Hollywood Connections

It is 1965 in Palo Alto, California, and drama teachers Ted and Excy Wallace are thrilled to finally receive an insurance settlement that will allow the rebuilding of their fire-ravaged Shakespearean Theatre and Learning Centre. With plans to celebrate the Centres opening with an event for the entire community, the Wallaces begin to unite all those behind the scenes who will help make their dreams a reality. After Ted leaves for Los Angeles to secure a deal so his troupe can work during the rebuilding, Excy learns from her sister-in-law that his trip may not be about business after all. While a powerful and seductive woman tries to destroy their marriage, Excy turns her focus to an upcoming meeting with Hal Sonderson, an independent movie studio owner and family friend. Hal wants Ted to help write and Excy to act in his next movie, a retro musical of the Roaring Twenties in Hollywood. Only time will tell if the twists and turns in the Wallaces life together will divide or unify them and their family. In this intriguing tale set during the turbulent sixties in America, four generations of a wealthy California family are unwittingly intertwined by their love for Shakespearean theatre and the Roaring Twenties.

The power and importance of storytelling is now widely accepted, but this book goes further to focus on storymaking. CONNECTION brings together a former scientist, a story consultant, and an improv actor to give you the critical thinking of science combined with a century of Hollywood knowledge in the creation and shaping of stories. The material is relevant to lawyers, politicians, public health workers, educators, activists-- everyone. In today's "Twitterfied" world, CONNECTION provides the narrative tools for effective communication.

This breakout thriller by the master of horror will take its place on the shelf next to other Garton classics like Live Girls and The New Neighbor. This blockbuster is a chilling combination of thrills, terror, black humor, plot reversals, and a climax so shocking it will leave you shaken. Adam Julian, son of a Hollywood screenwriter, has a life many would kill for ... and some would kill to keep. He is tangled in a web of forced sex, coerced into robbery, and it is only a short step to killing as a choice. At the center of the book is a sensational murder trial, which oddly resembles the O. J. Simpson case. The cast features an abrasive, starstruck female judge, blundering prosecuting attorneys, a nerdy defendant who reserves his right to silence, and Rona Horowitz, a pint‑size ball of fire of a defense lawyer. The defendant may be guilty, but energetic Rona tries one outrageous legal stunt after another in order to exonerate her client. Drenched in the glamour and the sleaze of highline and lowlife Hollywood, this satirical and entertaining look at the criminal justice system, turned inside out and upside down by showbiz at its best and worst, is a panorama of crime, corruption, and violence delivered with grim authenticity and hilarious awfulness.

Changing business circumstances have put pressure on film studios and changed the nature of films they produce. This book examines the reaction of the corporations who have found themselves in danger or have perceived new ways of adding to their profitability, influencing the films they produce.

A wonderfully provocative and appealing novel, from the much-loved author of Anywhere But Here and A Regular Guy, her first in ten years. It tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood. Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to LA so her husband can follow his passion for writing television comedy. Suddenly the marriage—once a genuine 50/50 arrangement—changes, with Paul working long hours and Claire left at home with a baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for. Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who is working in America to pay for her own children’s higher education back in the Philippines, becomes their nanny. Lola stabilizes the rocky household and soon other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and “Williamo” remains her own closely guarded secret. In a novel at turns satirical and heartbreaking, where mothers’ modern ideas are given practical overhauls by nannies, we meet Lola’s vast network of fellow caregivers, each with her own story to tell. We see the upstairs competition for the best nanny and the downstairs competition for the best deal, and are forced to ask whether it is possible to buy love for our children and what that transaction costs us all. We look into two contemporary marriages—one in America and one in the Philippines—and witness their endangerment, despite the best of intentions. My Hollywood is a tender, witty, and resonant novel that provides the profound pleasures readers have come to expect from Mona Simpson, here writing at the height of her powers.

This volume details the processes involved in turning raw materials and labour into feature films. Janet Wasko surveys and critiques the policies and structure of the current United States film industry, as well as its relationships to other media industries.

Using film as a lens though which we can witness the global transformations in politics, economy, culture, and communication, this book analyzes Hollywood's shift in its depictions of China and Tibet.

Fully revised, updated, and extended, the fifth edition of Hollywood’s America provides an important compilation of interpretive essays and primary documents that allows students to read films as cultural artifacts within the contexts of actual past events. A new edition of this classic textbook, which ties movies into the broader narrative of US and film history This fifth edition contains nine new chapters, with a greater overall emphasis on recent film history, and new primary source documents which are unavailable online Entries range from the first experiments with motion pictures all the way to the present day Well-organized within a chronological framework with thematic treatments to provide a valuable resource for students of the history of American film