New Books in Film

Iranian cinema has close connections to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini , explicitly pointed to the uses of cinema for religious and revolutionary political purposes. But Iranian films and the means of film production gradually changed in the post-Khomeini period. In Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices S...

Amar Akbar Anthony is a film like no other. When you see it you cannot forget it. Filled with music, comedy, drama, and love it captures audiences in multiple ways. But what can we learn from a deeper look at this classic of Hindi cinema? William Elison, Assistant Professor at... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://n...

One often hears stories of World War II and Korean War veterans who came back from the war and refused to talk about what they had experienced in combat. They neither wanted folks at home to know what had happened nor did they want to relive it themselves. It was... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork...

Gillian McIver‘s Art History for Filmmakers: The Art of Visual Storytelling (Bloomsbury, 2016) is a ground-breaking book that illustrates the relationships among the histories of painting and cinema. Of interest to established filmmakers, students of film, and those engaged with the history of art and visual storytelling overall, Art History... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/...

When the film was released in 1987, critic Roger Ebert famously panned Dirty Dancing. Yet the movie continues to be the favorite of millions of fans. In Deconstructing Dirty Dancing (Zero Books, 2017), Stephen Lee Naish reviews the movie scene-by-scene, parsing the reasons why it remains such a popular film.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by beco...

Five charismatic women navigate uneven terrain of racial gender and class stereotypes: Dorothy Dandridge, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Halle Berry. The quintet charisma, as explored by Dr. Mia Mask in Divas on The Screen: Black Women in American Film (University of Illinois Press, 2009), range from erotic... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support ou...

Who’s the black private dick That’s a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft) Ya damn right Who is the man that would risk his neck For his brother man? (Shaft) Can you dig it? Who’s the cat that won’t cop out When there’s danger all about? (Shaft) Right on... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.suppor...

One of the most interesting, but largely overlooked silent films, is Haxan, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Using documentary methods as well as reenactments, he presented a study of witchcraft hysteria, particularly as it compared to post-World War I scientific and psychological studies. In their book, Realizing the Witch:... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...

Reading Laurence Rickels‘ The Psycho Records (Wallflower Press, 2016) gave me the urge to ask random strangers questions like: Are you haunted by Alfred Hitchcock’s famous shower scene? How do you feel about Norman Bates and other cinematic killers pathologically attached to their mothers? Does the thought of Anthony Perkins... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support...

How can we challenge the way film and television represents the world around us? In Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism (Rutgers University Press, 2017) Nancy Wan Yuen, and Associate Professor of Sociology at Biola University, offers a comprehensive guide to the problem of racism in Hollywood, along with possible... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support ou...

Stanley Kubrick is justly considered one of the greatest filmmakers, even with his limited output over his career. The first film he both produced and directed was Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, released in 1964. Mick Broderick has written an extensive overview... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a pr...

In Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981-2016 (McFarland, 2017), Sherilyn Connelly examines the long and complex history of Hasbro’s My Little Pony franchise. Since it debuted in the early 1980s, controversy has surrounded My Little Pony. Dismissed as solely toy advertisements and not serious enough,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...

While there are many books that assist the viewer in learning how feature films are made, Bob Moss’s Vibes from the Screen: Getting Greater Enjoyment from Films (MCP Books, 2016) is particularly good at showing the artistry of filmmakers by presenting detailed examples from the best writers, directors, cinematographers, editors,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sup...

The original script was sold to a major Hollywood studio virtually overnight; the screenwriter was working as a pool boy and driver for the producer; the director was considered an acid freak by the studio heads; the star was a 74-year-old actress who didn’t know how to drive a car.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! htt...

There has been much discussion recently in the United States about the contentious recent presidential election. Along with the election results, there has also been an increased interest in the so-called “fake news” stories spread on social media as well as on the emergence of the “Alt Right” movement in... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becomin...

In Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), Anthony Lioi examines literature, film, television, and comics through an ecocritical study of nerd culture. Lioi explores Star Trek, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Green Lantern, and X-Men, among... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen (McFarland, 2016) dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and cultural production in both Africa and the African diaspora. The figure of the zombie that entered the popular imagination with the publication of William Seabrook’s book The Magic Island... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our...

Kevin Smokler’s new book, Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies (Rare Bird Books, 2016)is what everyone in their 40s who loved watching movies as they were growing up wants it to be. In Brat Pack America, Smokler takes readers on a journey through the fictional and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https:/...

“Artaud lived with his neck placed firmly in the noose.” -Bauhaus* David Shafer’s new biography, Antonin Artaud (Reaktion Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2016), situates the life of this enigmatic and fascinating figure in historical context. From his bourgeois family background, through a life that included a variety... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sup...

In Pull Yourself Together: The Gena Rowlands Poems (Dancing Girl Press, 2106), Amanda Deutch reminds us of the current and historic importance of the muse. Something draws writers the page, painters to the canvas, and musicians to their instruments. Sometimes it is subtle, sometimes urgent. A self-proclaimed cinefile, Deutch stayed... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

Jimmy Stewart has a well-deserved reputation as one of the major stars of the classic film era. Yet his life was greatly affected by his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. Robert Matzen, author of the book, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe (GoodKnight Books,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! h...

Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic figure of the black soldier helped change the ways American... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...

While many fans collect all kinds of memorabilia related to their favorite movies, others actually seek out and collect the actual celluloid films. For their book, A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) Dennis Bartok and Jeff... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our s...

Stephen Lee Naish first became aware of Dennis Hopper watching David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, jumpstarting what would become a long examination of Hopper’s ambitions and creative output as an actor, filmmaker, photographer, sculptor, and painter. In his book, Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper (Amsterdam University... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices S...

While John Ford made films of more general subjects, he is best known for his movies that illustrated the American West and life during wartime. In her book, The Westerns and War Films of John Ford, Sue Matheson examines what was so special about his works, as well as how... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newboo...