Ain't It Cool?: Hollywood's Redheaded Stepchild Speaks Out - Hardcover

Ebner, Mark; Cullum, Paul; Knowles, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446525979 ISBN 13: 9780446525978

Verlag: Warner Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

Harry Knowles, a college drop-out who grew up on films, started the Ain't It Cool Web site from his bedroom in Austin, TX, and in four short years has become one of the most powerful and feared men in show business. With his legion of "spies," Harry has crashed the insider world of Hollywood, uncovering guarded secrets about scripts, casting, production, test screenings, and the release of films, before anyone else. In AIN'T IT COOL, Harry uses his own story as a launching pad for his life-long obsession with films and how they're made-the good, the bad, and the ugly. AIN'T IT COOL is the story of the ultimate movie geek getting a place at Hollywood's most exclusive table. It's for anyone who loves movies and the entertainment industry.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Named one of the 50 most influential people in media today by Brill's Content, Harry Knowles founded the website Ain't It Cool News in his bedroom in 1996. Since then, he has been named one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood by both Entertainment Weekly and Premiere magazines, and has been included in Wired's "Hollywood 2.0" list of 25 people transforming moviemaking, as well as Forbes magazine's "Celebrity 100" list. He has been a guest on CBS' "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn," ABC's "Good Morning America" and "Politically Incorrect," and co-hosted "Roger Ebert & The Movies" five times. In addition, he has been featured on NBC Nightly News, CNN, the BBC, etc., and has been profiled in the New York Times and L.A. Times magazines, The Hollywood Reporter, and Entertainment Weekly, among others. In Spring 2002, Harry will host the new "Ain't It Cool News" series for Comedy Central.

Rezensionen

Adult/High School-Knowles is a movie "geek," which he defines as someone with an "almost hyperactive enthusiasm toward his highly proprietary subject matter." His Web site, "Ain't It Cool," is dedicated to movie news, from the sale of a script to a film's release. Knowles's opinions are pervasive and have frequently brought him into conflict with the Hollywood powers that be. He describes fights with Sony, the National Research Group, Matt Drudge, and others in a light, highly opinionated style, and casts himself as David fighting Goliaths. The narrative is filled with history, trivia, commentary about the ethics of today's journalists, and stories behind the stories. Knowles rounds out his tale with a list of his favorite and least-favorite films, and those he would like to see made. Movie buffs will enjoy this inside look at an outsider who has made a big impact on the film industry.
Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Woodbridge, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Film fanatic Knowles's web site, www. aintitcoolnews.com, gets over two million hits a month, so you know that there's an audience for this account of what's really happening in Hollywood.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The creator of the studio-scooping Web site aintitcoolnews.com delivers a rollicking memoir, a passionate analysis of film industry flaws and an infectious appreciation of "the last bastion of true democracy in America" movies. The child of an alcoholic Texas heiress and a Young-Republican-turned-hippie, Knowles split his childhood between the family compound of his mother's violent relatives and trips to Mexico and Central America, where he and his father would collect native art to resell. After an accident left him bedridden, Knowles launched his Web site, a "Geek Forum" that follows movies from script development to release. His muckraking approach rattles studios, which became clear when Sony served Knowles with a restraining order in 1997 for posting a scoop about the computer animation in Starship Troopers, or when Knowles's early pans of Batman & Robin were widely blamed for the movie's failure. More Winchell- than Ebert-like in approach, Knowles presents himself as a hard-boiled, scrappy underdog working on behalf of the public; largely this works, particularly in his expos‚ of the National Research Group's test marketing of movies. The book is also valuable as a record of the Web's early entrepreneur-driven years, and for its rare insight into Knowles's former employer, Matt Drudge. Film lovers, however, will probably most appreciate Knowles's exuberant, knowledgeable paeans to his celluloid favorites. They include a tribute to 1930s comedy star Lee Tracy, an analysis of how nascent Leo-mania launched Titanic, an explanation of the life lessons of Flashdance and more. (Mar. 5)Forecast: With Knowles's enthusiastic Web following, expect this to surface on some regional and college-oriented bestseller lists and, of course, on every desk in Hollywood.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Knowles' self-portrayal as Hollywood outsider--a "kinder, gentler Walter Winchell"--seems odd, what with media megagiant Time-Warner publishing his scrivenings. Still, he works hard at delivering memorably iconoclastic pronouncements on his Web site, Ain't It Cool?, which takes its title from an interchange in Broken Arrow between Christian Slater and bad guy John Travolta: Chris tells John he would be nuts to "explode a stolen tactical nuclear device. 'Yeah,' says Travolta. . . . 'Ain't it cool?'" Expect similar bon mots here, encased in vignettes from Knowles' life and observations on filmdom in general. Knowles' unique perspective allows for making meaningful comparisons of, say, Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara with Courtney Love as Courtney Love. In general, he makes it work. His focus wanders at times, but he can be a real treat for those who appreciate film as art and enjoy guilty pleasures like The People vs. Larry Flynt. If he could only make his prose read more like Winchell's, with or without his helpers here, he would embody perfectly the kind of critic Hollywood deserves. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Warner Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0446525979
• ISBN 13: 9780446525978
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar