A New Biographical Dictionary

The images and memories that matter most are those that are unshakeable, unforgettable. Kenneth Turan's fifty-four favorite films embrace a century of the world's most satisfying romances and funniest comedies, the most heart-stopping dramas and chilling thrillers. Turan discovered film as a child left undisturbed to watch Million Dollar Movie on WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York, a daily showcase for older Hollywood features. It was then that he developed a love of cinema that never left him and honed his eye for the most acute details and the grandest of scenes. Not to be Missed blends cultural criticism, historical anecdote, and inside-Hollywood controversy. Turan's selection of favorites ranges across all genres. From All About Eve to Seven Samurai to Sherlock Jr., these are all timeless films -- classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small -- each underscoring the truth of director Ingmar Bergman's observation that "no form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul."

For almost thirty years, David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film has been not merely “the finest reference book ever written about movies” (Graham Fuller, Interview), not merely the “desert island book” of art critic David Sylvester, not merely “a great, crazy masterpiece” (Geoff Dyer, The Guardian), but also “fiendishly seductive” (Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone). This new edition updates the older entries and adds 30 new ones: Darren Aronofsky, Emmanuelle Beart, Jerry Bruckheimer, Larry Clark, Jennifer Connelly, Chris Cooper, Sofia Coppola, Alfonso Cuaron, Richard Curtis, Sir Richard Eyre, Sir Michael Gambon, Christopher Guest, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Spike Jonze, Wong Kar-Wai, Laura Linney, Tobey Maguire, Michael Moore, Samantha Morton, Mike Myers, Christopher Nolan, Dennis Price, Adam Sandler, Kevin Smith, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlize Theron, Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski, Lew Wasserman, Naomi Watts, and Ray Winstone. In all, the book includes more than 1300 entries, some of them just a pungent paragraph, some of them several thousand words long. In addition to the new “musts,” Thomson has added key figures from film history–lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies. Personal, opinionated, funny, daring, provocative, and passionate, it is the one book that every filmmaker and film buff must own. Time Out named it one of the ten best books of the 1990s. Gavin Lambert recognized it as “a work of imagination in its own right.” Now better than ever–a masterwork by the man playwright David Hare called “the most stimulating and thoughtful film critic now writing.”

With fascinating lives on every page, the Dictionary offers concise entries that illustrate the lives of Scottish women from the distant past to the early twenty-first century, as well as the worldwide Scottish diaspora.

A biographical dictionary which profiles over 30,000 individuals, including birth and death dates, major accomplishments, and historical influence.

Casting a wide net, this volume provides personal and professional information on some 445 American and Canadian naturalists and environmentalists, who lived from the late 15th century to the late 20th century. It includes explorers who published works on the natural history of North America, conservationists, ecologists, environmentalists, wildlife management specialists, park planners, national park administrators, zoologists, botanists, natural historians, geographers, geologists, academics, museum scientists and administrators, military personnel, travellers, government officials, political figures and writers and artists concerned with the environment. Some of the subjects are well known. The accomplishments of others are little known. Each entry contains a succinct but careful evaluation of the subject's career and contributions. Entries also include up-to-date bibliographies and information concerning manuscript sources.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is the definitive biographical reference work in Canadian history. "No serious student of Canada's past can function without access to this thorough, balanced and reliable source." R. Hall, Globe and Mail.

Thomson (independent scholar), writing of The Biographical Dictionary of Film (aka A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, 1975 edition), described it as "a personal, opinionated, and obsessive biographical dictionary of the cinema." Thirty-five years and several editions later, that description still holds true of this expanded work. The new dictionary summarizes salient facts about its subjects' lives and discusses their film credits in terms of the quality of the filmmakers' work. In ambition it has competitors, including Leslie Halliwell's various editions of Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion (12th ed., 1997) and Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, edited by John Walker (4th ed., rev. and updated, 2006), which cover films and technical terms (categories not included in Thomson's), but whose entries are neutral and exceedingly brief. Additionally, Francophile Richard Roud's edited Cinema: A Critical Dictionary: The Major Filmmakers (2 v., 1980) is as passionate a work as Thomson's, but narrower in scope, with entries written by various experts, rather than only by Roud. Finally, the multivolume magnum opus The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers (4th ed., 2000, ed. by T. Pendergast and S. Pendergast; 2nd ed., ed. by N. Thomas, v. 1, CH, May'91; 1st ed., ed. by C. Lyon, v.1-2, CH, Jan'85, v.3, CH, Apr'87, v.4-5, CH, Jun'88) covers everything--films, directors, actors, writers, and production artists--with generous, measured, scholarly entries and lavish illustrations. However, it looms large and heavy, unlike the handy one-volume work by Thomson. Arguably, Thomson's work, for its scope, is the most fun, the most convenient, and the most engaging title. All libraries supporting people interested in film should buy it. It will get lots of use and provide very good value for the money. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by C. Hendershott.

Contains over 14,000 brief entries covering persons both past and present