★ Believe
Fans of beloved hit television series Ted Lasso will delightedly embrace Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso, the Show That Kicked Its Way Into Our Hearts.
Part oral history, part cultural analysis, Believe is an entertaining and insightful behind-the-scenes tour in which New York Times television editor Jeremy Egner offers a wealth of interviews with key players as he reflects on Ted Lasso’s origins as a 2013 commercial; standout influences and episodes (e.g., the divisively trippy “Beard After Hours”); and its rocket-like ascension to national-treasure status.
Like Ted Lasso, Believe brims with enthusiasm, sports-talk and fun. As Egner writes, “It’s a story, appropriately enough, of teamwork, of hidden talent, of a group of friends looking around at the world’s increasingly nasty discourse and deciding that, as corny as it sounds, maybe simple decency and a few laughs still had the power to bring people together.” Believe is a winning read about a stellar show.
★ Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work is an upbeat, photo-packed tribute to the famous filmmaker, written with wit and warmth by British film critic Ian Nathan.
Nathan believes Spielberg is “the medium’s defining artist. Indeed, the embodiment of the Hollywood ideal: the commercial potential of film married to its creative possibilities. Art and commerce.” He proves his point as he traces the filmmaker’s development as director, producer and writer over his 50-plus year career, from his earliest films (1971’s Duel, his first feature-length film) to his most personal work to date, 2022’s semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans.
Analysis of the auteur’s favorite collaborators and common themes offers illuminating context, and reveals a bounty of nitty-gritty details about Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hook, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Lincoln and more. Photos and movie posters amp up the fun, and even Nathan’s captions offer fresh insight. Steven Spielberg will absolutely intrigue and enchant fans of “the man with the universal touch.”
Box Office Poison
There’s always high drama on movie sets, thanks to the studio politics, budget-busting sets and creative intensity that swirls around them. Sometimes a hit is born, but other times, as film critic Tim Robey writes in Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops, one must wonder, “What the hell were they thinking?”
Robey spotlights 26 cinematic “weirdos, outcasts, misfits, [and] freaks” via well-informed, gleefully snarky takes on what went wrong and what we might learn from flops. Intolerance (1916) exemplifies the “giant folly of trying to be a one-man film studio”; Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) was waterlogged; and Cats (2019) suffered from “the buttholes” and endless production problems.
Robey notes that many flops become cult classics or are eventually recognized as misunderstood, and due to streaming, it’s become difficult to quantify losses and thereby designate a new ultimate bomb. But on the upside, our cord-cutting world has also made it easier than ever for cinephiles riding high on the spirited Box Office Poison to experience the movies Robey deems “turkeys.”
★ Hollywood Pride
In his wonderfully wide-ranging encyclopedia of 130 years of movie history, Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film, film critic Alonso Duralde “hope[s] to pay tribute to artists whose contributions on both sides of the camera have been essential to cinema history while also spotlighting films that have told queer stories and/or had special resonance with queer audiences.”
Mission accomplished: This chronological compendium examines filmic LGBTQ+ representation in key eras like the years after World War II, when “gay men were among the biggest stars in Hollywood, even if almost no one outside the industry knew it”; and the “opening of the floodgates” after 2005’s Brokeback Mountain. There are vivid photos and sidebars galore, and lists of notable films and artists, too.
Hollywood Pride is a well-written, visually appealing cultural history: a book to learn from, gaze at and celebrate that “as long as there is a cinema . . . we will continue to exist and to thrive and to create.”
The Worlds of George R.R. Martin
George R.R. Martin fans—especially those who wish they lived in Westeros—will clamor for Tom Huddleston’s The Worlds of George R.R. Martin: The Inspirations Behind Game of Thrones, which illuminates the creative process of the much-loved author of the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.
Huddleston ponders “What sources—historical, literary and personal—did [Martin] draw upon in the writing, and what inspiration did they give him?” He notes that Martin’s writing has a “sprawling, breathtaking sense of scale” that draws readers in, and certainly echoes that scope and intensity here as he delves into the creation of the hugely popular series, considers how it was translated into TV shows Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, and assesses its place in pop culture.
Fans who want to spend even more time in Martin’s medieval-esque world will treasure The Worlds of George R.R. Martin: It’s a well-researched, engagingly written and visually immersive experience.