Showing titles in History & Criticism

Experience the ultimate film history journey, tracing visual storytelling from optical parlor tricks to high art. Whether you're upgrading your daily commute or seeking an intellectual deep dive, this immersive chronicle captures the magic of the silver screen. Step behind the camera to see how...

Trace the fascinating technological history of how a crude laboratory experiment completely rewired global pop culture. Whether you are seeking a thought-provoking commute or unwinding with a deeply nostalgic look at the past, this narrative captures the relentless evolution of our living rooms...

Trace the evolution of animation from simple optical toys to the modern CGI revolution in this energetic film history. Perfect for an inspiring commute or a nostalgic escape, this journey reveals how visionary artists taught still drawings to breathe, think, and feel. Step inside the bustling...

Uncover the gripping sociology and media history behind the glowing screen that quietly rewired human consciousness. Perfect for an analytical morning commute, this engaging narrative traces the rise of broadcasting from a fascinating laboratory curiosity into an omnipresent political and...

Experience the captivating evolution of film history, transforming silent shadow play into a global cinematic powerhouse. Whether you need an inspiring deep-focus listen for your morning commute or a nostalgic dive into pop culture, this audio journey captures our relentless desire to share...

Uncover how a dry desert basin transformed into a global metropolis built on cinematic history and ruthless ambition. Perfect for your daily commute, this gripping urban history exposes the raw human engine driving the entertainment capital of the world. Experience the fierce clash between a...

Dive into an immersive cultural history where underground cinema confronts political power and sparks social revolution. Perfect for your daily commute, this deeply researched narrative transforms movie screens into battlegrounds of censorship, class warfare, and digital activism. Whether you...

Experience a thrilling pop culture history of how restless inventors and shrewd moguls built our entertainment empire. Perfect for your daily commute, this immersive narrative transforms dry facts into an energetic saga of technology, money, and art colliding. Whether you are a lifelong...

Um dos mais célebres cineastas contemporâneos, Tarantino parece ser o maior entusiasta vivo do cinema. Em entrevistas, o diretor sempre comentava sobre o desejo de um dia escrever livros sobre filmes. E é isto que o ouvinte tem em mãos agora. Especulações cinematográficas é tudo que os fãs de Tarantino―e todos os cinéfilos―esperavam: uma obra magnífica sobre a sétima arte.

Explore the gripping true crime history of the studio system, where systemic corruption built an empire of deception. From silent film cover-ups to modern streaming scandals, this investigative journey exposes how brutal labor exploitation secretly funded global entertainment. Perfect for your...

Step behind the velvet ropes of classic cinema history to uncover the scandalous power struggles of the studio system. Perfect for your daily commute, this gripping narrative transports you straight to the sun-drenched backlots of early Los Angeles. Experience the ruthless ambition that built a...

Since the murder of Sharon Tate in 1969, the names Charles Manson and Roman Polanski have been brutally linked. But new analysis of the parallel and intertwining stories of these two men reveals a connection that preceded that fateful day. In their early years Manson and Polanski both developed...

From the creator of the highly popular Kardashian Kolloquium comes a new media manifesto for the TikTok age, blending theory and cultural analysis to explain the meteoric rise of the Kardashians and explore what their fame can teach us about the way media functions today “By far the best book...

America’s most trusted and best-known film critic Roger Ebert presents one hundred brilliant essays on some of the best movies ever made. Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, wrote biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offered a fresh and fervent...

Continuing the pitch-perfect critiques begun in The Great Movies, Roger Ebert's The Great Movies II collects 100 additional essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to films with a fresh set of eyes and...

The untold, intimate story of how three young visionaries—Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg—revolutionized American cinema, creating the most iconic films in history while risking everything, redefining friendship, and shaping Hollywood as we know it. "Shaun...

This is the Commemorative Edition of one of the most trusted and respected nonfiction books about Walt Disney ever written! Includes 4 commemorative essays and an endnotes section with insightful passages from 15 Disney historians and authors to provide further context for modern audiences. Walt...

Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Nonfiction AN ALLSTORA'S QUEER HISTORY 101 BOOK CLUB PICK "An absorbing landmark of film criticism.” --The Chicago Tribune, "The 10 Best Books of the Year" A blazingly original history celebrating the persistence of queerness onscreen...

A hilarious, ambitious work of trenchant cultural criticism that traces the origins of today’s crisis of masculinity through . . . Michael Douglas’s oeuvre from the eighties and nineties How to be a Man? That question—and all the anxiety, anger, and resentment it stirs up—is the starting...

A poignant, heartfelt, and funny memoir about how, in 1985, Michael J. Fox brought to life two iconic roles simultaneously—Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties and Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Read by Michael J. Fox, this program features renowned clips from Back to the Future, plus interviews...