TV film maven and Chicago Tribune columnist Ebert (A Kiss Is Still a Kiss, 1984) gathers 100 pieces in belated tribute to the first century of the movies. In attempting to create an anthology of outstanding film writing that would reflect film's multifaceted nature—at once art and aphrodisiac, entertainment and commerce, myth and industrial product—Ebert has stumbled a bit; the book suffers from a jury-rigged structure that mainly illuminates the arbitrariness of Ebert's choices. The pieces he has assembled are wildly uneven, although many do shine. The overwhelming majority of the collection consists of excerpts from longer works, some of which don't entirely make sense out of context. For example, the passages from Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show, while evocative, seem unduly skeletal when stripped from the heart of the novel. Moreover, although Ebert's attempt to represent the widest possible range of writing about film is admirable, with almost no writer represented by more than one piece, does anyone believe that a piece from a Web site devoted to Quentin Tarantino, an excerpt from Janet Leigh's pedestrian little book on the making of Psycho, snatches of Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and Charles Bukowski's musings on film represent the best writing available on the medium? Too many of the directors' entries are self-aggrandizing, the mix of fiction and nonfiction is awkward, and sudden shifts, such as the one from a chronological grouping on silent films to a handful of essays on genre, are unhelpful. On the other hand, Ebert has drawn from some unjustly forgotten books, such as Jonathan Rosenbaum's elegiac and rigorous Moving Places, and Christopher Isherwood's delicate and charming Prater Violet. An entertaining hodgepodge, but a hodgepodge all the same. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-04000-3
Page Count: 777
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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
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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