About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Mary Gabriel
Mixed The Times (UK) \"Occasionally the writer strays into hagiography territory, but her claims are not without foundation ... Between describing Madonna’s albums, tours and films in pointillist detail, this doorstop of a biography provides a useful reminder of all the sociopolitical events of the past half century ... Late in the book, when Gabriel mentions the six hours of physiotherapy a day Madonna now needs to get through a tour, or about how she has to have a helping hand to climb on and off grand pianos, I felt not just exhausted, but quite emotional. God bless Queen Madge. Long may she reign.\
James B. Stewart
Rave The Times (UK) A racy slice of schadenfreude about people with more money than taste, whose talents are limited to boardroom shenanigans or greenlighting \'content\' that has been conceived, written and directed by the true creatives further down the pecking order.
Geena Davis
Rave The Times (UK) Candid, self-deprecating and vastly entertaining ... Davis’s frank appraisal of her psychological and physical merits, and demerits, is not only disarming, but likely to strike a chord with many of her reader.
Quentin Tarantino
Mixed The Times (UK) For better or worse, this is pure unfiltered Tarantinalia: a motormouthed mash-up of cinema history, conjecture and memoir that, like his screenplays, doesn’t so much flow as pepper you with a mishmash of fact and opinion ... The result is, for the most part, insanely readable for anyone interested in film trivia, less so for everyone else. Occasionally the author romps off on benders about subjects that might be glorious nostalgia-fests for his American readers, though probably of limited interest for British ones ... Reading Cinema Speculation is like being trapped in a bar with a passionate cinephile pelting you with a barrage of astute observation, informed conjecture, random listicles and utter nonsense ... Tarantino has seen more films than me, and probably more than you, so I think we can agree he is (to paraphrase Mel Brooks) truly the Lord of the Film Buffs. Curiously, though, he makes some rookie errors.