Rating:  Summary: At Least These Guys Make Their Position Clear From The Start Review: While well-documented, the politics of the authors are so blantantly negative and condemning it lessens the impact of their well-researched stories. Moreover, their final chapter on the heroics of online muckrakers, like themselves, is too much. While I am a big believer in checks and balances on our celebrity-obsessed, US Magazine-rich culture, I don't think these guys had to be so nasty and self-righteous to make their point. The Courtney Love and Scientology chapters were great. The online heros and, gasp, left wing politics chapters hurt their credibility.
Rating:  Summary: Old news.. Review: I hate to bash a book that the authors obviously spent alot of time writing. And Bretibart and Ebner have amassed a wealth of information here and present it in an easy to read style. The problem I had is that nothing in it was new. I read alot but entertainment news is not at the top of my list. I read The Star and Enquirer in the check out line at the grocery store. Graze through People or Entertainment Weekly at the hairdressers or doctors. Watch the E channel on occasion. Yet I knew all the stories they shared in the book. That Angelina Jolie had adopted and was estranged for her dad. That Polanski raped a teen and was still lauded by hollywood. Even that Mick Jagger slept with the gal from "One Day At A Time". Nothing new here. The authors offer their comments and its kinda interesting but since all the info is a repeat, it falls flat. And what is with the continual reference to Tom Cruise as the "heterosexual Tom Cruise". Throughout the book the authors continue to refer to Tom as "the heterosexual Tom Cruise". So what's the point? Me thinks Breitbart and Ebner are good writers but need to spend time unearthing new information, not rehash old news.
Rating:  Summary: Hollyweird Interrupted Review: When I started reading this book. I thought it was a bunch of bitter journalists trying to make a fast buck. Instead I read a very insightful look into the lives of celebrity and the hypocritical lives that they led. A while the gossip was very old news. Some of its was very shocking and unbelievable. I didn't get the constant reference of heterosexual Tom Cruise what was that about. But nevertheless I enjoyed reading this book.
Rating:  Summary: Terrific! Review: I have read almost everything about Hollywood, from Day of The Locust to Holywood Babylon, but this book speaks for the ages. Matching polemic with investigative chapters, it reads appealingly coherent and alternately amused, enlightened and saddened me to the core. It's a relentless read, but with a purpose to persuade the reader into looking at celebrity culture with at least a measure of skepticism. Some may come off this book with complete contempt for celebrity culture and the skewed media that covers it, and they, I, am certainly part of the misguided choir they are preaching to. My favorite chapters include the one on celebrity nannies, the truly warped Hollywod high school triptych and a sad, odd chapter on actors selling their creative souls to carnie hucksterism. The Courtney Love essay is simply tragic and the Michael Jackson stuff reads like a detective novel set in a macabre circus. Although the authors do come off a bit mean at times in their unforgiving assault on celebrty culture, I sense that they wrote with purpose and maybe even care about the institutions and characters they take to school. Maybe not. Either way, this is a terrific book from start to finish. I look forward to their next.
Rating:  Summary: HOLLYWIERD NEEDS INTERVENTION, NOW! Review: This book is a scary, but amazing look at the powers that be in hollywood. They feel that rest of us in "flyover country" don't count, but it looks like these authors realize that Americans are able to make up our minds without relying on these egomaniacal, pill-popping nutcases to tell us how to think! Breibart and Ebner bring to light the worms that are crawling under many a rock in Tinseltown...just in time for the Oscar's! I read it in one laugh-out loud sitting, and will recommend it to all of my friends. I can't wait for a sequel!
Rating:  Summary: "Hollywood, Interrupted" - a facinating sneak peak Review: "Hollywood, Interrupted" is a facinating sneak peak into the world of entertainment and Hollywood. It is a must-read for followers of the industry, and readers of magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly, and the like. You will learn things that are surprising and disturbing, but ultimately very interesting and insightful. This book is an excellent conversation piece.
Rating:  Summary: Great, gossipy read, a bit heavy-handed, but worth buying Review: I almost didn't buy this book, based upon the Publisher's Weekly review, but I'm glad I did. If you're the type who loves reading juicy insider tidbits about celebrities, you will enjoy this book immensely. There were some heavy-handed comments made by the authors (glass houses, guys!) but I think most readers are smart enough to see past their editorializing and indulge in the no holds barred glimpse into what our favorite "stars" are really like: egomaniacal screw-ups who do what they please and don't care about the consequences, as long as they're popular.
Rating:  Summary: an enlightening read Review: What really sets this excellent book apart from being yet another right wing screed is the amount of research that went into it. The authors dig deep in terms of uncovering stuff that we'd never know by relying on traditional media. Sure, there is some ranting going on in the book, but it certainly works to serve the premise: Hollywood is more insane than you can possibly imagine. If you're not interested in Hollywood or how the manufactured culture damages society, don't buy this book. There are plenty of sociological examinations of your own region I'm sure, and there are probably a lot of the same problems going on that are exhibited in Hollywood, Interrupted: awful parenting, drugs, prostitution, crime, you name it. But the authors' point seems to be that not only do the celebs and hangers on in the book celebrate their own insanity, they also profit from it! The rest of the world sees no such rewards for such pathological behavior, and it hardly seems fair given that, if you're reading this review, then you are probably more educated than the lot of the Hollywood folk portrayed in the book. And when the education of Hollywood's young royalty is discussed in the book, you get way more than a glimpse of the pretentious, touchy feely system set up to spoil the Hollywood brats and keep them so far afield from reality that when they're put into positions where they decide what we see on television and in cinemas, the result is dismal at best. When we read how , in his own words, the legendary producer Robert Evans goes after an underaged girl through Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, the authors point out that his son goes to the Cross Roads school as diagnosed in the chapter Hollyweird High. The book is designed as a road map to destruction of morals and culture, riddled with potholes of classic Hollywood hypocrisy. And then there is the indictment of the media that serves, and apparently is paid to protect these cretins. Sure, we can shrug, and argue that the media perception of Hollywood is built on the projection of myths and fantasy and so it will always be, but would we in our right minds shell out subscription money for the magazines and up from $8 at the cinema to support the people whose crimes, had we committed them, would have put us away in penal institutions? Whereas I could have cared less about Hollywood before reading this book, now the book has got me thinking... Sure, Winona's shoplifting conviction was a landmark case in terms of actually seeing a celebrity convicted for her crimes, but why wasn't she prosecuted for all the illegal drugs discovered on her person when she committed the crime? Let's face it, were she not a celebrity, she'd have the book thrown at her and at least be forced to cancel her appearance on Saturday Night Live. Sure, the OJ Simpson debacle was the ultimate example of celebrity justice gone awry, but the crimes and misdemeanors outlined and examined in the book add up to an analysis of how little has changed in terms of selective prosecution of serial box office criminals. Another excellent section of the book examines Hollywood cults with an unforgiving hammer. As well it should be. Sure, if a celebrity wants to tithe a portion of their riches to a sci-fi cult like, pay a cable tv installer for to "channel" them into the genius of some ancient spirit, fine. But when, like "the heterosexual Tom Cruise," they become overzealous marketing tools for these boiler room concocted faiths, the brainwashed stars suffer zero consequence when lives are ruined amongst the unwitting recruits from the rest of society who simply believed in a spiritually cloaked marketing campaign that turned on them. In this way, the book serves as a consumer advocacy report by boldly taking on the dark side of the happy, shiny fun cults. Even the lesser chapters in Hollywood, Interrupted bear weight in completing the big picture argument against celebrity in the book. (...) rewarded in the screenwriting trade and the selling out of "landmark" television like HBO to the lowest common denominator bear witness to a "creative" system so ethically comprimised, there is little hope of redemption for the consumer. What hope there is lies in the possibility that this book is consumed and digested by a generation that actually cares about our culture and are willing to do something about it. Hollywood is in crisis mode right now. Reality television practically dominates the box office and Soul Plane opens nationwide next week! Ah, the perfect opportunity to stay home and read this book! As the authors suggest, until Hollywood gets new players plying real talent rather than criminal notoriety and unabashed greed at the public's expense, the best revenge for the current state of cultural affairs is to simply ignore the product and find something worthwhile to do in life instead. Summer is here. Enjoy it.
Rating:  Summary: When Will God Destroy The Sodom & Gomorrah Of Hollywood????? Review: Breitbart and Ebner compile a brutally thorough, referential log of Hollyweird's misdeeds against its market of Middle America, indecently lecherous and hippie-idolizing "values", familial DYSFUNCTION and war against nuclear family, neurosis gone ungovernably wild, subservience to oppressive, lawsuit-abusing Scientology, gluttonous swingers scene, PC tyranny, and prejudice to hawk only Demoncratic causes in their movies and series in H.I., the book which unmasks celebrities' dirty secrets that were already suspicious, based on celebrities' unorthodox misbehaviors. Their cumulative research has convincingly presented that Hollywood IS baneful in its entertainment exports towards Middle America-something glaringly observable from all the vices Hollyweird lustfully glorifies, but probed more by specific examples from the authors. What needs to be stressed is the authors are 100% credible-unlike the irreversible scores of liberal "authors" who uncaringly, injuriously DON'T provide notes. The authors include a perverse extensiveness of references which meticulously detail each foundation of their arguments, not to mention their personal interviews with 1st-person witnesses. This book's a revelation, just as it is important, of the fishily subtle maneuvers that Hollywood and its mischievous entertainers indulge in, in their attitudes, conveyances and affiliations. Were it not for this book, people just having to scrutinize celebrities' subtle tactics and doublespeak for themselves, people wouldn't know where to begin to uncover their favorite "idols'" ominous misdirection, unless they themselves researched the backgrounds of questionable celebrities, because not all is apparent behind celebrities' sinister visages when they make appearances. EVERYONE, including all the nouveau-riche, raised in the afflicted values-system of Hollywood is dysfunctional!!!! The authors go to intrinsic lengths to detail the unsanitary lows of parental maltreatment, neglect and indifference; abusive disrespect and callous derision bordering on insanity of their spoiled brat children; and absolutely loveless marriages-of-conveniences which Hollywood people are subjugated in through interviews with 1st-person witnesses, the nannies. The nannies' horror stories involve celebrity "mothers" sneering down at their middle-class, basic-decency virtues in raising children, celebrity parents being uninterestedly estranged from their own offspring which they hand off to maids from the moment of birth, and celebrity parents bribing their children with cruel "rewards" for their failures or misconducts, discouraging the children from improving themselves. The environment of the venomously ABNORMAL "upbringing" of a concerning number of celebrities is totally destructively corrupt. The specific examples given involve radical-indoctrinated Winona Ryder, parental-endangered Phoenix (River, Joaquin) litter, and walking-sideshow Courtney Love, all casualties faultily "raised" by psychotic hippies who uncaringly abandoned their responsible jobs to "travel the world", and backslid in status to "raise" their kids in countercultural hippie communes. In those Sodom and Gomorrah's, their criminally maltreating parents exposed them to sex and drugs at sinfully young ages, reasoning why, as adults, the aforementioned degenerated into shoplifters, junkies, and retards without conscientious boundaries, respectively!!!! Accompanying this deterioration is an expose of the festering breeding place for future miscreants, the offspring of lunatic celebrities, in the infamous Crossroads "School" For Arts And Sciences. CSFAAS' "curriculum" is hazardously countercultural, with hippie-influenced courses like psychedelically inane 'Mysteries', which is misguidedly intended for "meditation", but really involves the hallucinatory insanity of passing a "talking stick" around to share inner feelings, and the year-end class trip to the Ojai Foundation. The Ojai Foundation is where the REAL degradedness occurs, with some ex-students interviewed by the authors confessing that the trip accomplished only the atrocities of having sex with all one's classmates, doing drugs, and being personally dilapidated by having commune-dwellers (it's a sacrilegious hippie retreat) dance around naked. These programs are defrauded as places to "get in touch" with one's self, but the startling reality of CSFAAS is most of its students are emotionally and socially maladjusted troublemakers who're desperate for parental guidance or intervention which they'll never get, since their celebrity parents are just as deficient. The authors disclose how Hollyweird has a bothersome allergy towards psychiatry-ironic because their studio systems embraced psychiatry during the 40s and 50s-and the fact of mental illness. This is simply a veiled ruse to excuse and endorse Hollyweird's nihilistic limitlessness in amoral misbehaviors, which is asphyxiated through the refusal of treatment by psychiatry. Hollywood USED to want to curb their stars' unhealthily obscene misbehaviors in their "Golden Age", but nowadays' publicity for perilously unorthodox debauchery from stars opposes the need to keep stars' indulgent misdeeds concealed. The most fearful section concerns the blasphemously money-hungry, (...)Scientology "religion". Detailing celebrities' grim dependence on EVERYONE in their lives-celebrities are so vain, they shirk personal responsibilities on underlings so to devote more time to self-centeredness-from agents to make-up "artists" to publicists to managers to spin doctors, the authors convince that celebrities are retarded in being self-sufficient. This functional retardation stems from their malpractice of being disparagingly attended to by their subordinates, who deprive them of personal answerability. From this brittle mentality, celebrities are RIPE for being baited by cults because they're unthinkingly, submissively liberated from having to decide anything independently. Cults prey on weak-minded sheep like celebrities for their easy susceptibility to brainwashing, cults' primary method of subjugation, as celebrities are humiliatingly swayable because of public opinion subjection. If you're a braindead follower of celebrities, you should realize that many, like Travolta, Cruise, and the Presleys, are persecuted, and consequently blaspheme cult-imposed subordination like Scientology manuals cure dyslexia, and can instruct how to fly planes. My regret's not to be able to detail each chapter and subchapter, because they contain quite varied and even more unorthodox waywardness that's practiced as normal in Hollyweird. The rest of H.I. is loaded with scandals after scandals of celebrities fiendishly exploiting far-Eastern fads like Yoga for monetary advantage; alleged proliferation of impure swingers who solicit pay-for-sex profanity at private locales masquerading as "mansion parties"; P.I.s who dissolutely extort celebrities with uncovered, damaging information; most EVERY "star" ideologically despising President Bush; PC infecting celebrities' causes; celebrities subjected to Oprah PC sanctimoniousness; B-movie "actors" relegated to unscrupulously selling cookware at tradeshows; plagiarism and HBO's falsifying of "reality" TV; and supposed celebrity congregation on AOL, longing to experience contact with "ordinary" folks.
Rating:  Summary: Simply bad Review: This book is simply bad. It's poorly written (even I noticed that and english isn't even my first language), it's mainly old news and the guys who wrote it are so right wing they make Charlton Heston look like Tim Robbins. They are also homophobic to a degree that calls for psychological treatment - or maybe for a walk out of the closet ;-). In one chapter they bash Jessica Lange only for acting in the movie 'Normal' that showed some empathy for a transsexual. Another chapter is called 'Reds' and is about these oh so bad Hollywood Liberals. It's the old McCarthy dance - and these guys really mean it! I love gossip and I love sarcasm, but this book only is a bitter and joyless bashing of the rich and famous in L.A. You can't help but to ask yourself if these guys aren't just jealous for not being invited to the party. This book is not really about Hollywood, it seems to be a late payback to all the popular guys in Highschool that these guys most probably were bullied by.
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