A must-have book for all fans of Lord of the Rings from Sean Astin who plays the loyal and reliable Samwise Gamgee.

An intimate memoir by the controversial, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Oliver Stone Before moving to Los Angeles and the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while working odd jobs in Manhattan. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the highs and lows: meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's early scripts; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction; the failure of his first feature; his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and much more. Chasing the Light is a true insider's guide to Hollywood's razor-edged years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s with untold stories of decade-defining films from the man behind the camera.

A "lively" memoir by the Hollywood legend about the making of Spartacus , with a foreword by George Clooney ( Los Angeles Times ). One of the world's most iconic movie stars, Kirk Douglas has distinguished himself as a producer, philanthropist, and author of ten works of fiction and memoir. Now, more than fifty years after the release of his enduring epic Spartacus , Douglas reveals the riveting drama behind the making of the legendary gladiator film. Douglas began producing the movie in the midst of the politically charged era when Hollywood's moguls refused to hire anyone accused of Communist sympathies. In a risky move, Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted screenwriter, to write Spartacus . Trumbo was one of the "Unfriendly Ten," men who had gone to prison rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about their political affiliations. Douglas's source material was already a hot property, as the novel Spartacus was written by Howard Fast while he was in jail for defying HUAC. With the financial future of his young family at stake, Douglas plunged into a tumultuous production both on- and off-screen. As both producer and star of the film, he faced explosive moments with young director Stanley Kubrick, struggles with a leading lady, and negotiations with giant personalities, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, and Lew Wasserman. Writing from his heart and from his own meticulously researched archives, Kirk Douglas, at ninety-five, looks back at his audacious decisions. He made the most expensive film of its era--but more importantly, his moral courage in giving public credit to Trumbo effectively ended the notorious Hollywood blacklist. A master storyteller, Douglas paints a vivid and often humorous portrait in I Am Spartacus! The book is enhanced by newly discovered period photography of the stars and filmmakers both on and off the set.

Jon Landau, the Academy Award-winning film producer behind Titanic, Avatar, Alita: Battle Angel, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Dick Tracy, knew two things well: how to tell an unforgettable story and how to find solutions. So, when he found himself confronting his fate, a diagnosis of improbable odds, he began to problem solve, ensuring that everything he learned behind the camera would live on after he was gone.In his retrospective and advice-driven memoir, Landau shares behind-the-scenes stories about some of the greatest movies of our time and advice on how to live well while working in a notoriously all-consuming job by centering the things that mattered to him most--his love for his family and his dedication to his friends and creative partners--turning his own story into another blockbuster hit.The Bigger Picture is at once a deeply poignant memoir, a tribute to storytelling in its many forms, and a celebration of a life well lived, told from the third act. Imbued with Landau's trademark compassion, humanity, and humor, the stories he shares and the wisdom he imparts in The Bigger Picture will inspire, delight, and touch the hearts of readers for years to come.

“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.”— The New York Times Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind —and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave. Praise for You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again “One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.” — The Boston Globe “Gossip too hot for even the National Enquirer . . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.” — Los Angeles Magazine “A blistering look at La La Land.” —USA Today “One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.” —People

To movie audiences, the work of Andrew Marton (born in Hungary in 1904) is memorable: the famous chariot race in Ben-Hur and the meticulously accurate Normandy invasion in The Longest Day are two of his important achievements. But because his credits were very often "Second Unit Director" or "Co-Director," Marton is often not immediately associated with his work. For the first time this oral history reveals just what were Andrew Marton's contributions to the cinema. This extensive interview, filled with great detail on how he did his movie magic, covers Marton's 55-year career. Technically clever, he always retained his humanity, humor, and humaneness.

Spanning three continents and four countries, Shooting Water is the remarkable story of the making of Water , the Academy Award-Nominated Film by Deepa Mehta. In February 2000, Devyani Saltzman traveled to the holy city of Benares, India, to reunite with her estranged mother, international award-winning filmmaker Deepa Mehta, and to work on her latest film, Water . But after only a week of shooting, the film became the target of a series of politically-motivated attacks. Protestors destroyed the sets, burned effigies of the director, and made threats on her life. Water was shut down. What began as a journey to heal deep wounds from the past turned into a five-year odyssey to complete a film. This edition includes a new Epilogue by the author, chronicling Waterâs triumph after its tumultuous birth: first, opening the Toronto International Film Festival; then, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and, finally, coming full circle with the filmâs national release in India. Reviews: âMore than a document exposing the emergence of deeper feelings between the two women, Shooting Water is a detailed chronicle of the making of one of the most controversial films in Canadian history. In fact, Saltzman marvelously dissects the cultural and political complexities of Indiaâ¦â â The Globe and Mail âA lush, evocative memoir.â â Publishers Weekly (starred review) âA must readâ¦Beautiful and haunting.â - Montreal Gazette âA winner. Shooting Water is a powerful document that examines the nature of rupture, and the capacity of human beings to reach out and rework relationships through love.â - The Sunday Tribune (India) ââ¦A poignant memoir.â - The New York Times ââ¦Saltzman proves herself a deft writer in this deeply evocative memoir.â - Cleveland Plain Dealer âA languid and sensuous exploration of the subcontinent through the eyes of an estranged daughter." - Kirkus Reviews âA gripping memoir. Itâs impossible not to be drawn into the surprisingly revealing journey. â - Inside Entertainment

Peter Morley's memoirs span a remarkable career, in which he has garnered twelve international programme awards and an OBE for services to television, and offer a unique insight into the changing face of television. With over 200 credits to his name, he started, aged sixteen, as a rewind-boy in the projection box of London's Dominion Theatre - having left Hitler's Germany in 1933. Wartime service in a tank, which took him from France to Belgium, Holland, and finally Berlin, was followed by a steady rise from film editing to writing and directing documentary films. In 1955, as ITV was about to go on the air, Morley took the plunge and joined Associated-Rediffusion as a freelance television director/producer, responsible for a wide-ranging mix of programmes. By 1959, with fifty programmes to his name, he embarked on ITV's first opera, a live studio production of The Turn of the Screw. Sir Kenneth Clark, Chairman of the Arts Council, wrote: 'As a work of art I think it is the best thing the medium has ever produced.' Morley's sixty-minute documentaries for ITV soon became a regular feature. They included Tyranny - The Years of Adolf Hitler, which contained interviews with Hitler's sister, his adjutant, pilot and chauffeur. In 1960 he produced This Week, ITV's long running weekly current affairs programme, winning his first BAFTA. The controversial documentary Black Marries White - The Last Barrier marked a new impressionistic style of programme-making, the documentary LSO - The Music Men similarly dispensed with narration, and his live five-hour broadcast of The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill was awarded the Cannes Grand Prix. Peter Morley's fascination for historical subjects yielded a host of different programmes - including his twelve-part The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten, for the BBC the thirteen-part The Mighty Continent - A History of Europe in the 20th Century, and for Yorkshire Television the four-part Women of Courage, featuring remarkable women who shared an instinctive compulsion to fight the Nazis. Peter Morley's memorable Kitty - Return to Auschwitz is described by many as 'a television classic', and received five international awards. A founding trustee of BAFTA, Peter Morley is renowned as a film-maker par excellence - and a key figure in the history of television. Bank House Books is proud to publish his memoirs.