Picasso apparently said, "when critics get together, they talk about theory. When painters get together, they talk about turpentine.' That has been my experience, as far as film and film studies are concerned. Critics, academics, and theoreticians talk theory. That is what they know. Artists talk about their processes in making art. This is my attempt to apply what I know to a beginning study of film. Emerging filmmakers need to know the basics of their art form: the language of the camera, and lenses, the different crew roles, the formats, the aspect ratios. They also need to know some bare-bones theory: what an auteur is, what montage is, what genres are. Words like these are our currency: they must be known. But, even more urgently, young filmmakers need answers to their questions -- what lens was used? how did they do that effect? who paid for that picture? how did they get it past the censor? Most important, all filmmakers require serious grounding in film. You cannot be a great artist if you aren't versed in great art. And this doesn't just apply to the cinema. I believe 100% that a reasonably educated and intelligent person in any country of the world should be able to have a conversation about Luis Bunuel, about Akira Kurosawa, about Stanley Kubrick, about Fellini or Bergman, and talk knowledgeably about at least one of their films. Read this book, watch the films, and you can!

Forty years ago as a graduate student I wrote a book about Spaghetti Westerns, called 10,000 Ways to Die. It's an embarrassing tome: full of half-assed semiotics and other attenuated academic nonsense. Thirty years later I wrote an entirely new book with the same title, about the same subject, from a different perspective - that of a working film director. What interested me was what the filmmakers intended, how they did that shot, how the director felt when his film was recut by the distributor, and he was creatively and financially screwed. Now I have prepared a new edition of 10,000 Ways to Die. It reflects my changing thoughts about the Italian Western, which I still greatly admire. It includes corrections, additions, and new sections on films I changed my mind about, or hadn't seen - including Lina Wertmuller's BELLE STAR - the only Italian Western directed by a woman.

In 1971, journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his companion Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) arrive in Las Vegas, ostensibly so Raoul can cover the Mint 400 off-track race. The duo embark on a massive drugs binge, checking into the Mint hotel before visiting the Bazzoka Circus casino while high on ether. The hedonistic weekend continues the following day, with Raoul and Gonzo meeting various way-out characters along the way. Watch out for cameos by Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci and Gary Busey in Terry Gilliam's visually stunning adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's cult novel.

Alex Cox's 1980s cult classic in which a luckless man forced to take a job as a car repossession worker finds that it transforms his life. Otto (Emilio Estevez) is an L.A. punk rocker with an attitude - qualities which cost him dearly when he is fired from his job at a supermarket after a fight with a co-worker. Then his girlfriend dumps him. Wandering the streets in despair, Otto meets Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a 'repo man' who attempts to educate Otto on the value of his occupation. Otto is unconvinced but, with few other options, he takes Bud's advice and becomes a car repossession worker. Otto suddenly finds himself living a fast-paced life involving hotwiring, car chases and physical threats from irate car owners. Ultimately, he becomes entangled in the chase for a '64 Chevy driven by a mad scientist (Fox Harris) said to contain a lethal cargo.

The enormously puzzling TV series The Prisoner has developed a rapt cult following, and has often been described as 'surreal' or 'Kafkaesque.' Alex Cox watched all the episodes of The Prisoner on their first broadcast, at the ripe old age of thirteen. In I Am (Not) a Number, Cox believes he provides the answers to all the questions which have engrossed and confounded viewers including: Who is Number 6? Who runs The Village? Who - or what - is Number 1? According to Cox, the key to understanding The Prisoner is to view the series in the order in which the episodes were made - and not in the re-arranged order of the UK or US television screenings. In this book he provides an innovative and controversial 'explanation' for what is perhaps the best, the most original, and certainly the most perplexing, TV series of all time.

The President and the Provocateur explores the parallel lives of John F. Kennedy, born into wealth and celebrity, destined for glory and a violent death, and of Lee Harvey Oswald, born into poverty and obscurity, murdered in police custody and convicted - without a lawyer or a trial - of the killing of JFK. 50 years after both men were murdered, Alex Cox provides a chronological account of their lives' strange intersections, their shared interests, and the increasing body of evidence which suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald was working for some branch of the government - most likely the FBI or IRS - as an infiltrator of subversive groups, and agent provocateur. The President and the Provocateur draws on five decades of accumulated evidence that Oswald was an intelligence agent and agent provocateur. Far from being an active Communist, Oswald was mainly interested in infiltrating right-wing groups (including the White Russian community of Fort Worth, the National States Rights Party, the Minutemen, and the Cuban Alpha 66 terrorist organization in Dallas and New Orleans). From this perspective his alleged purchasing of guns by mail may be the actions of someone attempting to build a case against right-wing gun-runners and their suppliers - something the IRS and Senator Christopher Dodd's Subcommittee were also doing, at exactly the same time. The possibility that Oswald was sent as a spy to Russia has been raised before, but this is the first book to detail Oswald's continued pattern of intelligence-gathering and infiltration of political groups on his return to the USA.

Princess Stormy lives in a semi-detached castle with her family and a Fool. When an unhappy neighboring kingdom decides to invade, Stormy must go on her quest, meeting giant Cats, Mermangels, Giggle Monkeys, a Gricklegrack, and Flying Lizards on the way. Oh, and she kills three princes. But that's by accident, and anyway it's their own fault . . .

Danbert Nobacon, singer, songwriter, comedian, and "freak music legend," was a founding member of the anarchist punk rock band Chumbawamba. He loves children and animals. This is his first book.

Alex Cox is better known for his filmmaking skills. He loves monsters.

Filmmaker Alex Cox's thoughtful autobiography examines his craft and influences, as well as providing his insights into many of his favorite films. Sometimes called a radical, Cox is a quintessential auteur, as well as an internationally focused, insightful critic and writer whose passion for film has gripped him since childhood. In addition to being a captivating look into Cox's process, this book also encourages and instructs would-be independent filmmakers, guiding the next generation of film pioneers through the arduous journey of creation. Cox weaves his own "confessions" with his notes to the new guard, including thoughts on new forms of digital distribution and his radical views on intellectual property -- the result is a readable, startling treatise on both the film innovations of today and the thrilling potential of future filmmaking.