Film Genre

Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Legendary writing teacher John Truby provides a guide to understanding the major genres of the story world.

A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is funny and smart but struggles to bear the weight of expectations of his family and their Asian American enclave. He tries to want their version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.

Hygeia, an outer rim colony, is doomed as the moon on which it was built hurtles toward an inevitable collision with the dead planet Hephaestus. When a distress signal arrives from a Weyland-Yutani biowarfare outpost near the colony, a desperate plan is launched to evacuate the trapped scientists and colonists. Their destination: LV-846, a key United Americas colony where high-level talks are scheduled to address the galaxy-wide hostilities between the colonies.

The basis for the cult-classic film The Warriors chronicles one New York City gang's nocturnal journey through the seedy, dangerous subways and city streets of the 1960s. Every gang in the city meets on a sweltering July 4 night in a Bronx park for a peace rally. The crowd of miscreants turns violent after a prominent gang leader is killed and chaos prevails over the attempt at order. The Warriors follows the Dominators trying to make their way back to their home territory without being killed.

As war breaks out among the colonies, a huge ship appears over the UPP mining planet Shānmén, releasing a horror that yields hideous transformations. Rescue is too far away, and the colonists’ only hope appears in the form of the vessel Righteous Fury. It carries the Jackals—an elite mix of former Colonial Marines and Royal Marines. Led by Zula Hendricks, the Jackals seek to rescue the few survivors from the depths of the planet, but have they arrived on time?

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of the secretive Cognomina. They are, in effect, immortals - compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history over centuries.

COME BACK TO THE WORLD OF "B" MOVIES AND GENRE FILMS AS WILLIAM SCHOELL OF "GREAT OLD MOVIES" REVIEWS HUNDREDS OF CLASSIC AND NOT-SO-CLASSIC PICTURES IN THE CATEGORIES OF HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION, INTRIGUE, MONSTER MOVIES, ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILMS, SPIES, EXPLOITATION, CLIFFHANGER SERIALS, AND VINTAGE TV SHOWS IN A LIVELY, INFORMATIVE, AND ENTERTAINING FASHION. ILLUSTRATED. WILLIAM SCHOELL IS THE AUTHOR OF DOZENS OF BOOKS INCLUDING "CREATURE FEATURES: NATURE TURNED NASTY IN THE MOVIES;" AND "MARTINI MAN: THE LIFE OF DEAN MARTIN." A CULT HORROR AUTHOR, HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN SUCH NOVELS AS "...

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive, cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova - a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than 30 years.

Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos - days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

The nine stories and one poem in this volume formed the basis for the astonishingly original film Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman. Collected altogether in this volume, these stories form a searing and indelible portrait of American innocence and loss. With deadpan humor and enormous tenderness, this is the work of "one of the true contemporary masters" ( The New York Review of Books).

When Warren has the opportunity to live with a female roommate, he instantly agrees. It could be an exciting change. Or maybe not. Especially when that roommate is the cold and seemingly calculating Bridgette. Tensions run high and tempers flare as the two can hardly stand to be in the same room together. But Warren has a theory about Bridgette: anyone who can hate with that much passion should also have the capability to love with that much passion. And he wants to be the one to test this theory.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family's typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help - even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: His wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect. As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed - and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own.

Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She’s in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman. Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic.

When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he doesn't hesitate: He flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he's made a mistake. He's replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script - a script the director now claims doesn't exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.

In a snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a girl out riding her horse is hit by a 40-ton truck. Though horribly injured, both 13-year-old Grace and her horse Pilgrim survive. Annie, Grace's mother, refuses to have Pilgrim destroyed and hears about a man in Montana, a 'whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. They set off across the continent to find him and there, under the massive Montana sky, all their lives are changed forever.

Halloween Kills is an upcoming American slasher film directed by David Gordon Green and written by Green, Danny McBride, and Scott Teems. It is a sequel to 2018’s Halloween and the 12th installment in the Halloween franchise. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle reprising their roles as Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, with James Jude Courtney also portraying Myers.

Showcasing the best of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories including his well-known classics - as featured in the magnificent three-part, six-hour PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick - this new collection is introduced by award-winning author Tobias Wolff.

How did a burned man with a bladed glove become the enduring face of our deepest fears? *Why We Love Our Nightmares* dissects the phenomenon of Freddy Krueger, the iconic villain who slashed his way from the screen into our collective psyche. This incisive exploration goes beyond the *Nightmare on Elm Street* franchise to uncover why Freddy's shadow looms larger than ever in pop culture. Blending sharp analysis with personal reflection, the book peels back the layers of our fascination with Freddy: - How he embodies the dark side of the American Dream - The evolution of his character ...