A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)Not every movie deserves a book of this quality but the movie and the book are perfect matches.What a wonderful read and I highly recommend this book to any fan of the movie, Hollywood, or student of same.Very well done.

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Rage and Glory: The Volatile Life and Career of George C. Scott (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am currently writing a book on the making of "Patton" and was eager to read this George C. Scott biography, given the actor's key role in that film.I write this review with mixed feelings.David Sheward has done an impressive job of interviewing Scott's friends and family in an effort to develop the man's personality and character. He has also consulted the numerous interviews that Scott did throughout the years.These resources are usually the only type of primary resources available for doing the history of the film industry.When I was in school at USC, I quickly learned that Hollywood does a horrible job of preserving its written records.

The result is that Sheward has some news stories tell about Scott.The man was a brilliant actor with few peers, but he was horrible insecure and full of self-loathing.When things went wrong, be it on the set or in his personal life, he got angry, really, really angry.He overcompensated with the bottle and alcohol only fueled his rage.Film buffs, however, have known about Scott's personal demons for years; he was quite upfront about them.

The ultimate problem with this book is that it offer its readers no new insights into the man.Sheward--through no fault of his own--never interviewed his subject and had no direct access to letters, diaries, or oral histories.As a result, you get a feel for how Scott moved through the acting profession and how many people felt about him, but the man himself seems a little absent from his own story.

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George C. Scott (1927-1999) born in Wise, Virginia, created some of the 20th century's most memorable performances on stage and screen - the cunning prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder, the manipulative gambler in The Hustler, the buffoonishly warmongering chief of staff in Dr. Strangelove, and, of course, the brilliant and rebellious Patton. He also played Willy Loman, Richard III, Mussolini, Scrooge, Fagin, and countless others. But his offstage life was as filled with drama and controversy as any of the lives he portrayed with such intensity. He refused the Oscar for Patton, battled with TV networks to include realistic elements in his series East Side/West Side, invested (and lost) his own money on Broadway and in the scandalous film The Savage is Loose, married five times (twice to Colleen Dewhurst) and had a tempestuous affair with Ava Gardner, traveled to Vietnam at the height of the war to write an article for Esquire magazine, and weathered a damaging sexual harassment suit. In the first complete biography of this great star, David Sheward documents Scott's artistry as well as his roller-coaster career. Featuring interviews with numerous colleagues including Nathan Lane, Karl Malden, Piper Laurie, and Eva Marie Saint, as well as friends and family members, Rage and Glory pays tribute to one of our finest and fieriest actors.

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The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam v. Universal Pictures in the Fight to the Final Cut (The Applause Screenplay Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)Based on the reviews so far, I bought this book from Amazon.com and received it yesterday. It was so gripping, I finished it that evening. After seeing films like THE PLAYER and talking to aquaintences who likepredictable movies with happy endings, I figured the big studiosdiscouraged original, thought-provoking films. But this book shows how theytry to rationalize it. I liked how Jack Mathews tried to be objective andshow both sides and I was amazed at the differences between LA and NYcritics and how they affect films. Talk about too many cooks in thekitchen!
Even if you don't think much of the film BRAZIL, if you loveinteresting films and want to know why it's rare to see one come out, readthis book. I'm sure Terry Gilliam isn't alone in his battles with studiosand critics. If you did like BRAZIL, you'll also get a glimpse of Gilliam'screativity with some of his storyboards, plus you get the entire script ofthe film with some annotations. After reading this book, I got a greatbehind-the-scenes look of not only how a film comes about, but how it getsmarketed to the public as well.

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The totally restored, revamped and researched blow-by-blow recounting of the most spectacular title bout in the blood-soaked history of Hollywood. "This book documents in rare detail the back-room haggling and the attempted ego-bashing that is part of the movie business." - Gene Siskel; "Told with the passion of an advocate yet with the objectivity of a crack reporter, The Battle of Brazil is a chilling, inevitably hilarious account of a great film that almost got away." - USA Today.

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Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle: Paperback Book (Applause Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)Biography written by a family member or friend so often is mere hagiography, not good biography. But the book by Julie Gilbert, Edna Ferber's great-niece, was the only Ferber biography I could find, so I decided I would start there to learn about Ferber, and I'm really glad I did. Is the Gilbert book objective? Of course not. No one writes objective biography.

I applaud Gilbert for her courage in presenting Ferber as a real person, exposing the extremes of her personality. Ferber was outsized-she had a benevolent heart coupled with colossal rage: "When Ferber got worked up over an issue, there was nobody who could touch her. She was a dervish of indignation. When she was calm she exuded power; when she was upset she exuded great power." Katherine Hepburn, twenty years Ferber's junior, says: "We were dangerous women. There aren't any more of us around."

I give the book only four stars for two reasons: One, becauseI wish Gilbert had included photos. I love the image that Gilbert writes of Ferber and her sister Fan looking together like a Diane Arbus photo: "visually similar and visually sour." A picture of these two together would have added a lot to the book; and two, because Gilbert doesn't include sources. Perhaps most of Ferber's papers are still in the family's control; regardless, I would like to have known where Gilbert found her information.

That being said, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in Edna Ferber, and also in New York, theater, and party life of the 1930s. Whee, Ferb! Wot a girl!

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This enduring biography of the popular writer begins with Ferber's last years in New York City, exploring the setting in which she did all of her great writing. Diaries, copious correspondence, and the cooperation of distinguished living friends have resulted in a rich portrait of a period and a literary circle not yet fully documented, and an insightful engaging analysis of a woman writer highly influential in the shaping of twentieth century America.

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Obscene, Indecent, Immoral and Offensive: 100+ Years of Censored, Banned, and Controversial Films (Limelight) Review

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(More customer reviews)Verdict: Tropiano tackles a century of film censorship, providing solid information, intriguing anecdotes, and fine analytical commentary. Film and popular culture enthusiasts will find this a valuable asset in academic and circulating libraries.

Background: Tropiano (Rebels & Chicks: A History of the Hollywood Teen Movie) explores major censorship targets--language, violence, sex, nudity, politics, and religion--and cites diverse examples of controversial films to demonstrate the impact of regulatory guidelines during various eras and to outline the breadth of questions and compromises that factored into ratings and related decisions. This study is not a recitation of rules and cases but rather a thoughtfully researched and presented analysis of a major facet of film culture.--Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

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This entertaining and insightful book is the first devoted exclusively to films that push the cinematic envelope with explicit language, nudity, sex, violence, or "adult" themes. Stephen Tropiano offers astute and accessible analysis of such films as The Birth of a Nation, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Baby Doll, Blackboard Jungle, Bonnie and Clyde, A Clockwork Orange, Natural Born Killers, Rosemary's Baby, Life of Brian, and The Passion of the Christ.

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The Modern Amazons : Warrior Women on Screen (Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)What this fun, engaging book lacks in depth, it makes up for in breadth.I did not find this especially helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of the changing roles that strong female characters have been playing in popular culture in the past several decades, but no book I know can match it for its range and scope.I've done a great deal of reading about women in the movies and on TV, but this books goes way beyond that to show how women have appeared in a vast array of media during recent years.I give the book 4 stars instead of less simply because it provides an incredible services by calling attention to strong women in a number of areas that have been neglected in previous surveys.Nonetheless, I think the book can at best serve as a jumping off point for further work.But by helping map out the areas where strong women can be discerned is an invaluable service.It was very close to being a near complete cataloging of the most important female figures in popular media.There were a few minor omissions, but as far as I can tell only one major one:the inexplicable failure to mention FARSCAPE, the show above all others that not only features multiple strong female characters but places these in a non-patriarchal universe.No show I know engages gender issues so interestingly and few female characters on TV are as pertinent to the authors' discussion as Claudia Black's character Aeryn Sun.

This is also one of the more lavishly illustrated books that you can ever hope to own.There are photos on nearly every page of the book, many of them full page.

There are, however, a number of problems with the book.First, the sheer breadth means that nothing can be discussed in much depth.I was ecstatic when the authors bring up Third Wave Feminism (many TV critics look at shows like BUFFY or DARK ANGEL and describe them as post-feminist, when in fact they are better understood in the light of the Third Wave), but not much more than that is done with it.Still, kudos for bringing that up at all!More troubling is the utter lack of critical distinction in bringing up all the various "Amazons."The brute fact is that many of the shows and movies mentioned are just flat out awful.CHARMED is discussed as well as BUFFY, with no indication that CHARMED is critically reviled while BUFFY is by consensus one of the masterpieces of television.BLADE: TRINITY, ELEKTRA, and CATWOMAN are mixed in with THELMA AND LOUISE and BLADE RUNNER, with no mention that the first three were universally trashed.There is a long discussion of Linda Carter's turn as WONDER WOMAN, but no mention that 1) the show is bad and 2) Wonder Woman on the show is distressingly subservient to men and spends most of her time trying to make her boss look good.I can fully understand a discussion of Xena in a book like this, but there is no acknowledgment that the show has always been a cult favorite, but has been universally considered a not very good show, while she doesn't by contrast bring up the enormous critical acclaim of BUFFY, ALIAS, and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Finally, there is that term "Amazon."The book wants to celebrate the various warrior women in popular culture, but roping the majority of the women into that category is a bit of a stretch.I absolutely love Emma Peel in THE AVENGERS, but I have a lot of trouble viewing her under either the category of a warrior woman or an Amazon.A very strong female character?Absolutely.But I think the book stretches conceptual categories a bit more broadly than is advisable.

Nonetheless, I definitely recommend the book.The panoramic scope outweighs weaknesses.At the very least it has mapped out the terrain to be explored in any discovery of strong female characters in popular culture.

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The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women on Screen documents the public's seemingly insatiable fascination with the warrior woman archetype in film and on television. The book examines the cautious beginnings of new roles for women in the late fifties, the rapid development of female action leads during the burgeoning second-wave feminist movement in the late sixties and seventies, and the present-day onslaught of female action characters now leaping from page to screen. The book itself is organized into chapters that group women warriors into sub-genres, e.g., classic Amazons like Xena Warrior Princess and the women of the Conan films; superheroes and their archenemies such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Catwoman; revenge films such as the Kill Bill movies; Sexploitation and Blaxploitation films such as Coffy and the Ilsa trilogy; Hong Kong cinema and warriors like Angela Mao, Cynthia Rothrock, and Zhang Ziyi; sci-fi warriors from Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Star Wars!; supersleuths and spies like the Avengers and Charlie's Angels; and gothic warriors such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Kate Beckinsale in Underworld and Van Helsing. In addition, the book is lavishly illustrated with over 400 photos of these popular-culture icons in action, interesting articles and sidebars about themes, trends, weapons, style, and trivia, as well as a complete filmography of more than 150 titles.

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Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter (Limelight) Review

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(More customer reviews)Heaven & Hell To Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter by Preston Neal Jones is by no means a trivial read, and it is its sheer density that makes it so special.Jones compiled numerous interviews and basically provides an oral history of what many consider a compelling masterpiece, offering as thorough a history as one could ask for.Yes, there is much detail here, and perhaps those not familiar with Laughton's film (or fond of it) may be overwhelmed, but consider for a moment what you have here.

How many of us dream of actually observing the creation and production of a favorite film?Jones provides just that -- even without interviews from Laughton or the principal performers (save Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish), we see the film of Davis Grubb's novel being imagined, created, and released as described by those who were there, including Davis Grubb.Where a director's commentary on a DVD is typically a trifle, providing some interesting notes and observations limited by the film's running time, this book is all about immersion -- you almost feel you are there, and you're invited to stay for awhile.Jones rarely intrudes upon the first person accounts of the participants, and when he does, it's usually to point out potential discrepancies between remembered versions of events.

The "loose" narrative of oral history, any oral history, fills in an amazing amount of detail by accident, rather than by authorial intent, and this book leaves one feeling completely satisfied (or for those withshorter attention spans on the subject, perhaps a bit full) on a subject that seemed lost -- that we're seeing this book in 2002, nearly two generations separated from the film's creation, shows us the result of determined and dedicated sleuthing.This book can't have been easy to write or compile.

As presented, the book doesn't read like a typical film history, but more like an eyewitness account, and of course, that's what it is.If only more film books like this existed -- the greatest accomplishment of this book is not that you can walk away with facts -- it's that you can walk away feeling not only like you were there, but that you actually knew the participants, and could see where the social fabric between the personalities grew taut and relaxed at key points in the narrative.

Hats off to Jones -- a fine job, and one would hope, as novel in its execution as the film it describes, that will hopefully inspire imitation.Fans of the film are decidedly in your debt.

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Winner of the Rondo Hatton Award for "Book of the Year" (2002) from the Classic Horror Film Board, in "Heaven & Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter," author Preston Neal Jones tells us how the unique film "The Night of the Hunter" came to be, from its beginnings in the pages of Davis Grubb's novel to the acquisition of film rights by producer Paul Gregory, the hiring of Charles Laughton to direct and James Agee to write the script, to every aspect of the film's development and production--casting, designing, shooting, scoring and editing--to the profound disappointment upon its release. Recently re-released, "The Night of the Hunter," the only film directed by the late actor Charles Laughton, has now joined the select ranks of pictures chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress and is counted among the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Thrillers." As the late Pauline Kael pointed out in writing of "The Night of the Hunter," "...truly frightening movies have a way of becoming classics of a kind."

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