A joyful romp featuring larger-than-life characters, iconic movies, and plenty of behind-the-scenes info.
A film journalist looks at the era of action-hero movies and the stars that powered them.
The action movies made in the 1980s and ’90s had no pretensions to be high art. Rather, they told simple stories in which muscle-bound good guys punched, shot, or blew up armies of bad guys. Empire magazine editor de Semlyen, the author of Wild and Crazy Guys, loves the genre, and this book is an engaging tribute to the figures who created it. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are at the center, with lengthy biographies, but the author has plenty to say about other stars like Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the odd Steven Seagal. Some of the action movies of the era—e.g., Rocky, Terminator, Die Hard, and Under Siege—were huge hits, while others made decent money even though their appeal was more limited. Of course, many were awful. Entertainment was the goal, and comic-book violence was the means; any connection with reality was entirely coincidental. There was a long-running feud between Stallone and Schwarzenegger, which de Semlyen enjoys exploring, although he notes that it ended with the two of them waltzing together at a party (which must have been something to see). The period was fun, but it couldn’t last, partly because the stars themselves began to age and partly because CGI would begin to dominate the moviemaking business. Schwarzenegger’s semi-ironic Last Action Hero, made in 1993, foretold the end of the era, with the focus shifting to younger, spryer men like Keanu Reeves as well as to women like Charlize Theron. The author is clear on the reasons for the appeal of the genre: “There’s something eternally comforting…about cheering on characters who don’t need superpowers to make the earth a better place. Just bravery, brawn, and a well-placed kick.”
A joyful romp featuring larger-than-life characters, iconic movies, and plenty of behind-the-scenes info.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593238806
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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