I keep forgetting to post this review. I think my brain is trying to block out my having read this book on purpose to protect from either, a) dropping dead of a rage aneurysm, or b) dropping dead from the poisonous word salad the author spews on every page.
I would not have read this book or even had it on my radar but Cannonball Read’s BINGO board this year had a ‘FIASCO’ square, and when I found this book I thought it would be perfect. I love hearing about film production, good or bad, and the schadenfreude of reading about some of the biggest box office bombs in Hollywood history was too good to pass up. But I should have.
The book is twenty years out of date, but that’s the least of its problems. The author is hyped on his own supply, he’s nasty and mean and misogynist (ironically, slamming the cult classic movie Showgirls for misogyny at the same time), and definitely brings a very biased lens to everything that he’s writing about. Not to mention when he’s not being judgmental, he’s dull as hell. Somehow he manages to make the scandals going on behind the scenes absolutely snoozeworthy, and spends about 75% of each chapter droning on and on about studio and executive stuff that could have easily been glossed over.
I mean, imagine making a chapter about the making of Battlefield Earth boring.
If you want to learn about the disastrous processes of making these movies, there are better resources and articles on many film websites, and I would definitely recommend that over this.
[1.5 stars for all the research he clearly did]
CBR BINGO: Fiasco (self-explanatory)
