A layered closeup look at an explosive series from the people involved in the creation.
A collection of interviews, compiled, organized, and contextualized by two Hollywood insiders, on the John Wick series.
According to some critics and observers, the John Wick movies helped reinvigorate the action genre, with a unique blend of kinetic action, dark humor, and textured characters. In the latest collaboration by Gross and Altman, similarly structured to their books on Star Wars, Star Trek, and other franchises, many contributors refer to Wick’s forebears within the genre while acknowledging its innovative approach in narrative and visuals. Significantly, the movie was made with an indie sensibility even though Keanu Reeves is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He had previously worked with Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the films: Stahelski had been Reeves’ stunt double in the Matrix franchise before opting for a different role. The trigger event of the story was the element that set the first installment apart from the usual revenge-driven fare. The spoiled son of a crime boss, wanting to steal Wick’s car, callously kills a puppy given to Wick by his wife, who had recently died. Wick, a former assassin, digs up his guns to even the score, a journey that entails balletic fight scenes and a long trail of bodies. But this means Wick is drawn back into the world of blood, debts, and secrets, which plays out over the next two movies (at least one more is on the way). The writers, directors, and actors explain how the extended narrative came together and how the astonishing action sequences were designed and executed. Even after the success of the first movie, Stahelski was aware that they were traveling in dangerous, uncharted territory, but they were willing to take some risky turns that, fortunately, led to the right place. Nevertheless, it would not have succeeded without Reeves’ capacity to give Wick depth and meaning.
A layered closeup look at an explosive series from the people involved in the creation.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27843-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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