Authoritative and useful, if flippant and cluttered.
An exhaustive directory for the aspiring background actor.
Angela Bertolino, the current CEO of Hollywood Operating System, and Carla Lewis founded the company in 1997, as an outgrowth of their experiences finding work as film extras. The 24th edition of the HOS Directory is nothing if not comprehensive. Along with instructing extras on how to react during an earthquake on a film set, it includes chapters on professional codes of behavior; membership requirements and pay scales for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (AFTRA); actors’ legal rights and responsibilities. It also includes a lengthy list of casting companies, with contact information and inside "scoops." The directory also makes note of specific agencies’ pet peeves–photos of poor quality, for example–often quoting agents directly: One warns actors not to send candy in the mail. The editors also include a section called "Fabulous Other," which lists companies that are too idiosyncratic, too incommunicative, or too shady for inclusion with the reputable, recommended companies. Listings here are entertaining, often because included companies fill such a quirky niche–an agency called Carbon Copies Management, for instance, only manages twins under the age of 18. The overall tone is light and lively, though the informal style occasionally becomes irritating, especially when the writers strive to be hip. A typical example is a standard disclaimer that prefaces the listing of agencies. Labeled as a "Dumb Disclaimer," the chapter then proceeds with, "Now that we got that crap out of the way.” In addition to this superfluous chatter, the text’s font is often difficult to read, as are the dizzying number of graphics, charts and lists. Nevertheless, this is an indispensable resource for anyone looking for work as an extra.
Authoritative and useful, if flippant and cluttered.Pub Date: March 10, 2006
ISBN: 1-893899-24-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A well-researched but dull account of the hungry, unkempt days of early television. Written by film director Ritchie (The Candidate, etc.), the book shows the chaotic beginnings that justified the once widely held belief that this gimmicky new technology had no future. A fuzzy picture was first telecast on a bulky monitor with a tiny screen in the 1920s by Philo T. Farsworth, a high school student in rural Utah. But it would be another 20 years before television was taken seriously in America. Ritchie chronicles many of TV's historic firsts. In 1927, for example, future president Herbert Hoover was the first public official to speak in front of a ``televisor'' in Washington D.C., while his wife appeared from New York. They were followed by a comedian in black-face who called his routine ``a new line of jokes in negro dialect.'' Television's first commercial was illegal, but this did not stop broadcasters from soliciting commercials. NBC earned seven dollars in 1937 for simply showing the face of a Bulova watch. Many of the early (live) commercials were more than artistic disasters: A newly invented ``automatic'' Gillette safety razor would not open on camera, and the hostess of a Tenderleaf tea commercial mistakenly lauded the quality of Lipton tea. The first television newscasts were also tentative affairs. News was considered the exclusive domain of radio, of which television was then a poor cousin; CBS's first newscast featured Lowell Thomas talking in front of a stack of sponsor Sonoco's oil cans. The BBC was technologically ahead of US companies, but it abruptly stopped transmission (in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon) when WW II broke out. A historical video would be better than written narrative for this material. The 77 black-and-white photos provided here hold the nonspecialist's attention, while the text rarely does.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-87951-546-5
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.
A doctor’s manifesto about terminally ill patients’ right to die.
While many Americans believe that the terminally ill should be able to choose to end their lives, the medical profession, the courts and the government mostly remain beholden to traditional and religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. Preston, a medical professor for more than 20 years, argues that it is time to re-evaluate those ethics in light of today’s technology and its ability to prolong life beyond its natural course. The author writes that confusion and misconception pervade most discussions about aid in dying. He distinguishes "patient-directed dying" or "aid in dying" from terms like "physician-assisted suicide” or "euthanasia." In his analysis, the word "suicide" should not apply to someone who is dying with no hope of recovery. Euthanasia, on the other hand, refers to someone other than the patient administering a lethal drug. Patient-directed dying is when a terminally ill individual is able to request and obtain a prescription for medication to end his or her life, under guidelines set to guard against abuse. Through four composite stories based on situations Preston has witnessed from counseling terminally ill patients and their families, he reveals the suffering caused by prohibitions against patient-directed dying. He adds that doctors must be more willing to care for patients when curing them is no longer possible, and recognize that exhausting every medical treatment, no matter how slim the chances of success, often just prolongs suffering. Preston states his case persuasively, illustrates the need for patient-directed dying as an option, counters arguments often made against it and suggests compromises to address concerns on both sides of the debate.
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-1-58348-461-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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