Serious and eye-opening.
Former film commentator for TV’s American Movie Classics, who has clearly seen films by the thousands, discusses 20 that profoundly changed either their audiences or the film industry.
This is neither gossipy nor insider-ish about the making of films, nor is it a list of best films, such as Citizen Kane (which Clooney sees as a “stunning film . . . that did not change anything”) or Gone With the Wind (a brilliant achievement but “essentially a revisiting of ground already plowed by The Birth of a Nation a generation earlier”). It focuses instead on social mores and turning points in filmmaking. None are independent films, excellent though the independents may be. Saving Private Ryan, for example, often shown in high schools to students aghast at Spielberg’s D-day on Omaha Beach, awoke blinkered students in France to the fact that—while the French underground did its job—France did not overthrow the Nazis, nor did Europe; rather, they were saved by a non-European army from America, whose soldiers died for freedom in lands not their own. George Lucas’s Star Wars changed the content of filmmaking, heralded the narrowcasting of films, and, for better or worse, brought special effects to the fore. Taxi Driver led to the Brady Bill by way of John Hinckley Jr.’s love of Jodie Foster, admiration for pimp-murdering Travis Bickle, and attempted assassination of President Reagan. Mike Nichols’s The Graduate helped kill off romantic movies, making them “leaner, a bit meaner, and nearly devoid of sentiment,” while the vulgarity of Nichols and Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? blew the Production Code’s decency to bits. Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove led to deep skepticism about the military establishment. On the Waterfront led to films about labor unions, The Snake Pit to films about mental health. As for the great race film that changed us? Hasn’t happened, Clooney says.
Serious and eye-opening.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2002
ISBN: 0-7434-1043-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
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
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
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