As a lifelong film scholar, Illeana recommends you read and watch the following.
Movies:
1. All About Eve
2. Sunset Boulevard
3. Sullivan’s Travel’s
4. Limelight
5. Being There
6. Ninotchka
7. Network
8. The Heartbreak Kid (Original)
9. Defending Your Life
10. King of Comedy
Foreign
1. Il Sorpasso by Dino Risi
2. Wild Strawberries by Ingmar Bergman
3. Amaracord by Fellini
4. My Life as a Dog by Lasse Hallstrom
5. Love and Anarchy by Lina Wertmuller
6. The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino
7. An Education by Lone Scherfig
8. Calvary by John Michael McDonagh
9. Umbrellas of Cherbourg by Jacques Demy
10. The Gleaners by Agnes Varda
Books
1. Conversations with Wilder, by Cameron Crowe
2. Life Itself, by Roger Ebert
3. A Womans View, by Jeanine Basinger
4. Who the Devil Made it, by Peter Bogdanovitch
5. My Life So Far, by Jane Fonda
6. Directing the Film, by Eric Sherman
7. Marlene Dietrich, by Maria Riva
8. Rewrites, by Neil Simon
9. The Kid Stays in the Picture, by Robert Evans
10. Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now, by Eleanor Coppola