By Dennis Bartok
I was very saddened to hear of the passing of Olivia de Havilland, and it immediately brought to mind memories of a wonderful and unexpected afternoon I spent touring old Hollywood with her in June, 2002.
Category Archives: Films: Book Excerpts
CHASING ELUSIVE PORTRAITS
by Elizabeth Rynecki
I grew up surrounded by my great-grandfather’s painting; images documenting the life of Polish-Jews in between the two World Wars. I understood from an early age that my great-grandfather, Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943), perished in the Holocaust, but I knew little about how Dad and his parents survived.
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CHASING PORTRAITS- An Excerpt
Chapter 18: Majdanek
As much as I had not wanted to come to Poland at all, I really didn’t want to go to a Nazi concentration camp. I had had a bad experience with the Holocaust Museum in D.C., and that was with just displays of objects taken from camps. This prospect seemed more than scary; it was nauseating.
SPACE ODYSSEY: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
An excerpt by Michael Benson
My own lifelong engagement with 2001 started in the spring of 1968 at the age of six. My mom, a confirmed Clarke fan, took me to an afternoon matinee within weeks of the film’s premiere. Whether it was in Washington (where we then lived) or New York (as I remember it) is unclear. While I was already excited by the jump into space as then best represented by the Apollo program—which had already launched two of its towering Saturn V Moon rockets on unmanned test flights—it was no preparation for my first exposure to such a powerfully ambiguous, visually stunning work.
THE LEBANESE FOOD TRUCK THAT COULD- A Movie and Delicious Recipes
by Gary Meyer
Earlier this year we were lucky enough to see a truly inspiring movie about female empowerment against the odds with gorgeous plates of studded pilafs, mouth-watering freekeh dishes and stuffed grape leaves in Thomas Morgan’s SOUFRA.
In the midst of a successful film festival tour where it keeps winning awards, a beautiful cookbook has been published with many recipes you will want to try. And we are bringing a couple to you on EatDrinkFilms.
ZONA: A BOOK ABOUT A FILM ABOUT A JOURNEY TO A ROOM
An Excerpt by Geoff Dyer
“It’s equally pleasing to read Dyer speak up for the pleasures of watching films, not in domesticated and tamed form on DVD, but at the cinema. Stalker itself, which is an immersive experience as much as it’s a visual spectacle, loses its magnetic force when watched at home. Dyer talks about the “possibility of cinema as semi-permanent pilgrimage site”. He also claims ‘the Zone is cinema.’
Beyond the book’s bravura formalism and in spite of the suspicion that it could be viewed as a highbrow take on live-blogging, it’s Dyer’s ability at moments like this to make pilgrims of his readers and to lead them on a journey in search of truths about love and about the nature of happiness that make Zona such an exhilarating achievement.” Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian
THE SHAPE OF FILMS TO COME- An Excerpt
An excerpt from the new book by James Curtis.
Have you ever marveled at the “look” of certain movies? The art direction creates a memorable world. For example, The Son of the Sheik……
William Cameron Menzies’ original rendering of Ahmed’s desert retreat for The Son of the Sheik (1926). Economies scotched the design, a shame considering it would be Rudolph Valentino’s final film and a formidable commercial success. (courtesy of Pamela Lauesen)
“Call Me Ishmael,” RAY BRADBURY UNBOUND excerpt
John Huston and Ray Bradbury.
This excerpt from Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan R. Eller’s new biography, follows Ray Bradbury’s complex relationship with director John Huston on the making of Moby Dick.
When everyone regrouped in London, tensions were still high between the two men. Casting was finalized during this period, but not before a large dinner at Huston’s private club with some of the production staff and other friends of Huston’s, including the silent film stars Bebe Daniels and her husband Ben Lyon, who had become television entertainers in the U.K. since leaving Hollywood. This group included Jeanie Sims; Lorrie Sherwood; Peter Viertel; Richard Brooks, who had been Huston’s cowriter on Key Largo in 1948; and Jack Clayton, who would go on to direct Room at the Top, The Innocents, and, eventually, Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Continue reading
‘The Don,’ from BRANDO’S SMILE by Susan L. Mizruchi
When people think about Marlon Brando, they think of the movie star, the hunk, the scandals. Continue reading
The Magic Number: 13 GHOSTS and 13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS From SHOWMANSHIP: THE CINEMA OF WILLIAM CASTLE by Joe Jordan
William Castle was cinema’s Abominable Showman—the marketing genius who thought “outside the coffin” to dream up outrageous PR gimmicks like PERCEPTO! and EMERGO! Continue reading
Excerpt from HOPE: ENTERTAINER OF THE CENTURY, © 2014 by Richard Zoglin
by Richard Zoglin
His punchy, two-syllable name, so emblematic of the optimistic American spirit; the unmistakable profile, with its jutting chin and famously ski-slope-shaped nose; the indelible images of Hope performing for throngs of cheering GIs in World War II and Vietnam — it was once impossible to imagine a time when the first question that needed to be answered about the most popular comedian in American history would be: Who was Bob Hope, and why did he matter? Continue reading