From Publishers Weekly
Mottram covers the same territory Sharon Waxman did in 2005's
Rebels on the Backlot, including extensive considerations of directors Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino, but the British film journalist adds several filmmakers into the mix, including Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson, concentrating primarily on hot young talents discovered at the Sundance Film Festival. He's also more interested in what's on the screen than Waxman was, so nearly every chapter has lengthy analyses of the movies discussed. But these interpretive flights distract from the reportage, especially when Mottram dismisses successful directors like Robert Rodriguez (who arguably have taken back Hollywood) because he doesn't consider movies like
Spy Kids mature enough for serious consideration, or when he insists on linking every modern maverick to a counterpart in '70s cinema. He also links some films together by simplistic means, grouping a trilogy of films set in high schools in one chapter and building another chapter around Elmore Leonard adaptations. Mottram does give insight into the career trajectories of a few of his subjects, most notably Soderbergh, David Fincher and Bryan Singer, making his history a useful starting point. 50 b&w photos.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The 1989 surprise success of Steven Soderbergh's
sex, lies, and videotape after making a splash at the Sundance Film Festival is said by Mottram to have opened the doors to succeeding young Turk directors whose critical breakthroughs prefigured mainstream commercial triumphs. Covering much the same ground that Sharon Waxman did in
Rebels on the Backlot (2005), Mottram makes a broader survey. Whereas Waxman focused on Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, and David O. Russell, Mottram encompasses those six; such peers of theirs as Richard Rodriguez, Richard Linklater, and Alexander Payne; and relative youngsters like Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson. Mottram also covers the F-64 filmmakers collective, Soderbergh and other directors' abortive effort to maintain artistic control, and screenwriter-auteur Charlie Kaufman. Although Waxman got here first, and Mottram's premise that these mavericks have seized control of the studios is dubious, Mottram's broader scope and greater currency (he touches on Soderbergh's
Bubble, whereas Waxman ends five years earlier, in 2000) gives the nod to
The Sundance Kids.
Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
