Showing titles in Film & TV

AWA is back with a new book - sharing dozens of idiosyncratic stories that make each place unique. You'll venture to Antarctica through the Drake Passage, make a stop in lesser-known Jincumbilly, Australia (where there are more platypuses than people), travel the backroads of Vermont, and drop into one of the oddest umbrella shops of London. But no matter where or how the adventure unfolds, it's nothing without the people who make it memorable. Here, we share the stories of communities and characters who come to life as vividly as the photos themselves.

Virtually anyone who has ever watched a profound movie, a powerful TV show, or read a moving novel understands that entertainment can and does affect us in surprising and significant ways. But did you know that our most popular forms of entertainment can have a direct physical effect on us, a measurable impact on society, geopolitics, the economy, and even the future itself? In You Are What You Watch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter Hickey proves how exactly how what we watch (and read and listen to) has a far greater effect on us and the world at large than we imagine.

In their third and final screen teaming, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly starred together in the MGM musical Summer Stock. In C'mon, Get Happy, authors David Fantle and Tom Johnson present a comprehensive study of this 1950 motion picture. The production coincided at a critical point in the careers of Kelly and an emotionally spent Garland. Kelly, who starred in An American in Paris just one year later, was at the peak of his abilities.

From Snow White to Moana, from Pinocchio to Frozen, the animated films of Walt Disney Studios have moved and entertained millions. But few fans know that behind these groundbreaking features was an incredibly influential group of women who fought for respect in an often ruthless male-dominated industry and who have slipped under the radar for decades.

Claire delights as the fierce, prickly World War II nurse who falls for Jamie, the sensitive Highlands outlaw. He offers more than a fling or even a timeless love, as he guides the heroine to a deeper level of spirituality. Of course, Diana Gabaldon explores much about modern gender construction. Her heroines shoot pirates, while the Highlanders blend courtly gallantry with bloodthirsty battles.

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors, and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend?

Looking for a way out of the rat race? Tired of your ho-hum, workaday life? Have an inexplicable love of turning human beings into inanimate objects? Then professional supervillainy might just be for you! With tips from the renowned founder and overlord of the International Society of Supervillains, The Supervillain Handbook is your one-stop-shop for everything evil. Gain invaluable insight on the art of revenge, choosing your evil name, where to find the perfect lair, and much more!

Multi-Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Shane Stanley writes a book anyone and everyone should hear if they want an entertainment industry insider's professional guidance on how to create a movie. This book is an especially invaluable tool for those who have or plan to, attend a college or university film school. It's your complete guide to (independent) filmmaking.

Dermot O'Leary charts his story, from school to The X Factor, through the songs that were playing at the key moment in his life. This is the story of Dermot's life so far, from growing up in semi rural Colchester with his Irish born parents, to landing one of the biggets jobs in television. Throughout this journey, music has been a constant companion: a best friend, confidant, a really annoying sibling, and at times a tormentor.

In a genre-redefining first, Breakthrough is an electrifying, audio-only singing/songwriting competition series that strips away the superficial to reaffirm what matters most: pure talent.

Ready your shovels for Phantasm Exhumed, the first book on the making of the Phantasm franchise. Featuring more than 60 new interviews with the cast, crew, effects, creators, and studio executives, Phantasm Exhumed takes listeners behind the scenes of the franchise that catapulted the Tall Man into the annals of horror iconography. Trace Phantasm's history from forerunners Jim the World’s Greatest and Kenny & Company through to Phantasm: Oblivion and beyond.

Beginning with the iconic La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) and ending with Richard Linklater's groundbreaking Boyhood (2014), The Movie Book chronicles more than 100 of the best films ever made - from comedies and dramas to animations, documentaries and what brings cinema to life. Discover everything about your favourite movies as well as celebrated classics and the films you need to see through iconic quotes, biographies, movie memorabilia and narrative timelines. Essential for anyone with a passion for cinema, The Movie Book is ready for its close-up.

Here is a gripping, behind-the-scenes look inside the classic suspense shocker Psycho - and the creative genius who revolutionized filmmaking. First released in 1960, Psycho altered the landscape of horror films forever. But just as compelling as the movie itself is the story behind it. Stephen Rebello brings to life the creation of one of Hollywood’s most iconic films, from the story of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein, the real-life inspiration for the character of Norman Bates, to Hitchcock’s groundbreaking achievements in cinematography, sound, editing, and promotion.

In 1968 a group of young people took over a derelict trouser factory in a rundown part of Leeds and set about producing programmes that were to define the British television world of the late 20th century. These included the investigative documentary series First Tuesday, Darling Buds of May, Whickers World, Don't Ask Me, and Heartbeat. At the same time they attracted, indeed often created, stars of international fame such as James Mason, Catherine Zeta Jones, Alan Whicker, David Jason, Magnus Pike, and David Frost.

Academy Award-winning director Michael Curtiz—whose best-known films include Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, and White Christmas—was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his 27-year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, Westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K. Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry's most complex figures.

Released in 2004, iconic teen comedy Mean Girls remains as relevant now as ever. But what made an adaptation of a parenting guide by SNL writer Tina Fey so successful? And why, two decades later, can we all just not stop quoting it? Drawing on revealing interviews with the director, cast and crew, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong takes us behind the scenes of the film’s genesis, production and release.

In this adventure, which would have played well in one of his own films, Schmuel Goldfisz left the Warsaw ghetto in 1895. He walked 300 miles to the Oder River, where he paid someone to row him across, smuggling him out of the Russian empire into Germany, past border patrols to another long walk to Hamburg. The gleam in his eye was America, "a far-away country, a vision of paradise." Schmuel Goldfisz became Samuel Goldwyn, one of the producers who created the Hollywood film industry.

In this episode from the sitcom about two Liverpudlian lasses, it's Beryl's birthday, and Sandra is planning a surprise party for her. Among her presents she gets a hamster in the post from Robert. But then Thingy goes missing, and the hunt is on to find the rogue rodent. "Anybody Here Seen Thingy" stars Polly James and Nerys Hughes.

Lights, Camera Jemuru - Adventures of a Film-Maker in Ethiopia is the remarkable true-life story of a high-flying adman who swapped his expense account lifestyle in London to go and teach in a back-street community film school, Gem TV, in Addis Ababa. Bob Maddams spent years living and working in Ethiopia and filming took him and the Gem TV filmmakers all over the country; from shanty towns and famine feeding stations to the rock hewn churches of Lalibela and the source of the Blue Nile.

An in-depth celebration of the romantic comedy’s modern golden era and its role in our culture, tracking the genre from its heyday in the ’80s and the ’90s, its unfortunate decline in the 2000s, and its explosive reemergence in the age of streaming, featuring exclusive interviews with the directors, writers, and stars of the iconic films that defined the genre.