The Adventures Of Cinema Dave In The Florida Motion Picture World

The Adventures of Cinema Dave is a celebration of films from the turn of the recent century. Dave Montalbano, alias Cinema Dave, wrote over 500 film reviews and interviewed Hollywood Legends such as Fay Wray, Louise Fletcher, Dyan Cannon and new talent like Josh Hutcherson, Jane Lynch and Courtney Ford. With South Florida as his home base, Cinema Dave details his growing involvement with the Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Delray Film Festivals, while covering local interest stories about individuals who contribute to the film culture. Featuring a fun introduction from Cindy Morgan, actress from Caddyshack and Tron fame, and an extensive appendix of Literary Cinema, The Adventures of Cinema Dave is a saga about one mans bibliomania and his pursuit of an entertaining story in the big cave known as cinema.

"The entire field of film historians awaits the AFI volumes with eagerness."--Eileen Bowser, Museum of Modern Art Film Department Comments on previous volumes: "The source of last resort for finding socially valuable . . . films that received such scant attention that they seem 'lost' until discovered in the AFI Catalog."--Thomas Cripps "Endlessly absorbing as an excursion into cultural history and national memory."--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

After more than fifteen years, this initial volume of the American Film Institute Catalog series is again in print. The 1920s set covers the important filmmaking period when "movies" became "talkies," and the careers of many influential directors and actors were launched. Films such as Wings, The Phantom of the Opera, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Jazz Singer are included in this volume.

From 1937 through 1945, Hollywood produced over 1,000 films relating to the war. This enormous and exhaustive reference work first analyzes the war films as sociopolitical documents. Part one, entitled “The Crisis Abroad, 1937–1941,” focuses on movies that reflected America’s increasing uneasiness. Part two, “Waging War, 1942–1945,” reveals that many movies made from 1942 through 1945 included at least some allusion to World War II.

“A thoroughly captivating behind-the-scenes history of classic American animation . . . A must-read for all fans of the medium.” —Matt Groening In 1911, famed cartoonist Winsor McCay debuted one of the first animated cartoons, based on his sophisticated newspaper strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” itself inspired by Freud’s recent research on dreams. McCay is largely forgotten today, but he unleashed an art form, and the creative energy of artists from Otto Messmer and Max Fleischer to Walt Disney and Warner Bros.’ Chuck Jones. Their origin stories, rivalries, and sheer genius, as Reid Mitenbuler skillfully relates, were as colorful and subversive as their creations—from Felix the Cat to Bugs Bunny to feature films such as Fantasia—which became an integral part and reflection of American culture over the next five decades. Pre-television, animated cartoons were aimed squarely at adults; comic preludes to movies, they were often “little hand grenades of social and political satire.” Early Betty Boop cartoons included nudity; Popeye stories contained sly references to the injustices of unchecked capitalism. During WWII, animation also played a significant role in propaganda. The Golden Age of animation ended with the advent of television, when cartoons were sanitized to appeal to children and help advertisers sell sugary breakfast cereals. Wild Minds is an ode to our colorful past and to the creative energy that later inspired The Simpsons, South Park, and BoJack Horseman. “A quintessentially American story of daring ambition, personal reinvention and the eternal tug-of-war of between art and business . . . a gem for anyone wanting to understand animation’s origin story.” —NPR

The history of international cinema is now available in a concise, conveniently sized, and affordable volume. Succinct yet comprehensive, A Short History of Film provides an accessible overview of the major movements, directors, studios, and genres from the 1880s to the present. More than 250 rare stills and illustrations accompany the text, bringing readers face to face with many of the key players and films that have marked the industry. Beginning with precursors of what we call moving pictures, Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster lead a fast-paced tour through the invention of the kinetoscope, the introduction of sound and color between the two world wars, and ultimately the computer generated imagery of the present day. They detail significant periods in world cinema, including the early major industries in Europe, the dominance of the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and 1940s, and the French New Wave of the 1960s. Special attention is also given to small independent efforts in developing nations and the corresponding more personal independent film movement that briefly flourished in the United States, the significant filmmakers of all nations, censorship and regulation and how they have affected production everywhere, and a wide range of studios and genres. Along the way, the authors take great care to incorporate the stories of women and other minority filmmakers who have often been overlooked in other texts. Compact and easily readable, this is the best one-stop source for the history of world film available to students, teachers, and general audiences alike.

With more than 250 images, new information on international cinema—especially Polish, Chinese, Russian, Canadian, and Iranian filmmakers—an expanded section on African-American filmmakers, updated discussions of new works by major American directors, and a new section on the rise of comic book movies and computer generated special effects, this is the most up to date resource for film history courses in the twenty-first century.