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Due to unprecedented and tight budget constraints, Dallas Buyers' Club was shot in just twenty-five days, with no rehearsals or read-throughs, no customary lighting set-ups, hand-held cameras for scenes of less than fifteen minutes in length and...

The Day the Earth Stood Still is arguably director Robert Wise's first masterpiece in a career that had quite a few (The Sound of Music and West Side Story, to name a few). It tells the story of an alien named Klaatu and his eight-foot robot named...

I, Robot was directed by Alex Proyas with a screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman suggested by the book by Isaac Asimov. It was produced by Michael Lee Baron, John Davis, Topher Dow, Wyck Godfrey and Laurence Mark. The film was made for a...

It has been said that the nineteenth century was the century when sexuality, and sexual identity, was first invented, which is also when this collection of short stories, all detailing the sexual predilections of a selection of "queer" characters,...

Perhaps what is most interesting about Hal Ashby's 1971 film Harold and Maude is how long it took to get an audience. Since its release, the film has gained the reputation as a "cult classic" -- or a book or movie that is popular amongst a certain...

Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) write a vast number of novels and short stories, often under pen names such as William Irish. He hit his stride in the 1940’s with a series of novels and stories that redefined the concept of the American crime story....

There is a saying that goes, "Wherever you go, there you are" - meaning that people do not change just because their geographical location has. The essay demonstrates the truth in this saying only too well and shows that escaping from gangs,...

Nominated for two Academy Awards, Into the Wild is a film based on the true story of student athlete Christopher McCandless, who gives up all his possessions, donates his life savings of almost twenty five thousand dollars to charity, and...

Some writers purposely look for anonymity. J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon are the poster boys for this type of avoidance of the limelight and the trappings of fame. Other writers toil in obscurity until they are “discovered” late in their...

Written in 1942 by Italian author Dino Buzzati, The Seven Messengers is a collection of short stories. In the book, there are nineteen short stories, beginning with the first, "The Seven Messengers. Other stories include "The Assault on the Great...

Although The Comet is set in a futuristic New York City after the release of toxic gases by an unknown enemy, the story is really a study in relationships, specifically, those that take place between people of different ethnicities. It tells the...

James Albert Michener was an American author born on February 3, 1907 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Doylestown High School, he attended Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to study Arts degree in English and...

The little fictional town of Manawaka was created by Margaret Laurence at the age of fourteen when she had her first short story published after winning a competition in the Winnipeg Free Press. This began a respected and heralded career that...

Although he has written and published more than one hundred books, Walter Dean Myers is most famous for being the author of Monster, a book in memoir form about a school shooter. His works of fiction are usually directed at a young adult audience,...

Sissinghurst Castle in the county of Kent, England is renowned for both its beautiful landscaped gardens and for the speed with which tickets for its annual garden tours are sold out. Both of these factors are due to the landscaping design and...

Born in 1940 in Sussex, England, Angela would be dead from lung cancer by 1992. Today, Carter is notoriously one of the most studied writers of the 20th century, but even as late as the day she died she was, in the words of her most infamous fan...

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail is an American play co-authored by American playwrights Robert E. Lee and Jerome Lawrence. Robert Lee is not to be confused with the Confederate general of the same name. The main character of the play is Henry...

Out of the Silent Planet is a science-fiction novel first published in 1938. Written by famous British author C.S. Lewis, the novel details the story of Dr. Ransom, who is on a planet that definitely is not Earth. The novel is a bit like H.G....

The Other Wes Moore is both a New York Times Bestseller and a Wall Street Journal Bestseller that was published in 2011 about two men who are both named Wes Moore. The story follows the author and his life, which is the first Wes Moore. This Wes...

Written by author and activist Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma asks the race a fundamental question: what should we, as the human race, have for dinner? The answer, Michael Pollan says, is ultimately very complicated and goes far back into...

First published in 1961, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie could be considered Muriel Spark's most famous novel. Spark was born and spent her childhood and early adulthood in Scotland, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, her sixth novel, is set on home...

Written by famed Australian author Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow (originally released in 1980) tells the story of a young woman named Abigal who is incredibly distraught over her parents' separation. After an incident on the playground, Abigal...

A People's History of the United States is the sort of book that you don't see in traditional literature, because it would have been banned, burned, or outright not published. Rather than taking the more "politically correct" approach at political...

Published some time during the first century CE, Medea is a work from Ancient Roman writer Seneca. The piece is about 1000 lines long, and details the events of fictional character Medea. The reason that "Medea" doesn't exactly sound Roman is...