The Illustrated Who's Who of Hollywood Directors

It's the movie industry's 100th birthday, and film buffs are celebrating the anniversary in style. London Sunday Times columnist Gilbert Adair leads off in October with Flickers: An Illustrated Celebration of 100 Years of Cinema, selecting a single movie still from each year, from 1895's La Sortie des usines Lumiere to 1994's Ed Wood, and offering his thoughts about the film's place in cinematic history (Faber & Faber, $22.95 ISBN 0-571-17309-8). Michael Barson may omit Ed Wood--the director who wanted to make movies in the worst way, and did--but he details the careers and films of more than 150 directors from 1929 to the present in October's The Illustrated Who's Who of Hollywood Directors (FSG/Noonday, $25 ISBN 0-374-52428-9; cloth $45 -17452-0). Did you know that the famous swimming pool from Sunset Boulevard was used five years later for a scene in Rebel Without a Cause? Or that amateur actor Harold Russell took home two Oscars for his role in The Best Years of Our Lives? For those who revel in such details about Oscar-winning films as well as also-rans comes, in November, Oscar A to Z: The Complete Guide to More than 2,400 Movies Nominated for Academy Awards by Charles Matthews. (Doubleday/Main Street, $20 ISBN 0-385-47364-8).