Customer Reviews:
No more objectivity in book reviews.......2003-03-14
I am an avid collector of film books and films and I usually rely on book reviews in such trades as Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.
I recently bought Emanuel Levy's new, updated version of his old Oscar book, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards (Continuum International, 2003).
I own the previous version, whose title, Oscar Fever, was better (Continuum, 2001). There's no doubt in my mind that All About Oscar is a better, more comprehensive, more up-to-date, and more illuminating book than Oscar Fever.
Yet when I consulted Publishers Weekly, I was shocked to realize that Oscar Fever had received a much more favorable review than All About Oscar. The reviewer of Oscar Fever wrote: "Levy draws an extraordinarily detailed knowledge of Hollywood history, providing intriguing factoids to supplement his assertions and analysis about subjects such as gender, age, and race in Hollywood, probing such essential questions as whether the Oscars are a "popularity contest." His analysis of why films about race receive Oscar nominations is thoughtful and savvy. No sociological question escapes Levy's notice, and he's got an answer for everything."
The review of All About Oscar was lukewarm, but not as favorable as that of Oscar Fever, even though the latter is a better book. What has happened to book reviewing? Is it that subjective? Does it entirely depend on the reviewer's personality and taste" The least a respectable publication like Publishers Weekly could have done is to assign All About Oscar to the same critic who had reviewed Oscar Fever. This would have been the only way to avoid the problem of subjectivity and arbitrariness in book reviewing.
If I were asked to rank both version, I would give Oscar Fever 3 stars and All About Oscar 4.
Where are the Oscar Writers?.......2003-03-09
If you want to understand which movies are nominated for and win Oscars, and which kinds of screen roles are considered "Oscar stuff" I highly recommend that you read Emanuel Levy's new book, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards.
But Don't expect to get many insights about the screenplays nominated for Oscar and their writers. Though Levy analyzes in great depth at least ten of the Oscar categories, the only place where writers are mentioned in the chapters dealing with the various films genres (dramas, musicals, historical epics, comedies, Westerns).
But don't writers deserve their own chapter? After all, there are no movies without ideas, stories, narratives, and the Academy acknowledges this fact by honoring not one but two kinds of screenplays: original and adapted.
I do understand that a single volume about the Oscars can't deal with each and every category, anbd I myself don't care much about art or costume design. I learned a lot from reading All About Oscar, I can't fully praise or embrace a book that is more concerned with directors and actors than with screenwriters. For this reason, I give All About Oscar the grade 4.
If you want to understand which movies are nominated for and win Oscars, and which kinds of screen roles are considered "Oscar stuff" I highly recommend that you read Emanuel Levy's new book, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards.
But Don't expect to get many insights about the screenplays nominated for Oscar and their writers. Though Levy analyzes in great depth at least ten of the Oscar categories, the only place where writers are mentioned in the chapters dealing with the various films genres (dramas, musicals, historical epics, comedies, Westerns).
But don't writers deserve their own chapter? After all, there are no movies without ideas, stories, narratives, and the Academy acknowledges this fact by honoring not one but two kinds of screenplays: original and adapted.
I do understand that a single volume about the Oscars can't deal with each and every category, anbd I myself don't care much about art or costume design. I learned a lot from reading All About Oscar, I can't fully praise or embrace a book that is more concerned with directors and actors than with screenwriters. For this reason, I give All About Oscar the grade 4.
Much more than Oscar.......2003-02-17
I am one of those people who loves the Oscar show and reads everything available about the Oscar Award. I just finished reading Levy's latest book on the subject, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. In my view, it represents a vast improvement over his previous, Oscar Fever.
Let me explain. For one thing, there is new information that was not available before about the Oscar's discrimination against women and ethnic minority artists (not just blacks). In fact, the chapter "Is the Oscar a White Man's Race" reveals that many of the biases that operate in the Oscar awards simply reflect biases that exist in American society, and that the Oscar is just a microcosm of a much larger problem that we Americans need to deal with.
The second new chapter that I like is the one titled, "Oscar's Middle-Brow Sensibility," which documents why, year after year, the Oscar-winning films are not necessarily the best ones artistically, but those that contain uplifting and hopeful messages in their stories. Prime example: A Beautiful Mind, which in the guise of a biopicture was presented as a struggle and triumph of the mind against all odds.
In short, one of the great merits of All About Oscar is that it approaches the subject not just from an artistic or cinematic perspective, but from a social and political one as well, showing that both the Oscar's are much bigger than the movies they recognize. I therefore gives Levy's Oscar Fever the highest rank, 5, and recommend that it be read by anyone interested in American pop culture.
Much more than Oscar.......2003-02-17
I am one of those people who loves the Oscar show and reads everything available about the Oscar Award. I just finished reading Levy's latest book on the subject, All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. In my view, it represents a vast improvement over his previous, Oscar Fever.
Let me explain. For one thing, there is new information that was not available before about the Oscar's discrimination against women and ethnic minority artists (not just blacks). In fact, the chapter "Is the Oscar a White Man's Race" reveals that many of the biases that operate in the Oscar awards simply reflect biases that exist in American society, and that the Oscar is just a microcosm of a much larger problem that we Americans need to deal with.
The second new chapter that I like is the one titled, "Oscar's Middle-Brow Sensibility," which documents why, year after year, the Oscar-winning films are not necessarily the best ones artistically, but those that contain uplifting and hopeful messages in their stories. Prime example: A Beautiful Mind, which in the guise of a biopicture was presented as a struggle and triumph of the mind against all odds.
In short, one of the great merits of All About Oscar is that it approaches the subject not just from an artistic or cinematic perspective, but from a social and political one as well, showing that both the Oscar's are much bigger than the movies they recognize. I therefore gives Levy's Oscar Fever the highest rank, 5, and recommend that it be read by anyone interested in American pop culture.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2006-05-20
An excellent guide that will sky rocket you into fortune with easy to understand advices, a step by step approach and easy language. One of the best books in the business this is one those titles that you don't want to miss because it will surprise you with every turn of the page. A good book, but needs some improvement, not like Ty Cohen's "The Music Business: How YOU can make $500,000 "or more" a year in the music industry by Doing it Yourself!", a title that along with this must not be missing out of every music producer's library.
THE BEST BOOK *EVER* FOR ASPIRING MUSICIANS.......1997-12-18
This is BY FAR the best book I've EVER read about becoming a successful musician.
It takes you step by step towards achieving your dreams. It's a world apart from most music biz books that just tell you what a record deal is.
This gets into the philosophy. The work ethic. The mental approach. AND the specifics of the industry!
A truly amazing book, that I'm shocked to find on the "hard to find" list. Worth having Amazon search for.
I did an interview with the author. It's posted on this website...
Average customer rating:
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Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City (Music in American Life)
Craig Havighurst
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HOW TO CRAFT YOUR SOUL.......2007-01-28
LEGACIES THE SUBLIME is a supplement for MAGE: THE AWAKENING, a game set in the World of Darkness. Mages are able to craft their souls, a process that allows them to gain magical abilities that don't invoke Paradox, perform rituals that gain them mana when away from hallows, and learn some Arcana as if it were on their path. If a mage passes on the secret to crafting souls on to apprentices, a Legacy may develop. These are some significant powers, and the cost (mechanically) is to pass a tithe of the character's XP onto their mentor. There are other costs too, sometimes servitude to the group or significant bodily changes.
How useful is LEGACIES? Well, I would compare it to BLOODLINES for Vampire. When I first heard of a whole book of bloodlines, I thouhgt it would be rather silly. A typical city holds maybe 20 vampires, with very few new ones passing through. What is the likelihood of even one belonging to a bloodline, let alone getting the use of a whole book of them? And given the secretive nature of vampires and the difficulty of traveling from city to city, I imagine that few vampires can make use of them. In contrast, every mage can join a legacy. If a character wants to travel to Glastonbury to meet the last surviving mentor of the Sodality of Tor, he or she can. There are journals and records of Legacies, plus mages travel from city to city, so it is easy for mages to find a legacy. Thus, I view LEGACIES as a big book of plot devices.
LEGACIES also fills some parameter space that the corebook has left empty, which is "What do Mages do with their time?" You can do anything you can imagine, provided no one is watching. Sometimes it's hard to be creative with no boundaries. LEGACIES gives characters something to do; pursue the membership in secret orders and later the day-to-day activites that make up that group. I find that a Legacy feels more like the social groups of Vampire (lance Sanctum, Carthians, etc.) than the Mage orders do, as I find them ill-defined with little focus on immediate goals. So I think this book is both interesting and practical from both a player and a storyteller's viewpoint.
Each legacy has an entry of about 10 pages, describing what the legacy does, how it originated (or what they want you to think), and initiation ceremonies. It states who can join, what the attainments (magical abilites) are, and the oblations that generate mana.
Here's the list of Legacies:
Clavicularius
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The Pygmalian Society
The Scions of God
The Sodality of the Tor
Stone Scribes
Threnodists
Transhuman Engineers
The Cult of the Doomsday Clock
The Fangs of Mara
A nice, but optional, addition to the Mage line.......2006-03-24
Legacies: the Sublime is the first collection of Legacies published for Mage: the Awakening. It serves the same purpose as the Bloodlines and Lodges books for Vampire and Werewolf, respectively. In short, it gives players and Storytellers examples of magical societies that characters might belong to, as well as the powers they receive, thereby presenting even more options for characters (beyond the default choices of Path and Order). This book expands on the idea of Legacies as presented in the back of the core Mage book, including an appendix on how to create one's own Legacy.
Since this product is hardly necessary to enjoy a good game of Mage, the deciding factor will be whether the 13 Legacies presented herein interest you, either as a player or a Storyteller. I find them to be generally well done, although I'm not likely to ever use them all. Highlights include:
The Clavicularius - Goetic sorcerers who battle their inner demons on the path to self-mastery.
The Daoine - Enchanters inspired by fairy tales, they use Fate magic to reward the just and punish the wicked.
The Fallen Pillar - Ascetic shamans who attempt to transcend the limitations of the flesh.
The Sodality of the Tor - An Old-World witch cult, the "Spiral Walkers" channel personal divinity by means of ecstatic rites.
The Transhuman Engineers - They believe their use of technomagic will help humanity "progress" to the next level of evolution.
The Cult of the Doomsday Clock - Creepy as hell. Apocalyptic cult with ties to dark things... Would make good antagonists.
Aside from the specific legacies presented, the book is also useful as an example of how much variation exists among Mages of the same Path. If players or Storytellers are in a rut and can't think outside the box of what's presented in the core book, Legacies: the Sublime ought to fix that. In summary, it's one of those books you don't really need but will probably find cool and useful.
All the info you need.......2006-03-09
This book gives you a lot of info to help you really get detailed in your character developement.
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An Outstanding book.......2005-01-08
I think everyone should read this book. It gives a good picture of life as a policeman, during the worst times Northern Ireland has seen. It's an incredible story of a man who had to survive unbelievable poverty, as a child, and became a policeman because he wanted to help, but, instead, was thrown into the turmoil of "The Troubles", a time to try anyone's sanity. This true story is well told and makes you understand what it was like. You will take away an understanding of Northern Ireland that you didn't have before. A book to make you think and feel some strong emotions.
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