Customer Reviews

Ovitz: The Inside Story of Hollywood's Most Controversial Power Broker

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

 

 

I have read the reviews below, and this is similar to the love'em or hate'em polarization in the press. I liked this book. IT WAS FUN. Getting this perspective (quite favorable to Ovitz) may be off-putting to the purists, but then I do not believe you should read biographies in a vacuum. No one said getting to the top should result in everyone loving you. Winners are going to have their proponents and opponents--just like the ordinary man. Get a life and get a little perspective. Read the book and get the essence of the story. It is a solid story of the quest to be the best and how great leaders consolidate their positions almost out of instinct. You will learn something in this book and you will have fun in the process. It is a short book and an easy read. Judge for yourself. I do recommend you read some of the Vanity Fair articles and the Fortune article on the man.

Amazon doesn't allow zero stars - shame.This is a book about journalistic fear...and in that sense it should be recommended reading on a psychology course. According to Slater, Ovitz is a classroom whiz, a college football star, a business guru, and a true visionary in all aspects of man's struggle with the universe. Let me put it all in context for you...from some of the Author's opening pages. Ovitz gave a list of people to the Author, for research, most people on that list 'phoned Ovitz to get permission to speak! Then, Slater actually used those same people as the backbone for his writing - enough said. Ovitz may be a bad or good guy, who knows and who cares (this book was purchased for me).Basically, this is a project that the world didn't need, but Slater, having begun, made a thoroughly bad job of it. I'll admit to stopping this book after reading 80% of it - if I could get a rebate on my wasted time, I would. I'm embarrassed for Slater

You might walk away from this book thinking Mike Ovitz is the All-Powerful WunderMaster that many think he is.

You might away from this book thinking his a self-centered, narcicist who deserved his fate at Disney.

Either way, when you finish reading this book, you'll get a pretty thorough account of what his business life is like.

The critics who calim this book make him look 'too' good forget a rather important fact: Ovitz really WAS known as the most powerful man in Hollywood for several years, if not a decade!

This book is not self-serving. In fact, you often get the feeling that author thinks he's a big as a paranoid nut as many of us 'real worlders' do.

But it's well written and it covers a lot of ground. If you want to know how Mike Ovitz got to where is is (both the ups AND the downs)...it's a good read. If you want to read about someone entirely driven and successful, I highly reccomend it.

Critics may be right when they say that Slater wrote only one side of the story. However, he doesn't say that Ovitz is the nicest guy on earth, either. Slater is able to convey the image of a very interesting and complex personality. He captures the extraordinary drive and determination of a self-made man. The well written book includes many anecdotes which are mostly interesting and entertaining while it documents a fairly complete chronology of events.And no, I'm not writing this to make Slater a rich guy. I just like the book. To get rich, he'd have to become president of Disney for a few months..

McGraw-Hill should be ashamed of itself publishing this "puff" piece designed to convince us that Mike Ovitz is not really Sammy Glick. The book, based upon pre-approved (by Ovitz) interviews of Ovitz's friends, relatives, clients and supporters, tries to convice us that Mr. Ovitz is a misuderstood humanist and intellectual merely hidden from view by the preditor disguise he must wear to survive in the Hollywood jungle. Rubbish!

I have a problem - once I start a book, I'm compelled to finish it. I always hope that maybe with a turn-of-the-page, it'll get better. This one didn't. Robert Slater must be Ovitz's fraternal twin. Ovitz can do no wrong. Maybe someday someone will write an unbiased account.

I found this book chronicling Ovitz to be entertaining and informative. My favoite part is the one when Ovitz and associates leave William Morris and strike out on their own. I suppose I'm more interested in what lessons the book has to offer, as opposed to how accurate it may be. I bought several copies for friends.

This book is a shameless puff piece. Ovitz is just mister wonderful. What exemplifies the attitude of the author is when he lists clients who left other agents to go with Ovitz. He will name all the movies these clients did with the former agent, saying they were all flops, then name the movies these clients did with Ovitz, saying they were all hits. As though Ovitz had the magic wand. But if you are at all familiar with the movies listed, you know that a lot of the movies listed before a client went with Ovitz were HITS. And a lot of movies listed after a client went with Ovtiz were FLOPS. That's a shamelss distortion of the facts, to make Ovitz look perfect. And it's not the only distortion. Nonetheless, I'm not giving the book one star, because I did learn some stuff I wanted to know.