French modernist Cendrars (18871961) provides a fitfully amusing account of the American movie industry circa 1936. That was the year the poet, novelist, journalist, and sometime filmmaker spent two weeks in Hollywood on assignment for Paris- Soir. The resulting book-length article (originally published in installments) is occasionally entertaining, as when it details non- encounters with stars: A roadblock prevents Cendrars from getting to William S. Hart's ranch; a surly gatekeeper at Paramount causes him to miss a lunch date with Charles Boyer; he passes but doesn't accost a furtive-looking Douglas Fairbanks in the rain. The closest he comes to engaging a Hollywood power is a goofy 4 A.M. telephone conversation with Ernst Lubitsch about ``the star crisis in Hollywood.'' The Frenchman's resigned acceptance of the industry's capricious operating procedures can be endearing. In a chapter devoted to the difficulty of gaining entrance to the studios, for instance, he describes the M.G.M. gatekeeper turning away a mob of Japanese sailors: ``The number of people he was in the midst of executing when it came my turn to meet him flooded me with admiration.'' Cendrars visits the set of The Great Ziegfeld, where an overwrought production number reminds him, he jokes waggishly, of a Promethean scene in one of his own novels, ``a similar monument of plastic synthesis and of life's apotheosis.'' But discussions of economics and suicide, complete with statistical charts, are weird filler, and parts of the book are dated in an unenlightening way, such as a fake-amazed accounting of the phalanxes of technicians required to film an intimate love scene. The general effect is precisely what one would fear from 59-year- old specimen of Gallic whimsy produced for a newspaper: an unflaggingly arch tone that rapidly grows tiresome. The original illustrations, by Jean GuÇrin, are undistinguished. A curious period piece. (1 b&w photo, not seen; 29 b&w line drawings)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-520-07807-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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