"While working at the Newark Star-Ledger, Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall created a popular column debating the merits of then-current television. Eventually they went on to successful careers as critics elsewhere, but the debate raged on and now comes to an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Alan and Matt have established The Pantheon of top TV shows using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing ranking system by which to order and stack them...

"Spanning eight decades of films and featuring the brightest stars ever to grace the silver screen, The Essentials is the guide to must-see movies from the most trusted authority on film - Turner Classic Movies. Since its inception on Turner Classic Movies in 2001, The Essentials has become the ultimate series for movie lovers to expand their knowledge of must-see cinema and discover or revisit landmark films that have had a lasting impact on audiences...

Based on exclusive celebrity interviews, this book runs the gamut of female television legends, from Donna Douglas (who played Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies) to the stars of the original Charlie's Angels.

"Turan's sketches are a blend of cultural analysis, historical anecdote, and sordid Hollywood controversy--astute critical appraisals, all suffused with his abiding love for the silver screen. [His] favorite films range across all genres, low and high. From All about Eve to Seven samurai to Spirited away, these are now timeless films--classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small--each as interesting as the lives of the...

Whether you judge by box office receipts, industry awards, or critical accolades, science fiction films are the most popular movies now being produced and distributed around the world. Nor is this phenomenon new. Sci-fi filmmakers and audiences have been exploring fantastic planets, forbidden zones, and lost continents ever since George Melies 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. In this highly entertaining and knowledgeable book, film historian and pop...

Spanning several generations from newcomers to Oscar Award-winning veterans this volume features a discussion of the movies that shaped the careers of these filmmakers and, in turn, cinema history. Here directors, including Peter Bogdanovich, Kimberly Peirce, Arthur Hiller, and John Waters, explore the film they saw at an especially formative moment, how it influenced their own work or, in some cases, led them to tell stories through movies themselves...

Whether we are trying to impress a date after an art-house film screening or discussing Oscar nominations with friends, we all need ways to watch and talk about movies. But with so much variety between an Alfred Hitchcock thriller and a Nora Ephron romantic comedy, how can everyday viewers determine what makes a good movie? In [this book], veteran film critic Ann Hornaday walks us through the production of a typical movie-from writing the script...

"Film Studies is a concise and indispensable introduction to the formal study of cinema. Ed Sikov offers a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active reader and critic. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative....

No film critic has ever been as influential--or as beloved-- as Roger Ebert. Over more than four decades, he built a reputation writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and, later, arguing onscreen with rival Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel and later Richard Roeper about the movies they loved and loathed. But Ebert went well beyond a mere "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." Readers could always sense the man behind the words, a man with interests beyond...

The former Rolling Stone writer and MTV host takes off from classic Roger Ebert and sails boldly into the new millennium. Millions grew up reading the author's record reviews and watching him on MTV's "The Week in Rock." In this collection of more than 200 movie reviews from MTV.com and, more recently, the Reason magazine Website, plus sidebars exclusive to this volume, Loder demonstrates his characteristic wry voice and finely honed observations....