Down And Dirty Pictures

In this “dishy…superbly reported” (Entertainment Weekly) New York Times bestseller, Peter Biskind chronicles the rise of independent filmmakers who reinvented Hollywood—most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax Films an indie powerhouse. As he did in his acclaimed Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind “takes on the movie industry of the 1990s and again gets the story” (The New York Times). Biskind charts in fascinating detail the meteoric rise of the controversial Harvey Weinstein, often described as the last mogul, who created an Oscar factory that became the envy of the studios, while leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. He follows Sundance as it grew from a regional film festival to the premier showcase of independent film, succeeding almost despite the mercurial Redford, whose visionary plans were nearly thwarted by his own quixotic personality. Likewise, the directors who emerged from the independent movement, such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and David O. Russell, are now among the best-known directors in Hollywood. Not to mention the actors who emerged with them, like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman. Candid, controversial, and “sensationally entertaining” (Los Angeles Times) Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world.

In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. An unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (onscreen and off), Easy Rider heralded a heady decade in which a rebellious wave of talented young filmmakers invigorated the movie industry. In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind takes us on the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s, an era that produced such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Shampoo, Nashville, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls vividly chronicles the exuberance and excess of the times: the startling success of Easy Rider and the equally alarming circumstances under which it was made, with drugs, booze, and violent rivalry between costars Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda dominating the set; how a small production company named BBS became the guiding spirit of the youth rebellion in Hollywood and how, along the way, some of its executives helped smuggle Huey Newton out of the country; how director Hal Ashby was busted for drugs and thrown in jail in Toronto; why Martin Scorsese attended the Academy Awards with an FBI escort when Taxi Driver was nominated; how George Lucas, gripped by anxiety, compulsively cut off his own hair while writing Star Wars, how a modest house on Nicholas Beach occupied by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt became the unofficial headquarters for the New Hollywood; how Billy Friedkin tried to humiliate Paramount boss Barry Diller; and how screenwriter/director Paul Schrader played Russian roulette in his hot tub. It was a time when an "anything goes" experimentation prevailed both on the screen and off. After the success of Easy Rider, young film-school graduates suddenly found themselves in demand, and directors such as Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese became powerful figures. Even the new generation of film stars -- Nicholson, De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, and Dunaway -- seemed a breed apart from the traditional Hollywood actors. Ironically, the renaissance would come to an end with Jaws and Star Wars, hugely successful films that would create a blockbuster mentality and crush innovation. Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywood's last golden age. Never before have so many celebrities talked so frankly about one another and about the drugs, sex, and money that made so many of them crash and burn. By turns hilarious and shocking, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the ultimate behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood at work and play.

The 1990s saw a shock wave of dynamic new directing talent that took the Hollywood studio system by storm. At the forefront of that movement were six innovative and daring directors whose films pushed the boundaries of moviemaking and announced to the world that something exciting was happening in Hollywood. Sharon Waxman, editor and chief of The Wrap.com and for Hollywood reporter for the New York Times spent the decade covering these young filmmakers, and in Rebels on the Backlot she weaves together the lives and careers of Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction; Steven Soderbergh, Traffic; David Fincher, Fight Club; Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights; David O. Russell, Three Kings; and Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich.

When New York art dealer Elizabeth Martel's mother falls ill, she returns to her hometown in the Midwest. After her mother's death she is seriously short of funds, and a friend suggests she take a job as art adviser to billionaire grain merchant, Preston Greylander. When Greylander is killed in a mysterious murder-suicide, Martel is left in possession of a Rembrandt that needs restoration. She takes the painting to Amsterdam where she deposits it with the prestigious firm of Van der Saar Fine Arts. The Van der Saar family has been in the art business since the seventeenth century and the current generation is represented by two brothers: Hendrik, suave and charismatic, is the perfect front man, while the deceptively low key Willem is a master of restoration. Hendrik and Martel enthusiastically resume an old love affair, and she discovers that the brothers' personal lives are in chaos, and the family is haunted by guilt and swathed in deception. As doubts arise about the authenticity of the Rembrandt, other actors arrive in Amsterdam determined to recover the picture. "Dirty Pictures" is narrated by a woman with a brash, irreverent point of view. Martel's voice is caustic, satirical, and darkly humorous. It gets into the readers head and stays there. Patricia Ketola borrows freely from the genres of the crime novel, the family saga and the love story and combines them into a unique vision of life in a world heading for disaster. This richly textured novel celebrates the profound, the beautiful, and the good, and there is a lot of deep knowledge backing up Martel's often outrageous statements. "Patricia Ketola's clever and sexy debut novel is an audacious genre mash-up, elevated and enlivened by the salty, up-from-the-heels voice of narrator Elizabeth Martel, a sort of lusty spin on Patricia Highsmith's magnetic sociopath Tom Ripley. "Dirty Pictures" heralds the arrival of a clever, gutsy new voice that fearlessly swings for the fences." -Craig McDonald, Edgar-Anthony Award Finalist

Called "the queen of high-tech porn" by The New York Times, the author charts her errancy from Catholic schoolgirl to feminist advocate of pornography and explores the challenges faced by sexually provocative women. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

Indie, Inc. surveys Miramax's evolution from independent producer-distributor to studio subsidiary, chronicling how one company transformed not just the independent film world but the film and media industries more broadly. Miramax's activities had an impact on everything from film festival practices to marketing strategies, talent development to awards campaigning. Case studies of key films, including The Piano, Kids, Scream, The English Patient, and Life is Beautiful, reveal how Miramax went beyond influencing Hollywood business practices and motion picture aesthetics to shaping popular and critical discourses about cinema during the 1990s ... [and] looks at the range of Miramax-released genre films, foreign-language films, and English-language imports released over the course of the decade.

Are Batman and 24's Jack Bauer heroic loners defending our way of life - or right-wing vigilantes attacking it? Is Avatarjust a National Geographic version of Star Wars or a passionate assault on capitalism? And what about Game of Thrones- sword and sorcery fantasy, or lesson in mainstream politics? In The Sky is Falling!bestselling cultural critic Peter Biskind takes us on a dizzying ride across two decades of pop culture to show how the TV and movies we love have taught us to love political extremism. Welcome to a darkly pessimistic, apocalyptic world where winter has come, the dead are walking, and ultra violence, revenge and torture are all in a day's work. Welcome to the new normal.

When Tina gets a new pair of socks and refuses to take them off, her friends step in to fix the situation.