A collection of singular encounters with a film subculture, some failing to develop the larger concerns but many offering...
A screenwriter and film buff plunges into the bizarre world of film collectors, finding people willing to sacrifice anything to preserve a dying art.
Even as former programmer for the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Bartok’s love of film pales in comparison to that of his interviewees, including writing partner Joseph, a motion picture archivist later revealed to have “gone to jail for the movies.” Bartok often narrates in the first person, showcasing impeccable comedic timing, as he enters memorabilia-stuffed projection rooms, views prized reels, and listens to incredible stories from a time when access to film was severely restricted. The collectors see benefits of new technologies, but as Gremlins director Joe Dante points out, “it’s the B-pictures, the grindhouse and exploitation films…that are most in need of preservation.” Many of these collectors have dedicated their lives to those ephemeral pieces of film, sacrificing marriages and enduring legal battles to discover a lost Fred Astaire dance or save a nonsensical 1940s short. Each offers something to astonish hard-core film buffs, and many unearth the larger issues at stake: the changing consumption of film; the powerful forces regulating that consumption; and, most intriguingly, how film’s escapism can consume the viewer. Bartok and Joseph dutifully document anti-social behaviors and run-ins with studios, the FBI, or even the mob, but it isn’t until later chapters, structured more around theme than individuals, that they arrive at some truly fascinating reflections on the dynamic between collector and reel. Too many early chapters come off as short, disjointed biographies of individuals obsessed with film rather than one cohesive study of the community and its larger concerns. However, with each eccentric collector interviewed, Bartok and Joseph have certainly done their part to preserve some strange and often overlooked imagery.
A collection of singular encounters with a film subculture, some failing to develop the larger concerns but many offering unique insight into the darker fringes of a bygone Hollywood.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4968-0773-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 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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