An industry insider draws on interviews with more than one hundred top names in independent film to counsel aspiring filmmakers on everything from common first-time mistakes and investment strategies to production myths and festival challenges. Original.

Real trials and courtroom movies are made for each other. Lawyers are storytellers, courtrooms are theaters, and the trial process provides drama, surprise, suspense or comedy. This book will serve as a video guide to help you identify the courtroom movies you'd like to see. It ranks each of the films on a one- to four- gavel system, with four gavels for the classics. And it answers the questions you'll be asking as you see the films. Where does truth end and trickery begin? Can lawyers really pull rabbits out of hats with unexpected courtroom stunts? Did the trial process reveal the truth-or conceal it? How well do reel trials reflect real events? These are just some of the topics you'll encounter as the authors analyze over 200 courtroom movies, including such classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, My Cousin Vinny, 12 Angry Men, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. An index at the back of the book lists all of the films reviewed in the book. The book celebrates the courtroom genre that has intrigued viewers around the world. The authors will entertain and educate you on a fascinating journey through nine decades of reel law, lawyers and justice.

Publisher Description

All too often, highly fictionalized cinematic depictions of the past are accepted as the unassailable truth by those unfamiliar with the "real" account. This book profiles sixty movies that portray actual moments in history, and compares the mythologized account of each event to what really happened. Movies chronicled include The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, A Man for All Seasons, Gladiator, Gandhi, Apollo 13, The Thin Red Line, Dances with Wolves, Braveheart, The Last Emperor, All the Presidents Men, Mutiny on the Bounty, Gone with the Wind, Bonnie & Clyde, Patton, and Elizabeth. Sanello also contrasts several historical figures with their filmed treatments, including Julius Caesar, Henry V, Christopher Columbus, Joan of Arc, Sir Thomas More, Jesus Christ, Catherine the Great, Sigmund Freud, and Harry Houdini. Lavishly illustrated with sixty film stills, Reel v. Real shows how a happening's genuine details are frequently reshaped and distorted by Hollywood's bottomless appetite for over-the-top flamboyance and melodrama.

Award-Winning Wall Street Journal bestselling author Kennedy Ryan launches a brand-new series with a Hollywood tale of wild ambition, artistic obsession, and unrelenting love. One moment in the spotlight . . . For months I stood by, an understudy waiting in the wings, preparing for my time to shine. I never imagined he would watch in the audience that night. Canon Holt. Famous film director. Fascinating. Talented. Fine Before I could catch my breath, everything changed. I went from backstage Broadway to center stage Hollywood. From being unknown, to my name, Neevah Saint, on everyone’s lips. Canon casts me in a star-studded Harlem Renaissance biopic, catapulting me into another stratosphere. But stars shine brightest in the dead of night. Forbidden attraction, scandal and circumstances beyond my control jeopardize my dream. Could this one shot—the role of a lifetime, the love of a lifetime—cost me everything?

Winner of the History of Science Society's Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize in the History of Science. From the early exploits of Teddy Roosevelt in Africa to blockbuster films such as March of the Penguins, Gregg Mitman's Reel Nature reveals how changing values, scientific developments, and new technologies have come to shape American encounters with wildlife on and off the big screen. Whether crafted to elicit thrills or to educate audiences about the real-life drama of threatened wildlife, nature films then and now have had an enormous impact on how Americans see, think about, consume, and struggle to protect animals across the globe. For more information about the author go to: http://gmitman.com/