Brian Russell Roberts Popular Books
Brian Russell Roberts Biography & Facts
Brian Russell De Palma ([de ˈpalma]; born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense, crime and psychological thriller genres. His films include mainstream box office hits such as Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), and Mission: Impossible (1996), as well as cult favorites such as Sisters (1972), Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), Casualties of War (1989), and Carlito's Way (1993). De Palma was a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors. His direction often makes use of quotations from other films or cinematic styles, and bears the influence of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, and Michelangelo Antonioni. His work has been criticized for its violence and sexual content but has also been championed by American critics such as Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael. Early life and education De Palma was born on September 11, 1940, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of three boys. His Italian-American parents were Vivienne DePalma (née Muti), and Anthony F. DePalma, an orthopedic surgeon who was the son of immigrants from Alberona, Province of Foggia. He was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, and attended various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School. He had a poor relationship with his father, and would secretly follow him to record his adulterous behavior; this would eventually inspire the teenage character played by Keith Gordon in De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill. When he was in high school, he built computers. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations". Enrolled at Columbia University as a physics student, De Palma became enraptured with the filmmaking process after viewing Citizen Kane and Vertigo. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1962, De Palma enrolled at the newly coed Sarah Lawrence College as a graduate student in their theater department, earning an M.A. in the discipline in 1964 and becoming one of the first male students among a female population. Once there, influences as various as drama teacher Wilford Leach, the Maysles brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Andy Warhol, and Alfred Hitchcock impressed upon De Palma the many styles and themes that would shape his own cinema in the coming decades. Career 1963–1976: Rise to prominence An early association with a young Robert De Niro resulted in The Wedding Party. The film, which was co-directed with Leach and producer Cynthia Munroe, had been shot in 1963 but remained unreleased until 1969, when De Palma's star had risen sufficiently within the Greenwich Village filmmaking scene. De Niro was unknown at the time; the credits mistakenly display his name as "Robert Denero". The film is noteworthy for its invocation of silent film techniques and an insistence on the jump-cut for effect. De Palma followed this style with various small films for the NAACP and the Treasury Department. During the 1960s, De Palma began making a living producing documentary films, notably The Responsive Eye, a 1966 movie about The Responsive Eye op-art exhibit curated by William Seitz for MOMA in 1965. In an interview with Joseph Gelmis from 1969, De Palma described the film as "very good and very successful. It's distributed by Pathe Contemporary and makes lots of money. I shot it in four hours, with synched sound. I had two other guys shooting people's reactions to the paintings, and the paintings themselves." Dionysus in '69 (1969) was De Palma's other major documentary from this period. The film records the Performance Group's performance of Euripides' The Bacchae, starring, amongst others, De Palma regular William Finley. The play is noted for breaking traditional barriers between performers and audience. The film's most striking quality is its extensive use of the split-screen. De Palma recalls that he was "floored" by this performance upon first sight, and in 1973 recounts how he "began to try and figure out a way to capture it on film. I came up with the idea of split-screen, to be able to show the actual audience involvement, to trace the life of the audience and that of the play as they merge in and out of each other." De Palma's most significant features from this decade are Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970). Both films star Robert De Niro and espouse a leftist revolutionary viewpoint common to the era in which they were released. Greetings was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won a Silver Bear award. His other major film from this period is the slasher comedy Murder a la Mod. Each of these films experiments with narrative and intertextuality, reflecting De Palma's stated intention to become the "American Godard" while integrating several of the themes which permeated Hitchcock's work. In 1970, De Palma left New York for Hollywood at age thirty to make Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), starring Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers. Making the film was a crushing experience for De Palma, as Smothers did not like many of De Palma's ideas. Here he made several small, studio and independently-released films that included stand-outs Sisters (1972), Phantom of the Paradise (1974), and Obsession (1976). 1976–1979: Breakthrough In November 1976, De Palma released a film adaptation of the 1974 novel Carrie by Stephen King. Though some see the psychic thriller as De Palma's bid for a blockbuster, the project was in fact small, underfunded by United Artists, and well under the cultural radar during the early months of production, as the source novel had yet to climb the bestseller list. De Palma gravitated toward the project and changed crucial plot elements based upon his own predilections, not the saleability of the novel. The cast was mostly young and relatively new, though Sissy Spacek and John Travolta had gained attention for previous work in, respectively, film and episodic sitcoms. Carrie became De Palma's first genuine box-office success, garnering Spacek and Piper Laurie Oscar nominations for their performances. Pre-production for the film had coincided with the casting process for George Lucas's Star Wars, and many of the actors cast in De Palma's film had been earmarked as contenders for Lucas's movie, and vice versa. The "shock ending" finale is effective even while it upholds horror-film convention, its suspense sequences are buttressed by teen comedy tropes, and its use of split-screen, split-diopter and slow motion shots tell the story visually rather than through dialogue. As for Lucas's project, De Palma complained in an early viewing of Star Wars that the opening text crawl was poorly written and volunteered to help edit the text to a more concise and engaging form. The financial and critical success of C.... Discover the Brian Russell Roberts popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Brian Russell Roberts books.
Best Seller Brian Russell Roberts Books of 2024
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You Are Kind
Michael GordonA little kindness goes a long way. How can you help encourage your kids to be kind from a young age? Teach kindness to preschoolers Acts of kindness can be fun, easy, and make a ...
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan DoyleAn Apple Books Classic You get not one, not two, but 25 gripping mysteries in Arthur Conan Doyle’s first of five collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Follow the brilliant ...
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Salvation
Meghan O'FlynnIf you like mouthy detectives, serial killers, and suspenseful mysteries that don't quit, this chilling and actionpacked hardboiled detective series has you covered! Try this ...
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A Bookshop to Die For
M.P. BlackDitching her fiancé at the altar, Alice Hartford bolts to her childhood hometown to reconnect with the last, happy remnant of her past: her mom's old bookstore. But the bookst...
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A Green Kind of Witch
Sierra CrossCinderella crossed with Mean Girls.   That's what Hazel's daily existence feels like. Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, seventeen y...
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The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre DumasAn Apple Books Classic edition. Alexandre Dumas’ classic paints a portrait of Edmond Dantès, a dark and calculating man who is willing to wait years to exact his perfect plan for r...
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The Next Girl
Carla KovachIF YOU ONLY READ ONE BOOK THIS YEAR, MAKE IT THE NEXT GIRL... You thought he’d come to save you. You were wrong. ‘ Absolutely the best thriller I’ve read this year! ’ Goodreads Rev...
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The Cupcake Cottage
Jean OramNHL player Maverick Blades could fall in love with anyone... But he had to fall for a woman who falls under the Bro Code as untouchablehis best friend’s beautiful ex, DaisyMae Ray....
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Masters of Restraint
Ines JohnsonMy new boss is good at giving orders. But his latest demand is NSFW. Especially when his two business partners want in on our deal. My new boss My boss’s boss Their investor &#...
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Wuthering Heights
Emily BrontëAn Apple Books Classic edition. If you’ve only ever seen Wuthering Heights on screen, you may have an image of Catherine and Heathcliff as the ultimate starcrossed lovers. But that...
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Good Guy
Kate MeaderHe's a Special Forces veteran making his pro hockey debut. She's a dogged sports reporter determined to get a scoop. She's also his best friend's widow . . . Fa...
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School of Potential
W.J. MayUSA Today Bestselling author, W.J. May brings you a continuation of the international bestselling series, The Chronicles of Kerrigan! Come back and enjoy the famous characters, or ...
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Never Enough
Lexy TimmsBe good enough never is... Anthony Accardi is a man on a mission: make his father's watch company a success while bringing in millions of dollars. To do that, he needs an assi...
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The Holy Bible - King James Version
King JamesHoly Bible King James Version Few Sample Paragraphs from The Holy Bible eBook, Genesis (OT) 1 Gen. 1 IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was with...
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Eternal
W.J. MayShe will fight for what is hers. When the king is murdered, Katerina, his only daughter, must flee for her life. She finds herself on a strange and dangerous path. Alone for the fi...
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Becoming Lady Dalton
Carrie LomaxA dance of desire and deceit... In the glittering world of London's ton, Mrs. Viola Cartwright revels in her newfound freedom as a lady of leisureuntil a series of jewel theft...
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Whiskey Girl
Melissa BelleThey'll do anything for each other…except commit. Logan Wild isn’t just the hottest broncriding cowboy in Texas. He’s also my best friendwith benefits. And that’s all we’ll ev...
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How to Choose a Guy in 10 Days
Lila MonroeThe only thing more hilarious than the movies is… real life?! Fall in love with the sizzling grumpysunshine romantic comedy perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Ali Hazlewood! ...
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Death at Hazel House
Betty Rowlands‘Riveting, can't put it down! I love this story… a wonderfully twisted tale of a crime that has more twists than I thought possible... fantastic.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ...
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Christmas in Sweetbriar Cove
Melody GraceCelebrate the holidays in Sweetbriar Cove with this festive romance collection, containing two sizzling smalltown holiday stories perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Sophie Kinsella...
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Enemies With Benefits
Roxie NoirI don’t love him. I don’t even like him. I just want him. Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to...
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Peace on Earth
Maia RossCrime never takes a holiday. Why should Irma? Irma Abercrombie is an energetic retiree with a shadowy past, a mean right hook, and a profound love of Christmas. Surrounded by seaso...
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Pride and Prejudice
Jane AustenAn Apple Books Classic edition. Jane Austen’s beloved classic opens with this witty and very memorable line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possessio...
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The Art of War
Sun TzuAn Apple Books Classic edition. It’s believed that Sun Tzu wrote this Chinese military primer during the 5th century BChundreds of years before the Bible. The book’s 13 chapters ex...
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Dream Psychology
Sigmund FreudAn Apple Books Classic edition. Written by the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s 1899 book is the definitive text on learning to interpret dreams. Freud’s groundbr...
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Man In The Water
Jon HillAn attempted murder. A missing spouse. And an international conspiracy that could change the world. Jack Green has always been skeptical of socalled facts. Though he's forced ...
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Inception of Gold
Lexy TimmsThings are not as bad as they seem. They are worse. Being the personal assistant to a narcissistic actress who just happens to own the key to my family's undoing isn't ex...
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Awaken Me
Jenna JacobHe was more than a ghost haunting my dreams…he was real. By day, I’m Julianna Garrett …a prim, proper accountant. By night, I’m tormented by dreams of an alpha, ambereyed Adonis wh...
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The Three Little Pigs
Mark LeskyClassic fairy tales, legends and folk stories in short version without violence retold with lovely illustrations in simple language. Perfect for reading aloud to small chi...
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Caught Up with the Captain
Kait NolanCan a retired naval commander and the love he left behind overcome a 34yearold secret to find their way to a second chance? Captain Mitchell Greyson is a man who believes in duty. ...
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His Girl Next Door
Khardine GrayFrom USA Today Bestselling author Khardine Gray comes a sizzling hot single dad romance you won't want to miss. No strings attached fun with the ubergorgeous single d...
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Assisting the Bosshole
Kristin MacQueenNo hot water? Check Missed the train? Check Broke my heel? Check Dropped my coffee? Check My first day of my new job can’t possibly go worse, right? Wrong. When I meet Parker Scott...
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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel HawthorneAn Apple Books Classic edition. Hester Prynne lives in infamy. After committing adultery and bearing a child with a man whose name she refuses to divulge, the heroine of Nathaniel ...
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Dracula
Bram StokerAn Apple Books Classic edition. Few characters have seized readers’ imaginations quite like Count Dracula of Transylvania, the hero of Bram Stoker’s classic. The 1897 novel put vam...
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Become A Better Version of Yourself
Ben LeightonThis ebook contains golden nuggets on how to motivate, inspire and improve your current situation. It encompasses the holistic view of self improvement from mental& emotion...
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Saltwater Cove
Amelia AddlerSecond chances...and the secrets that sabotage them. At 48 years old, Margie Clifton never expected to be starting her life all over again. But when her brother gifts her a propert...
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Coffee Girl
Sophie SinclairMackenzie "Kiki" Forbes finds herself in a pickle. Either become her snarky sister's nanny, or move halfway across the country to work as assistanttothestylist of a ...
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Always Yours
Claire RayeSome things are just meant to be... Ellen Somerville and Will McIntyre met by accident and under unusual circumstances. Getting sprayed by a skunk in a parking lot wouldn’t normall...
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Rogue Alpha
Kimber WhiteOne touch made her crave him. But the pull of fate could be the path to ruin. College student Laura Prince lands a plum internship deep in the Michigan wilderness. When she discove...
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The Icing on the Cake
Linda SeedShe’s a baker without a kitchen. He’s got a double oven to spare. It’s a recipe for success, until his mother starts stirring up trouble … Cassie Jordan has a sweet dream to open a...
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Finding Cinderella
Colleen Hoover#1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends With Us writes a free novella about the search for happily ever after. A chance encounter in the dark leads ei...
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The Seduction Series Boxset
Roxy Sloane“Sensual, thrilling and wild!”   Discover the bestselling series in one collection: THE SEDUCTION, THE BARGAIN, and THE INVITATION. Perfect for fans of Ana Huang, Sierra S...
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Once Upon A One-Night Stand
Zoey LockeAt first sight, there was electrifying chemistry.  So why not go for it? After all, Lynx Grove, the city's most eligible bachelor, wants to claim her, at least for th...
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Teach Me
Cassandra DeanFrom awardwinning author Cassandra Dean comes a tale where lessons of pleasure between a curious, sunshine widow and a dissolute, grumpy earl leads to passion and allconsuming love...
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Silver Santa
Lacey SilksTrapped together on Christmas, their unintended onenight stand becomes a lifechanging encounter amidst the snow. Laura Young's professional role as a security guard at the Sil...
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Get Lucky
Lila MonroeFall for the hot and hilarious romcom spin on 'The Hangover', perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood, and Emily Henry! What happens when you wake up in a hotel s...
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Escape, A New Life
David J AntocciTo save herself, she had to lose everything. Trapped in a tropical paradise with no memory of how she got there, Abby is thrust into a fight for her life. Hunted by a madman, and c...
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank BaumAn Apple Books Classic edition. You’ve seen the iconic 1939 movie, but do you know about the talking field mice, the Winkies, and the Witch of the North that appear in the original...
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The Honeymoon Homicide
J. R. Mathis & Susan MathisEnjoy this SmallTown Murder Mystery Featuring A Unique Sleuthing Couple I'm Father Tom Greer, a Catholic Priest in a smalltown parish who never expected this . . . When I came...
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Pretty Little Lies
Ivy ThornFour years ago, Nicolo Marchetti took my innocence. But he left me with something else Nicolo almost took everything from me. My virginity, my reputation, and very nearly my future...