A font of irrepressible self-delight

"By now this actress has exhausted every superlative that exists and to suggest that she has outdone herself is only to say that she’s done it again. Her performance goes beyond physical imitation, though she has the rounded shoulders and the fluting voice down perfectly." — A O Scott reviewing Meryl Streep's performance in Julie & Julia

Really? I found her close to unwatchable. The self-delight coming off the performance is so overpowering that it was all I could do to resist a movie-long sulk. It's this close to being the worst bit of over-acting you've seen in years (which means she's virtually a shoo-in for yet another Oscar). She sounds like one of the Pythons doing a woman, and acts like a tipsy eleven- year old, stealing scenes that are already hers, rolling her head around her shoulders, chortling constantly, as if thinking of some secret joke, which only she has got to hear in its entirety but which we in the audience are sure to get if we are smart enough. The joke, of course, is that Meryl Streep — Meryl Streep — is playing Julie Child. Julia Child! Imagine that! Isn't that something? Isn't that a blast? A hoot? Isn't that just divine? Isn't that the most hysterical thing you ever did hear?

Or not. I'm not sure when all this started. I think it was around Death Becomes Her. That was the first performance where Streep decided she was going to kick off her heels, relax and have her some fun. I'm all for fun, of course, and but Streep's impersonation of the stuff has everything going for it except the quality of relaxation. To me she the person she most resembles in these roles — Death Becomes Her, Adaptation, Mamma Mia, Julie and Julia — is the high school Latin teacher who has had enough of being demonised by her children and decides to join in the end-of-term panto, on order to show her 'lighter side'. The children, meanwhile, smile grimly way through the whole ordeal, not wishing to offend her, knowing how quickly the jolly chortling matriarch in front of them can snap back into being a fire-breathing dragon who has held them captive all term.

My favorite Spielberg shot

I found this wonderful still from Duel on the interweb the other day. Seeing as this is my blog, and I can do what I like, I'm going to post it. It's my favorite Spielberg shot; you see it in almost every film of his. Sometimes the truck is a dinosaur.* Sometimes it's a Nazi. But there's a always a monster-in-the-rear-view-mirror shot. Its the concision I love: both chaser, and chasee, compressed into a single frame. Hitchcock would have loved it. Only that shot of cracking glass in The Lost World — you see both the spreading splinters in the glass and the rocks many hundreds of feet below — comes close.

*Jurassic Park's rear-view mirror includes the crowning detail: "Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear."

Neocons 4 Stewart

"Kristol told me: 'You'll be pleasantly surprised. He doesn't take cheap shots. Jon is smart.... There is genuine intellectual curiosity. He's a staunch liberal, but he's a thoughtful liberal, and I respect that" — Cliff May, former spokesman for the Republican Party. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do. He's got his perspective, but he's been fair... In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues." — John Bolton, former ambassador to the UN, New York Magazine

The presidential sense of humor

There's a nice piece by Matt Lai in the NYT mag about Obama's sense of humor. He rounds up all the right examples — the moment in the debates when asked what his failing was and said messiness, only to see Clinton and Edwards say they "care too much." ("well you know I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. Its terrible.") And the time he foreswore, under pressure from McCain, some new white house helicopters ("The helicorpter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, Ive never had a helicopter before..."). And edgiest of all, his recent joke that were he to get caught trying to break into his own residence, "I'd get shot." Lai makes the essential point: that Obama's sense of humor is essentially absurdist, looking askance at the pomp and imposture of high office.

"Such a perspective is entirely new in the White House, born perhaps of the same deconstructionist ethos that gave us The Simpsons and The Onion — self aware acts of ridicule that would have seemed wholly out of place in the age of All In The Family."

I would add a particular pecadillo of his: he seems to find old people funny. Again and again on the campiagn trail, he picked out a pensioner in the audience and riffed with them, to everyone's gathering delight — offering the vice-presidency to some old dear in clogs and shawl, waving the walking stick carved for him by an elderly gent and saying he'd "whup" congress's behind if they didn't pass his healthcare bill. This mixture of ease and vinegar may come from being raised largely by your grandparents, as he was. The absent father accounts for the hollowness-of-authority stuff, I think. Obama's best jokes are remeniscent of the child who points out that the emperor has no clothes. Except now he's the Emperor being carried down the street, in all his finery, his vast retinue behind, so dry self-mockery — rare in a politician — becomes his best self-defence.

Quote of the day

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care" — Sarah Palin

As Publius points out,Palin is right on one point: "there are people who weigh whether children like Trig are worthy of insurance. They're called insurance companies, and they have decided that these children are not in fact worthy of coverage. That's because Down Syndrome is a 'pre-existing condition'."

What happens if you get someone who, by some dark miracle, actually believes this bilge? That Obama wants to put the weak and unproductive to death via death panels? A credulous, angry fool who also believes that he is not an American, as do 58% of the Republican base. What would you do if you believed, honestly believed, that your country had been usurped by a foreigner, as part of a vast conspiracy to subvert the fabric of your country from within, and was now planning to exterminate your children and grandparents via a 'death panel'? You would try and take him out. Of course you would. It would be the only decent, patriotic thing to do.* With former vie presidential candidates now lending their name to this garbage, it's only a matter of time.

*Obama is the target of more than 30 death threats a day — up 400% from President Bush.

The unbearable hotness of zombie killing

Jovovich took the part, then read what they’d done to the script. “It was horrifying,” she says. “They’d brought in the Michelle Rodriguez character and given her all the kick-as action scenes. I was already on plane to Germany when I read it.”

She got off the plane, and marched straight to her director Paul Anderson's hotel room. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ she announced. ‘This script isn’t the script I read. If you think I’m going to be in this you’re crazy. I’m on a plan in an hour.” They spent four hours going over the script together, line by line, giving her back the scene where she runs up a wall, scissorkicks the mutant dog, and breaks the neck of the zombie by crushing his head between her thighs.

“And that was how we met,” she says, smiling.

“How did it work with the sequels? Did he roll over in bed one morning and say ‘darling, I’m very sorry but in the second film you are going to catch the zombie virus.....”

“We had to work on the science of that one. I had the virus but I also had to look hot. So we had to come up with this explanation: the virus was mutating. I had bonded with it.”

“You can’t ignore the internal logic.”

My interview with Milla Jovovich here. One cut the editors made was the following anecdote, about the time Jovovich complimented my wife at a L’Oreal fundraiser, yelling “Great dress!” across a crowded room. When I told her this, Jovovich was delighted. “No way! That is so great... I always feel like I dress for women because men would never notice anyway. So if I see a girl who looks really nice I’ve got to give her props, like ‘I got you girl.... You’re good’.”

Budd Schulberg R.I.P.

Brando was unhappy. "The scene is unplayable," he told the director, Elia Kazan, who reported back to the film's writer, Budd Schulberg. "Marlon says the scene is unplayable."

"I don't understand it," said Schulberg. "You like the scene. I like the scene. Everybody likes the scene. Let's sit down and talk to him ..." Every time Schulberg tried to sit down with the star, however, the movie's producer found some way to call off the meeting. He was afraid Brando might walk. Finally, during a rooftop shoot, Schulberg approached Brando and took him aside.

"I don't understand about the taxi scene," he said.

"Well, it doesn't work," replied Brando.

"What's wrong, Marlon, why don't you like the scene?"

"Well, when I say that stuff about I could have been a contender instead of a bum and Steiger takes out a gun, I just can't say the rest of it. I think I'd stop."

"What if you just reach over and push the gun down while he looks at you?"

Brando thought about it.

"Oh, that's fine. That'll work."

The speech stayed in.

My interview with Schulberg here.

The Oscar race starts here

My determination to predict the Oscars without having seen a single film have come unstuck: I've seen one of the movies I think is going to be a serious contender in at least three categories. Other than that I'm flying blind, so here goes.

Let's start with the safe bets: Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela in a Clint Eastwood film (Invictus) would seem to have best actor sewn up.

Supporting actor I think is going to go to Stanley Tucci for Julie and Julia. The movie carries a strong whiff of Tucci's wonderful breakthrough film, Big Night. (He's also in another contender this year, Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, so he's showing due diligence.) Other contenders are Alfred Molina for An Education, Matt Damn for Invictus, but Tucci has been delivering treasurable performances for many years now — exactly the mixture of technics and twinkle the Academy loves.

Actress is a little trickier. The front runners are clear enough — Sarandon for The Lovely Bones, Streep for Julie and Julia, Hillary Swank for Amelia and Carey Mulligan for An Education. I think we've all had enough of Hillary Swank, no? I know which I'd like to see win — Mulligan — about which more later.

Best Picture. Ten nominees aren't going to significantly widen the race, I don't think. There may be polite nods to Funny People, Up, or Avatar, but I think it'll be between Invictus, The Lovely Bones, and An Education. Invictus has the look of a Ghandi, to me: big and clunky and potent. But Clint's won twice, and recently. An Education is the one I've seen and think has the most potential for American audiences to fall in love with. It's the only 'small' movie up there, too, which gives it an asymmetric bounce. And the Lovely Bones, well, from the outside things look hopeful: the book was lousy, but hit a nerve — exactly the kind of bad book which has an mystifying habit of making for a good movie. Could Jackson turn in something as good as his Heavenly Creatures? If so he gets his second director Oscar as well and Steven Spielberg starts to sweat.

It all comes down to The Lovely Bones. It's the one piece of the puzzle around which the others fit. If it's good, we have a winner. If it's not, we have a race.

Best original screenplay: Nick Hornby or Judd Apatow.
Best adapted screenplay: The Lovely Bones.
Best documentary: Anvil! The Story of Anvil!
Best animated feature: Up
Special Effects: Avatar
Score: Clint Eastwood

Quote of the day

“It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” John Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton’s trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

But Kim Jong Il* is not a terrorist. He is the leader of North Korea. Bolton appears to be using the word "terrorist" in much the same way that children use the word "snotbag" or "meanie."

I mean this is a classic case of rewarding bad behavior, the seizure of these two basically innocent Americans. Obviously all of us want to get them out but we want it done in a way that doesn’t increase the risks in the future for other Americans seized by North Korea, seized by Iran, seized by other despotic regimes and then turned into pawns to get senior officials like former presidents to come and legitimize the regime in order to get them out.

Two lives in exchange for a photo-op is a bad deal? Really? Bolton certainly knows how to take a really big crap on good news.

*A name my wife cannot hear without hearing the three-note chorus of Simon & Garfunkel's Frank Lloyd Wright.

The death of the soundbyte

"Sound bites, says Clay Shirky, the NYU new-media philosopher and recent author of Here Comes Everybody, were a product of media scarcity, when public figures had a finite amount of time and space to make their points. Now we live in a world of “Publish, then filter,” he points out, rather than “Filter, then publish,” a time when the question is “Why not film this?” rather than “Why film this?” This makes Obama our first post-sound-bite president. If he wants to give a 37-minute speech about race, he can give a 37-minute speech about race, knowing that millions of Americans (now more than 6 million) will eventually hear it, even if they fail to catch it in real time. Not only is ubiquity strategy in a world of unlimited content, volume is too." — Jennifer Senior, New York magazine

A boomerang, comin' back at ya

Drudge links to this Telegraph story about the NHS cutting back on painkiller injections, presumably as a way of bolstering Republican arguments about the horrors of "socialised medicine." If you read the story, however, you find an even worse horror, waiting to pounce:

Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.

In other words, the poor bastards will be subjected to the American system. What barbarism! Maybe not such a wise idea, that link. The Economist, meanwhile, has some fun with a piece in the Huffington Post noting that firefighting used to be a private, for-profit industry.

If we had to have the "conversation" about the firefighting industry today, we'd have socialism-phobic South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint on the TV every chance he could get saying things like, "Do you want a government bureaucrat between you and the safety of your home?" Rep. John Boehner of Ohio would hold press conferences and ask, "Do you want your firefighting to be like going to the DMV? Do you want Uncle Sam to come breaking down your door every time some Washington fat cat says there's a fire?"

One could write similar comedy sketches for most of the other formerly private services that have become public services over the centuries, as people realised that the free market doesn't provide them very well. (London, 1850. The Honourable Mr. John Boehner: "When an urchin pilfers an apple from your fruit stand, do you want to rely on some bureaucratic government 'copper', or do you want to follow the great traditions of our sunny isle and gather a vigilante mob to enforce justice?" Gaul, 45 B.C. Jimdemintix: "When a Roman phalanx advances on your village, do you want some lazy bureaucratic government-run army in charge of defending it?" And so on.)

The Uses of Literacy

Forgotten Bookmarks itemises the strange inserts found in books by a used-book seller. Left, someone uses Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting to remind themselves to "wear open-toed shoes" at 11.00 O' Clock.

Having to let Hannah go

So Hannah went in for her surgery, but the cancer turned out to be more aggresive than they thought; she had complications, needed a blood transfusion, her lungs were soon filling with fluid... I can't remember everything the surgeon said to me but it looked unlikely she was going to survive the night. So Kate and I went to see her in hospital and make one last fuss over her, then authorised the doc to put her down. She went out on an overdose of Propofol, just like Michael Jackson. I see her moon-walking with him right now.

Micro-comment on the Gates case*

Two men got angry with one another. One of them was a cop. So he got to arrest the one who wasn't.

*In an effort to keep my 'opinion footprint' on overblown news stories down to an absolute minimum.

A book I will be reading

"Michael was a deliberate maker of music—he didn’t throw off dozens of records the way Prince and R. Kelly do. He made meticulous choices. You can see it in his dancing, as it evolves. For the video for Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough they used a green screen, and the background is these weird cubes. It’s startling how little money went into it—it’s a terrible video—but Michael is dancing really loosely, and you can see the beginning of his moves. By the time he gets to Thriller, they are codified, almost computerized. He was a perfecter, a practicing fiend. He thought, 'I am going to take off my hat in the most elegant way.' And he did, every time." — Sasha Frere Jones on his forthcoming book about Michael Jackson for Ecco.

My first appearance in a movie trailer

Here. I'm at 1.58, laughing, during a game of charades. That was my function in the movie, as far as I can tell: to laugh at my friends Colin and Michelle for doing something as bonkers as going without electricity for a year. (They wanted to get their carbon footprint down.) My wife and I were rather like the Ledbetters in The Good Life: the shallow snobs who pop around every now and again to take pity on their tree-hugging save-the-whale neighbours and check their fingernails haven't exceeded a length of six inches. Thus you see me mocking Colin's earth-worm compost, and puzzling, in scolded-schoolboy fashion, over what exactly is wrong with my Starbucks cup. (It was made of paper). Now that the whole thing is a movie, of course, my interest in his wacko experiment perks up a bit.

Can't buy me love

Tomorrow, Hannah (seen left, reclining on a copy of The Big Sleep) goes in for her surgery, which is going to cost somewhere in the region of $4,000, on top of the $4,000 we have already paid to get her diagnosed. Even after you subtract the anger I must be feeling about her having cancer in the first place, and also the natural squeals of a tightwad asked to fork over a large amount of money, this strikes me as an appalling amount of money — immoral, even. Vets in the UK charge fees, too, of course, but $4,000 for a diagnosis? I can't turn it down, and nor can I afford it. I am sure they have no need of my custom, knowing only too well that people are wiling to pay through the nose to extend the life of a dying animal. I resent them deeply for that discovery and the ruthlessness with which they wield it.

Postscript: turns out its going to cost $5,000.

Quote of the day

“We talked for a couple of hours, and I finally realized that he had the requisite insecurities and whatnot” — director Max Mayer on why he eventually cast Hugh Dancy as a man with Asperger's syndrome, New York Times

Because that's what Asperger's Syndrome really boils down to, isn't it? Insecurities and whatnot.The article also contains the strangest sentence I have come across in the NYT this year.

His delicate features and Byronic curls might scream “romantic comedy” and make him seem like a natural heir to older heartthrobs like Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. But Mr. Dancy’s brain yearns for more.

Traditionally, it is the heart that yearns. Or if you wish to remain physiologically neutral, Dancy himself: "He yearns for more." But his brain? One guesses that the writer wishes to make a point about romantic comedies being dumb, and roles involving Asperger's more cerebral, if only — presumably — because it is a mental condition. I'm not convinced of the logic here. The best acting comes from many places, but the brain is the least of them. A case could even be made for the opposite: that comedy requires faster synases than a role playing someone mental ill, because it requires you interact more carefully with your fellow actors. Someone with Asperger's is by necessity acting alone. That's why actors like it so much. It has nothing to do with "brains." It's about getting to be the only person in the room. But they'd never be able to write that: "but his ego yearns for more."

I've got a bad feeling about this

"Avatar tells the story of a planet named Pandora, a breathtaking place inhabited by a peaceful, beautiful tribe called the Na’vi—sinewy, blue skinned, tiny-waisted humanoid creatures with tails and pointy ears—whose existence is being threatened by the evil humans and their military. To save the Na’vis, scientist Sigourney Weaver sends forth to Pandora “Avatars”—laboratory-created human versions of Na’vis—to earn their trust and protect them with their human know-how."— Vanity Fair

I'm sorry but there's something I'm just not getting. This is the story of how one group of humans battles another group of humans, by pretending to be the aliens the first group of humans are threatening? It sounds a little complicated. It sounds awfully like the Matrix: our heroes have pretend fights in virtual reality, while sitting safely in a lab somewhere. Where's the suspense in that? And who cares whether the place is "breathtaking" or not? I'm suspicious.

Tanks down Fifth Avenue

"Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects... and declare them enemy combatants." — New York Times

The mainstreaming of morbidity

In his review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood prince, Anthony Lane asks "Why is it that, from Gotham City to Hogwarts, the official word has gone out that anything dark and edgy is a de-facto guarantee of weight and impact?"

I have long wondered this myself. I'm not exactly sure when it was that mainstream entertainment started to hanker for some of the grit of indieland, but Alan Ball has a lot to answer for. His movie American Beauty served up blackest misanthropy with the parsley of bright, knowing performances, which invited us, as an audience, to feel superior to the poor characters on the screen, leading their muffled lives of stifling bourgois convention. Which is where it gets tricky. You can pull off superiority to stifling bourgois convention in a novel, because you read a novel on your own. It can even work at the theatre, where a certain class of person is attracted that keeps the common rank and file at bay. But it works less well in a cinema, if only because you are are not the only one there: you are surrounded by people, all laughing in tandem, at the herd mentality of stifling bourgois convention. Which rather takes the sting out of it. Misanthropy can only really be practised alone. Joining a club won't do it.

Ball recalled that while the movie was in production, one Dreamworks executive asked him, "Could you just make it a little more fucked up,' which is not a note that you get in Hollywood very often. And I thought, 'wow' and that gave me free range to go a little deeper, go a little darker, go a little more complicated."

Maybe that was not a note Ball heard in Hollywood very often in 1999, but now you hear it all the time. Call it the mainstreaming of morbidity — a kind of spray-on gothicism designed to impart deepness, darkness, complication. A brief surf of the net gives me an artwork praised as “a dark and disturbing masterpiece”, a novel for its “raw, uncompromising, gritty” style, a TV show billed as “wrenching, raw”, a rock album that is sold on the back of “dark, disturbing, angry lyrics”, a comedian lauded for his “raw, edgy” stand-up, even a fashion photographer for his “raw and edgy locations”. And while I'm used to hearing indie cinema touted as "dark, disturbing, unsettling”, I'm less used to hearing that said of summer blockbusters — kid's movies, comic strips. The new Batman movie is the “darkest yet ... tormented by demons both physical and psychological”, while the latest Harry Potter is “the darkest and most unsettling installment." Whatever happened to popular entertainment being, you know, fun?

"Against international law"

A US military spokesman has condemned the release of a video of a captured American soldier, 23-year-old Private Bowe Bergdahl of Ketchum, Idaho, which called for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Colonel Greg Julian said "the public humiliation of prisoners is against international law", and stressed that the US mission in the country was to "support the Afghan government and improve security". — BBC news

International law is so important in these cases. One would hate to see him waterboarded. Or hung from the ceiling. Or buried in a coffin with insects. Or repeatedly rammed into a wall. Or imprisoned without the ability to challenge his detention. Or found guilty without a trial. That would not be right.

No more masterpieces, please

“When access is easy, we tend to favor the short, the sweet, and the bitty. When access is difficult, we tend to look for large-scale productions, extravaganzas, and masterpieces,” writes Cowen. “The current trend—as it has been running for decades—is that a lot of our culture is coming in shorter and smaller bits.” Think 30-second YouTube clips instead of a full movie, iTunes singles instead of complete albums, two paragraph blog posts instead of an entire essay. And now the 140-character limit on Twitter instead of a blog-style free-form text box.

From Ben Casnocha's review of Tyler's Cowen's Create Your Own Economy.

I'm with the attention gnats on this one. It's a very rare masterpiece that I haven't failed to enjoy. I didn't like Ulysses, was terribly let down by Citizen Kane, couldn't understand the fuss over Raging Bull, and not only do I not get 2001: a Space Odyssey but suspect there is not much there to get. I'm sure some of this is simply a reaction against hype: few works of art can survive being acclaimed as a mind-shattering aesthetic event. I'm a chronic anticipator. No sooner has something been proclaimed a masterpiece than I start wondering if I'm going to like it, or be one the dunces who doesn't get it, and laughed out of school. What book or movie or album could possibly survive that anxiety load without at least a slight dip of disappointment?

As time has gone on, and I've gotten more secure in my judgments, another explanation has come to the fore. There is something intirinsic to the masterpiece that I don't like. Something about its masterpieceness. It's the aspiration I think, whether fulfilled or not. Few things are as unattractive as ambition. I tend to prefer "craftsmanlike" or "good" over "masterpiece" and "excellent." I prefer Revolver to Sgt Pepper, Touch of Evil to Citizen Kane, Portrait of the Artist to Ulysses, Mean Streets to Raging Bull, Strangers on a Train to Vertigo. Who wouldn't? Strangers on a train does all the things people go to Hitchock for — the suspence, the plot, the glints of dark humor — whereas the thing that critics like about Vertigo, one suspects, are that it doesn't contain any of those things: the plot's a mess, the suspense sags, and there are virtually no jokes. The same with Ulysses: an anti-novel. So it gets acclaimed as Joyce's best novel. Or Citizen Kane: cinema's box of tricks turned inside out, so it gets to be as Welles's best film. Give me the solid little under-achievers, any day.

The last book but one

While looking for reviews of my new book online, I accidentally turned up some reviews for my last book, Blockbuster, over at livingsocial.com. They come from real readers, not those pale, doughy creatures of the night known as critics. Thanks, guys.

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fotini douglas, 10 months ago

As I was a film major at uni this was just like a big film geek flashback that I really enjoyed!
Academic, insightful and witty! No cinematic diatribes here - a great background into the growth of the 'summer' blockbusters in Hollywood and how it has evolved/mutated over the years. Its all about the money!
A film geeks dream - with all the facts and figures on ET, Alien, Star Wars, Indiana, Arnie, Empire, Lord of The Rings - its all there- every biggie ever made!
There is some fantastic insider information collected from years of interviews with the who's who of the film industry. Useful for film buffs and academics alike (a rare mix!) it will inspire you to support the independent film industry and cinemas of the world.
There is some scary $$$$ being spent!

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Mark, 10 months ago

An intelligently argued case, by someone who grew up with the first wave of blockbusters (and is pretty much the same age as me, as it happens - he comments on how great it was to be a teen when “Raiders” first opened and, like him, I remember coming out of the cinema and wanting to be an archaeologist!), that attempts to put right the myth that Spielberg and Lucas, between them, killed decent films in Hollywood. Apart from a few niggles (he used “Skywalking” as a source, but makes some elemental mistakes regarding “Star Wars”, which bugged me), this is a good book, encompassing a wide range of films and talking indepth with a lot of directors. Well worth a read.

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Doris, about 1 year ago

Hilarously written ... A great read. It's taught me, that whenever I make a film, the characters better be adaptable to toys and other marrketing merchandise for it to make money! But seriously ... a must read for Spielberg and Lucas fans.

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Facebook User, about 1 year ago

It's fast-paced, easy to get into, and a thoroughly engrossing story, charting the history of the modern-day blockbuster from Jaws through to Lord Of The Rings.

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Facebook User, about 1 year ago

I loved this book. It felt like vindication for all the critics and art movie fans about how what they like is better than everyone. Shone took me back to the joy of seeing Star Wars, Raiders, and Titanic in the theaters. Good stuff.

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Susan Pierce Sloan , about 1 year ago

A call to arms for the great blockbuster movies of the 70s and 80s to return and a swift rebuke to anyone who claims that only 'art' movies are any good. I really enjoyed the refreshing approach of this book.

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Facebook User, about 1 year ago

Enjoying the background to films of my childhood and which I still love. Looking forward to finally reading 'Easy Riders and Raging Bulls' to allow contrasts and comparisons to be made. Biskind is made to look very selective in the conclusions he draws. Only a quarter of the way in so can't make to much of a judgement...Having completed the book I would recommend it to others although obviously the story of blockbuster films has not yet reached a conclusion as this year's slate of summer films (heading over the $150 million mark, budget-wise) shows.

"Shone manages his difficult task beautifully. In terms of critical analysis, I found his approach much more nuanced - and certainly better written - than Biskind’s "the barbarians have taken the castle" approach. He is eloquent and evocative in his description of the early blockbusters of Lucas and Spielberg, reminding you what was great about the blockbusters of the period. Yet he is equally convincing and entertaining as he charts the gradual debasement of the form those directors pioneered.... late in the book he admits that "the audiences who trot out of Spider-Man seem content enough, and doubtless one of them will one day write a book rubbishing this one, pointing out what a bunch of bores we first-generation blockbuster fans are, still banging on about Raiders of the Lost Ark after all these years." He may well be right, but he is sufficiently rigorous in his approach that whoever tries to do so will need to be thoughtful and convincing if they are to debunk this analysis." — Cinephobia

"If this was food, it would be a giant tub of fresh popcorn, covered in hot, molten butter, with an old-school choc top for dessert... Shone has the eye of a journalist and the discerning aficionado (one each); he treats us as he would wish to be treated. ... check this out. If you're a film fan and you want an alternate perspective on late-seventies, early-eighties moviemaking to Biskind's anti-blockbuster work "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls," then this is what you need." — Illiterarty.com

"It makes a pleasant change to come across a book on film that treats popular cinema as something to be celebrated. Even rarer for that book to treat its subject with intelligence... Shone articulates perceptions I’d not come across before, and which mark him out as a singularly astute commentator... an excellent book." — Youdothatvoodoo.com

The avalanche begins

“An intricate and paradoxical tale about innocence and experience, and the dangers and rewards of being truthful, to thine own self and otherwise” — Keith Miller, reviewing In The Rooms for the Times Literary Supplement

"It is rare for a writer to exhibit such bravery" — Toby Young, The Independent On Sunday

"Readable, amusing... well-written" — The Daily Mail

“[A] cutting comic debut” — Phil Baker, The Sunday Times

So many movies, so little time...

Okay. No time to waste. Going Haiku. (Like Going Rogue. Only more poetic).

500 Days of Summer. Time-hopping sometimes arbitrary. But loved the idea. Loved the Hall & Oates song. Suspicion Zooey Deschanel would have been a little crueller in real life. Always loved her singing voice. Foxy. 

The Hurt Locker. Unbearable suspense. Best film about Iraq. (Not saying much.) Love all bomb defusal movies. But this one best. Guy deserves an Oscar. Never seen him before. Reminded me of Steve McQueen. Unlike most movie tough guys, he's nuts. Suspicion more tough guys are nuts than movies normally let on. Got lost in Whole Foods afterwards. Wandering. Numb. 

Bruno. Laughed like a drain for five minutes. Then felt my soul being slowly sucked out of me. Scenes shorter than Borat. People's hackles raised faster.  Prefer the promotional stunts. Interview on Australian "Rove", for instance. Vatever.