Customer Reviews

Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ever wonder why some of those Hollywood extravaganzas touted in advance as "sure-fire hits" turn into abysmal flops? James Robert Parish's new book "Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops" details why. Parish turns his keen eye and strong writing style on how over-paid, egotistical stars, meddling studio execs, directors whose vision has the opaque clarity of a tennis ball, and just plain "bad-timing" can sink a strongly anticipated film faster than the Titanic went down. In Fiasco, Parish has chosen fourteen Titanics to muse upon. Yes, Cleopatra, The Cotton Club, Ishtar and Battlefield Earth are included, along with some you may have missed, like The Wild Party - a thorough miss by the usually highly regarded Merchant-Ivory duo - and Shanghai Surprise, another Madonna film crucifixion, accompanied in her writhing agony by then-hubby Sean Penn.

Don't misunderstand me; Parish words are written more in sorrow than in anger. He truly loves Hollywood, as his many other books attest. But Parish does not like the film colony's big messes, and he rakes all the partners in these fourteen disasters over the coals for their participation in foisting such abominations off on the public. Good for him! Parish is an excellent writer, and there are juicy tidbits in almost every sentence: lots of behind the scenes drama; warning signs ignored; egos stroked when they should have been squashed. Personally, I've seen all fourteen of these films and I already knew each one was a disaster. Some of them are legendary, so it was hard not to be aware of them. But I never knew the "back-story" on any of the films: exactly what made it mis-fire so badly. Viewing most of these films is like arriving at the scene of a murder; you can see the victim, but have no clue as to who committed the murder and what was the motive. Thanks to Parish's Fiasco, you not only discover the murderers - the slaughter of all of these films was assisted by more than one person, rest assured - you also understand their motives, which were misguided in all cases.

Another excellent book by James Robert Parish. Fun to read; informative; well-written; and actually a bit sad, given that all the mistakes could have been so easily avoided.

Parish does a nice job reviewing and discussing the reasons behind some of Hollywood's big budget flops and disasters. By limiting the scope to movies during the past few decades, only, kicking off with the infamous Cleopatra (the Liz and Dick version), Parish bypasses ill-begotten films from the classic studio days when budgets were less than some of today's music videos.

Although some of the films in the book were not outright disasters based on total revenue returns including worldwide grosses and DVDs, they all failed to live up to expectations, excluding the films for which there were never expectations, e.g., Madonna/Penn's Shanghai Gesture. Packaging the Kevin Costner misfires - Waterworld and The Postman - is a nice touch, and I'm sure Parish could have included a few more of Warren Beatty's big budget disappointments, but the behind the scenes goings on for Ishtar and Town and Country are more than sufficient to illustrate the downside of Beatty's total control complex. Parish wisely leaves out such infamous films as Heaven's Gate that are written about in detail elsewhere.

Although many of the stories included in the book should be familiar to most film enthusiasts, the overall package should provide more than a few chuckles over the incompetency and infighting associated with the film industry. As William Goldman famously observed about the movies, no one knows anything and this book certainly proves it.

James Robert Parish's latest work is unfinished: the absences of such grand Hollywood follies as the original "Dr. Dolittle," "Howard the Duck," "Hudson Hawk," and The John Frankenheimer version of "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (a trial to make and a trial to sit through) are deeply felt. "Heaven's Gate" was excluded because Bach's "Final Cut" had already gone over it, but is a study of follywood's worst really complete without it? The torturous shoot of "Waterworld" is only briefly discussed to fit it together with "The Postman;" I felt pretty cheated. Yet the book is engagingly written, and what's there is rather dishy. Kevin Costner's laid-back demeanor belies his planet-moving ego; when "Team America" was slaughtering celebrities left and right, they should have included him. Watching Robert Evan's dream project "The Cotton Club" falling in on itself before his eyes can win your empathy, while the story behind "Last Action Hero" reads like a script for a farce ( the movie was thought to be able to give "Jurassic Park" stiff box office competition, yet until they were topped by "Cutthroat Island" and "Titanic," respectively, the industry's biggest bomb and biggest moneymaker were released within a week of one other). Only "cleopatra's" budget is adjusted for inflation, breaking out to the equivilant of 260 million of today's dollars, which is a shame because it could help give perspective of how badly the others fared. But what's there is priceless. The only complaint I could make is that there isn't enough of it. Unlike many of the films here (or any of them, really) this book deserves a sequel.

Oh, is this book flawed. There are a number of incorrect facts from the small (Madonna's confirmation name is Veronica, not one of her birth names as Parish states) to the large (General Bethlehem was a character in "The Postman" movie that was completely made up and did not exist in the novel the film was based on). There are some grammatical and spelling errors. The writing is a cross between Entertainment Weekly and Premiere, and one gets the distinct impression that each chapter was written as a separate article that was rejected by either rag (there's little chapter continuity). One has to wonder about several choices Parish made in what films he chose to discuss ("Town and Country"? "The Wild Party"?) while ignoring others he constantly mentions in passing ("Heaven's Gate" being the obvious choice).

The great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky once said, "You start out to make a great movie. Then you settle for a good movie. Then you just want to get it finished."

That's what happened to almost every cinematic disaster chronicled in "Fiasco." James Robert Parish, who is known for his fine attention to detail, reveals the tortuous path taken by fifteen of Hollywood's iconic flops-from concept to crash landing. He reveals story after story of egos gone wild, scripts meddled with until they morphed into morass, money thrown haphazard into the rat holes of hopeless projects

Parish knows his stuff, and his lively writing style makes for a fascinating read as he digs into the downward spiral of film after film, from "Cleopatra" to "The Postman." He tells the tale of how "Ishtar" became perhaps the most reviled film in Hollywood history (which could also be said about John Travolta's "Battlefield Earth,") how the nearly-pornographic "Showgirls" came to be an embarrassment to all who had anything to do with it, and how a real-life murder tainted "The Cotton Club."

"Fiasco" is an engaging chronicle of Hollywood's runaway hubris. It should be required reading for anyone with aspirations to get into-or smart enough to stay out of the movie business.

While Fiasco is an enjoyable and informative read, I found it soon became repetitious to the point of being irritating. I eventually realized that what was bugging me was the lack of perspective.

Granted, the book does an excellent job of detailing how lack of foresight and attention to detail, combined with the massive egos of the people involved and their disagreements about just what sort of film they were making, caused 14 of these 15 films to become so expensive that they couldn't break even. And it ends with a fascinating list of movies that were "box-office disappointments in domestic theatrical release"... but the sheer length of this list suggests that such "disappointments" are extremely common, while Waterworld, despite going hideously over budget, actually did better than break even.

The book does mention in passing that Titanic, which became a huge success both financially and at the Oscars, suffered problems similar to those of Waterworld and Heaven's Gate... but it doesn't give enough details of other films which were similarly plagued but ultimately well-received (many of them made by the same people Fiasco disses). It's easy to recount the failings of films such as Popeye, Shanghai Surprise or Ishtar - I suspect it would much more difficult to explain why enough people went to see films such as Dick Tracy or Basic Instinct that they weren't flops. It would also be more interesting, and more useful.

But, as Fiasco quotes William Goldman as saying "Nobody knows anything, and nobody learns anything." And while Fiasco is fun to read, I don't think anyone's going to learn very much from it.

James Robert Parish's "Fiasco" is an interesting read for anyone with a penchant for Hollywood film history. But in it's review of some of the worst pictures ever made, he seems to be repeating himself - pictures fail only when they don't bring in the requisite amount of dollars. Everything else is secondary to whether or not the film makes money - and not just a (relatively) small profit. The movies have to make many, many times their cost to not be a failure. That can be a pretty high hurdle.

Ultimately, the causes are all the same: lack of studio or producer oversight; inflated star egos; unplanned for (and costly) over-time; bad press and reviews.

Some of Hollywood's truly awful films are not reviewed here ("Heaven's Gate" being the primary example) and some that were arguably fair movies (just not big money makers) are.

For example, "Cleopatra" is the opening chapter and sets the stage for all that follows. You'll get no argument from me that "Cleopatra" was a trial to make. However (in my humble opinion) the final result is a lush tale that fails only in the last third of the picture. Given that, I had to laugh at one contemporary reviewer's comment that "[Elizabeth Taylor] screeches like a ward heeler's wife at a block party" in the last half of the film. So true!

Mr. Parish also refers to a number of vanity films that are made to promote the liberal political views of the actors involved ("The Chase", "The Wild Party" and "Reds" for example) but never explores the possibility that audiences go to movies to be entertained - not lectured to. I know it's currently popular to criticize entertainers for using their platforms to promote their personal political views and I'm not trying to join that band wagon. But it's fair to suggest that a movie made primarily to criticize traditional American mores' is not going to be a big hit with the vast majority of traditional Americans.

Each chapter begins with a brief overview of the state of theater going, i.e., attendance numbers, ticket price, etc. and this is interesting in itself. It also contains some few surprises. For example, who knew that the song & dance numbers in "Ishtar" were intentionally bad?! I just thought that was a natural by product of the fact that Beatty and Hoffman, while talented actors, are neither singers nor dancers.

All-in-all, Mr. Parish's book is an entertaining read and fair accounting of some of the worst films ever made, though he offers little hope that studios, talent or corporate owners have learned anything in the way of lessons from their checkered past. The book is certainly a breath of fresh air from the traditional Tinsel Town history that trumpets silver-screen successes and bypasses its flops.

James Robert Parish's FIASCO is a breezy, fact-filled look at some of Hollywood's biggest boxoffice flops over the past few decades. The reasons for the failure of these movies are many but essentially come down to super-sized egos be it producers, directors or stars. The book's timely publication is pertinent since 2005 was a year in which the most lauded movies were small budget wonders like Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Good Night and Good Luck. Every movie lover should read it.

Fiasco is a good overview of some of Hollywood's most notable failures. Parish spares no one in describing the unchecked egos, ulterior motives, and inability of anyone in charge to say no that made these failures as spectacular as they were. While it could get monotonous reading the same mistakes being repeated endlessly, Parish does his best to keep the stories interesting by making his writing unchallenging and light. In fact, if it weren't for his annoying habit of changing a person's possessive description from their first name to their last name and back (often within the same paragraph), Parish's writing style could be described as perfect for the topic.

Film and business students could probably gain additional insights for their fields of study by reading this book. But, for most of us, Fiasco is a gossipy, enjoyable read about very bad decision making.

Somebody once said that everyone has two business: the business they are in and the movie business. That means that just about everyone should love James Parish's new book "Fiasco". It is delicious to read these stories about some of Hollywood's biggest disasters. And when you couple people's fascination with Hollywood backstories with our natural inclination to enjoy other people miseries -- especially people with these over-inflated egos -- then it's hard to see how someone would not enjoy this book. The chapter on Madonna's "Shanghai Surprise" is worth the price of admission -- she apparently only picked up the script in the first place because she liked the color of the cover. So sit back, grab some popcorn, and revel in the schadenfreude.