Customer Reviews

The Big Picture : Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays

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As a 25yr vet of Hollywood, I'm often asked for advice by neophyte writers. I always direct them to two things: William Goldman's ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE, and any and all of his screenplays. The man is a genius at screenwriting, and ADVENTURES is witty, brilliant, and dead-on about Hollywood. True to form, this new book contains nuggets of sheer brilliance and some great entertainment. But the unedited (apparently) collection of articles is repetitive, and begins to read as a rant. How many quotes from addlebrained movie execs does it take for us to realize that they can't have an opinion without hedging? How many times must we hear that Mr. Goldman would like the Oscar voting scores revealed and why? I wish he or an editor had spent the time to shape this book into what Mr. Goldman's terrific ideas warrant. He's a much better writer than the sum of this book. Buy this one to read by the pool, but buy his others to laugh and learn from a master.

While Mr. Goldman is no Pauline Kael in terms of film analysis (he plays fast and loose with language rather than constructing fine-tuned essays), he does have a biting sense of humor and is more than willing to laugh at Hollywood, star power, and yes, even the average American filmgoer. The best essay in the book, "Who Killed Hollywood?," discusses not only the ageless conflict between art and commerce, but the eventual destructiveness of the Oscars, the dearth of talent both behind and in front of the camera (not to mention the corporate suite), and the inevitable nostaligia that creeps in whenever one compares the stars of today with those of the past. Goldman clearly loves the art of cinema and his passion shows at every turn, allowing the reader to have great fun with each successive essay. While the content is a bit repetitive at times (covering the 1990s, he returns again and again to "the biggest star" and Oscar notes), the overall tone is refreshing. Goldman is also willing to admit his love of less-than-noble films (he respects the high-brow, but is more of a populist than he might admit), and he does not shy away from puncturing the self-important and well-respected. A must for film buffs.

Goldman is always compulsively readable. (If you doubt, track down "Adventures in the Screen Trade," "Hype and Glory," or "The Season," for me his best three books about show biz.) This collection -- and it is very much a collection -- is no exception. If you're a Goldman fan and you missed these short essays in "New York" magazine and "Premiere," the book is worth getting (though perhaps not for the hardcover price Applause is asking -- I'd wait for the paperback myself).

Some of the other generally positive reviews on here have made several negative remarks and they're all true. Embarrassing number of typos. Repetitive. Truly terrible book design -- par for the course with Applause. But I'll say this much: The book kept me a lot more entertained than Goldman's most recent book, "Which Lie Did I Tell?," a somewhat unworthy follow-up to "Screen Trade." And it contains, as one of the other reviewers mentioned, a massive smackdown on "Saving Private Ryan" -- perhaps annoying if you loved the film, but absolutely hilarious if you didn't.

The only serious flaw or bias I detect in Goldman's attitude is that he romanticizes the movie era when he first fell in love with movies -- say, the '40s and '50s -- and constantly uses the classics of his childhood as a stick to beat modern movies with. The fact is, probably there were just as many stupid movies back then as there are now, deservedly forgotten. Movies as an art form are still so young that it seems inaccurate to say they've gone downhill, when in fact there have been many peaks and valleys over the last 100 years. Goldman never seems happier than when he's saying movies have never been worse. (Then later in the book he says they've gotten worse still.) The fact is, there are movies getting made now that wouldn't have stood a chance 10 or even 5 years ago. So, when reading this autopsy on movies from 1990-1998, take it with a grain of salt. And enjoy.

This book isn't just informative, it's fun! I had read some of the essays when they were originally published in "Premiere," but there are enough essays in THE BIG PICTURE I hadn't read to make the book worthwhile. The other articles were all previously published in "New York" magazine, "Los Angeles Magazine" and "The Daily News." So, if you haven't read the articles in all those places already, I recommend this book to any movie fan. Goldman is as good a commentator/critic as he is a screenwriter (two time Oscar winner, incidentally).

I've been a fan of Goldman's non-fiction since the original "Adventures in the Screen Trade", but I'm disappointed with his last two books. "Which Lie Did I Tell (More Adventures...)" paled in comparison with the original, but was still better than a lot of similar books. This one however is mostly a loss.

I read many of these essays when they appeared originally in New York magazine. They cover the years 1990 through 1999 and appear chronologically. Most of them fall into a couple categories: 1) a prediction of how a summer's movie selection will fare 2) a re-hash of the same season a few months later 3) predictions about one year's Oscars 4) a re-hash of that year's Oscars (with a side-rant about making the vote tallies public) 5) a discussion of who is the biggest star in Hollywood

The essays were great when they originally appeared, but now they lack (obviously) timeliness and uniqueness (since they all pretty much read alike). Goldman's near-copyrighted phrase is "No one knows anything."

Better luck next time.

Yes, William Goldman is one of the most renowned screenwriters around but no, these essays have not aged well. If you want to read about handicapping the oscar races from five and six years ago, buy this book. But if you want some real insight into Hollywood, start with any other of the non-fiction books Goldman has written over the years.

i hail william goldman, i really do. he's smart, he writes beautifully ... and he is perhaps the only commentator on hollywood who knows what he's on about. so why oh why did his publishing house break every rule in the book (no pun intended)? godawful jacket design, pathetic type-setting, and typos willy and nilly. a real shame because william "the screen god" goldman deserves better. far better. he's the best damn journalist (i guess it's ok to call him that) on the planet -- pound for pound, that is -- and next time i hope somebody spends $5 extra to do his words justice.

A good, common-sense look at what's wrong with mainstream American movies. Especially note his evisceration of "Saving Private Ryan", one of the most overrated films of the past ten years.

Goldman's ranting and raving will soon get onto your nerves, especially since he frequently shows himself to be a hypocrite. In several places he speaks of his dislike for special effect-filled blockbusters, then in other places he says how he loved movies like "Independence Day". It also seems odd how Goldman hasn't written a solid screenplay for some time now, and has written a number of scripts for those blockbuster movies, yet he whines about the "junk" screenplays Hollywood uses. (By the way, he's writing the screenplay for "Jurassic Park 3" - even though he voices slams against Spielberg here!) Everything to him seems to be Hollywood's fault, though he never mentions how even before "Star Wars", audiences were starting to stay away from movies like "McCabe And Mrs. Miller". He certainly never mentions how many independent films come out each year that critics love, but the audience doesn't go to. In short, the audience decides what movies get made. If Goldman is reading this, I dare him to answer these charges. But he probably won't - his next book will probably be more whines yet again about how the final votes in the Academy Awards should be revealed, how movies are "worse than ever", yadayadayada. Goldman, put up or shut up - not only for these charges, but the screenplays you write!

William Goldman is a good screenwriter. When bad, he is awful. "The Ghost and the Darkness" was terrible, and "The Princess Bride" was so cutesy treacly sugary quirky sweet, I almost went on insulin. But his book here is deadly honest. I thought I was the only person in America who noticed the big breasted girl behind the old guy in "Saving Private Ryan." I thought I was the only person in America who kept wondering where the laughs were in "Shakespeare in Love." I, too, want to see vote totals for the Oscars. I disagree with many of Goldman's opinions of films: "As Good As It Gets" was so in love with its own ideas, it never let the audience in on the joke, "The Shawshank Redemption" is just a combination of every prison film since the 1930s' "The Big House," and Hugh Grant falling in love with the annoyingly insipid Andie MacDowell in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" showed what a dumb character he really was. But at least Goldman is brutally honest in his opinion of the films of the 1990's. This shows you can only take fluff entertainment shows like "Entertainment Tonight" with a grain of salt. Hollywood has been punishing the public for years with junk like "Independence Day" and "The Grinch," Goldman is leading the charge against the money men from Out There.