A raw, messy volume of interview transcripts, saved in part by the unquenchable entertainment value of behind-the-scenes stories of how directors bring their movies to life. This edition is a spinoff of a monthly series of interviews conducted by Emery for the Encore cable network, although these are not transcripts of the shows. Emery is a CEO of Media Entertainment and a director himself, but there’s not much of him in this work except brief introductions of his subjects. He doesn—t even question the directors, who include James Cameron, Lawrence Kasdan, Richard Donner, and John Carpenter. All of the talking is left to the directors themselves, in whatever clipped or rambling or rambunctious manner they choose to employ. The result is a mishmash of material that never makes much sense as a collection. There’s lots of repetition, run-on sentences, and lost inflections. At some points, it’s hard to follow the speakers— narratives because the questions aren—t provided. At others, it feels as if one is reading a reporter’s notes instead of a book. The good material comes at the beginning of each section, as the directors talk about how they got started in the business. These were young men—all men in Take One—all of them movie lovers who found their way to Hollywood because of their passion (although Ron Howard was thrust before the camera before he could walk). The directors are led through their films one by one, doling out tidbits about casting and telling how they feel about their work. Unfortunately, most of their stories are cut short before they gather momentum, and nobody makes any startling revelations. Nevertheless, any volume that assembles the thoughts of Sidney Lumet, Spike Lee, Sydney Pollack, Norman Jewison, and Robert Wise is going to have some plums—for readers willing to dig deep enough. (b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-57500-087-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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