Despite the lame, misleading title, a wry, even occasionally useful, real-life satire on low-low-budget moviemaking. With Robert Rodriguez's alleged $7,000 budget for El Mariachi in mind, film critic Queenan (If You're Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble, 1994, etc.) often joked about making a movie for $6,998. But this goof turned serious when, in one three-week burst of semicreativity, Queenan actually cranked out a 90-page script, a satire of the recovery movement titled Twelve Steps to Death. Directing classes soon followed, and Queenan wore out his VCR looking for good scenes to steal from other films. Using only utterly nonprofessional actors (his Tarrytown neighbors), semiprofessional technicians, and dubious rented equipment, Queenan set off on a nine-day film shoot. Despite his amateurism and a host of disasters, he kept a fairly firm grip on the production in every area except the budget. By the time the film premiered as the only entry at the self-sponsored Tarrytown International Film Festival, Queenan had spent nearly $60,000. Winning the festival's coveted award, Le Chevalier Sans Tàte en Or (The Golden Headless Horseman), was thin compensation. Still undistributed, the film has yet to earn back even a penny of its cost. While Queenan, a poor man's P.J. O'Rourke, has a well-turned sense of humor, both this book and the movie it is built around (the full-length script is included) fall substantially short of Hollywood's three-laughs-to-a-page standard. But Queenan is to be commended for showing the lighter side of such expensive pratfalls and for airily distilling so much practical how-not-to advice. Along with Final Cut and The Devil's Candy, one of cinema's great cautionary tales. (First serial to Esquire)
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-6090-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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