Film guides and reviews Books

Book SynopsisAn in-depth behind-the-scenes guide to the forthcoming Avengers: Infinity War sequel, Avengers: Endgame!A deluxe collector's edition detailing the follow-up film to the epic cinematic phenomenon Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame. Go behind the scenes on the highly aniticipated Marvel film.Trade Review"To any fan of the MCU, this 96-page hardback edition is a must-own" - Geeks of Doom

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Book SynopsisThe official souvenir collector’s guide to Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye, as seen on Disney+.A behind-the-scenes look at Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye, this deluxe book is a must-have for all fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Featuring interviews with the cast and crew including Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner, and co-stars Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Alaqua Cox (Maya Lopez), and Vincent D'Onofrio (Kingpin) this collector’s edition explores the making of the action-packed show including chapters dedicated to fights and stunts, and the stunning costume departments with exclusive photos and art.

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Book SynopsisA special behind-the-scenes guide to the making of the all-new animated movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. This deluxe book explores the all-new movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.Go behind-the-scenes with the makers of the movie in this lavish volume that features amazing artwork and photography from the visually stunning new film.

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Book SynopsisKinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. This KinoSputnik on Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature Ivan's Childhood examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes. Through a close examination of its intricate narrative structure, unique stylistic approach and deep philosophical underpinnings, this KinoSputnik provides a thorough analysis of a truly remarkable debut film, from an artist now considered a towering figure of Russian culture. Primary readership will be among film studies students and film enthusiasts. A list of all books in the series is here on the Intellect website on the series page KinoSputnikTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Note on Transliteration ix Acknowledgements xi Production Information xiii Plot Summary xv Introduction 1 1. Production History and Context 13 2. Film Analysis 49 3. Themes and Motifs 97 4. Reception in the Soviet Union and Abroad 147 Conclusion 161 Notes 165 References 169

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Book SynopsisBe they musicals or melodramas, war movies or animation, Russian films have a long and fascinating history of addressing the major social and political events of their time. From Sergei Eisenstein’s anti-tsarist drama, The Battleship Potemkin, to socialist realism, to the post-glasnost thematic explosion, this volume explores the sociopolitical impact of the cinema of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Introductory essays establish key players and situate important genres within their cultural and industrial milieus, while reviews and case studies analyse individual titles in considerable depth. For the film studies scholar, or for all those who love Russian cinema and want to learn more, Directory of World Cinema: Russia will be an essential companion.Trade ReviewA provocative and illuminating volume. Even seasoned Russian film experts stand to learn something from this volume, whether because it invited them to reevaluate their basic historiographical assumptions or because it introduces them to a number of under-the-radar films. -- Hannah Frank, Slavic and East European JournalPeppered with high-quality film stills and questions to consider while viewing, Directory of World Cinema: Russia encourages its reader to hunt out lesser-known films and to revisit his/her favourites. -- Rosemari Baker, Modern Language ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction Film of the Year Vasilii Sigarev’s Wolfy (2009) Interview Vasilii Sigarev and Iana Troianova Film Production in Russia: An Industry? Festival Focus Kinotavr What Does zhanr Mean in Russian? Directors Evgenii Bauer Sergei Eisenstein Dziga Vertov Andrei Tarkovskii Nikita Mikhalkov Aleksandr Sokurov Historical Film War Film Comedy and Musical Comedy Melodrama Literary Adaptation Biopic Action/Red Western Children’s Films Animation Documentary

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Book SynopsisJames Agee brought to bear all his moral energy, slashing wit, and boundless curiosity in the criticism and journalism that established him as one of the commanding literary voices of America at mid-century. In 1944 W. H. Auden called Agee’s film reviews for The Nation “the most remarkable regular event in American journalism today.” Those columns, along with much of the movie criticism that Agee wrote for Time through most of the 1940s, were collected posthumously in Agee on Film: Reviews and Comments, undoubtedly the most influential writings on film by an American. This Library of America volume supplements the classic pieces from Agee on Film with previously uncollected writings on Ingrid Bergman, the Marx Brothers, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine, and a wealth of other cinematic subjects. Whether reviewing a Judy Garland musical or a wartime documentary, assessing the impact of Italian neorealism or railing against the compromises in a Hollywood adaptation of Hemingway, Agee always wrote of movies as a pervasive, profoundly significant part of modern life, a new art whose classics (Chaplin, Dovzhenko, Vigo) he revered and whose betrayal in the interests of commerce or propaganda he often deplored. If his frequent disappointments could be registered in acid tones, his enthusiasms were expressed with passionate eloquence. Agee’s own work as a screenwriter is represented by his script for Charles Laughton’s unique and haunting masterpiece of Southern gothic, The Night of the Hunter, adapted from the novel by Davis Grubb. This collection also includes examples of Agee’s masterfully probing reporting for Fortune—on subjects as diverse as the Tennessee Valley Authority, commercial orchids, and cockfighting—and a sampling of his literary reviews, among them appreciations of William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, S. J. Perelman, and William Carlos Williams.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisAs one of popular culture’s most popular arenas, sports are often the subject of cinematic storytelling. But boxing films are special. There are more movies about boxing, by a healthy margin, than any other sport, and boxing accompanied and aided the medium’s late nineteenth-century emergence as a popular mass entertainment. Many of cinema’s most celebrated directors—from Oscar Micheaux to Martin Scorsese—made boxing films. And while the production of other types of sports movies generally corresponds with the current popularity of their subject, boxing films continue to be made regularly even after the sport has wilted from its once-prominent position in the sports hierarchy of the United States. From Edison’s Leonard-Cushing Fight to The Joe Louis Story, Rocky, and beyond, this book explores why boxing has so consistently fascinated cinema and popular media culture by tracing how boxing movies inform the sport’s meanings and uses from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.Trade Review“While focusing on African American representation and racial conflict, Travis Vogan offers a fluent and engaging survey of boxing’s transmedia history.” -- Leger Grindon * author of Knockout: the Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema *"29 Best New Cinema Books To Read In 2021" * Book Authority *"I have a soft spot for boxing movies. They are about the triumph of humanity and the specificity of training. This is another book that takes on an entire genre and breaks it down from memorable hits to forgotten titles." * No Film School *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Boxing Film Over Time and Across Media 1. The Boxing Film through the Golden Age of Sports Media 2. St. Joe Louis, Surrounded by Films 3. TV Fighting and Fighting TV in the 1950s 4. Muhammad Ali, The Super Fight, and Closed-Circuit Exhibition 5. The 1970s, Rocky, and the Shadow of Ali 6. HBO Sports: Docu-Branding Boxing 7. Protecting Boxing with the Boxing Film Conclusion: Handling the Rules Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisAs one of popular culture’s most popular arenas, sports are often the subject of cinematic storytelling. But boxing films are special. There are more movies about boxing, by a healthy margin, than any other sport, and boxing accompanied and aided the medium’s late nineteenth-century emergence as a popular mass entertainment. Many of cinema’s most celebrated directors—from Oscar Micheaux to Martin Scorsese—made boxing films. And while the production of other types of sports movies generally corresponds with the current popularity of their subject, boxing films continue to be made regularly even after the sport has wilted from its once-prominent position in the sports hierarchy of the United States. From Edison’s Leonard-Cushing Fight to The Joe Louis Story, Rocky, and beyond, this book explores why boxing has so consistently fascinated cinema and popular media culture by tracing how boxing movies inform the sport’s meanings and uses from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.Trade Review“While focusing on African American representation and racial conflict, Travis Vogan offers a fluent and engaging survey of boxing’s transmedia history.” -- Leger Grindon * author of Knockout: the Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema *"29 Best New Cinema Books To Read In 2021" * Book Authority *"I have a soft spot for boxing movies. They are about the triumph of humanity and the specificity of training. This is another book that takes on an entire genre and breaks it down from memorable hits to forgotten titles." * No Film School *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Boxing Film Over Time and Across Media 1. The Boxing Film through the Golden Age of Sports Media 2. St. Joe Louis, Surrounded by Films 3. TV Fighting and Fighting TV in the 1950s 4. Muhammad Ali, The Super Fight, and Closed-Circuit Exhibition 5. The 1970s, Rocky, and the Shadow of Ali 6. HBO Sports: Docu-Branding Boxing 7. Protecting Boxing with the Boxing Film Conclusion: Handling the Rules Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisPutting Asian and European musicals into conversation with Hollywood classics like Singin’ in the Rain and La La Land, this study demonstrates the flexibility and durability of the genre. It explores how the movie musical mediates between nostalgia and technical innovation, while foregrounding the experiences of women, immigrants, and people of color.Trade Review"In her follow-up to The Migration of Musical Film, Desiree Garcia discards the ‘boom and bust’ narrative stubbornly bonded to the Hollywood musical—along with its link to ‘mindless’ escapism. Through attentive, close readings, The Movie Musical unearths ways that musicals accommodate changing times and audiences, acknowledging their insights about the cultures and audiences in which they work—and actually help construct. A welcome addition to film musical and genre scholarship." -- Caryl Flinn * author of Brass Diva and The Sound of Music (BFI Film Classics) *"‘S Wonderful! ‘S Marvelous! How can such a diverse genre be covered so well in so short a book? Desirée Garcia’s The Movie Musical adeptly surveys its long history and recurring conventions while offering a global perspective that enables her to discuss the genre in original and innovative ways." -- Steven Cohan * author of Incongruous Entertainment, Hollywood by Hollywood, and Hollywood Musicals *"Dartmouth College professor and author Desirée J. Garcia’s tightly packed and deeply researched study examines the genre’s illumination of more than just our collective daydreams and escape impulses." * Chicago Tribune *“The Movie Musical covers the genre’s history and conventions well while offering some interesting new perspectives on what the musical is, what it has done, and what it can do.” -- Medien Wissenschaft * Drew Bassett *Table of ContentsContents INTRODUCTION THE MUSICAL AS ARCHIVE THE MUSICAL AS SOCIETY THE MUSICAL AS MEDIATION ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS FURTHER READING WORKS CITED INDEX

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Book SynopsisHaunted Homes is a short but groundbreaking study of homes in horror film and television. While haunted houses can be fun and thrilling, Hollywood horror tends to focus on haunted homes, places where the suburban American dream of safety and comfort has turned into a nightmare. From classic movies like The Old Dark House to contemporary works like Hereditary and the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, Dahlia Schweitzer explores why haunted homes have become a prime stage for dramatizing anxieties about family, gender, race, and economic collapse. She traces how the haunted home film was intertwined with the expansion of American suburbia, but also explores works like The Witch and The Babadook, which transport the genre to different times and places. This lively and readable study reveals how and why an increasing number of films imagine that home is where the horror is. Watch a video of the author discussing the topic Haunted Homes (https://youtu.be/_irTEfvtZfQ).Trade Review"Dahlia Schweitzer's brilliantly-crafted book provides a perfect autopsy of the haunted house genre. Haunted Homes is not just a useful dissection of a popular subgenre of horror, it provides the perfect re-watch list for fans seeking to confront their inner fears." — Chris Gore, co-founder of Film Threat Dahlia Schweitzer’s “Haunted Homes” A Little Nerd News— The Mo'Kelly Show "Dahlia Schweitzer’s book Haunted Homes is a fascinating exploration of our culture's nearly insatiable desire for films that explore this genre. It is as hard to put down as it is to avert your eyes from the screen, even as you know you’re going to cower in fear." — Michael Grais, co-writer of Poltergeist New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture interview with Dahlia Schweitzer — New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture "Exclusive Excerpt from Dahlia Scweitzer's Haunted Homes"— Film Threat "In this highly entertaining book Dahlia Schweitzer takes readers on a tour of the American middle-class suburbs where true evil lurks, from The Cat and the Canary (1927) to The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix, 2018). The American dream to own one’s home has a flipside, namely to be stuck in a place that can be economically draining and literally the entrance to hell. Haunted Homes is one of those rare finds where state-of-the-art research and excellent prose go hand in hand and make you finish this book faster than a thriller.” — Rikke Schubart, author of Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror "Haunted Homes is a book for anyone who has ever awoken in the depths of the night, convinced that they heard someone–or something–lurking beyond their bedroom door. Through engaging analyses of American Horror Story (2011–) and Get Out (2017), amongst many others, Schweitzer proves that home ownership really is ‘a literal nightmare’."— Alison Peirse, editor of Women Make Horror SKYLIT: Dahlia Schweitzer, “HAUNTED HOMES”— Skylit: Skylight Books Podcast SeriesTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 The Suburbs 2 The Suburban Gothic 3 Gender, Horror, and the Family 4 Race, Horror, and the Family Conclusion Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisVivid images of the apocalypse proliferate throughout contemporary cinema, which pictures the death of civilization in wildly different ways. Some films imagine a future where humanity is wiped out entirely, while others envision humans as an endangered species, enslaved by alien invaders or hunted by zombie hordes. This book provides a lively overview of apocalypse cinema, including alien invasions, nuclear annihilation, asteroid collisions, climate change, and terrifying plagues. Covering pivotal films from the silent era to the present day, including Metropolis, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Strangelove, Contagion, and Avengers: Endgame, Stephen Prince explores how these dark visions are rooted in religious and prophetic traditions, and he considers how our love for apocalypse cinema is tied to fundamental existential questions and anxieties that never go out of fashion. Trade Review“From stories of cosmic catastrophes and space invaders to nuclear and natural disasters, Stephen Prince provides here an expertly-crafted, lively account of the apocalyptic visions made possible only by the movies.” — Carl Plantinga, author of Alternative RealitiesTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Sources and Traditions in Apocalyptic Cinema 2. Astrophobia 3. I’m Not Saying We Wouldn’t Get Our Hair Mussed 4. The Revenge of Nature Acknowledgements Further Reading Works Cited Index

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