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Elder, Robert K.Elder, Robert K. | Alt 1
Elder, Robert K.Elder, Robert K. | Alt 1

Robert K. Elder

Robert K. Elder is the author of The Film That Changed My Life, Last Words of the Executed, It Was Love When: Tales from the Beginning of Love and It Was Over When: Tales of Romantic Dead Ends, and was the editor of John Woo: Interviews. He is a journalist and editor at the Chicago Sun-Times. His worked has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC.com, Salon.com and many other publications.
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Titles by Robert K. Elder

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The Best Film You've Never Seen
The Best Film You've Never Seen (4 Formats) ›
By Robert K. Elder
Trade Paper Price 16.95

Trade Paper, PDF, EPUB, Mobipocket

Published Jun 2013

Revealing a festival of guilty pleasures, almost-masterpieces, and undeniable classics in need of revival, 35 directors champion their favorite overlooked or critically savaged gems in this guide. The list includes unsung noir films The Chase and Murder by Contract, famous flops Can’t Stop the Music and Joe Versus the Volcano, art films L’ange and WR: Mysteries of the Organism, theatrical adaptations The Iceman Cometh and The Homecoming, B-movies Killer Klowns from Outer Space and The Honeymoon Killers, and even Oscar-winners Breaking Away and Some Came Running. The filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, John Waters, John Woo, Edgar Wright, and Danny Boyle, defend their choices, wanting these films to be loved, admired, and swooned over, arguing the films deserve a larger audience and their place in movie history be reconsidered. Some were well-loved but are now faded or forgotten, others ran afoul of critics or were just buried after a dismal opening run, and still others never even got proper distribution. A few of these titles qualify as bona fide obscurata, but now most can be found on DVD or streaming from Netflix or Amazon. The filmmakers are the perfect hosts, setting the tone, managing expectations, and often being brutally honest about a film’s shortcomings or the reasons why it was lost in the first place.

The Film That Changed My Life
The Film That Changed My Life (4 Formats) ›
By Robert K. Elder
Trade Paper Price 18.99

Trade Paper, PDF, EPUB, Mobipocket

Published Jan 2011

Spanning several generations—from newcomers to Oscar Award-winning veterans—this volume features a discussion of the movies that shaped the careers of these filmmakers and, in turn, cinema history. Here directors, including Peter Bogdanovich, Kimberly Peirce, Arthur Hiller, and John Waters, explore the film they saw at an especially formative moment, how it influenced their own work—or, in some cases, led them to tell stories through movies themselves—and the effects it had on their thoughts about cinema. Revealing stories include how after watching Rebel Without a Cause, John Woo started combing his hair like James Dean and even began talking like him; Apocalypse Now inspired Danny Boyle to take risks and make larger-than-life films; and a line in The Wizard of Oz—"Who could ever have thought a good little girl like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness?"—has become almost a personal mantra or prayer for John Waters.