Breezy and informative, but it could have used more spice.
Bollywood, here we come.
Alter (Elephas Maximus: A Portrait of the Indian Elephant, 2004, etc.) follows the production of a single film—Omkara, an adaptation of Othello—from its initial story meetings to its completion, providing an insightful (if insufficiently critical) look at the workings of the Indian filmmaking industry, popularly known as “Bollywood.” That sobriquet indicates the profound influence Hollywood has had on India’s popular entertainment, but the most interesting aspects of Alter’s narrative are the cultural and social influences unique to the subcontinent, such as the tradition of employing poets as screenwriters. In stark contrast to the Hollywood one-sentence pitch, “narrations,” often lasting for hours, are delivered by the producers and directors to potential investors and actors. Bollywood produces some 900 films a year—vastly more than its western counterpart—but the great majority fail at the box office, and the pool of viable stars is much smaller, making the competition for proven box-office commodities particularly fierce. Much of the story of Omkara’s production feels familiar, as the complications, compromises and ego battles that plague any attempt to make a movie have been fodder for the American infotainment complex for quite some time. Alter gamely tries to keep things fresh with digressive descriptions of various directors, actors and poets not associated with Omkara, but his unfailing reverence for these men ultimately proves monotonous. He does provide a wealth of detail about the locations and customs that inform the hyper-dramatic Bollywood aesthetic (Alter was raised in India), and he is particularly good at conveying the importance of music and dance to the medium. Best of all is his analysis of how Indian filmmakers combine the classics of Western literature (Shakespeare is grist for many of the basic plots) and Indian folk traditions to create the uniquely vibrant and tirelessly crowd-pleasing thrust of the typical Bollywood epic; laughter, tears, titillation, suspense and transporting music and choreography are demanded by the audience every time out. Sometimes, when the stars align, they get it.
Breezy and informative, but it could have used more spice.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-15-603084-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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