Popcorn: Hollywood Stories [Paperback]

Julia Cameron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

A former member of the Hollywood rat race, herself, Julia Cameron leads us through a labyrinth of intersecting lives and turns that could only exist in our own backyard Babylon. In Popcorn: Hollywood Stories, the lives of stars are as likely to collide in the psychic’s waiting room as they are on-set or in the pages of the tabloids.

Featured cast: the only actor in Hollywood who doesn’t want to sleep with his co-star, , a studio head who has secret "talks" with the ghost of history’s most beloved animator, a hard-boiled journalist who succumbs to the charms of a philandering director, a hairdresser who has to be blackmailed into doing you-know-who’s hair, a filmmaker who’s just a cowgirl at heart, a screenwriter who’s battled the old boy’s network to find she’s got more highballs than high hopes, a homeopathist asked to prescribe something to make Hollywood’s most feared actress "nicer," a tony New York editor with an acute case of moviephobia, and an actress with enough character to write a happy ending.

You might call it fiction, but Cameron calls this "friction—the abrasion of reality against dreams." And while none of the tales in Popcorn are true (just ask our lawyers), every one of them pops.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Inspirational author, journalist and ex-screenwriter Cameron, best known for her perennially bestselling creativity bible, The Artist's Way, delivers with exactitude on her title in the 18 nonnutritious stories that compose this frothy foray into Tinseltown. A star identified only as Our Heroine switches sexual preferences as expediency dictates; a studio head seeks approval from the inspirational and quite verbal ghost of Walt Disney; a director is willing to cover up a starlet's murder of her mobster boyfriend so the show can go on; a literary agent prefers to work for dead clients; a director and his memoir-writing wife do a "he said/she said" riff on why he's been exiled to the Roman Hills following allegations by a 14-year-old actress's stage motherAthese are a sampling of the situations that structure these heavily character-driven tales. In an author's note, Hollywood insider Cameron designates her stories as "'friction'Athe abrasion of reality against dream," and claims, "None of them is true, but all are accurate." Still, the chief fun in this acidic collection lies in trying to guess which real-life star each awful character might be modeled on. The shorter stories are mere teasing kernels and the longer ones are too empty and pat, given to such nonepiphanies as a magazine editor's awakening to the notion that Steven Spielberg has talent. While the arch writing can be diamond sharp, vacuous characters whining about the isolation of fame, coping with the inevitable substance-abuse problems and spouting egotistic bombast leave the reader jaded and cynical by the time the lights go up. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An insider’s view of the movie business. The dialogue sizzles, as they say in the trades. It manages to combine real darkness with a survivor’s light heart." -- John Nichols, author of The Sterile Cuckoo and The Milagro Beanfield War

"Julia Cameron is the real thing, a writer who writes from the heart, because she has to. The real thing is always good news. Pass it on." -- Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying and What Do Women Want?

"Julia Cameron...precisely locates the pain and pleasure in a gallery of highly sexed, drugged and overpaid characters of a movie-mad world." -- David Freeman, author of One of Us and A Hollywood Education

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Really Great Books (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893329127
• ISBN-13: 978-1893329126
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,372,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years. She is the author of twenty-eight books, fiction and nonfiction, including her bestselling works on the creative process: The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, Finding Water, and The Writing Diet. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious behind-the-scenes romp through Hollywood, November 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Popcorn: Hollywood Stories (Paperback)

OK, up front, I'm a big fan of Julia Cameron. So when I heard she had a new book, I went out and bought it. I was totally opposed to buying Cameron's fiction at first, because I really am a huge fan of her creativity books. But then, I thought, why not support the artist? I couldn't be happier with my decision. While very different from her other books (The Artist's Way, duh!), this book is hilarious! It's a thinly veiled attack on all the bad acting and bad behaviors of Hollywood's "finest." Some of her stories had me laughing so hard that even my husband began looking at me funny. Face it, Julia Cameron not only knows how to teach writing, she can do it pretty damn well herself.