Vincente Minnelli, Hollywood's Dark Dreamer is the first full-length biography of Vincente Minnelli, one of the most legendary and influential directors in the twentieth century, encompassing his life, his art, and his artistry. Minnelli started out as a set and costume designer in New York, where he first notably applied his aesthetic principles to the Broadway stage design of Scheherazade. He became the first director of New York's Radio City Music Hall, as well as some ...

A deep dive into the emergence and success of independent filmmaking in AmericaA Los Angeles Times BestsellerThe most important development in American culture of the last two decades is the emergence of independent cinema as a viable alternative to Hollywood. Indeed, while Hollywood's studios devote much of their time and energy to churning out big-budget, star-studded event movies, a renegade independent cinema that challenges mainstream ...

Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popula...

Dugald Stewart was appointed assistant professor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh in 1772, aged only 19. He became one of the most influential academics in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European ‘Republic of Letters’. Both Stewart’s contemporaries and modern scholars have recognised the impact his influential figure had over many young minds. He was one of the leading figures of the Scottish Common Sense school, a name by which we are used to identifying the philosoph...

The Inner Revelation - 7 Classic Mystical Treatises brings together a rich tapestry of mystical insights, exploring the vast landscapes of inner consciousness and divine truths. The collection encompasses a range of literary styles and philosophical musings, from revelatory prose to compelling dialogues. Each piece resonates with an overarching theme of spiritual enlightenment and personal transformation, inviting readers into the profound, often complex relationship between the self and t...

Over the decades, gay cinema has reflected the community's journey from persecution to emancipation to acceptance. Politicised dramas like Victim in the 60s, The Naked Civil Servant in the 70s, and the AIDS cinema of the 80s have given way in recent years to films which celebrate a vast array of gay life-styles. Gay films have undergone a major shift, from the fringe to the mainstream and the 2005 Academy Awards were dubbed ' the Gay Oscars' with gongs going to Brokeback Mountain, Capote a...

This intimate and critical biography of the pioneering director explores his life, work, and creative process—with contributions by fellow filmmakers.For decades, Robert Altman fascinated audiences with films such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Gosford Park, and many others. He won critical acclaim by combining technical innovation with subversive, satirical humor and impassioned political engagement. His ability to explore so many...

Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood’s legendary actresses.In just seven years–from 1950 through 1956–Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of To Catch a Thief, Grace established herself as one of Hollywo...

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible?For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down ...

An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist and philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a simplification of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739-1740. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work.The end product of his labo...

Man can decree a thing and it will come to pass. In the beginning was the unconditioned awareness of being; and the unconditioned awareness of being became conditioned by imagining itself to be something, and the unconditioned awareness of being became that which it had imagined itself to be; so did creation begin. Stand still in the psychological state defined as your objective until you feel the thrill of Victory, Then, with confidence born of the knowledge of this law, watch the physica...

“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”—Cary GrantHe is Hollywood’s most fascinating and timeless star. Although he came to personify the debonair American, Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach on January 18, 1904, in the seaport village of Bristol, England. Combining the captivating beauty of silent-screen legend Rudolph Valentino with the masculine irresistibility of Clark Gable, Grant emerged as Hollywood’s quintessential leading man. Today, “the ...