Gene Brown

The American Film Institute (AFI) has created a unique reference source that captures the magic and excitement of the movies. Containing a wide range of information about cinema and the film industry, this volume is a feast for the eyes. Its striking and colorful page layouts feature more than 500 photographs and other illustrations and creatively integrate narrative text with sidebars and boxes highlighting miscellaneous facts, quotes, and trivia.
Relying on a small team of contributors (among them several Hollywood celebrities), the editors have produced a six-part compendium beginning with "Movie History," a chronology of motion pictures from 1830 through mid-2002. "Movie Basics" covers the fundamental components of the film industry, while "Movie Crafts" focuses on the skills and terminology involved in moviemaking, ranging from writing and directing to designing costumes and editing. Featuring brief biographies of principal figures, "People in Film" is subdivided by professions, such as actors, directors, and special-effects artists. "Films" includes lists of winners of major film awards, annotated versions of several of the AFI's lists of best movies, movie quotations, and brief overviews of cinema in other countries. The final section, "Sources," provides directories of studios, organizations, film schools, and other institutions associated with the film industry as well as lists of recommended publications and online resources.… (más)

It is facinating to reread this book 20 years later and see how so much of what is predicted has already taken place. There is a great deal of emphasis on combinations of people living together. During the past 20 years there was the sitcom about 4 older Florida women sharing a house, making a family that is often in reruns. As a member of the "New Elders" I find one sentence especially meaningful page 234 "the New Elders are much more tentative than their assertive children were. The seem to be feeling their way carefully through the strange new land of extended old age."… (más)