Get two filmmakers together to talk about work and the result should be interesting, especially if one of them—Woody Allen- -seldom sits for long interviews. But the operative word here is should. Bjîrkman is a Swedish filmmaker and critic who has done a similar book with Ingmar Bergman (Bergman on Bergman, 1974). He sits a filmmaker down and gets him to talk his way through his career, discussing working methods, influences, collaboration, ideas, and themes. Since Allen rarely gives interviews, this volume is by its very nature an important one for fans of his films, and he is candid about his thematic obsessions—death, the confusion between fantasy and reality, the tensions that threaten the nuclear family. His blowup with Mia Farrow occurred during the course of the interview process, and although he never discusses it directly (which is fine, given the overexposure it received in the press), Allen does talk about the importance of focusing on filmmaking during ``this time of stress''; still, he says its effect on his work was minimal. But this is not a confessional, Barbara Waltersstyle interview. It's two guys talking shop, and Allen speaks at great length about casting decisions, the mechanics of shooting, and the writing process. He can be startlingly on-target when talking about his limitations, as in his observation that too much of his dramatic dialogue sounds like it was written for subtitles, but for much of the book, he seems defensive, particularly about negative critical reactions to his films. Unfortunately, given the opportunity he is presented, Bjîrkman doesn't ask many interesting questions. He shows little knowledge of the New York milieu so essential to Allen's films, or of American culture (popular or high), and no sense of humor at all. As a result, much of the book is just dull. Strictly for those who devour the Woodman's every word.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8021-1556-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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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