An invaluable resource for film buffs and future storytellers interested in the creation of great Hollywood films over the...
Iconic Hollywood filmmakers speak candidly about narrative, their process, and juicy experiences from the industry.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” says moderator Jane Summer. “At no other event will you see a lineup like this one. Now let’s meet our real-life heroes.” She was speaking specifically about Ron Howard and the other talented writers, directors, and producers on her panel at the Austin Film Festival, but the same could be said for every chapter in this follow-up to On Story: Screenwriters and Their Craft (2013), offering even more curated highlights from the festival and its sister PBS series. The minds behind some of the most successful and well-crafted films of late-20th- and early-21st-century Hollywood cover a range of topics, from philosophical examinations of characters to the audience’s relation to a story. They also gladly offer pieces of showbiz mythology that film buffs crave: a pre–L.A. Confidential Brian Helgeland carrying unwanted scripts down Sunset Boulevard; Harold Ramis bought his first home with reviews of Animal House as collateral; Jonathan Demme nearly chose Laura Dern over Jodie Foster for the character of Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. Insights into process will also enthrall budding writers—e.g., Thelma and Louise scribe Callie Khouri’s admission that she opened screenplay guru Syd Field’s book once and never looked at it again, which is surprising since Thelma is often considered a pinnacle of mainstream Hollywood three-act structure. Editors Morgan and Perez achieve these fresh revelations by choosing well-known projects and then pulling deeper, more fascinating observations from the creators. The results are impressive. However, for today’s worldly film students, the scope may seem limited, as it largely ignores the avant-garde and foreign cinema and features few discussions about the tastes and technologies currently rocking the industry. But for those interested in this specific milieu of Hollywood, there are few other examinations as personal, surprising, and well-executed.
An invaluable resource for film buffs and future storytellers interested in the creation of great Hollywood films over the last 40 years.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1090-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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