highly praisedA Biographical Dictionary of Film, andRosebud: The Story of Orson Welles. Mulholland Drive, the famous road winding through Los Angeles, is Thomson's Rosebud, his symbol of film as mythological reality, aspiration and disenchantment, "the shambles of destroyed hope". A half-life between screen and dream, which traps both audience and stars, the latter dazzled by their own light. Here are 21 not- so-easy pieces, covering everything fromChinatowntoThe Sheltering Sky, the veniality of star power, the blurred line between audience and screen. Investigating money, crime, conspiracy, love and death, the prose is crisp, crackling with caustic epithets like a modern Dorothy Parker gone to Oz.Using essay and biography, mixing forms, lending voice to fictional recreations of real actors, a love of movies and of language is evident throughout. Thomson has an extraordinarily knowledge of the most obscure aspects of film, from which he draws startling connections and insights, presenting an almost hallucinatory vision of the inner life of the cinema. As much about Thomson as the film world it dissects, this mixture of new and revised reprints of magazine articles cover the gamut of Hollywood's recondite dreamscape with rare if caustic perception. Though the perspective is mordant, the focus is long and deep, re-imagining film writing as J.G. Ballard'sThe Atrocity Exhibitiondeconstructed celebrity.--Gary S. Dalkin
Advantages: Well written, fascinating subject Disadvantages: -
...King David is hailed in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as the greatest of the kings of the Israelites, the model of kingship, and the forerunner of messiahship. Later ideas of the messiah often focused upon David; most who claimed to be the messiah in later times would look to the military and political aspects to support their claim; even Jesus, who eschewed the idea of an earthly kingdom, nonetheless had David as a primary image.
Some see David as a mythological figure. Certainly the image projected of him and the shadow this character casts over subsequent Israelite and biblical history is one of mythic proportions. Partly the constructs around David have become so strangely skewed that one asks the question, as the literature both in the biblical texts and later developments can lead one to asking the question, 'can any one man...
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Advantages: Interesting to read his perspective Disadvantages: None!
...I like this book. In fact I like it immensely. Of course we all think we know all there is about David and Victoria Beckham; surely there is nothing left for us to know? Well, I was interested in finding out what HE thinks about his life and what has gone on recently with his transfer to Real Madrid. This book went out to do this and succeeded. So what does the book tell us that we don’t already know?
My Side starts off with David’s childhood. He tells us how his father played football with him when he was young, and attributes all the skills he has now, with being the ones he learned from his father during knockabouts. However, his father played for a local team called Kingfisher and the whole family had a keen interest in the game. Interestingly enough he tells us the cute story of a child psychologist passing by when...
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...David Crystal, the author of Words, Words, Words, is an academic. But he is much, much more than being "just" an academic. David Crystal loves language and words. And this approach shines through this book.
In Words, Words, Words, David Crystal makes it crystal clear (no pun intended) why he believes that words matter to each and every one of us very much indeed. And the book is very easy to read, to understand and to use.
He looks at all types of words. The familiar words that we all know. Less familiar words that perhaps we should know, older words, newer words.
He points out that some people who put themselves forward as protectors of the English language are often no more than pedants. Or even worse! He even shows that some of them are just plain wrong.
He quotes an example of a friend who thought that the increasing use...
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