Adventures of a Suburban Boy

Rating:
Summary: Lovely....and a bore
Review: Although it begins with great lyrical promise, Boorman's memoir loses steam less than half way through and becomes a stale and plodding bore. I enjoyed the writing in description of his hope-and-glory childhood, and some wonderful stuff taken from the Emerald Forest diary, but otherwise I've rarely seen a Briton write such flat-footed prose. And I bought the book looking forward as much to the prose as to the stories Boorman might have to tell.

As for his stories, he has a few to tell, and you might enjoy them, but eventually they all begin to recount the disasters that seem to surround his filmmaking. I grew impatient with them, and with him. (Does he never learn from these things?) Further, unless you regard Lee Marvin with the same outsized fascination that Boorman does, you'll learn far, far more than you ever wanted to know about the man. It's too much.

I've always regarded Zardoz as shallow and sophomoric. Boorman's extended discussion of this film and its attendant off-screen disasters does nothing to raise my opinion. Boorman is, mostly, a would-be Deep Thinker. But "would-be" is the key and the film remains a silly embarrassment.

Boorman has written elsewhere about The Emerald forest, and he cheats the reader of this book out of a decent discussion of that film, particularly the critical and social response to it.

Rating:
Summary: suburban boy
Review: Boorman writes with great wit and humility about his career as a filmmaker, working his way up the ladder. He adds interesting stories about legends such as Lee marvin, Toshiro Mafuni, Neil Jordan, etc. He talks about the struggles of having his films made, and the fact that many filmakers ideas never make it to the screen. A very honest nad enlightening autobiography.

Rating:
Summary: amazingly enjoyable
Review: I found myself trapped in an airport beginning a longish flight and this book was the single semi-appealing book available; once I started reading I was again trapped by his self-deprecating and insightful wit. How difficult it must be to make a good movie if someone as thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive as this only succeeds a small part of the time.

An enjoyable book from the first with the added bonus of glimpses into the real lives of other artists and creators. I may be over-grateful because the book was much more than I expected or hoped - but I don't think so.