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Title: Dangerous Company : Dark Tales From Tinseltown by Peter Bart ISBN: 1-4013-5190-5 Publisher: Miramax Pub. Date: 26 November, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Surpasses low expectations
Comment: I have to qualify this review up front by saying that I am not, by any stretch, a fan of Peter Bart. I've found his books on the film industry to be sorely lacking in a good editor, fact-checker, and general humility. I picked up a copy of Dangerous Company because I saw Mr. Bart on the talk show circuit promoting it and it intrigued me, as do most things related to Hollywood and the film industry.
For starters, the book focuses on the "dark side" of Tinseltown. Okay, fair enough. All is well and good. It's a collection of stories that have, as their common theme, a Hollywood enclave where various characters who fill various niches in the industry live and come and go. Like any collection, there are some that are quite good, some that aren't, and some that are somewhere in-between. The main criticism I would have with the collection over all is that when Mr. Bart has something good going, he often doesn't see it all the way through. I admire some of the situations he devises and the characters he sets up, but then they sort of just resolve their issues (or not) in a rather pedestrian manner.
One other thing, and this is another quality of Mr. Bart's that I have found irritating over the years, is that this is a work of fiction but a lot of trouble seems to have been taken to avoid disclosing that. Mr. Bart was notorious in his book The Gross for dropping names left and right, yet criticizing people who drop names. He seems guilty of some hypocrisy here as well. I saw him give an interview on a conservative-leaning program that was there to discuss the seediness, corruption, and non-mainstream values of Hollywood and the host used Dangerous Company as an illustration of that, never once mentioning that it was fiction. Mr. Bart made no effort to point that out either, which to me leaves a somewhat dubious mark on the book. However, looking at it objectively, it's pretty good for those who have an interest in the subject.
Rating: 2
Summary: Boring book
Comment: I didn't like this book. Its written in fiction/novel form and I prefer Hollywood tell-alls that name names - real names. I honestly got bored not too many pages into this book. I couldn't finish it. This book may be more interesting to Hollywood insiders because so many of them can figure out who this author is talking about. I'm not from Hollywood, so I didn't know who he was talking about, if anyone.
I would recommend other books over this one - "Mr. S" by George Jacobs (a book about Frank Sinatra and friends), and I plan to read the Eszterhas book "Hollywood Animal," that just hit the book stores.
Rating: 3
Summary: good but too short
Comment: I like Peter Bart. His writing style is great. The character development is strong and interesting. But overall, the book is too short. Just as we get to know the characters and the storyline, the book ends. This novel is closer to a fiction magazine article than to a book.
Bart should have kept writing... and given us our money's worth!
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Title: Hollywood Animal : A Memoir by JOE ESZTERHAS ISBN: 0375413553 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 27 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Down and Dirty Pictures : Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind ISBN: 068486259X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon -- The Case Against Celebrity by Andrew Breitbart, Mark Ebner ISBN: 0471450510 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 24 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Best Awful by Carrie Fisher ISBN: 0684809133 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Shoot Out: Surviving Game and (Mis)Fortune in Hollywood by Peter Guber, Peter Bart ISBN: 0399528881 Publisher: Perigee Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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