Essays in film criticism, fueled by Lopate’s heartfelt (if snobby) obsession with the —cinema— and Les Cahiers du CinÇma. Before he found his vocation as a personal essayist, Lopate (Portrait of My Body, 1996, etc.) wrote a wrap-up of the first New York Film Festival in 1963 for a Columbia student newspaper, during what he calls the — —heroic— age of moviegoing” that began his film education. Although not a hardcore cineaste, Lopate quickly declares his loyalties here: auteurs like Truffaut, Dreyer, and Mizoguchi over mere directors; Europe and Japan over Hollywood; mise-en-scäne over montage; realism over escapism. His hesitant, somewhat fawning contribution to a Festschrift for auteur-theorist Andrew Sarris shows how deep these formative allegiances run. In this mode, such as when he discusses Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert, writer-directors David Mamet, Paul Schrader, and John Sayles, and Jerry Lewis’s Three on a Couch (really), Lopate loses some of his intellectual independence and much of the slightly egotistical charm that enlivens his personal essays. When, however, he profiles Pauline Kael, whose entertainment-driven film aesthetics are not so congenial but whose writing and company are attractive, he shows his movie buff’s heart, as well as hers—although the prickly Kael disliked his well-written, incisive piece. Lopate shines in a charming retrospective of Japanese director Mikio Naruse, in his ambivalent musings on Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, in assessing the significance of montage in contemporary sex scenes, and more. To dramatize his love affair with celluloid, he takes his title from a bit of dialogue in Godard’s Contempt (discussing this with ease, elegance, and expertise). Two thumbs up for the veteran essayist’s art-house movie-going excursions.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-49250-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you...
The queen of Thursday night TV delivers a sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life.
Rhimes, the brain behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is an introvert. She describes herself as a young girl, playing alone in the pantry, making up soap-opera script stories to act out with the canned goods. Speaking in public terrified her; going to events exhausted her. She was always busy, and she didn’t have enough time for her daughters. One Thanksgiving changed it all: when her sister observed that she never said “yes” to anything, Rhimes took it as a challenge. She started, among other things, accepting invitations, facing unpleasant conversations, and playing with her children whenever they asked. The result was a year of challenges and self-discovery that led to a fundamental shift in how she lives her life. Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny. We get an idea of what it’s like to be a successful TV writer and producer, to be the ruler of Shondaland, but the focus is squarely on the lessons one can learn from saying yes rather than shying away. Saying no was easy, Rhimes writes. It was comfortable, “a way to disappear.” But after her year, no matter how tempting it is, “I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary.” The book is a fast read—readers could finish it in the time it takes to watch a full lineup of her Thursday night programing—but it’s not insubstantial. Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift.
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7709-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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