Archive | Book Matters

Spring Falls

“What hurts so bad about youth isn’t the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It’s the stupid hopes playacting like certainties.” –Mary Karr, in her very fine third memoir, Lit. All I’ve been doing lately is springing, reading, writing, and digging into the rubble of my own past to determine what’s worth saving. Hence, my recent barrage of quotes. Consider them archeological treasure.

Bohemians & Flappers, O My!

Anthology films are so underrated. The best ones are celebrations of form and concept, as they focus on pure theme rather than the conventions of more traditional features. Even the worst ones have something to offer, though, especially if multiple directors have contributed their work. Take 1989’s “New York Stories.” Frances Ford Coppola and Woody Allen may have contributed self-indulgent shorts but Martin Scorsese’s offering, “Life Lessons,” provided such an epic glimpse into obsession, the artistic process, and the male ego that it singlehandedly merited the price of admission.

In general, New York-based anthology films may be the finest example of the genre; at any given moment, so many different worlds and eras coexist on the same tiny island that they’re bound to generate compelling fodder. An adaptation of Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells, a collection of Manhattan-based Vanity Fair pieces written between 1913-1936, may be just what the doctor ordered, then. The glamour of that time is almost unparalleled, and matching the right directors to the various essays, poems, and profiles of this book would be like shooting fish in a barrel. We’d be bound to score at least once. Continue Reading →

My Lucky Star Memoirs

March may be the least glamorous time of the year. Award season is finally over, spring doesn’t officially start for another few weeks, and the greatest movies of 2015 likely won’t hit theaters for at least a few months. The best cure for what ails the deprived cinephile? Star memoirs. Referred to as “diva lit” by Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey, film actor autobiographies may not be especially truthful but they’re often juicy and even insightful. Here is a completely subjective bibliography of the best ones around – both in print and out – with a big tip of the hat to helpful colleagues whose bookshelves also buckle under the weight of these dishy tomes.

By Myself by Lauren Bacall
Bacall won a National Book Award for this memoir, and, boy, did she deserve it. A characteristically sly-eyed account of this “nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn” who became Humphrey Bogart’s better half (on and off screen), it captures the magic of Hollywood without pulling any punches. Of her relationship with Bogie, she writes: “When we looked at each other, trumpets sounded, rockets went off.”

Talullah: My Autobiography by Tallulah Bankhead
With tales of entertaining the Wright brothers as a child, cavorting with monkeys as an aspiring actress, and a whole lot of Kentucky bourbon consumption, the screen siren’s memoir is as outrageous as the rest of her persona. Says she: “I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water – I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.” Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy