Somewhat academic, but not without its merits.
La-La Land goes political.
May (Screening Out the Past, 1980) begins his account with Will Rogers in the 1930s and ends it somewhere between Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando in the 1960s. His quest to show how the movies, through their erection of idealized images of self and home, influenced American nationalism. Needless to say, this is a pretty broad canvas, and May finds no lack of material to consider—especially during the war years, when Hollywood became a kind of Ministry of Propaganda serving the Allied High Command. The House on 92d Street, Back to Bataan, This Is the Army, and The Fighting 69th are just a handful of the suspects he rounds up to support his case. In his examination of the McCarthy years, May relates the many ways in which the US government worked hand-in-glove with Hollywood to root out communist influence from the industry. Curiously enough, however, May stops short of labeling such efforts “propaganda.” More interesting are his comments on some of the more memorable films by respected directors, such as Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity), Mark Hellinger (High Sierra) and John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). May sees these efforts as attempts made by the more radical elements in Hollywood to counter the trend toward succumbing to the political pressures emanating from Washington. May, of course, is not the first cultural historian to point to Hollywood’s political impact on American society, but he does, however, give greater recognition than usual to minorities and the role they have played in the public consciousness (as expressed through popular films), both before and immediately after the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. He also points to a certain cross-cultural fertilization in American entertainment that perhaps is inevitable given the nature of our heritage.
Somewhat academic, but not without its merits.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-226-51162-6
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
