Customer Reviews

Hollywood Pinups

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

 

 

I bought this book mainly in order to support the Charity. But now that it's on my coffee table, I find that it's a great conversation piece. Beautiful pictures .

The Cover and Sleeve are top notch. The book itself is only a handful, at best, of images; of which most are great and some make the model look awful. After going through the entire book in about 5 minutes, we felt a bit cheated.

Timothy White's work is probably already in your household. If you've ever bought a VHS or DVD of American movies, you've seen his work. Once you begin reviewing his photobooks, you'll recognize his style.

I was drawn to his work while I was looking for a movie, something outside of what I normally choose. I studied the covers of the DVDs and began to notice "someone's" work, "someone's" style. Of all the credits that are given (by law) to everyone involved in making a movie, the guy that does the cover art/movie poster is probably the only one not named. I didn't learn of whose art I was admiring for several years, after I met my husband. While we were dating, my husband showed me books that Timothy White, a friend of his, had published. In those books I discovered that I had admired other work that was Timothy's - a series that he did for feeding the homeless in NYC, featuring Hollywood Stars holding cardboard signs that read "Will work for food".

This book - shows familiar faces with the style and charm of a bygone era. Timothy has an ability to make these people feel comfortable and they seem to respond by giving him (and us) a fresh view, and many times, an aspect of their character that you didn't expect.

Timothy's ability to remove someone from their "normal" element, to enhance the natural surroundings, to provide grace, to reveal sensitivity, to use humor in a way that doesn't insult the subject or the viewer - he continues to capture and captivate my attention. Non-biased opinion, of course.

I don't know how this guy did it but he made some of the most beautiful women in hollywood look horrendous. Cindy Crawford even looks not herself. The faces are horrible and seem contorted and Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) looks dead!

I bought this book specifically because I had read in numerous publications that the proceeds were going to support Oxfam. The book itself features very pedestrian portraits of scantily-clad and extensively-airbrushed celebrities. This sort of thing might have been arousing when I was twelve, but no more so than an issue of Cosmo. This book seems to be relying on the shock value of nearly-naked celebrities to mask an otherwise second-rate and unimaginative collection of photographs.

After reading Oxfam's statement about the jeweler who contributed his wares to the book (Leviev), I did some more reading about the guy. Turns out, not only is the guy a major builder of settlements in the occupied West Bank (the ones that the U.S. government has called "obstacles to peace"), but he's also been accused of kidnapping, torturing, and assassinating diamond miners in Angola, fired hundreds of striking workers in Namibia, is constructing the first privatized prison in Israel, and is deeply involved in the gradual expulsion of poor people of color from areas of New York that he is helping to gentrify. This is one seriously sketchy character.

He'd apparently claimed (falsely) to be an Oxfam donor in the past, no doubt in an effort to repair his tarnished image. And when Oxfam called him out on it, he apparently decided to resort to even more deceptive tactics to exploit their name to build up his own. Seriously unethical.

This book is little more than a glorified advertisement for Leviev jewelry (kind of like all those bad 1980s cartoons that were mostly designed to advertise action figures). Don't take the bait.

I have always been a big fan of old pinups. It's so great to see these famous ladies posing!

It is sad that this book is so bad and will sell poorly because it 's proceeds should be going to charity. The pictures are flatly lighted and uninteresting,and the poses are boring. Cindy Crawford looks like a man's face on a female body and the rest look un-sexy and awful.Except I did like Tea Leoni's 'Olivia De Berardinis' like shot. The original pin ups were never mostly naked like these, the girls had short skirts,tight tops and stockings or lingerie and come hither expressions. These women are unarguably attractive but the photog. did not make them look any more alluring than a DMV photo without clothing. Donate directly to Oxfam you do not need this incentive, it is a waste of time.

Tasteful, yet very sexy. How he manages to get all these ladies together is beyond me. Bravo!

If you care so much about Oxfam and not about celebrities with barely any clothes then donate to Oxfam and don't buy a book just based on where you think a small portion of the money is going. But you bought the book didn't you? And ya know what you got? Scantily clad celebrities. Huge surprise! If you don't care enough to make a donation to the organization without in return getting to see partially naked celebrities, then you don't deserve to go on an internet activist spree.

First off this book isn't particularly tasteful... the shots of the various women, including Angie Harmon in a diamond g-string, may appeal to the average fella who just loves to see nudity, but it's not the kind of thing many women will appreciate or anyone else for that matter as artistic.

Then, I noticed that the proceeds were going to Oxfam, which is GREAT! So I googled Oxfam and Pinups to find more info on Timothy White's donation, and what do I find? I find a statement condemning the involvement of Lev Leviev. So I go back, noting that I saw this guy's name somewhere and I find out that this guy supplied all the diamonds for the book! I look him up and I find out he's an Israeli settlement-builder, and he's accusing of all kinds of human rights abuses... This is ridiculous! Is Timothy White joking by including this guy's diamonds in the book?

DO SOME RESEARCH NEXT TIME - THE GUY IS A CRIMINAL AND YOU INCLUDED HIM IN YOUR BOOK. GOOD GOD!