by Michael Caine ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 9, 2010
Charming but slight reminiscences of a cinematic icon.
Michael Caine finds a third act.
The author’s second autobiographical work (What’s It All About?, 1992) revisits familiar territory—childhood poverty, the deprivations of World War II, faltering first steps in show business before signature roles in The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966) made him an international film star—but his warm, wry delivery keeps the material interesting, even though many of the anecdotes have a distinctly practiced feel. Caine devotes much space to his latter-day, post–leading man film career, a clear source of pride and delight for the actor who presumed, after a fallow period, that his career was effectively over in the early ’90s. The years since have found Caine doing acclaimed work in such worthy projects as The Cider House Rules (1999), The Prestige (2006), the Christopher Nolan Batman films and Inception (2010). The author is endearing in his appreciation of this unexpected phase of his career, but a little more analysis of the films, his acting process and insights into the industry would have been welcome. Instead, Caine is largely content to relate amusing stories or chivalrously praise co-stars such as Sandra Bullock. Some of the material is truly compelling—especially the disarming glimpses of the likes of Laurence Olivier and Steve Martin—but the general weightlessness of Caine’s reminiscences are a bit frustrating for the movie buff eager to plumb the memory of one of the cinema’s most distinctive stars. The author goes on at length about family crises, military experiences, his career as a restaurateur, old friendships and the like. One personal story that does resonate is Caine’s shocking late-in-life discovery of an adult half brother, institutionalized and suffering from severe brain damage, whose existence had been concealed by the author’s mother until her death. In Caine’s telling, the story would suit a small, serious film, with a juicy role for an older English actor of demonstrated range and power.
Charming but slight reminiscences of a cinematic icon.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9390-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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