Movies Books

My daughter practically sleeps with this book, being a big DINOSAUR fan and also a fan of just dinosaurs in general. If your kids love the movie, this book is a must. All characters are shown, described in detail...lots of full color illustrations and stuff from the movie. Well worth the money.

The folks at DK have done it again with their guide to the upcoming Disney film DINOSAUR. This excellent book follows the same formula as the other "Essential" books produced by DK, with each page lavishly filled with images from the film. Each character from the film, both major and background are represented here as well as various elements from the world they inhabit. Informative text point out various aspects of each image in a concise easy to read manner which will hold the attention of even the most adamant of anti-reading juveniles. Each page instantly grabs one's attention with much to look at,yet without ever appearing hapazardly piled together. A sumptuous visual book that should appeal to not only children, but anyone who collects Disneyana or simply likes animation or dinosaurs. A must buy and valued addition to anyone's personal library

"Dinosaur: The Essential Guide" is an oversized companion book to the animated film "Dinosaur," which was a big 2000 hit for Walt Disney. This book, lavishly illustrated with scenes from the film, describes the characters, locales, and species that appear in the film.

The book is a visual treat. Disney used cutting-edge techniques to bring the creatures of "Dinosaur" to life, and the book captures each animal splendidly. The soft fur of the lemurs, the bony neck frill of the styracosaur, the fierce teeth of the carnotaur--all the details are vivid and memorable.

The book's effectiveness is, however, compromised by the fact that the authors seem unsure of their purpose. Is this book supposed to be a guide to the fictional world of the movie, or to the real world of dinosaurs as science understands them? For example, the book is filled with scientific-sounding observations like "Herd dinosaurs are highly social animals, and during the nesting season the lake is the center of their bustling community." Sidebars with titles like "Cretaceous Life" add to this pseudoscientific flavor. But as far as I know, there is no evidence that dinosaurs spoke English or formed multispecies families with lemurs, as depicted in this film! This flaw aside, this book is a treat for kids who loved the movie, or who love dinosaurs in general.

This is the best of the Disney's Dinosaur books to date. It contains numerous wonderful photos from the movie, all reproduced on good quality paper and in good quality tones as is characteristic of DK books. It is not written in storybook format, so if you're looking for a read-aloud narrative this would not be the best choice. However, if you're looking for the most thorough and comprehensive way to re-experience the details and nuances of the film, this is the book to get.

Lance Parkin's attempt to piece together a timeline of events in Doctor Who history is very admirable and for the most part successful. Most importantly, A History of The Universe is non-critical. From the creation of the universe (was the Big Bang caused by Terminus?) to its cataclysmic demise billions of years in the future, Mr. Parkin takes events from the television series stories and various spin-offs such as K9 & Company, as well as the New Adventure and Missing Adventure novels to form a timeline that is both informative and easy to follow. Supplementing this book is a myriad of sidebar notes containing background info on the stories and Parkin's reasons for dating a story at a certain point in history, either mentioned within the framework of the story itself, or referenced by another story to be placed at a specific date in time.

For those of us who have never read, nor care to read, the multitude of Doctor Who novels in existence, A History of The Universe can act as sort of Cliff Notes that we used in school when assigned to read a long and tedious novel but had no desire to. The plot of each story is briefly outlined on the timeline at the year in which it takes place. Therefore, we can "cheat" by finding out what happens without actually picking up the book. Parkin makes it simple to determine which events come from television, and which come from the novel by using a differentiating typeface as a distinguishing feature. He uses lightface for tv and boldface for the novels. What can be simpler?

THE UNIT ERA:

This is a bugaboo era for Doctor Who pendantics. It's impossible for the UNIT stories to be pinned down to a definite year. From all accounts, these stories were originally meant to take place in the near future. In a 1969 interview with Jon Pertwee, he reveals that the Doctor would be exiled to earth "in the 1980's". (p. 286, A History of The Universe) Yet this very well could be misinformation. No specific date is ever pinpointed within the third Doctor stories themselves, although Jo comes so tantalizingly close in Day of The Daleks as she explains to the Controller what time she is from. Irritatingly, the Controller stops her after "Sept. 12", as she has already told him the year, (off camera, of course!).

In Pyramids of Mars in what appears to be a throw-away line, Sarah claims she is from 1980, which would suggest a near future setting for previous UNIT tales since Pyramids was produced in 1975. However, in Mawdryn Undead, a very specific date of the Brigadier's retirement is given, 1976. Adding to the confusion, the time zones in which Mawdryn takes place is 1977/83, contradicting all previous attempts to date UNIT stories and throwing that proverbial monkey wrench in the lives of many pendantics.

So take your pick. As Parkin suggests, take the facts you like while ignoring any that contradict your argument. There is no perfect way to assign specific years to UNIT stories. Therefore, Mr. Parkin cops out by listing the UNIT entries on his timeline as 1970s earth, but qualifies this by stating that they likely occur anywhere from the late 60s to the early 80s. A cop-out, but perhaps a wise cop out, as he allows each individual reader to accept or deny facts as that reader so chooses. Personally, I would rather ignore a throw-away line like Sarah's, which if removed from the script would remove absolutely nothing from the premise of the story, than to ignore the Mawdryn time zone which forms the whole basis for a story. Also, a near-future setting can be interpreted with a broad brush stroke. "Near future" literally can mean ten, five or even one year down the road. One month, or even one day, can technically be the near future. Plus, it is much more convenient to think of UNIT as a contemporary early 70s setting, with a possible slight near future variance, because virtually the whole era smacks of early 70s, from the fashions, psychedlia ... and the fact that miles, yards and feet are still used as measurements, Britain not yet switched to the metric system.

Like Lance Parkin, I will not force my opinion on others. I can only suggest that you weigh the contradictory facts of this era against one another and form your own opinion. That is precisely what Parkin is attempting to do by not assigning specific years to the UNIT era. To exert his opinion as the correct one would take away from the non-critical aura of this book.

Appendix: I do realize that this book is from 1996 and outdated, and it has been recently updated to include events of the new series. However, at the risk of irking fans of that series, to me true Doctor Who ends with the classic series. My personal taste for Doctor Who suffers its cataclysmic demise at the cataclysmic demise of the Colin Baker era, but I can accept events of the McCoy era as well as the novels as part of the Whoniverse. While the new series may be fun and exciting to some, to me it's just not the same. The Whoniverse begins and ends with this version for me.

Wow Lance, you obviously had a lot of time on your hands when putting this masterpiece together. This book puts everything that has happened in the Doctor Who universe from the TV series and Virgin novels into chronological order. A great feat to accomplish especially with all the discontinuity in the series.
This book deserves an award - thanks Lance. RECOMMENDED!!!

While I wouldn't suggest this title as standard fare for anyone but "Dr Who" fans, it is certain to be a staple in their diet for years to come. By dint of long effort, Parkin manages to reconcile the television and book worlds of "Who", creates an arguable but entertaining future history that explains a good deal about the good Doctor's adventures over the years. A must piece of "Who" nonfiction

The first attempt to chronologize the Doctor's adventures began in Jean-Marc Lofficier's Terrestrial Index. It was a nice starting point, but with the coming of the New Adventures, i.e. the continuing adventures of the Seventh Doctor and Ace, and Missing Adventures, stories of the previous Doctors, well, fans learned a lot more of the Time Lord. Lance Parkin, author of the NA Just War, and the MA Cold Fusion, has superceded Lofficier's chronology into a more expanded and enlightening work.

In addition to incorporating the NAs and MAs, he uses his own conjecture in various places, but those are few. For example, in The Masque Of Mandragora, the Doctor says that it will return to Earth in five hundred years, 1992. He assumes that if it did, it must have been defeated once more. The text for the televised adventures is done in a normal font, the NA and MAs in bold, and his own conjecture in a slightly thicker bold-italic. The footnotes after each event or story is explained in detail on the sides of each page. It's easy for stories that explicitly state the date e.g. Silver Nemesis takes place on 23 November 1988, but what about stories like Delta And The Bannermen, which takes place in ?4287 AD? Parkin gives arbitrary dates, but the interesting thing is, the last two digits are equal to the digits the show came out, 1987. The Caves Of Androzani, which came out in 1984, is given a date of ?2884.

There are seven sections in the book: Prehistory, Known History, Contemporary, the Near Future, which we're in right now, Colonisation, the Earth Empire, and the Far Future. Although a history of the universe, there is clearly an Earth-bias especially in the Earth Empire section. Yes, the Earth follows the model of the British Empire, from rise to collapse, as was mentioned in the TV story The Mutants.

There are explanations of the Great Old Ones, the powerful beings such as Fenric, the Animus, and the Great Intelligence, in the Prehistory section, as well as known astronomical theory such as the Big Bang and Galaxy formation hypothesis, and the variability of races that sprang up.

My favorite part is probably the period we're in right now in the book, with technological gluts, environmental disasters, shifts in the ozone layer, severe overpopulation, goth-apocalypse culture, and civil wars. All this takes place 2001-2009, and I sometimes wonder that given the corporate mindset of industrial countries, if this science-fiction will become reality.

One peeve I have is the dating of the Patrick Troughton/Jon Pertwee era UNIT stories, a sore point between Who fans. I belong to the faction that puts them the year or the year after the story came out on TV. Others put them in the future. Parkin merely dates those stories (1970's UNIT--). I don't know about that.

This last New Adventure covered here is Happy Endings, where Bernice gets married to Jason, and the last Missing Adventure is Sands Of Time, the sequel to Pyramids Of Mars. It's important to note that around the time this book came out, Virgin Publishing's rights were set to expire in May. A handful more of New and Missing Adventures came out, too late to be incorporated into Parkin's book. That also meant there could never be a second edition of the Universe book, also published by Virgin.

What I wonder is, now that BBC books has the rights to new Who stories, will they come out with their own Who universe guide, thereby invalidating Lance Parkin's painstakingly crafted work? It would be a shame if it did. Why not incorporate the New/Missing and the current new adventures in a future book? For now, this will do just nicely.

What a wondeful and cute little quick read. For I am a huge fan of movie novelizations and I really enjoyed this. Even though it was short in pages, it gave you clear thoughts and visulas about the book. I could really imagine the horse races and when the characters were talking to one another. This only took me only two hours to read, so it's pretty short. When I read this, I saw practically the whole movie. This has every scene in the movie, not wanting you to miss out on it. This is a well written novelization that when you finish reading it, you'll go straight to see the movie. Inside, are movie stills which you can get a clear idea of the movie. Read this one folks, if you're a big fan of horses and Dakota Fanning!

Hope you Enjoy! If you liked this, you may like;
1. The Perfect Man movie novelization
2. Just My Luck movie novelization
AND
3. Cars the junior movie novelization

Jordan
Overall grade* A-

Cale Crane lives on a farm with no horses. It is hard to believe it. Her dad is hte top ten thorough-bred trainer. Manolin and Balon are the Mexicans that work for Cale's dad. Ben, her dad, promised to take her to work. She ran right out of the house, and ran right in front of the truck. She jumped in. They got to the race. her dad is lika a horse whisperer, and he knew something was wrong. Tragically, Sonya the horse collapsed and hurt her leg. Cale made her dad not put the horse down. Sonya means "dreamer". Her dad signs the horse over to Cale. Her dad's old boss is trying to buy it from them. Cale nurses her to health. Do you think it can win the big race? Do you think she nursed her well?

(...)
Cale Crane is a girl that lives on a horse farm but has no horses in it. The Cranes family didn't really own horses for a long time. Cales father was a trainer of Thoroughbreds. One day during a race a horse named Sonya fell and broke her leg bone called cannon bone. The people in the race was about to put the horse to sleep until Cales dad says that they could nurse the horse back to health. Cale really likes the horse and wishes that she could race again. Sonya was on a wheelchair for a long time. Finally, when the wheelchair is of, Cales dad trains the horse. Something really unusual happens. Could the horse race again?

Ever since I saw the movie "Dreamer" I wanted to read the book by Kathy Hapka. This is a story about a girl my age and this book is based on a true story.
Cale Crane lives with her family on a horse farm with no horses. Her dad trains racehorses. One day one of the horses has an accident on the track. Everyone thinks that they should put the horse to sleep but Cale convinces her dad to nurse it back to health. The horse's name is Sonyador, which means Dreamer in Spanish.
It takes a while but Sonya's injuries heal. Cale and her dad start training Sonya to race again. Along with her dad's friends, Balon and Mandolin, they start training Sonya.
The book has a lot of exciting race stories, twists and much more. Cale thinks Sonya can win The Breeders' Cup. Sonya has enough experience as a racehorse to qualify for consideration by the judge's panel, but Cale has to convince them to let Sonya run in the race.
The rest you have to find out on your own. There is a lot more exciting events that I haven't told you about. So to read `'Dreamer"" to find out.
On a scale of one to ten I give this book a ten. Anybody who likes animals or horses would like this story. Also if you like to laugh you would enjoy this book.

If you want to know what really happened with Dudley Moore from the late 80's until his death, you've got to read this! Too many people believe tabloids and make their judgments from what they read in the newsstands. Read this and weep. I did.

Dudley Moore was an actor, a comedian, and the husband to a perfectionist wife: he left a promising career in jazz piano to become a comedian, then an actor - and his personal life was fraught with illness and trials. Prior fans of Moore who are familiar with him through a single facet of his acting or comedy career will welcome an opportunity to get to know him better in Dudley Moore: An Intimate Portrait, by an author who was a music columnist, pianist, and performer along with Moore.

Intimate Portrait offers a personal account of Dudley Moore's struggle with illness. The author's first hand account provides a touching portrait of a person who simultaneously experienced fear and hope, courage and defeat, yet never gave up. It was moving and clearly a close friends final tribute to her best friend. I would highly recommend it.

This is a book you will really look forward to reading, especially if you have had the chance to see one or more of Dudley Moore's movies ---from the everyman dreams of "10" to the wacky conductor of "Foul Play." Also to see him on stage or hear his talented piano playing.
I wanted to laugh again, and again at Dudley, the comic.
But the author, fellow musician Rena Fruchter, carefully weaves in the pain and suffering in this short man's too-short life:
"The tragedy is that Dudley Moore had so much left to do, to give, when his life was taken from him at the age of 66," she writes.
And an extra dimension for an author and even for a friend--Dudley spent the last five years of his life with Fruchter and her family. She held his hands when he died in March, 2002, with some of his own music playing in the background.
But Fruchter is able to give us a balanced portrait of this complex man, his four wives and ups and downs along the way.
I kept wanting more of the sheer joy of Dudley, which fellow comic Eric Idle touches on in the Foreward --where he thanks Dudley, or "Dud" as he calls him, "for just being you."
It is often written that one has to suffer a lot to be truly funny. Dudley followed that path. We thank him for all the laughter and music, and are glad to read in this excellent work that toward the end Dudley learned to accept himself and found strength and awareness...and also peace.
We miss you Dudley and thank you Rena for preserving so much of the man and his life in this book.

I've been carrying Empire of Humiliation around in my pack reading some here and some there this semester and it's like walking a puppy because people see the cover/title and can't resist asking about it, so I'm well-practiced in reviewing this. The book operates on 2 levels, the first supports an international action story centered by two Americans residing in Mexico City. Caught in a chain of malicious acts, they try to establish their innocence, but that only draws them into a larger plot concerning American cultural imperialism in Mexico. Later, a false ending twists all expectations, and then the true finish comes and repeats the process vigorously, a jarring success for we admirers of plot-centered literature. What stirs questions, however, is the story as a consideration of elitism in various forms, what does it look like, how is it perpetrated and perpetuated, both historically and in the present. Can you really dominate other people by humiliating them? (As opposed to the mundane question, Can you humiliate people by dominating them?) The author's literary answer is yes and, as he paints it, it's easy to become accustomed to the benefits humiliation provides--see the parts about the live-in maids in Mexico that everyone seems to have and control. As to the larger question addressed by the novel, can humiliation be a geo-political force, that remains open to debate, but this book strongly caffeinates the discussion.

If you're into world things and humiliation, you'll want to try this. Let me explain, the world part is the dirty details of life in Mexico City, and also how gringos are perceived down there. The humiliation is the thinking-person's part of the book and it deals with the very subtle ways that people control each other. Obviously the "Empire of Humiliation" is an attempt to work that on the largest scale. But the best part of the book is following the character Marina while she's constantly changing allegiances. Somehow and in spite of everything, she makes you want for things to work out for her. In the WARNING section you shouldn't start with this book if you're looking for action or lots of blood. There is a car chase and crafty forgery/theft and things like that, but it ALWAYS ends with some clever trick that one of the characters thinks up so it's not terribly exciting, but it does constantly make you think "OH, I have to remember that ploy..." The other warning is that the villain who's doing the imperialism in the book doesn't seem like a bad man, weird, but not bad, so you don't get that good guy/bad guy conflict to really develop. (On the other hand it's fun reading some of his monologues out-loud for friends after a drink.) All that said, the book creates a lot of suspense so this is a right choice when you're looking for an international novel that makes you think.

A roguish international woman, Marina, gets involved with Anderson, an American working for the US embassy in Mexico City. Then a frighteningly intelligent dandy-type from the U.S. involves them both in a plot to symbolically (ie with a minimum of blood) re-create the humiliating parts of the conquest of Cortez in Mexico. Simultaneously, a museum forgery plot quietly develops. In the end, everything knots up extremely tightly.

There's a good dose of the irresistible subjects here, some sex and crime and wealthy women cavorting, but this is mostly a book for people who like to travel, who are drawn to international politics and are intrigued by the way people from different countries react to each other in stressful situations. The characters are developed sparingly except for the dandy-imperialist who's strangely compelling, and the irresistibly plotting Marina. Actually, there's as much about Mexico City and Mexicans as there is describing most of the central (American) characters, which is appropriate because this is a plot-driven novel with short chapters, short paragraphs and everything always going on to the next place and scene. Sometimes it seems like it's going too fast, especially toward the end when you want the book to stretch out instead of rushing to a close.

On the other hand, when stepping back, it's notable how much serious thought got squeezed in. Obviously some of the intellectual weight connects with imperialism and whether people stand for the countries they came from or not, or whether people even connect to countries anymore. But there's also a lot about people, just normal people, and what we believe in, and about our resentments and envy and our superiority and fears of inferiority. Finally it's a powerful book, exciting to read and interesting to think about. Most important, it stays, keeps coming back and pulling at you.

The big umbrella tension is American imperialism and the take on how it's happening is completely new (at least for me). Without giving too much away you can see from the title that the key isn't wars or anything like that, it's the idea of wilting other people and countries by humiliating them. Obviously everyone knows what that feels like from their own lives, and that maybe explains why you get so caught up watching these different episodes of humiliation being planned and executed in Mexico City while the two main characters try to figure out what's going on. By the way, the book isn't preachy or anything, which I liked, it's not one of those old saws about evil imperialism that needs to get stopped by the heroes, it's more like the two characters are caught right in front of this, and the tension is whether they can figure it out fast enough to at least get out of the way. The other enjoyable part here (little spoiler alert) is the way this not entirely noble Marina character schemes to turn all the imperialism forces around to work for her without even caring about nations and all that.

There's also a kind of love/lust story which gets to you because it's funny. It's kind of jolting too, all this heavy imperialism stuff going on and then right through the middle shoots this comedy-romance (imagine Hugh Grant chasing a woman around in the middle of a PBS documentary).

The author obviously lives in Mexico and it shows with little details, you know those kinds of things world travelers love talking about at parties, but it's not so pretentious here in a novel when it's wrapped up in a plot. It's like background music that's always there and then once in a while you really notice it and it's curious, it kind makes you want to visit the place and see for yourself. (There were some pictures and youtube videos when I checked the book's website)

Just a quick general point, it's really a fast read because of the action but also because of its roomy pages. It's nice to see paperbacks getting published here the way they do in Europe, without compacting everything into that tiny type printed on the flimsiest and cheapest sheets anyone could possibly find.

This book is pretty unique, I don't think it's another version of something, but I suppose it could be called an international literary thriller. Probably people who like Eco's The Name of the Rose, or Fowles' The Magus, or Tartt's The Secret History, or The Dante Club or Graham Greene(Our Man in Havana ), or Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) will like this. The author is a philosophy professor--Decadence of the French Nietzsche, Isolated Experiences--and that shows, but not in a bad way.

Despite its setup as a reference book, this is one you'll want to read cover-to-cover. The author gives the lowdown on all the movie awards, information about who was nominated and who won, and who he THINKS should have won. It's witty and entertaining!

I loved Gebert's Golden Armchair reviews and the speculation on who should have won! The intrigue and the behind-the-scenes knowledge is invaluable.

For those of us who are movie lovers, we know we have found someone else who must be, to the max! I enjoyed the inside scoop on the awards, particularly the politics of the Academy Awards and I find this a great reference book to seek out good movies I may have missed. I loved the wit of his own reviews and wished there was more of his keen insight. Hope there will be another book soon.

This is an excellent resource for finding great movies to watch. I especially like the year by year listings of the highest grossing films. I'm hoping an updated version (with pictures) will come out.

This is a very strong book fitting all the characteristics into one great story that fits the star wars mold beautifully. I only gave this book an 8 because I though it lacked some explanation of some important features in this book.

My 3 year old loves this book. He carries it around with him, spending at least 20 minutes a day looking at the pictures asking me to read it to him. The art work in this book really brings the characters to life. I highly recommend this book for children and Star Wars Collectors.

The final book in this special edition Golden Books series of the first STAR WARS trilogy. RETURN OF THE JEDI finishes the saga begun in A NEW HOPE and continued in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Like the other two books in the series, this book successfully condenses the plot of the movie into a small children's book. Contains some great pictures. Alas, there is no mention of the speeder-bike chase and there are no pictures of the Sarlacc. That's about the only negative aspect of this book. If you've read the first two, this one is a must.

This children's book is a great introduction to STAR WARS. The book successfully compacts most of the important plots of the movie. It also contains some great pictures to go along with the words. A few of the words are difficult for real-young, youngsters to understand, but other than that, that's the only drawback.

In typical McMurtry style, there is a good deal of humor and whimsy in this novel. For the first 400 pages or so I felt it was a bit overdone, but once I saw where the novel was headed, it made perfect sense. About the ultimate destination of the novel: it packs quite an emotional punch. Rare indeed is the novel that can make me cry, but this one did it.

Larry McMurty gives us another masterpiece of humor and tears in the continued saga of Aurora Greenway

McMurtry's characters become so real to me that I can barely stand to let them go at the end of his books. I am so glad that I got to see what happened to the people from Terms of Endearment.

No writer in the last half of the 20th century was better at character development than McMurtry. In "Terms" he introduced us to Aurora Greenway; here he he expands and burnishes her character while he folds in a supporting cast of almost equally fascinating lesser characters. This was one of those rare tomes I wished would never end. You don't have to like her, but if you finish this book unaffected by la Greenway, you'd best read it again. Aurora's successful plan to ensure her young Grandson would never forget her is one of the most moving sequences I have ever read. Two years after first reading this novel and I still well up just thinking about it.

I completely agree with the previous reviews. I read this book 25 years ago and was captivated by it. It is taut, well-plotted, and full of telling moments that shed light on human nature. When it was first published, it ought to have been made into a movie starring a young Christopher Walken. Instead, sadly, it was turned into a clunker, around 1984, with Charles Bronson, an actor who was talented in some ways but was never meant to play the hero of this book. If the movie were made today, it might star Christian Bale.

Holland is an ex-soldier of 28 who has faked his own death in Vietnam and disappeared to a Caribbean island. He can be reached only by trusted friends and is available for "righteous" contract killings--e.g., corrupt officials, terrorists, and the like. He is hired to kill a British citizen who is a master of torture for corrupt regimes but protected by the CIA. Using a wealthy young widow and her child as cover, Holland enters Guatemala and seeks to flush the torturer out of hiding. First, he must eliminate the man's two sadistic lieutenants.

The book has some marvelous scenes, including a late-night confrontation in a bar in a slum, between wealthy tourists and a field laborer whose rage is fueled by drugs; another confrontation in a small rural tavern between men who are armed and who know that if anyone pulls a trigger, they could all die in that small space; and a brief but horrifying scene in which a woman who doesn't even understand why she is being questioned, realizes she may meet a hideous death.

Read this if you can find it; leave the movie alone.

The professional assasin of many, lesser, novels is a shallow man (or freakishly beautiful woman) without much affect, magically appearing at the right time to deftly shoot the victim. Hill's main character is not shallow, not lucky, and not boring. He's also not a good guy, but like other 'bad good' guys (read Richard Stark's "Parker" series, Robert Littell's "The Amateur" or closer- Joe Haldeman's " All My Sins Remembered") Holland is a rarity in modern novels -- a complete character. Holland, the hard man, meets up with a broken woman ... I won't ruin the plot points here. This is an amazingly good book.

One warning: In Hollywood Murphy's Law often meets The Peter Principle turning great books into bad movies. Well, this book was made into a truly horrible movie in the 1980s. Don't confuse the two.

Very well written account of a professional assassin at work. I found it to be very entertaining and well thought out. The main character, Holland, is what I imagine the best of the professional assassins would be like. Not a book filled with unrealistic stunts or plot lines. I have recommended it many times and would have really appreciated a sequel. Made into a movie starring Charles Bronson - what a mistake! Charles Bronson is NOT a Holland. Don't be put off by the movie.

All in all, a great summertime read. It's sad that's it out of print.

I read this book nearly twenty years ago the first time and can't say how much I enjoyed it. Since then I have read it possibly another ten times. Lost track of it about ten years ago through lending it out and recommending it to others. Been trying to get hold of a hardback copy for 10 years now and having no luck. Can't even find a paperback copy now, but this book has stayed in my mind throughout all of the great novels I have read, and, is still one of my all time favorites.

Richard Schickel's collection of essays is both well written and extremely informative. Schickel knows more about the subjects he's reviewing then the authors' themselves. His point about being given more space to write reviews on film books, than actual films, is bitterly ironic. To his credit Schickel doesn't look down on the cinema, nor serious film criticism.
There are some issues that should be raised with a few of the essays. Schickel is too dismissive of Douglas Sirk in his review of Harvey's book, but most unforgivable is his Welles review essay. He is far too dismissive of Welles's latter work, or basicially everything after Citizen Kane, and he doesn't even mention Welles's late masterpiece, F for Fake. I assume recognizing a film made 30 years after Citizen Kane defeats his argument against Welles. Also, the dismissal of Othello is the first I've ever read, and not suprisingly, its the most absurd digression in an otherwise sound collection.

To begin with, who'd a thunk that a collection of book reviews of old and new movie books would be this good? Well, I would if only because I've never been disappointed in ANYTHING Schickel writes since the days of "The Disny Version" back when he and I were young (maggie, dear). So, it's not the money for this book that he owes me. Rather, well let me come at it in a roundabout way: The mark of a really good critic is that you will either NOT NEED to read/see/hear what he reviews because he has saved you from wasting precious time or you will be so caught up in his (or, yes, her) enthusiasm that you MUST partake of the object of same. Since Mr Schickel is one of our best critics... and documentarians... and historians... and biographers, I found far too many books I had to have within this one. Sadly (but, for one on a fixed income, fortunately) many of the best reviewed books are out of print. But, yes, weak vessel that I am, I have ordered several (from Amazon, of course) that are not. Hence the title. After all, it isn't MY fault that Schickel writes as well as he does!... is it?

Schickel is an excellent film critic and reviewer, deeply versed in film history and criticism (although he explicitly disavows any belief in a universal theory of film aesthetics or history, holding that movies are too diverse to suport any such systems). This book collects most (2/3) of his monthly reviews of "new books on film" written for the "LA Times Book Review," beginning in 2001, as well as a handful of essays published elsewhere. The pieces are short, those for the "Times" being 1200 to 1400 words. This limits the breadth and depth of any discussion; but, within the limits imposed, the essays are well and neatly written, are liberally laced with film history and contain penetrating critical judgments. The language is plain and direct, mercifully free of jargon.

Schickel does frequently repeat his views on a number of subjects, but this is inevitable given the sort of essay that they are. Someone writing a monthly newspaper feature must assume that some readers of each essay have never read him before and that others read only occasionally. Among the recurring themes, for example, are that movies are a collaborative art, that they are inescapably commercial and, with rare exception, not intended to upset the status quo. When they do rise to the level of art, it is, according to Schickel, an "accidental art."

Schickel obviously loves movies and their history and is delighted when he finds a book praiseworthy. This is somewhat uncommon since he believes that most film books are trash, either written by dry academics (who merely amass facts without any sense of context or critical sensibility) or by hack journalists (who are often merely muckraking and have no sense of film or its history). He is passionate about his own high crititical standards but he is not afraid to praise. His unfavorable judgments can be fiery but are never merciless. In this he is unlike (for example) John Simon in his prime or the late movie and cultural critic Dwight Macdonald, both of whom were merciless and personal to boot.

This is an excellent book, but it has a bit of sadness too since the author believes that informed film criticism and knowledge of film history are both dying out. This book shows what we will lose if this is so.

College-level libraries strong in film studies courses will find moving this collection of short essays on books about film, coming from a critic who not only reviews these books but offers uses them to discuss movie content, actor approaches, director and producer influences, and how the film industry operates as a whole. His different approach provides plenty of detail perfect for any college-level collection strong in film studies - and many a general interest lending library as well.