Books published by Crescent Moon Publishing

JOHN HUGHES AND EIGHTIES CINEMA John Hughes is the acclaimed writer and director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink and many other classic movies of the 1980s. This book is the first full-length analysis of all of John Hughes's films throughout the 1980s; not only the features that he directed, but also those for which he provided the screenplay. By analysing these pictures and discussing their social and cultural significance in the wider context of the decade, Hughes's importance as a filmmaker will be considered, and his prominent contribution to cinema assessed. The book concludes with a detailed analysis of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a film which is considered to be among Hughes's most critically successful works and also one of his most structurally refined. The new edition has been updated and revised in the wake of John Hughes' death in 2009. Full illustrated. With bibliography, filmography and notes. 372 pages. ISBN 9781861713896. www.crmoon.com REVIEW ON AMAZON If like me, you were fortunate enough to live through and grow up during the 80's and early 90's, you'll remember just how rich comedy was back then. This book on it's own puts most comedies of the modern era to shame as it is a homage to one of the most talented minds in the game. I am of course speaking of none other than the late great John Hughes. This is a great book for getting into the details of how a master of his art came about and created such cinematic gems. Hughes will be sorely missed which is why books like this keep his spirit and work alive! I'd say this book is for people who are nostalgic 20-somethings or cinema buffs, but all-round a good book for just about anyone who would like to know what made one of the funniest minds of Hollywood tick. EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION Think of the American cinema of the 1980s, and your mind is instantly bombarded by dozens and dozens of flamboyant moving images from this most distinctive of cinematic decades. You might be thinking of films which became classics such as Irvin Kershner's The Empire Strikes (1980), Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future (1985), or possibly even Tim Burton's Batman (1989). It was a decade that gave birth to some film franchises - one need only call to mind John Rambo's explosive first appearance in Ted Kotcheff's First Blood (1982), the harrowing exploits of Officer Murphy in Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987), or even the improbably long-running knockabout antics of Cadet Mahoney and his fellow recruits which began with Hugh Wilson's Police Academy (1984). It was against this creatively abundant background of the Eighties film world that audiences were first introduced to the work of influential director and screenwriter John Hughes (1950-2009).

JASPER JOHNS A revised and updated introduction to the art of Jasper Johns. Illustrated. www.crmoon.com American artist Jasper Johns was born in 1930 in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Allendale, South Carolina. He moved to New York City in 1949, where he remained for much of his life (more recently he has lived in Connecticut). Johns was associated with artists such as Marcel Duchamp, one of his heroes, and Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he lived in 1950s. His ¿rst solo show was in 1958 (at Leo Castelli in Gotham). Johns has become one of the U.S.A.'s premier artists, guaranteed a mention in any critical study or art history book of modern art and contemporary art, American art, and avant garde art. Jasper Johns' reputation was greatly enhanced in the late Eighties by the boom in the economics of the art world: on November 9, 1988, Johns' White Flag fetched $7 million in a sale of the Burton and Emily Tremaine collection. Johns' False Start went for $17 million the following day, from Victor W. Ganz's collection. These were huge prices for a living artist. Jasper Johns works very closely with his paintings, becoming absorbed totally in the surfaces, as a his friend Michael Crichton wrote: when he is working, Jasper is totally concentrated on those surfaces. He lives in those surfaces. The surfaces are his whole world, they are everything. He loses himself in them. They are everything. Jasper Johns works intuitively, instinctively: 'One works without thinking how to work,' he has said. And: 'I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.' Johns has faith in the power of the unconscious: it would work out what needed to be done: 'The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.'

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: POCKET MOVIE GUIDE A pocket guide to the Hollywood adaption of the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, released in 2001. The book tells you everything you need to know about this popular film, from writing the script through casting and financing, to shooting and performances, to visual effects, editing and theatrical distribution. The pocket guide includes discussions of every single scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, including the Special Extended Edition (including some key individual shots). There are sections on the all of the important differences between The Lord of the Ring book and the movie adaption of The Fellowship of the Ring (including numerous details), as well a chapter exploring the additions and the omissions. Looks at behind the scenes stories, and also the critical response to the 2001 picture. There are chapters on the visual effects, on the casting and key personnel of The Fellowship of the Ring, on the studio and the financing of the production, on the music and sound, and the marketing and release of the movie in 2001 (including the home entertainment releases on DVD and video). There is also a chapter on the critical response to the movie. There is also an appendix on other adaptions of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, a detailed filmography, plus info on availability and websites. Jeremy Robinson has written many critical studies, including Steven Spielberg, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godard, Hayao Miyazaki, Ken Russell, Walerian Borowczyk, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: J.R.R. Tolkien; J.M.W. Turner; Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Arthur Rimbaud; André Gide; John Cowper Powys; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell. Includes bibliography, illustrations, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861713803. 292 pages. www.crmoon.com

THE CHRISTMAS MOVIE BOOK Christmas and the world of cinema: two things that go together like mincemeat pies and mulled wine. There are few categories of film which have captured the imagination of young and old for so many years, or which have brought with them such nostalgic charm and warm sentiment. But what is it about the Christmas movie that has proven to be so creatively adaptive over the years, and why has the genre remained so perennially popular amongst audiences all across the world? This new study charts the evolution of the Christmas film, starting in 1945 with The Bells of St Mary's (Leo McCarey), and continuing up to the present day with the 3D version of A Christmas Carol (Robert Zemeckis, 2009). From the silver screen magic of It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street to the madcap seasonal comedy of Home Alone and Elf, by way of White Christmas and Black Christmas, this book considers a wide selection of some of the most enduring festive movies from the past seven decades. With a detailed exploration of each film's themes and cultural influences, The Christmas Movie Book also features a comprehensive timeline of key works in the genre, a filmography, notes, and illustrations, and examines why it is that these well-loved classics continue to enrapture generations of movie-goers. Thomas Christie has a life-long fascination with films and the people who make them. Currently reading for a PhD in Scottish Literature, he lives in Scotland with his family. He holds a first-class Honours degree in Literature and a Masters degree in Humanities, specialising with distinction in British Cinema History, from the Open University in Milton Keynes, England. Tom is the author of Liv Tyler, Star in Ascendance: Her First Decade in Film (2007), The Cinema of Richard Linklater (2008), John Hughes and Eighties Cinema (2009) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Pocket Movie Guide (2010), all of which are also published by Crescent Moon Publishing.For more details about Tom and his work, visit his website at: www.tomchristiebooks.co.uk. Also www.crmoon.com. 'Thomas Christie's scholarship is as always immaculate. Full marks to him for another informative, well written and erudite guide to a neglected director and episode of film history.'(Review of John Hughes and Eighties Cinema)Douglas J. Allen (Lecturer in Social Sciences, Motherwell College) 384 pages. Fully illustrated. With filmography, timeline, bibliography and notes.

PETER REDGROVE: HERE COMES THE FLOOD A Study of His Poetry by Jeremy Mark Robinson Poems of honey, wasps and bees; orchards and apples; rivers, seas and tides; storms, rain, weather and clouds; waterworks; labyrinths; amazing perfumes; wet shirts and 'wonder-awakening dresses'; the Cornish landscape (Penzance, Perranporth, Falmouth, Boscastle, the Lizard and Scilly Isles); the sixth sense and 'extra-sensuous perception'; witchcraft; alchemical vessels and laboratories; yoga; menstruation; mines, minerals and stones; sand dunes; mud-baths; mythology; dreaming; vulvas; and lots of sex magic. This book looks at poetry (and prose) from every stage of Peter Redgrove's career, and every book. It includes pieces that have only appeared in small presses and magazines, and in uncollected form. This new edition has been rewritten completely and includes a new introduction and bibliography. Illustrated. British Poets Series. EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER ONE, ON POETRY AND LIFE ...this 'strangeness' is 'strange' because reality is so fucking extraordinary, and strange too because most of us try to live without strangeness, and construct something called the 'ordinary' which never existed. Actually, the strangeness is so ordinary as to be quite natural. The strangeness is wonder and what is wondered at is so wonderful that it is strange we do not wonder more. Peter Redgrove, letter to the author (March 5, 1993) Peter Redgrove's poetic code is to create poems which describe or actualize this strangeness of living. The strangeness is here, all around us, he says, but we become immune to it. The poet's task is therefore to refresh body and soul, so that the incredible beauty and strangeness of life is once again experienced. The emphasis is on direct experience, not on abstraction or distance. Redgrove hates the synthetic and artificial. Redgrove's poetic ethic is one of direct touches - the Blakean (and Coleridgean) direct contact stemming from the cleansing of the senses. Peter Redgrove wrote to Jeremy Robinson about this book: Your essay has an infectious enthusiasm, which I'm grateful for, and I especially like the places where you actually grapple with the language of my poems, which is like writing them again. It is a very good piece, which carries the reader with it... Your own approach is irreplaceable because it seems to me founded on your own individuality and personal experience of my poems - which is vastly gratifying... in the majority it is vastly stimulating and insightful. Always, I am grateful to you for your trouble, and your deep response to what I have written.

SEX-MAGIC-POETRY-CORNWALL: THE POEMS OF PETER REDGROVE A new study of the poems of one of Britain's best but underrated poets, Peter Redgrove (1932-2003). This book considers some of Redgrove's wildest and most passionate works, creating a 'flood' of poetry. Philip Hobsbaum called Redgrove 'the great poet of our time', while Angela Carter said: 'Redgrove's language can light up a page.' Redgrove ranks alongside Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. He is in every way a major poet. Jeremy Robinson's essay analyzes all of Redgrove's poetic work, including his use of sex magic, natural science, menstrual energy, psychology, myth, alchemy and feminism. This new edition has been completely rewritten. With a bibliography and resources. Illustrated. British Poets Series. Peter Redgrove wrote to Jeremy Robinson about this book: Sex-Magic-Poetry-Cornwall is a very rich essay... It is a very good piece... Your essay has an infectious enthusiasm, which I'm grateful for, and I especially like the places where you actually grapple with the language of my poems, which is like writing them again. It is a very good piece, which carries the reader with it... Your own approach is irreplaceable because it seems to me founded on your own individuality and personal experience of my poems - which is vastly gratifying... in the majority it is vastly stimulating and insightful. Always, I am grateful to you for your trouble, and your deep response to what I have written. I like very much the way you have resurrected poems I had forgotten worked, like the clothes magic-wet and the alchemical honeymoon - I thought they didn't work because nobody had put them in context before of the elemental life that nudges into them always - and I like the cragginess of the prose poems in contrast. Your choice of quotations is excellent throughout, and this is the real point - plus enthusiasm.. it is like a laser gas into which you pump your enthusiastic energy, there is a sudden shift of atomic orbits, and the texts shine with their own weird and natural light!

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF: POCKET MOVIE GUIDE One of John Hughes's most charmingly offbeat films, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is certainly among the most overtly humorous of his canon of teen movies. It is also one of his best-remembered, its profile challenged only by the acclaimed The Breakfast Club which was released the year beforehand. Contrasting perfectly with the more serious, issue-based tone of Pretty in Pink which immediately preceded it in the same year, Hughes's wittily incisive dialogue was never as razor-sharp as when delivered by the smart-mouthed high school slacker Ferris Bueller. Today Hughes is just as well known for the scripts he created for hugely popular family films throughout the 1990s, including Chris Columbus's blockbuster Home Alone (1990), Brian Levant's Beethoven (1992) and Nick Castle's Dennis the Menace (1993), written under his pen-name of Edmond Dantès. But even these accomplishments couldn't compare to the artistic diversity of his output throughout the eighties. Although it is easy to remember Hughes for his meteorically successful teen movies right the way through the including The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller's Day (1986), he was every bit as adroit in his handling of suburban satires such as Mr Mom (1983) and Uncle Buck (1989), his wry observations of the great American holiday in National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and The Great Outdoors (1988), the trials of an exasperated everyman commuter in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), and the expectation of anxious new parents in She's Having a Baby (1988). Throughout the course of Hughes's career, there has rarely been a lack of variety in his choice of subject matter. REVIEW OF THE AUTHOR'S BOOK JOHN HUGHES AND EIGHTIES CINEMA ON AMAZON If like me, you were fortunate enough to live through and grow up during the 80's and early 90's, you'll remember just how rich comedy was back then. This book on it's own puts most comedies of the modern era to shame as it is a homage to one of the most talented minds in the game. I am of course speaking of none other than the late great John Hughes. This is a great book for getting into the details of how a master of his art came about and created such cinematic gems. Hughes will be sorely missed which is why books like this keep his spirit and work alive! I'd say this book is for people who are nostalgic 20-somethings or cinema buffs, but all-round a good book for just about anyone who would like to know what made one of the funniest minds of Hollywood tick.