News at Cinema Books

Woman Warrior Liz Taylor

stephanie ogle — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:34:54 +0000

New in Cinema Books: The Accidental Feminist How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by her Beauty to Notice by M.G. Lord, $ 23.00 cloth. Lord posits that the very roles Taylor starred in broke women’s rights barriers: National Velvet, Butterfield Eight, A Place in the Sun, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was one of the pioneers breaking the Production Code. Then Taylor’s own personal life broke all manner of post war taboos.

From the Kinks to the Cutes

stephanie ogle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:35:20 +0000

New in at Cinema Books: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx by Wayne Koestenbaum, $ 29.95 paper. Koestenbaum stirs up the debate on the physicality of Hapo Marx from Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1949. He discusses Harpo routines in almost frame by frame analysis focusing on its kinks and cutes within the world of Jewish comedy and the rise and fall of Nazism.

Evelyn Venable to “Death Takes a Holiday”

stephanie ogle — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:15:07 +0000

New issue of Classic Images February, 2012 $4.00. Cover story on the actress Evelyn Venable. Remember her in Death Takes a Holiday? Also profiles of Paul Petersen ( The Donna Reed Show) and Susan Gordon ( The Five Pennies). Taking a cruise with Tippi Hedren and Ernest Borgnine. Then visit with actress Claire Bloom at the Film Forum.

20 Best Films of 2011 — Critics’ Poll

stephanie ogle — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:27:31 +0000

New in at Cinema Books: Film Comment Jan/Feb., 2012 Vol. 48 #1 $5.95. Poll of critics on 20 best films of 2011. Reader entry forms. Make your list. Analysis of new films Miss Bala, A Separation, Tintin. “Girls Gone Wild” in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Haywire, and A Dangerous Mind. Kent Jones on the random and ephemeral in film.

Promoting the Crunch

stephanie ogle — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:09:36 +0000

New in at Cinema Books: The Great American Cereal Book How Breakfast Got Its Crunch by Marty Gitlin & Topher Ellis, $19.95 cloth. Three hundred and sixty eight pages profiling 400 breakfast cereals from 1863 through 2010. Sports stars, tv stars and cartoon characters all got into the act of promoting breakfast cereals. Great for anyone who ever grabbed a box and started to munch.

Biographies of Oscar Pioneers

stephanie ogle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:58:20 +0000

New in paperback: Bringing Up Oscar The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy by Debra Ann Pawlak, $15.95 paper. Part history part biographical tale Pawlak describes the founders of the Motion Picture Academy. Hollywood pioneers Ceil B. DeMille, Mary Pickford, Harry Warner, Joseph Schneck and many other forgotten participants got together in 1927 to promote their industry. And boy did it work.

Fry, Laurie & Thompson

stephanie ogle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:33:26 +0000

New in at Cinema Books: The Fry Chronicles An Autobiogrphy by Stephen Fry, $ 29.95 cloth. Thirteen years after the first volume of Fry’s autobiography Moab Is My Washpot, the second volume is now available. Fry is acccepted at Cambridge University. He teams up with actor Hugh Laurie and actress Emma Thompson and we follow the early career of Stephen Fry in such series as Blackadder.

Dante Spinotti Lifetime Achievemnt Award

stephanie ogle — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:16:45 +0000

American Cinematographer magazine February, 2012, $5.95 . This year the ASC honors Italian cinematogrpaher Dante Spinotti with their ASC Lifetime Achievement Award. The new issue of the magazine reviews his wonderful career. Spinotti shot Last of the Mohicans, Heat, LA Confidential. Other articles include the making of the new film Big Miracle about saving the whales in Alaska and the new HBO film about horseracing Michael Mann’s Luck.

All Those le Carre Movies

stephanie ogle — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:12:06 +0000

Cinema Scope #49 Winter, 2012 $5.95. Cover story on Ben Wheatley’s Kill List. Also interview with William Friedkin on Killer Joe. Survey of the John le Carre novels made into movies. First published edition of Eric Rentschler’s 1986 speech ” Journeys Through Berlin, 1986 Urban Miniatures”. Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews the global dvd releases.

Birthday at Tiffany’s

stephanie ogle — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:02:43 +0000

New in at Cinema Books: Breakfast at Tiffany’s The Official 50th Anniversary Companion by Sarah Gristwood, $29.95 cloth. Celebrate a birthday in style with this pictorial tribute to the iconic Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Full of candid pictures of the cast and crew. Profiles of actors Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal and of course Mickey Rooney. Other participants are not neglected: writer Truman Capote, costumer Hubert de Givenchy, composer Henry Mancini, director Blake Edwards.