Customer Reviews

Based on the Movie: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a terrific read! Finished it two days. This is a very enjoyable book, with characters that are unique but also very relatable. I laughed out loud throughout. I highly recommend it! This is one book I think virtually anyone would enjoy.

This was such a good book. It was funny and I learned a lot about moviemaking. I now know what a best boy and a dolly grip do.I am afraid this is one of those books that won't get much publicity and therefore not many people will read it. It that happens it will be a shame because a lot of people will really enjoy this book.

Flew through this in less than a day. Well written and quite witty - a perfect vacation read that will have you laughing (LOL). Plus an informative look behind the camera into those not-well known jobs listed at the end of every movie. Highly recommended. You won't be disappointed.

There's a review on these pages that says "It was funny and I learned a lot about moviemaking."

Exactly. Better than any text book, Billy Taylor finally reveals the mysteries of what a dolly grip, best boy, key grip (etc.) do. And he's funny, funny, funny to boot. One dust-jacket blurb calls the book 'ribald.' I might go with 'crass.' But not that there's anything wrong with that - Taylor is giving us what is probably a not-too-far-off-the-mark peek at what goes on behind the scenes at a movie. [Witness Christian Bale's recent rant - secretly recorded - at one of these behind-the-scenes players.] I'd bet everyone in the industry has tales that equal or top the ones Taylor hilariously unspools on these pages.

In the movies we see only the leading man. We see the pretty people who flash up and dissapear. Behind the scenes are people we never see, grips, bestboys, directors, teamsters. In Billy Taylors novel we see behind the scenes and follow the antics of a grip hell bent on making his own movie. The struggle that is modern filmmaking is as much a driving force in this novel as the antics of the protagonist, brokenhearted over a pending divorce while working the manic hours of a film production. The fundamental question of how far one will go to pursue ones art is posed as we watch the main character endure abusive directors, manic producers, and the ego rants of Hollywood suits. So it is with art, the hell of the process hopefully justifies the result; Based on the Movie is well worth the read.

I join the other 5-star commenters in congratulating the author for a job well done. I had a great time chuckling my way through it. Very funny, very well-written, and in the end, very moving in its way.

I picked this book the other day as it sounded very interesting. Boy was I right! Not only was the book interesting, it was hilarious!!! The story is great, you learn a lot of interesting things about movies, and it even has a happy ending. There were tons of times I actually laughed out loud and it was hard to read this book without cracking a smile. A must read!

There are two stories in this book. One is the story of a behind the scenes low profile Hollywood professional trying to deal with his wife's infidelity while working on a movie where everything's going wrong. That story is excellent and when the focus is there, it's fascinating. Taylor clearly knows a lot about the movie business and what it's like to be a small but important player in a business focused on the big shots.

If he'd stuck to that, this would probably be a 5 star review, but unfortunately, the second story is kind of like the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" if the main character was more of a jerk and chose the wrong girl in the end. Thanks in part to an annoyingly contrived subplot involving the crash of the protagonist's expensive grip truck and his efforts to recover his money from the insurance company, he winds up having to work with the man who cheated with his wife as the new director of the movie they're working on - even though there's no good reason for the guy to be directing at all. Nor for his wife to show up to help produce. This is meant to be wacky humor, but it hurts the better story and ends up with a unearned happy ending by characters who haven't shown why they've changed from the people who got into these problems in the first place.