Not to Be Missed

As a child in 1950s Brooklyn, Kenneth Turan often turned to television programs like "Million Dollar Movie" on WOR-TV. Featuring a much-loved theme song from "Gone with the Wind," "Million Dollar Movie" would run one feature film twice a day, every day, all week. It was there that he developed a lif [...]
Visa längre beskrivning

As a child in 1950s Brooklyn, Kenneth Turan often turned to television programs like "Million Dollar Movie" on WOR-TV. Featuring a much-loved theme song from "Gone with the Wind," "Million Dollar Movie" would run one feature film twice a day, every day, all week. It was there that he developed a life-long love of the world of the movies. One of the most discerning critics writing today, Kenneth Turan offers insights that are sure to delight and inspire movie-lovers of all kinds in his latest book, "Not To Be Missed." As sophisticated and illuminating as the films they discuss, Turan's sketches are a blend of cultural analysis, historical anecdote and sordid Hollywood controversy, astute critical appraisals, all suffused with his abiding love for the silver screen. Turan's favorite films range across all genres, low and high. From "All About Eve" to "Seven Samurai" to "Spirited Away," these are now timeless films--classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small--each as interesting as the lives of the authors and actors that made the usually two-or-so-hour-long cinematic experience itself. Ernst Lubitsch loved to act out the scenes he was shooting in front of his cast. Laurence Olivier's torrid love affair with Vivien Leigh was the only reason he agreed to play the part of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice." John Boorman once said that "watching film is very like dreaming," and truly, the highly-stylized violence of "Point Blank" dares its audience to reconsider what they've seen on the screen.