An insider investigation into the ways in which Hollywood is changing that will certainly prove invaluable in the coming...
A yearlong chronicle of 2012’s major films—from Sundance to Oscar night—highlighting the many challenges currently dogging the industry.
It might be self-evident to point out that the film industry has not remained immune to the stark changes presented by digital technology. In Thompson’s (Film Criticism/Univ. of Southern California) dissection of the film year, she provides an interesting case study for the future of the industry. After all, 2012 was a banner year for Hollywood, as her title suggests. However, the old model is being challenged by digital encroachment in a variety of ways. Therein lies the paradox of the new paradigm: Digitization is at once propelling the industry to untold revenues, while at the same time making it more difficult for the industry to stake out easy gains in a rapidly shifting and unpredictable landscape. More than ever, consumers have nearly limitless choices, further pressuring Hollywood to produce safe bets like gigantic, CGI-filled action flicks to pad out the bottom line. This type of stratification is not exclusive to Hollywood either, and a case could be made that Hollywood’s problem is really a symptom of the larger, systemic problems with our technology-crazed economy. In her examination, Thompson tracks films, from fledgling indies, like Beasts of the Southern Wild, vying for distribution contracts on the festival circuit to major “tent-pole” summer blockbusters—both the successes, like Marvel’s franchise juggernaut The Avengers, and flops, like Disney’s disastrous John Carter. While the author undoubtedly understands the prevailing industry trends and how they are changing, she remains a reporter at heart. Rich with anecdotes and gossip, Thompson presents Hollywood as a living, breathing community. From executive firings and hirings to the stories behind films that almost never made it to the screen, Thompson’s journalistic flair makes her analysis of the film industry a compelling and page-turning read.
An insider investigation into the ways in which Hollywood is changing that will certainly prove invaluable in the coming years.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-221801-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Newmarket Press for It Books/Harpercollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
The workplace (primarily the office) is the setting for this third volume of Tannen's Linguistics Lite trilogy. Tannen (Sociolinguistics/Georgetown) sticks close to the main idea she popularized almost a decade ago in That's Not What I Meant (1985): Men and women have different conversational styles that are equally valid (though unequally valued). Here, she describes women's disadvantages in the workplace: They are paid less than men for the same work and face ``sexism'' (a term Tannen keeps dubiously between quotation marks), a glass ceiling, and sexual harassment. Why do such problems persist? Tannen considers the difference in male and female conversational style as a primary cause. Women are likely to have an indirect manner, to apologize more, and to offer softer criticism; they're problem preventers instead of heroic crisis solvers; they generally strive for the appearance of equality with, not superiority to, their co-workers. Many (male) bosses overlook the value of this style. Tannen concludes that women should go with their own approach, but they should also try to be assertive and worry less about being liked than about being competent. Yet in the next breath, she acknowledges that women who act assertive may bring unpleasant consequences on themselves. In the end, she reaches for platitudes, blithely recommending that workers adopt a mix of styles and that managers learn to recognize and appreciate quality in diverse forms. She says ``on that happy day, the glass ceiling will become a looking glass through which a fair percentage of Alices will be able to step.'' Readers of her earlier books will find much that is familiar, from the research to the conclusions. Women facing a hostile work environment and seeking substantive improvements in their situation are likely to find that Tannen's recourse to ``stylistic differences'' ultimately offers little help. (First printing of 200,000; first serial to New York Times Magazine and Redbook; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Quality Paperback Book Club main selection; Fortune Book Club main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11243-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
A savvy journalist's timely take on the evanescence of Japan's economic invincibility. Fresh from a stint as Tokyo bureau chief for The Economist, Wood (Boom and Bust, 1989) argues convincingly that the island nation poses a fading threat to Asian as well as Western rivals. Among other woes, he asserts, Dai Nihon's industrial base is burdened by overcapacity and swollen payrolls. The kind of mass dismissals that have kept America's labor costs at acceptable levels, the author observes, are inevitable if Japan is to remain competitive in world markets. By his tellingly detailed account, moreover, the country's financial institutions are not only primitive by Western standards but also vulnerable to future shocks created by the deflation of overvalued assets (in particular, urban property) and a rigged securities market that is not geared to provide corporations with either venture or expansion capital. Nor is Japan abreast, let alone ahead, of the pack in advanced technologies like computer software and wireless communications, which could offset declining demand for entertainment goods (TVs, VCRs, et al.). Wood points out as well that scandals have fractured the so-called iron triangle (business, the once-vaunted bureaucracy, professional politicians), effectively ending the Liberal Democratic Party's dominion and making Japan's governance more Italianate than Asian. He goes on to predict that civil disorders are likely once private enterprise starts downsizing and bargain-minded consumers systematically seek better deals in the nation's protected retail marketplace. In the meantime, the US is no longer willing to overlook the sharp practices of an ally no longer needed as a Pacific Basin buffer against the erstwhile Soviet Union. The subtitle notwithstanding, the text offers precious few perspectives on how Japan might emerge from its possibly convulsive renewal and restructuring. A worst-case audit that, if longer on reportage than analysis, provides ample evidence that Japan's challenge to the Global Village's economy has been put on hold by a host of home-front problems.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-50145-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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