A collection of observations, stories and aphorisms about Hollywood from one of America’s foremost writers and, these days, provocateurs. It is virtually unreadable ... This is a book that resembles the idled rantings from a feverish, unsolicited email stuck in your spam folder. There are weird capitalizations, uneasy conclusions and the rat-a-tat of non-sequiturs all held together by bad faith. It’s illustrated by Mamet’s own cartoons, which echo a middle schooler’s sense of humor and maturity ... Throughout is the stringent waft of misogyny.
A short, chatty, discursive book padded with the author’s comic doodle ... Mamet has a fine cache of Hollywood quips and one-liners, passed along from one smart-aleck to the next ... Nothing but wicked jokes, angry broadsides and pointed gossip: in other words, the ideal Hollywood book.
It’s less funny than cantankerous, bilious and sardonically angry ... Some of Mamet’s complaints are reasonable-enough, even witty, jeremiads about Hollywood’s culture of greed and compromise ... [A] blinkered, unhappy book.
A free-associative, selectively offensive monologue ... The results can be bewildering ... The connections can be cryptic, and the style staccato (appropriately for Mamet), but among the eye-rolling opinions is the currency of stories and jokes shared for their uniqueness ... The book’s political screeds feel unfortunate, to say the least, and tedious.
Proceeds to gleefully bite the hand that has generously fed him over the course of his long career ... The book is arranged into short, discontinuous essays under headings whose meaning is often bafflingly obscure.
The book has a constant stream of stories and tangents, but readers will consistently be entertained. As a bonus, Mamet’s own cartoon sketches decorate the text ... Mamet’s staccato, derisive, episodic, raw-language writing will enchant fans.
