RaveBookforumCompact, complete, and highly enjoyable ... Rickey’s book on Varda reminded me of when I first saw Varda’s films and when I read all the critics in all the papers in Boston
Sam Wasson
PanBookforumThe book bemoans lovers of the bottom line while offering glowing portraits of the four men most responsible for Chinatown’s success ... Wasson goes deep on Towne ... Wasson’s portrait of Towne is deeply respectful, even though he is, in a way, the worst person in the book. And that is saying something when one of the other main characters is a child rapist who lives in exile to avoid prosecution ... Unlike its subjects, Wasson’s book indulges in a less inventive kind of nostalgia. It attempts to stop time ... While Wasson is too young to be pandering to baby boomers this way, he nevertheless lays it on thick, in slabs of poetic twilight ... The prose often gets even more florid, and weirder, taking on a sicker hue when those who can’t share Wasson’s rosy view of Hollywood are invoked ... Wasson’s deep, abiding nostalgia seeks to replicate Chinatown’s noirish feel, but without any of the film’s revisionist approach to genre. Wasson sometimes goes for the California gothic of Ross Macdonald’s detective novels, but the way he writes is the opposite of hard-boiled. He’s too in love with soft focus ... This is like the evocation of TV shows in Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood, but without Tarantino’s self-awareness.
Glenn Frankel
PositiveBookforum\"...a detailed investigation of the way anti-communist persecution poisoned the atmosphere around one film, which succeeded nonetheless, and damaged the lives of the people who made it ... The connection between Cooper in the movie and in real life is apparent, so Frankel does not have to overplay it. It\'s obvious that Cooper and Foreman\'s personal lives somehow doubled the film\'s story after Cooper was cast in the lead ... A pox lies dormant in American politics, like shingles, and it has broken out again. The Trump administration, even before taking power, began to request lists of government employees who might disagree with its policies on climate change, gender equality, and anti-terrorism; a right-wing website is compiling a watch list of professors it accuses of liberal bias. Frankel\'s book makes clear how volatile and destructive such lists can become, and the kind of people they empower ... As our new era unfolds, with the explicit promise, or threat, to make America as great as these 1950s again, we will soon find out if the bizarre tales in Frankel\'s book will be repeated with a new cast of actors and writers.\
