My Hollywood Stories is a collection of informative; historical; educational; funny; exciting; entertaining; sexy; shocking; and tragic stories and anecdotes about famous and not-so-famous Hollywood people--actors; directors; producers; writers; and studio moguls. While it is not a book about acting; it is written by an actor with contributions from various actors; all of whom are writing about other actors. Older readers will take a trip down memory lane; remembering many of the celebrities mentioned; while younger readers will discover Hollywood history from its earlier years to the present. They will learn about the people who were part of the building blocks of the film industry: the highs; the lows; the successes; the failures; and the tragedies.
#340348 in eBooks 2014-08-11 2014-08-11File Name: B00MODPX4Y
Review
24 of 33 people found the following review helpful. Watch the Movies Instead!By Richard MasloskiThis is a book that should never have been published. It is evident that the "professor" who edited the volume and wrote two of its essays has NOT viewed the films he talks about in quite some time - if at all! One illustration should suffice. In discussing "Lolita"; Professor Abrams writes that Peter Sellers character of Clare Quilty is shot by Humbert Humbert as "he crawls behind a life-sized painting of Lolita herself; which Humbert drills with bullets; killing Quilty behind it." Anyone who has seen this film knows perfectly well that it is NOT a painting of "Lolita herself" - anyone; that is; except for Professor Abrams who had NO business helming this book. It is filled with many a lame philosophical analysis of the maestros works - and laden with factual errors. Skip this book - and watch the movies!2 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Six Important Things to Know About This AnthologyBy not me1. The editor believes its possible that a UFO crashed in Roswell in 1947. He also believes that the ensuing government cover up might have influenced the storyline of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (See pages 251 and 262.)2. The essays contain so many factual errors that you wonder how carefully the authors watched the movies. For example: The Doomsday Machine does not work by launching Russian missiles at the U.S. (It is a huge bomb encased in Cobalt-Thorium G.) The Soviet Ambassador does not "barely blink an eye" when he hears about the Doomsday Machine. (He cries out in dread.) Alexs attempted suicide is not what cures him of the Ludovico Technique. (Doctors restore Alex to "normal.") The astronauts in 2001 are not heroic adventurers. (Outer space has been domesticated by 2001. The astronauts who work there are banal organization men who can barely operate a zero-gravity toilet.) When viewers first see the monolith in 2001 they do not know that aliens are tinkering with human evolution. (The monolith is a total mystery at the begining of the movie.) And on and on. Its great for philosophers to think about movies; but they also need to pay attention to them.3. With the exception of an excellent essay on Barry Lyndon ("The Shape of Man" by Chris Pliatska); the authors dont really use philosophy to illuminate Kubricks movies or enhance our enjoyment of them. Instead; they use his movies as platforms to launch Philosophy 101-ish mini-essays on Absurdism; Nihilism; Existentialism; Hegel; Nietzsche; Plutarch; Ray Kurzweil; and so forth. The gap between the philosophy and the movies is pretty wide. In fact; a couple of essays barely even discuss the movies.4. Unpardonably; this sentence appears on page 203: "In particular; I suggest that The Shining foregrounds an anti-nostalgia that contests the reverentially retrospective turn taken by some forms of postmodernism toward the artistic and cultural past; making Kubrick one of those contemporary artists who; to invoke Hal Fosters description; are involved with a counter-practice that opposes not only the official culture of modernism but also the false-normativity of a reactionary postmodernism predicated on a return to the verities of tradition (in art; family; religion...)." The Shining is a scary movie about ghosts and madness. Hopefully the person who wrote the sentence on page 203 never got tenure.5. Few; if any; of the authors realize that; alone among Kubricks movies; Eyes Wide Shut is a pretentious; laughable mess. It cries out for ridicule; not for belabored psycho-analytic exegesis. The movie is so lip-smackingly smutty that you have to wonder whether Kubrick ended life as a dirty old man.6. No one should buy this book. If; like me; you like Kubrick so much that youll read almost anything about him...well; in that case; check this book out of a library. But dont buy it.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Not entirely lucid; but the articles that are shine.By Crim RobertsThe articles on the Killing; Eyes Wide Shut; and 2001 are more than worth it. Very well put together; would recommend.
