No comments about Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era.

1 comments about The Gibson 175: Its History and Its Players.

1. This is a good book for one of the most classic jazz guitar of all time. Photos in black/white and color, and a history of the guitar. With the same format as in the same book publisher dedicated to the Gibson L-5 and Gibson 335.

5 comments about Kiss and Tango: Looking for Love in Buenos Aires.

1. This book is virtually unreadable. Insofar as plot and characters: vapid, pointless, doesn't go anywhere unless you consider trekking to Buenos Aires with no clear plot point "getting somewhere." Insofar as writing: it is as if someone made notes in a spiral bound journal about her vacation and its aftermath, intended to write a book from them, forgot to write the book, and only published the scribblings.



2. I can only confirm that this book is not about the tango but mostly about the personality of Marina Palmer. Given that the target group is that of TANGO lovers, not Marina Palmer fans, this book feels like a bait-and-switch.
   
   What it shows clearly, however, is that whatever you do and wherever you go, you will always take yourself along. Being professionally frustrated and having a low self-esteem makes one see the outer world in negative colors and attract wrong kind of people.
   
   I am sure that if Marina Palmer were to enter the world of, say, basket-weaving or table tennis she would find them just as wicked and disillusioning as her world of Argentine tango turned out to be.



3. I don't normally get caught up with reviews (and so I'll keep it brief) - but this time I believe it is this reader's duty to warn fellow Amazonians. Never have I read a worse book. It is sooo terribly written and says virtually nothing about tango. Save your money and hours of agony. I did like the book cover ; )



4. What a disappointment this book was - great subject (Buenos Aires and the fascinating culture of Tango) handled so poorly. This book actually made me wince at both the incredibly bad writing and the shallow values of the writer. I can't imagine why she would want to publish something so personal, so trite, and so confessional. This is a remarkably bad book.



5. Sometimes I like reading smut. This definitely ranks as smutty and, as a result, is an entertaining romp, but it gets old REALLY quickly. I found myself skimming through most of it just so I could say I got through it. I hear they're making a movie out of it now. Are you kidding me?
   
   I am North American who moved to Buenos Aires for a man I met in the tango. Knowing the milonga and the tango, the thought of someone finding The One in the tango scene is laughable, although my partner and I managed to find each other here and have been together for almost 2 years...and he is definitely not with me for my money, which is the typical attitude many of these tango dancers have toward foreign women. So, if you're thinking about coming to Buenos Aires to snag yourself a man, think twice. Tango is not all romance and passion. There is an undercurrent that is quite unpleasant. But, if you are coming here for a fling or two in a foreign country and are NOT looking for anything profound while you take advantage of the great dancing, by all means, come on down and enjoy!

2 comments about Kindertransport (Nick Hern Books).

1. This DVD was captivating. I am a mother of young children, so my eyes weren't dry from start to finish. The heart of those poor children as they watched their parents disappear, some forever, from their line of sight as the train left the station... the faith and utter selfless love of families to give their own into the hands of others so that they might live... and the compassion of a country that accepted the lost... It is all here in this extraordinary story of human endurance.



2. This is one of those things I had to read for a class (British Literature) and wound up on my favorites list. Diane Samuels has created a moving, dramatic, creative play made out of history.

   Set in England, with a mostly female cast of characters, we see the relationships between mothers and daughters, the truth and the past. Evelyn's daughter, Faith, has decided to move out, and as they pack up things she will need at her own place, we start to learn (through simultaneous staging--we are in pre-WWII Germany with Evelyn as a girl and her mother Helga) that Evelyn has not informed Faith that she was part of the Kindertransport of Jewish children. Sent away from her parents to be kept safe in England during WWII, Evelyn (formerly Eva) has formed a new identity and kept her past a secret... any more, and I'd be giving away the entire play.

   At first, the simultaneous staging can be daunting, but if you can imagine the play being acted on your mind's stage, you will be transfixed. I read this in one sitting, which is rare for a procrastinating-prone college student with a short attention span. The emotion, the fear, the tension between characters--all of these make this a superb piece of work.

1 comments about Chaplin.

1. It's a book of Robinson about Chaplin.All said.
   A must have for Chaplin fans.

3 comments about Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process (Theater in the Americas).

1. Kirle's assessment maps the theatre's change as America changed. The reader gains more insight into what they have seen and the way others have viewed the same play during different time periods. It is pretty well put together. Each chapter has something for a student of theatre and those that catch a show once a year. It will keep you thinking about the new shows you see. Don't be turned off that it is a text book used in universities. It was an entertaining read.



2. This is one of those rare books on musical theatre that really understands and appreciates the art form and that has new, fresh, interesting ideas to put forward. Anyone who loves musical theatre should check this one out. It's a smart, insightful book that is a real joy to read.



3. "Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process" is a rare treat of a read for enthusiasts and students of the theater. It's a fun step ahead. Bruce Kirle travels beyond the familiar chronological litany of titles and gossip to investigate what makes musical theater trends live and die.
   
   He argues that the style of musicals is ever changing because musicals are based on the foundation of the ever changing American mind. Public scuffles and feelings about race, gender, homosexuality, war, politics, economy and the struggle for human rights are shown as the intimate energy that not only fueled changes in the meanings within the plays but the physical and musical methods as well.
   
   As a big fan of musicals who reads these things all the time, I jumped off my couch in delight as I shared Kirle's adult consideration of history and drama as it effected what took place on the musical stage. It is exciting to depart from the hero worship of the great masters for a moment in order to get a new grip on what led audiences to crown a hit a hit and a star a star in the past century and how the most clever individuals molded their great acts and scores within a fluctuating civil atmosphere.
   
   And there are plenty of lovely facts and amusing anecdotes to be had as well, and so much of it is new to me. Kirle brings his own experience as a composer, director and conductor into play giving a fresh appreciation to the great Broadway artists and their work.
   
   Just when I mourned there was nothing new to think about musical theater, I got a hold of this book and I am grateful. I LOVE this book.

5 comments about Jackie Brown: A ScreenPlay.

1. Tarantino and Leonard strike gold. This screenplay (in the words of Tarantino) "is about 50% Leonard and 50% me." Those are great numbers for any fan of these guys. The screenplay is great, and it's a cinematic pleasure to watch. Read this, I hope you'll agree.



2. From the Elmore Leonard book, Quentin Tarantino is the best filmaker to take his work and turn it into the perfect movie that it is. Leonard's book was already good, but Tarantino understood how you need the extras in the story to make it great and the movie does all of that and more!



3. I saw this movie. In fact I watched it several times, because it was near perfect. One of my favorite scenes was the bailing out of jail of Jackie Browne by the bail bondsman. Here is a guy who is firmly fixed within his niche in life, is used to dealing with criminals in a professional capacity - purely business wise. Then he meets Jackie Browne.

   As she walks toward him from her cold confinement, compassion for her plight embraces him, not effusively, but tentatively. He is a professional bail bondsman, after all. But he wants to get to know her, and so he does. The intersection of their lives is arrived at from two quite distinct cultural lines. Yet they become friends, for both want it, mostly him. He even stops into a music store and buys a Motown sound, the Shawndells (sp?). That is great characterization, simply superb, for it is a real parsing out of the humanity even the most lonesome, the most calloused of us can at times feel for another, and rendered in the movie perfectly. They are basically decent people and it shows. That's just one of the things about this movie I like.




4. Wow...based on Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, this hardboiled but tamed Tarantino script has just about all you could want in a Tarantino film. But the finished product lacks a real raw power like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Even True Romance was a little better than this.



5. Jackie Brown is a wonderfully acted movie! It does go a little too long and is a little boring at times. It's a movie about a girl, a killer, a cop, and a loan man trying to get to the money (robbing it). Kids wouldn't like this. They wouldn't get it. Rated R: for language, violence, a brief scene of sexuality

1 comments about Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination of Six American Filmmakers.

1. Though film synopses are not especially artistic or exciting, Fr Blake's thesis of how Catholic concepts of community, sacrament, and symbol influenced six major directors is well presented. The underlying ideas were quite thought provoking, even if their relation to some film sequences bordered on the contrived. Impeccable scholarship in a readable work - and a good present for an intellectual film buff.

No comments about The Provoked Wife (New Mermaids).

No comments about Augusto Boal (Routledge Performance Practitioners).