Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops by James Robert ParishMy review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
An interesting, if somewhat dry, look into the decisions that resulted in some of the biggest movie flops in history. It's amazing how often people can see a major disaster coming and for whatever reason choose not to cut their losses while they can. Of course, this is a problem not relegated to the movie industry and I found myself trying to apply the lessons-learned from this book to my own projects. What am I working on today that I might someday look back on as being an obviously bad idea? Am I being blinded by pride or overcommitment or desire, so much so that I walk off a very evident cliff?
Parish's writing style tends to be a little dry with several sections of the book feeling like filler. He also has a very strange tendency to (over)use parentheticals - just like I did there. I can't tell whether it's a bad technique, but it tends to be distracting. And it'll be even MORE distracting now that I've pointed it out.
Also, Warren Beatty sounds like a real jerk. I'm just saying.
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2 comments:
Sounds like an interesting book but not an interesting read.
I agree wholeheartedly, though I've only read the chapters on Cleopatra, Popeye, Showgirls (I know, I know), and Town & Country. Given the subject matter, it SHOULD be more compelling - I guess I expected it to be a lot dishier, but that could be because I've watched too many E! True Hollywood Stories.
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