A must for special-effects aficionados and geeky fantasy addicts everywhere.
The king of stop-motion animation lays out his varied career.
Like many kids, Harryhausen was enraptured by the incredible special-effects work he saw in King Kong (1933); unlike most kids, he turned that rapture into a lifelong calling. Back in the dark ages before computer-generated imaging made possible films like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park (at which Harryhausen takes a mild jab here), the best way to make monsters come to life on film was through the stop-motion animation, a complex, painstaking process involving small, incredibly detailed models, rear-projection filming, and matte shots that merged the models into shots with live actors. In this combination of coffee-table book and career summation, Harryhausen describes how he moved from watching King Kong to actually working with that movie’s stop-motion master, Willis O’Brien, on another ape-gone-amok drama Mighty Joe Young (1950), and then to essentially taking O’Brien’s spot in Hollywood. For the first part of his career, Harryhausen specialized in effects for films about rampaging monsters like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1952) and It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), pioneering examples of shlocky B-movie magic still enjoyed today. But he’s best known for such films as Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which mix and match elements from Greek mythology and Arabian Nights. (A scene showing the Argonauts clashing swords with reanimated skeletons is a Saturday-afternoon TV staple.) Harryhausen is not the most engaging writer; he tends to pull out reviews to attest to his films’ success like an aged movie star mulling over yellowing clippings. But his body of work is interesting enough to justify a thorough read, and his descriptions of unrealized projects offer tantalizing glimpses of what could have been.
A must for special-effects aficionados and geeky fantasy addicts everywhere.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8230-8402-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
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
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
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