie lover's shelf.

Alfred Hitchcock once famously remarked, "Actors are cattle." In The Camera Lies, Dan Callahan uncovers the sophisticated acting theory that lay beneath the director's notorious indifference towards his performers, spotlighting the great performances of deceit and duplicity he often coaxed from them.

Sure, everyone's seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. But as you'll learn in this shockingly tasteless collection of great awful movies, there's so much more to the world of truly bad film. You'll dive into the steaming swamp of such disastrously delicious movies as: Young Hannah, Queen of the Vampires Puppet Master versus Demonic Toys Creature with the Atom Brain Cannibal Holocaust Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter For each movie, film buff and reviewer Steve Miller includes a list of principal cast, director, producer, a plot overview, why the movie sucked, a rating, choice quotes, interesting trivia, and a quiz. For anyone who's ever enjoyed awful movies, this is the book to have on the couch, along with the popcorn, as the opening credits flash on the screen for Gingerdead Men 2: The Passion of the Crust.

The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.