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A New Yorker, Roth's uncles worked in the radio business, so she started writing comedy for some of their clients, such as Art Carney. In 1958 she joined United Artists, becoming one of the first female executives at a major Hollywood studio. She rose to the head of UA's development department, a post she held for more than 10 years before moving to do development work at Playboy Productions. After leaving Playboy, she went on to teach screenwriting at USC's film school. She was apparently a good teacher: her son Eric won an Academy Award for his screenplay, Forrest Gump. Roth died March 7 from cancer. She was 81. From This is True for 3 March 2002 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Mark Harris List Price: $27.95 Amazon Price: $18.45 Editorial Review: An epic account of how the revolution hit Hollywood, told through the stories of the five films nominated for the 1967 Academy Awards The year is 1963. The studios are churning out westerns, war movies, prudish sex comedies and overblown historical epics, but audiences whose interests have been piqued by an influx of innovative films from abroad are hungering for something more, something new. At Esquire, two young writers hatch a plan to create a movie treatment that they hope will attract the director Fran¨ois Truffaut: the story of the gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Mike Nichols, an improvisatory comedian turned neophyte theater director, gets his hands on an obscure first novel called The Graduate and wonders if he's ready to make the jump to Hollywood. Warren Beatty, just 26 years old and struggling through a series of flops after the success of Splendor in the Grass, decides to take his career into his own hands, but can't seem to settle on his next move. Dustin Hoffman, sleeping on friends' floors and scrounging for temp work in New York, struggles just to get an off-Broadway audition. Sidney Poitier, after two dozen movies, still yearns for something that seems completely unattainable: a good role. And 20th Century Fox, on the brink of financial catastrophe, puts all its hopes in a genre-the family musical-that will revitalize the company and then nearly destroy it again. Pictures at a Revolution tracks five movies-the milestones Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, the popular hits Guess Who's Coming To Dinner and In the Heat of the Night, and the big-budget disaster Doctor Dolittle-on their five-year journey to Oscar night in the spring of 1968. It follows their fortunes through the last days of the studio system and the first sparks of a cultural upheaval that would launch maverick new stars and directors, topple more than one industry titan from his pedestal, and redefine what American movies could be. In 1967, moviegoers witnessed the arrival of taboo-shattering sex and violence on screen, the debuts of Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway, the return of Katharine Hepburn and the poignant farewell of Spencer Tracy, the audacious risks taken by Warren Beatty, Arthur Penn, Mike Nichols and Norman Jewison, and Hollywood's agonized attempt to grapple with an incendiary moment in American race relations, with results that would change Sidney Poitier's career forever. By tracing the gambles, the stumbles, the clashes and the creative partnerships that produced these films, Mark Harris captures both the twilight of old Hollywood and the dawn of a new golden age in studio filmmaking. Based on unprecedented access to the actors, directors, screenwriters, producers and executives whose movies defined the era, as well a wealth of previously unexplored archival material, Pictures at a Revolution is an utterly original, revealing, and entertaining history of a true cultural watershed.  By: Robert Rodriguez List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $10.20  By: Deborah Nadoolman Landis List Price: $75.00 Amazon Price: $47.25 Editorial Review: From the lavish productions of Hollywood's Golden Age through the high-tech blockbusters of today, the most memorable movies all have one thing in common: they rely on the magical transformations rendered by the costume designer. Whether spectacular or subtle, elaborate or barely there, a movie costume must be more than merely a perfect fit. Each costume speaks a language all its own, communicating mood, personality, and setting, and propelling the action of the movie as much as a scripted line or synthetic clap of thunder. More than a few acting careers have been launched on the basis of an unforgettable costume, and many an era defined by the intuition of a costume designer—think curvy Mae West in I'm No Angel (Travis Banton, costume designer), Judy Garland in A Star is Born (Jean Louis and Irene Sharaff, costume designers), Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (Ruth Morley, costume designer), or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer). In Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, Academy Award-nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis showcases one hundred years of Hollywood's most tantalizing costumes and the characters they helped bring to life. Drawing on years of extraordinary research, Landis has uncovered both a treasure trove of costume sketches and photographs—many of them previously unpublished—and a dazzling array of first-person anecdotes that inform and enhance the images. Along the way she also provides and eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of the costume designer's art, from its emergence as a key element of cinematic collaboration to its limitless future in the era of CGI. A lavish tribute that mingles words and images of equal luster, Dressed is one book no film and fashion lover should be without.  By: David Bordwell List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $16.47 Editorial Review: Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in today's bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable tradition--one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960, from romantic comedies like Jerry Maguire and Love Actually to more imposing efforts like A Beautiful Mind. He also draws upon testimony from writers, directors, and editors who are acutely conscious of employing proven principles of plot and visual style. Within the limits of the "classical" approach, innovation can flourish. Bordwell examines how imaginative filmmakers have pushed the premises of the system in films such as JFK, Memento, and Magnolia. He discusses generational, technological, and economic factors leading to stability and change in Hollywood cinema and includes close analyses of selected shots and sequences. As it ranges across four decades, examining classics like American Graffiti and The Godfather as well as recent success like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, this book provides a vivid and engaging interpretation of how Hollywood moviemakers have created a vigorous, resourceful tradition of cinematic storytelling that continues to engage audiences around the world.  By: Adam Weiner List Price: $17.95 Amazon Price: $13.28 Editorial Review: Don’t Try This At Home! The Physics of Hollywood Movies is a fresh look at the basics of physics through the filmmaker’s lens. It will deconstruct, demystify, and debunk popular Hollywood films through the scientific explanations of the action genre’s most dynamic and unforgettable scenes.
Sample movie sequence and related physics concepts:
In ""Speed,"" a city bus going over 50 mph jumps over a 50-foot chasm--successfully. An examination of force, acceleration, Newton's Laws, impulse, momentum, and projectile motion follows. |
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