An elegant package of serious, insightful film criticism in an irresistibly concise and engaging format—delightful to dip...
Film school, pocket-sized.
Editors Black, the co-founder of both the Austin Chronicle and SXSW and founding board member of the Austin Film Society, and Swords, one of Black’s research and project assistants, gather a selection of the program notes written for the University of Texas’ “CinemaTexas” film program from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, meant to provide context for the films screened for students. But these notes go far beyond technical credits and plot summaries. The movie-mad scholars who wrote them, inspired by the impassioned criticism at the heart of the French New Wave, craft rigorously researched and reasoned critiques in handy capsule form, aided in great part by access to the university’s copies of the often difficult-to-obtain films themselves. (The New Yorker’s immortal Pauline Kael subscribed to the notes, for handy reference.) After establishing a historical baseline with looks at such foundational works as Sunrise and Citizen Kane, the collection reveals the progressive tastes of the CinemaTexas programmers, focusing on auteurist cinema (Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges), renegade and maverick directors (Samuel Fuller, Sam Peckinpah), and arthouse/cult fare, including the work of Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger, whose Scorpio Rising, “perhaps the most popular and widely renowned film of the American avant-garde,” is so succinctly and cogently explicated that it makes actually viewing the film seem redundant. The approach of the notes is consistent across the years and different contributors: close reading of the films as texts, emphasizing aesthetic analysis of composition, editing, and other technical elements in the service of narrative and theme. The tone is erudite while avoiding academic jargon or pretentious obscurity, and the brief length of each piece underscores the lively and engaged spirit of the project.
An elegant package of serious, insightful film criticism in an irresistibly concise and engaging format—delightful to dip into for cinephiles and cinema studies neophytes alike.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1544-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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
© 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.
