Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies

From Publishers Weekly
Multimedia book expert Garner (Stay Tuned; And the Crowd Goes Wild; We Interrupt This Broadcast, etc.) turns his eye from TV and radio to film in his latest "best of" compilation. Garner admits up front that certain studios prohibited him from using films for this book, so his list of the silver screen's 25 "unforgettable moments" is necessarily limited. Nonetheless, it's a fine assemblage of memorable movies. Beginning with 1939's The Wizard of Oz and ending with 2001 and 2002's Lord of the Rings movies, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, Garner shares a few film stills and discusses the cast, crew and filming specifics. For example, in the chapter on Field of Dreams, Garner details the difficulty of finding the right location for shooting and in Some Like It Hot he explains that Tony Curtis's famous, mid-seduction leg lift was designed to avoid the ire of Hollywood censors. Though hardly comprehensive, this is still a fun look at American cinema's evolution, complete with a DVD featuring commentary from Dustin Hoffman. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Some of our fondest memories come from the movies. Dorothy melting the Wicked Witch of the West. A bruised and battered Rocky crying out ?A-DRI-AN!? Thelma and Louise flying off a Grand Canyon cliff in their airborne T-Bird. From our seat in the darkened theater, movies have miraculously transported us to other places, other times, other worlds. We?ve followed Indiana Jones on his quest for the lost ark, fallen in love with Ingrid and Marilyn and Meg, and battled a fiery Balrog in Middle Earth.The images emanating from the big screen have seared these moments into our hearts and imaginations, becoming memories that last a lifetime. Nearly everyone can name a favorite film and any number of beloved scenes, and Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies makes it possible to relive those special movie memories again and again.Based on the successful multimedia format of Stay Tuned: Television?s Unforgettable Moments, Now Showing focuses on 25 memorable film moments. Each story in the 192-page hardcover book is filled with firsthand insights and entertaining behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and numerous sidebars reveal hundreds of other magical movie moments. Now Showing is illustrated with over 200 compelling star-filled photographs, and best of all, the accompanying DVD, hosted by a major motion picture star, contains the actual treasured and time-honored scenes from each film. The only thing that readers need to bring to the experience is the popcorn!From Casablanca to The Graduate, The Exorcist to E.T., On the Waterfront to Pulp Fiction, Dirty Harry to The Matrix: The stars and performances you?ll never forget are found in Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the Movies, the latest multimedia collection from Joe Garner.


About the Author
Joe Garner, a pioneer in multimedia publishing, is the author of Stay Tuned: Television's Unforgettable Moments. Joe also wrote the New York Times best-sellers We Interrupt This Broadcast, And The Crowd Goes Wild, and And the Fans Roared, as well as Echoes of Notre Dame Football. Each of these multimedia compilations includes the actual landmark broadcasts that indelibly etched these moments in readers' imaginations. Joe is a 20-year radio-broadcast veteran and the president of Garner Creative Concepts Inc. in Los Angeles. He's a frequent guest on radio and national television shows, including the Today show and Larry King Live. Garner's books are also best-sellers in Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.


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This book's title is misleading: instead of describing great scenes from many films, Garner targets and briefly analyzes a mere 25 movies, not moments. Taken from those films, the scenes with the "unforgettable moments" are shown on an accompanying Dustin Hoffman-hosted DVD. While Garner (And the Fans Roared) admits to inclusion based on subjectivity and permission from stars and studios, it is nevertheless disconcerting to find him beginning with The Wizard of Oz (1939) and having no entries between Casablanca (1942) and On the Waterfront (1954). Nineteen of the films were released between 1970 (Five Easy Pieces) and 2001 (The Lord of the Rings). Do There's Something About Mary and Cast Away really merit inclusion? Thelma & Louise? Why is Rocky followed by a summary of great boxing films without mention of The Set-Up (1949)? Wasn't David Morse, not Jack Nicholson, given the acting kudos for The Crossing Guard? This coffee-table book is bound to irritate cineastes, but the plethora of information it contains and its numerous outstanding photos can make it an optional purchase for public libraries.-Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Liability Underwriters, Malvern, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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