Product Description: This book is written for people who aren't lawyers and who are thinking about going to family court, who are already involved with a family law case, or who have a family member or friend involved in a pending or active family law case...read more

"We need good screenwriters who understand character." Everywhere Andrew Horton traveled in researching this book—from Hollywood to Hungary—he heard the same refrain. Yet most of the standard how-to books on screenwriting follow the film industry's earlier lead in focusing almost exclusively on plot and formulaic structures.With this book, Horton, a film scholar and successful screenwriter, provides the definitive work on the character-based screenplay. Exceptionally wide-ranging—covering American, international, mainstream, and "off-Hollywood" films, as well as television—the book offers creative strategies and essential practical information.Horton begins by placing screenwriting in the context of the storytelling tradition, arguing through literary and cultural analysis that all great stories revolve around a strong central character. He then suggests specific techniques and concepts to help any writer—whether new or experienced—build more vivid characters and screenplays. Centering his discussion around four film examples—including Thelma & Louise and The Silence of the Lambs—and the television series, Northern Exposure, he takes the reader step-by-step through the screenwriting process, starting with the development of multi-dimensional characters and continuing through to rewrite. Finally, he includes a wealth of information about contests, fellowships, and film festivals.Espousing a new, character-based approach to screenwriting, this engaging, insightful work will prove an essential guide to all of those involved in the writing and development of film scripts.

Product Description: Play It Again, Sam is a timely investigation of a topic that until now has received almost no critical attention in film and cultural studies: the cinematic remake. As cinema enters its second century, more remakes are appearing than ever before, and these writers consider the full range: Hollywood films that have been recycled by Hollywood, such as The Jazz Singer, Cape Fear, and Robin Hood; foreign films including Breathless; and Three Men and a Baby, which Hollywood has reworked for American audiences; and foreign films based on American works, among them Yugoslav director Emir Kusturica's Time of the Gypsies, which is a "makeover" of Coppola's Godfather films...read more

Product Description: Buster Keaton's "Sherlock Jr." focuses on a classic by one of America's greatest silent film geniuses, whose films still delight and amaze audiences worldwide. The essays included in this volume, written specially for this edition, examine this film within the context of Keaton's career, and also offer new perspectives on its unusual production history, Keaton's vaudeville background, and the differing views of "masculinity" that both celebrate and poke fun at cinema itself, among other topics...read more

Product Description: BONES IN THE SEA follows what life is like on a Greek island in 1987 as an American family of three decide to take "time off" from routine life in the United States and simply settle into island life as the Greeks have known it for thousands of years! More than a travel book, this is a "what if we took the family and lived in a completely different place and way for a short time" narrative that covers a lot of Greek local and national culture as well...read more

Inside Soviet Film Satire: Laughter with a Lash is a lively collection of sixteen original essays by Soviet, American, and Canadian scholars and film commentators. It is the first in-depth examination of an important genre within the Soviet film tradition. From its origins, humor and satire have been closely linked in Soviet cinema. Nowhere in this tradition is there the pure comic genre typified in the West in films by Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton; by contrast, Soviet comedy can best be described as "laughter with a lash." Films made during the early years of the communist regime depicted characters and situations at a moment when the promise of socialism had yet to be realized. By the final years of totalitarian rule, filmmakers had found ways to create satirical films that powerfully indicted communism itself.

Product Description: The nature of comedy has interested many thinkers, from Plato to Freud, but film comedy has not received much theoretical attention in recent years. The essays in Comedy/Cinema/Theory use a range of critical and theoretical approaches to explore this curious and fascinating subject...read more