Hoosiers in Hollywood


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The Real All Americans


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Sally Jenkins, bestselling co-author of It's Not About the Bike, revives a forgotten piece of history in The Real All Americans. In doing so, she has crafted a truly inspirational story about a Native American football team that is as much about football as Lance Armstrong's book was about a bike. If you’d guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you’d be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle’s first students. Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team. Pratt liked the idea, and in less than twenty years the Carlisle football team was defeating their Ivy League opponents and in the process changing the way the game was played. Sally Jenkins gives this story of unlikely champions a breathtaking immediacy. We see the legendary Jim Thorpe kicking a winning field goal, watch an injured Dwight D. Eisenhower limping off the field, and follow the glorious rise of Coach Glenn “Pop” Warner as well as his unexpected fall from grace. The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations. It is an inspiring reminder of the extraordinary things that can be achieved when we set aside our differences and embrace a common purpose.




The Milan Miracle


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Will lightning ever strike twice? Can David beat Goliath a second time? These questions haunt everyone in the small town of Milan, Indiana, whose basketball team inspired Hoosiers, the greatest underdog sports movie ever made. From a town of just 1,816 residents, the team remains forever an underdog, but one with a storied past that has them eternally frozen in their 1954 moment of glory. Every ten years or so, Milan has a winning season, but for the most part, they only manage a win or two each year. And still, perhaps because it's the only option for Milan, the town believes that the Indians can rise again. Bill Riley follows the modern day Indians for a season and explores how the Milan myth still permeates the town, the residents, and their high level of expectations of the team. Riley deftly captures the camaraderie between the players and their coach and their school pride in being Indians. In the end, there are few wins or causes for celebration—there is only the little town where basketball is king and nearly the whole town shows up to watch each game. The legend of Milan and Hoosiers is both a blessing and a curse.




The Making of Hoosiers


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This expanded and updated second edition contains new stories, details, and images from behind the scenes of the beloved film Hoosiers. Inspired by the smallest school ever to win Indiana's one-class basketball tournament, Hoosiers interweaves themes of redemption and second chances, of family and small-town life, of having faith and living your dream. It's been called one of the most inspiring motion pictures of all time. But the story of the movie's creation is just as inspiring. The first-time filmmakers' goal was to create an entertaining, authentic, and emotionally resonant movie--within the confines of a small budget and a short schedule. In attempting to portray the intense devotion to basketball known as Hoosier Hysteria, the movie's creators took on an immense challenge. With the help and support of thousands of Indiana residents, both during and after production, the filmmakers saw Hoosiers succeed well beyond their expectations. This book takes you on the journey that was the making of Hoosiers, as experienced by the filmmakers, actors, crew members, and extras. The book concludes by examining why the movie still scores with audiences young and old so many years after its release.




Sitting Pretty


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More than any other male movie star, the refined Clifton Webb (1889-1966) caused the moviegoing public to change its image of a leading man. In a day when leading men were supposed to be strong, virile, and brave, Clifton Webb projected an image of flip, acerbic arrogance. He was able to play everything from a decadent columnist (Laura) to a fertile father (Cheaper by the Dozen and The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker), delivering lines in an urbanely clipped, acidly dry manner with impeccable timing. Long before his film career began, Webb was a child actor and later a suavely effete song-and-dance man in numerous Broadway musicals and revues. The turning point in his career came in 1941 when his good friend Noël Coward cast him in Blithe Spirit. Director Otto Preminger saw Webb's performance and cast him in Laura in 1944. Webb began to write his autobiography, but he said that he eventually had gotten “bogged down” in the process. However, he did complete six chapters and left a hefty collection of notes that he intended to use in the proposed book. His writing is as witty and sophisticated as his onscreen persona. Those six chapters, information and voluminous notes, and personal research by coauthor David L. Smith provide an intimate view of an amazingly talented man's life and times.




More Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet


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In a sequel to True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet, teen movie star Morgan Carter, after her true identity is exposed, must choose between staying in the Midwest with her new boyfriend, or returning to her glamorous life. Reprint.




Hoosiers and the American Story


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A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.




Hoosiers


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The story of this Midwestern state and its people, past and present: “An entertaining and fast read.” ―Indianapolis Star Who are the people called Hoosiers? What are their stories? Two centuries ago, on the Indiana frontier, they were settlers who created a way of life they passed to later generations. They came to value individual freedom and distrusted government, even as they demanded that government remove Indians, sell them land, and bring democracy. Down to the present, Hoosiers have remained wary of government power and have taken care to guard their tax dollars and their personal independence. Yet the people of Indiana have always accommodated change, exchanging log cabins and spinning wheels for railroads, cities, and factories in the nineteenth century, automobiles, suburbs, and foreign investment in the twentieth. The present has brought new issues and challenges, as Indiana’s citizens respond to a rapidly changing world. James H. Madison’s sparkling new history tells the stories of these Hoosiers, offering an invigorating view of one of America’s distinctive states and the long and fascinating journey of its people.




Batman's Batman


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An insider's look at Hollywood and how movies and television shows are made. In Batman's Batman, Michael E. Uslan, executive producer of the Batman movie franchise, offers an insider's look at Hollywood and the process of how movies and television shows go from the drawing board to your screens. Continuing the delightful tale of his adventures begun in The Boy Who Loved Batman, Uslan draws on both his successful and less successful attempts to bring ideas to the screen, offering a helpful, honest, and breezily told guide to producing films. From passion to promotion, from the initial pitch to selecting the best partners and packaging, Uslan reveals the 13 qualities essential to would-be producers. A lively memoir and a valuable glimpse inside Hollywood rarely seen by the public, Batman's Batman is sure to please fans of Michael Uslan and the Batman franchise, but will also prove to be an invaluable resource for any aspiring producers, as he guides readers through the Land of Bilk and Money.




All-Stars and Movie Stars


Book Description

Sports films are popular forms of entertainment around the world, but beyond simply amusing audiences, they also reveal much about class, race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. In All-Stars and Movie Stars, Ron Briley, Michael K. Schoenecke, and Deborah A. Carmichael explore the interplay between sports films and critical aspects of our culture, examining them as both historical artifacts and building blocks of ideologies, values, and stereotypes. The book covers not only Hollywood hits such as Field of Dreams and Miracle but also documentaries such as The Journey of the African American Athlete and international cinema, such as the German film The Miracle of Bern. The book also explores television coverage of sports, commenting on the relationship of media to golf and offering a new perspective on the culture and politics behind the depictions of the world's most popular pastimes. The first part of the book addresses how sports films represent the cultural events, patterns, and movements of the times in which they were set, as well as the effect of the media and athletic industry on the athletes themselves. Latham Hunter examines how the baseball classic The Natural reflects traditional ideas about gender, heroism, and nation, and Harper Cossar addresses how the production methods used in televised golf affect viewers. The second section deals with issues such as the growth of women's involvement in athletics, sexual preference in the sports world, and the ever-present question of race by looking at sports classics such as Rocky, Hoosiers, and A League of Their Own. Finally, the authors address the historical and present-day role sports play in the international and political arena by examining such films as Visions of Eight and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. This important and unique collection illuminates the prominent role that sports play in society and how that role is reflected in film. Analysis of the depiction of sports in film and television provides a deeper understanding of the appeal that sports hold for people worldwide and of the forces behind the historic and cultural traditions linked to sports.