The majorly entertaining memoir from a major entertainer - Geoff 'Goodbye Pork Pie' Murphy tells it like it really was in this director's cut of his life and times. "I'm taking this bloody car to Invercargill!" It was the line that had cinema audiences cheering. Goodbye Pork Pie became an instant classic, and announced the arrival of a major new talent in director Geoff Murphy. With his next two films, Utu and The Quiet Earth, he cemented his reputation as a pioneer of New Zealand cinema, eventually arriving in Hollywood as a gun-for-hire in the super-charged world of studio politics and superstar egos. He'd come a long way from his days as a struggling school teacher, and then a member of a madcap band of merry pranksters known as Blerta, founded by his great friend and collaborator Bruno Lawrence. But it was the same sense of adventure -with a healthy dose of Kiwi ingenuity - that defined every stage of his career. In this candid and funny memoir, Geoff Murphy looks back on a life in (and on) film - from do-it-yourself shoots in the 1960s to epic work on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy - and delivers the director's cut of a truly remarkable life.

In Legends of the Track: Australia's champion jockeys and trainers, best-selling author Alan Whiticker tells the stories of 25 modern-era horse racing greats.This book celebrates the careers of champions trainers such as Bart Cummings, Tommy Smith, Colin Hayes, Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman and Chris Waller, and features interviews with the best jockeys of the modern era - Ron Quinton, Darren Beadman, Shane Dye, Hugh Bowman, Damien Oliver, Glen Boss and James McDonald.With full career statistics for each chapter and dozens of rare photos, Legends of the Track details the greatest achievements in a wonderful sporting era of Australian horse racing.

The most thorough study on the filmmakers who have defined New Zealand cinema from its origins to its current successes.

Predator is a product of the last great era of Hollywood action films - the eighties. A decade of bone crunching blood splattered foul mouthed blockbuster epics (Robocop, The Terminator, Die Hard, Commando) that wouldn't know what a PG-13 rating was if it skewered them with a spear and ripped their spinal column out to keep as a trophy (as the Predator is apt to do on occasion). In this book we'll take a deep dive into the original Predator and all the sequels it spawned. We'll discuss all of these films in this book and we shall also - of course - discuss the two AvP pictures too. We'll look at the background of each film, the development of them, and discuss worked and what didn't in the actual movie.

New Perspectives on the War Film addresses the gap in the representation of many forgotten faces of war in mainstream movies and global mass media. The authors concentrate on the untold narratives of those who fought in combat and were affected by its brutal consequences. Chapters discuss the historically under-represented stories of individuals including women, African-American and Indigenous Soldiers. Issues of homosexuality and gender relations in the military, colonial subjects and child soldiers, as well as the changing nature of war via terrorism and bioterrorism are closely analyzed. The contributors demonstrate how these viewpoints have been consistently ignored in mainstream, blockbuster war sagas and strive to re-integrate these lost perspectives into current and future narratives.

Autobiography of New Zealand pioneer film maker John O'Shea.

The story of a highly decorated Royal Air Force Squadron Leader, flying Hawker Typhoons with 245 Squadron, who was killed in action during the battle of Normandy in 1944.

While a few select foreign filmmakers have been widely recognized for their contributions to Hollywood, scores more have gone largely unrecognized. Arranged alphabetically, this volume provides detailed information on the filmmakers and their films.

Nineteen months after Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and forced the United States to enter World War II, boats carrying the 7th US Army landed on the shores of southern Sicily. Dubbed Operation Husky, the campaign to establish an Allied foothold in Sicily was led by two of the most noted American tacticians of the twentieth century: George S. Patton Jr. and Geoffrey Keyes. While Patton is the subject of numerous books and films, Keyes's life and achievements have gone unrecognized, but his anonymity is by no means an accurate reflection of the value of his contributions and dedicated service in World War II and the succeeding cold war. Patton's Tactician: The War Diary of Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes is the first transcribed edition of Keyes's personal diary to be published. Edited by James W. Holsinger Jr., the diary begins in October 1942, prior to the invasion of French Morocco and Keyes's engagement in World War II and the Cold War. Holsinger has integrated a variety of related sources, including correspondence between Keyes, Patton, and Eisenhower. A day-to-day chronicle of Keyes's experiences in the World War II Mediterranean Theater and the early days of the Cold War in occupied Germany and Austria, Patton's Tactician is an invaluable primary source that offers readers a glimpse into the mind of one of America's most important World War II corps commanders.