Book Description
This book helps designers handle those odd projects by detailing all the inside info they so desperately need--from specs and templates, to quick fixes and gritty solutions.
Projects cover:
* menus, order forms, catalogs and annual reports
* compact disks, hang tags, labels, polybags and videos
* book covers and magazines
* self-mailers, invitations, advertisements and solicitations
* signage, billboards and trade show booths
* awards, forms, buttons, tickets and more
Designers will find a bounty of approaches and solutions, insider advice for working with printers, photographers, illustrators, and tips for stopping emergencies before they start.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!.......2002-08-14
I would highly recommend this book to any graphic designer who finds themselves having to be the jack of all trades for their employer. This book gives tons of color examples from catalogs to beer labels! It's a must have in my collection.
Excellent!.......2002-08-14
I would highly recommend this book to any graphic designer who finds themselves having to be the jack of all trades for their employer. This book gives tons of color examples from catalogs to beer labels! It's a must have in my collection.
A 'must' for any active designer.......2001-09-06
This sourcebook is packed with tips on how to approach new and unusual projects in graphic design. Templates and formats for projects include quick fixes and solutions for common challenges, with sketches and instruction covering almost thirty projects from start to finish. A 'must' for any active designer.
Average customer rating:
- Great pictures--terrible instructions
- lots of fun gift ideas
- A MUST-HAVE for the beginner, and added value to the more ..
- Awesome Projects
- Fabulous!
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Stamp Artist's Project Book: 85 Projects to Make and Decorate
Sharilyn Miller
Manufacturer: Rockport Publishers
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Binding: Paperback
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30-Minute Rubber Stamp Workshop
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Art Stamping Workshop: Create Hand-Carved Stamps for Unique Projects on Paper, Fabric, Polymer Clay and More
ASIN: 156496762X |
Book Description
Created by the editor of Somerset Studio, the most notable stamp-craft magazine in the field, this project driven book features 85 distinctive stamping projects for home decoration, gifts and accessories in all mediums. While other books concentrate solely on stamping on paper and fabric, The Stamp Artist's Project Book emphasizes non-traditional mediums such as wood, metal, and polymer clay. Step-by-step instructions, tips and technique advice are provided for each project along with beautiful full-color photographs of finished projects and creative variation ideas for each. Projects are modern and sophisticated and will appeal to a creative audience of both experienced and beginning stamp artists.
Customer Reviews:
Great pictures--terrible instructions.......2005-04-07
Based on some of the reviews I read I borrowed this book from the library so that I could determine if I wanted to purchase it. Well, the book has great pictures, but the instructions are terrible and there is one project that refers to a template that does not exist! I like Sharilyn Miller's other book, "Stamp Art: 15 Original Rubber Stamp Projects for Cards, Books, Boxes, and More" much better.
lots of fun gift ideas.......2005-02-22
I must admit, while I am vegetarian, I had never thought to use vegetables or fruits as stamps. I haven't tried this yet but that's one of the first projects in the book and the next time I have leftovers from a salad I'll certainly try this out. This is a really neat book. Other ideas for things to use as stamps include packing noodles, and those pop-up sponges that expand when you add water. There are some really great projects in here that can be made for gifts - like using rubber stamps to decorate candles, stamping on fabric for table cloths, or decorating clay pots and candle holders. The projects are all quite pretty but none are intimidating. I've tried a bunch of them - like stamping on ribbons as well as paper crafts like making post cards and gift bags. A great collection with really easy to follow instructions and tips. The photos are great too.
A MUST-HAVE for the beginner, and added value to the more .........2003-02-16
experienced stamper...this book has it all...lots of techniques, basic info, and everything in between. If you're VERY experienced, you've probably seen it all, but if you're like me, somewhat in the beginning but past the start enuf to be intrigued by more interesting looks and techniques, this book is definitely for you. The projects are great, and can easily be translated to other projects/stamps/media...
Awesome Projects.......2003-01-11
I ordered this book cause it was recomended with another one that I really wanted and I like this one even more!!! The projects are very tasteful and unique! I love it...
Fabulous!.......2002-12-18
I'm not new to stamping, but with all the new products that have come out since I demo'd stamps in craft stores, I may as well be a newbie.
I've recently begun crossing over into paper and stamping arts from polymer clay and this is the book I should have bought, first, because I could have saved myself some trouble and wasted materials if I'd had all this information in front of me. :)
It's a BIG book, chock-full of beautiful pictures and easy to follow instructions and fabulous ideas, many of which are news to me and many of which are not new, but were forgotten. It's good to be reminded that sometimes the simplest things can provide effective and beautiful results. The techniques for any given project can be migrated to other projects with maybe just a change of ink type or the addition of embossing powder.
Very good basic information and lots of more advanced techniques and ideas.
Well worth the purchase price and sure to stay in my workroom for quite a while before I exhaust the ideas in it that I want to pursue.
This is the best paper arts book I own. :)
Zig
Average customer rating:
- Great book for high school and college kids looking for info
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The Art & Craft of Graphic Design: Techniques and Projects
Julia Dunlop , and
Patricia Schreiber
Manufacturer: Chicago Review Pr
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ASIN: 1556522290 |
Customer Reviews:
Great book for high school and college kids looking for info.......1998-01-29
This book was written by 2 very successful graphic designers who own their own company in Chicago. The book will serve as a useful guide for young people who are considering a career in graphic design.
Book Description
Featuring techniques for assemblage and surface alterations never before seen in a mixed-media art book (kit-bashing, wiring, egg-shell texture, casting and more), Altered Curiosities offers a new twist on a hot topic.
A fresh variety of projects (such as hair barrettes, jewelry, a drawer pull and a bird feeder) prove that artistic assemblage and collage styles can be expressed beyond wall art.
Readers will learn a new storytelling approach to their mixed-media art. Altered Curiosities goes beyond construction techniques to help readers discover how to create a personal narrative with objects and visually tell a story, not just infuse a piece with meaning or symbolism.
Two very important things make this book stand out from the crowd of other collage, mixed-media and assemblage titles: the projects (full of oddities and the unexpected) and the techniques--several of which have never been published before. A common element of Jane Wynn's style is to find an object, break it and put it together again (sometimes more than once), and she loves using anthropomorphic associations to tell stories in her projects. Step by step, readers will learn her unique method and her sought-after techniques. Along with surface alterations (faux-aging, patinas and the use of unusual household products) Altered Curiosities teaches metal etching with rubber stamps, simple wiring to create dramatic lighting, instruction for altering simple toy figures (making two-headed animals, for instance) and more.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Have for Your Collection!!.......2007-10-15
I highly recommend this mixed media art book to add to your collection of treasured books! Fascinating, imaginative, soulful, artist Jane Wynn so generously shares with us many of her unique projects and clever techniques. Her prose will delight, warm your heart, and make you stop and think. This book is a wonderful celebration!!
A very funky book.......2007-10-12
Just when I thought I had seen all there was to assemblage out comes this book. Jane Ann Wynn has been extremely generous in sharing her techniques with us and also in encouraging us to use methods such as soldering that we might be too scared to use otherwise. One of the things I really like about the book is that the art work that is presented here is not cute and whimsical but groovy, edgy and even disturbing with a good dose of humour thrown in. The bird-feeder is really something else and the jewellery is very cool. Highly recommended.
Wonderful!.......2007-09-30
As an artist who loves to experiment with any form of altered art this book hits the spot. I was immediately attracted to this book because of the awesome cover then I opened it and started to read. I instantly got goose bumps and an overwhelming urge to CREATE SOMETHING! The photos are beautiful and leave you wanting more, more, more and Jane Wynn gives step by step instructions that make these works of art doable. She invites you into her world with wonderful stories that inspire and motivate you. If you are in a rut or just need that little bit of something to jumpstart your creativity this book if for you. This book is a treasure and should be a must for anyone interested in altered art.
Best Book Ever on Altered Items.......2007-09-28
I ordered the book Altered Curiosities and received it yesterday. I absolutely love this book. I have purchased others only to be disappointed. Jane Wynn gives indepth instructions and it is awesome. She really inspires you and shows you ways to get the creativity going and in directions you would never think about. This book is such a treasure and should be added to your collection for Altered items. What a talented creative mind and I hope she keeps writing more books because I will buy them all.
Amazon.com
Amazon.com Exclusive: Joe Laitin and Warren Beatty Excerpted Interview
Excerpt and photographs courtesy of the author, Suzanne Finstad, by permission of Peter Laitin.
Beatty with Joe Laitin |
JL: There apparently aren't that many people who really know you anyway. I don't know whether you deliberately keep people at arm's length. I suppose you do...
WB: I am finding more and more that it's really very hard to please a lot of people. And I would say it's impossible. And so I have been allowing that need to try to please a lot of people to slip away from me in the past couple of years. So that I realize now that there will be a lot of people that dislike me just on principle, there will be a lot of people that will resent me, there will be a lot of people that will like me, and there'll be an awful lot of people that just don't really care one way or the other. So if I allowed myself to be upset by that, then I'd be a pretty upset person.
So I've got to just enjoy my own work. My business is not exploitation and my business is not selling pictures. My business is not figuring out good angles for press and so forth. My business, or my work, is acting right now. And once I forget about that, I'm gonna be a boring actor and I'm not gonna have any fun at it. And that's why I hire people to do--that's why I have an agent, that's why I have somebody who's a press representative, and that's why I have a business manager. Because I don't want to think about those things. And I find that if I try to think about them, I don't do it well. All I know is when I'm enjoying my work in acting and when I'm not, when I think I'm doing well and when I don't.
It's like the more attention that is brought to you, the more obstacles that are put in your path, just doing an honest day's work creatively. There are more obstacles.
With sister Shirley Maclaine |
It's nice to have a guy from Time magazine want to come and talk to you on the set. On the other hand, he wouldn't want to come and talk to you if you were doing a play off-Broadway somewhere, and maybe you would be able to concentrate a little better. And if he comes onto the set, you've gotta either be polite to him and acknowledge his presence and talk to him, or you have to forget about him--if he tries to talk to you, ignore him and just think about your work. In which case, he's gonna think you're a nut, or that you're trying to be rude to him or offend him in some way. And that's why, when a lot of strangers come on the set, I usually go to my dressing room or something. But there can be an awful lot of those obstacles, and those obstacles, I think they can just eat you up.
JL: Are these quotes of yours and Shirley's [Maclaine] in print without any direct communication between you, is that widening whatever breach there is between you, Warren?
WB: Not on my part, it certainly isn't, and I don't feel that there's a specific breach between us. And I'm sure that she feels the same way...
JL: Now this is the only part that I'm really interested in, because if you don't really want to communicate with her, I'm very curious to know why. It may explain a part of your character that I don't know anything about.
WB: Well, I don't blame you for being curious, but that doesn't mean that I've got to, you know, go into my sister.
Book Description
“Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read.” —Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the Grass. When he started acting, Beatty kept secret the fact that actress Shirley MacLaine, already a star, was his older sister. Over time, he has cultivated a mystique, giving few interviews and instructing others not to talk about him. Until now.
Through years of groundbreaking research, lauded biographer Suzanne Finstad gained unprecedented access to Beatty’s family, close friends, and film colleagues, including such luminaries in the arts and politics as Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Leslie Caron, Robert Towne, Mike Nichols, and Senators John McCain, George McGovern, and Gary Hart. Weaving hundreds of these candid interviews, photographs from private albums, personal letters, diaries, and the previously unpublished papers of the late Natalie Wood and mentors such as directors Elia Kazan and George Stevens, playwrights Clifford Odets and William Inge, and agent Charles Feldman, Warren Beatty unveils the real Beatty—a complex, sensitive visionary torn between the “fairly puritanical, football-playing boy” from Virginia and his Hollywood playboy image.
Finstad paints a rich, fascinating portrait of the secretive film legend, taking us back to the “unrealized genius” parents who molded arguably the most famous brother and sister in Hollywood history, tracing the family influences and events in Beatty’s past that directly inspired McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Ishtar, Dick Tracy, Bugsy, Love Affair, and Bulworth, and led to his political activism, culminating in a near-bid for the White House. Finstad constructs the definitive, myth-shattering account of Beatty’s evolution from Hollywood’s enfant terrible to producer of the revolutionary Bonnie and Clyde, launching him as the premier actor/director/writer/producer of his generation, the only person to twice earn Oscar nominations in all five major categories.
Here also is the truth about Beatty the lover, setting the record straight on his storied relationships with such iconic actresses and beauties as Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Michelle Phillips, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani, and Madonna. Finstad’s astute insights illuminate Beatty’s private struggle to attain happiness, his complicated bond with his sister, Shirley, and the deeper reasons why, at fifty-four, the archetypal bachelor married actress Annette Bening.
Stunningly researched, engrossing, and exquisitely detailed, Warren Beatty: A Private Man gives us a new understanding of the enigmatic, fiercely intelligent star who embodies the American dream.
Customer Reviews:
Warren Beatty: A Private Man.......2006-10-17
Is an objective look, at the man who captivated audiences around the world. Beautifully written, honest and poignant, the book takes the reader deep into the lives and backgrounds of a family that spawned not only one star-but Two. Suzanne Finstad's "A Private Man" gives the reader perspective as it takes you through the inner workings of a boy's life as he grows up to be one of Hollywood's most charismatic and influential leading men. Gracefully structured and truly the definitive Warren Beatty biography...A Must Read! J.J. Gillock (Easy Company Productions)
Smells like Honey.......2006-04-24
It took me days to finish this book, and I'd say you get your money's worth by halfway through, and the rest is gravy. Oddly enough, however, the book feels a bit topheavy, so that the bulk of it is spent on Beatty's difficult period between meeting William Inge and making LILITH about four years later, and then all of a sudden the last 40 years are rushed through at a clippety clop.
WB isn't quite as entertaining as Suzanne Finstad's previous biorgaphy, the sublime NATASHA, which really did bring Natalie Wood alive again for her fans; and it's likely that the parts of the present book with the most emotional resonance are the years Beatty spent with Natalie, trying to cheer her up after Wagner betrayed her. Finstad does an admirable job of showing us the psychological underpinnings of Beatty's affairs with Joan Collins (almost persuading us that Collins is a real person, not just a glitzy British sex bomb--almost, but not quite), Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, and Julie Christie. But when she gets down the list to Michelle Phillips, her pretense at analysis ends. She doesn't even try. I wonder if the book wasn't originally twice as long, and she was asked to curtail the later years into a series of briefer chapters. I mean, she could have written 100s of pages on Mary Tyler Moore and Isabelle Adjani, but instead they're reduced to ciphers.
As a boy, Beatty was enraptured by the original cast album of OKLAHOMA! by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Finstad successfully shows us that, subconsciously or not, Beatty succeeded again and again in replicating the Curly-Laurie romance in his own adult life.
It does seem as though Beatty was propelled to stardom by a clutch of gay visionaries including Inge and Tennessee Williams, and crypto gay figures like Joshua Logan, who signed Beatty to a personal contract and had him screen tested kissing Jane Fonda from morning to night. Inge wrote not only SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, but A LOSS OF ROSES and ALL FALL DOWN for Beatty, and apparently never asked him for a thing in return. The stage production of A LOSS OF ROSES turned out to be a true nightmare of conflicted egos and desperate desires, what with Barbara Baxley threatening to jump off the cliffs of Malibu if replaced by Carol Haney, and Shirley Booth quitting on opening night. Joey Heatherton, the one and only, was also fired, thus setting the scene for a long and poignant second act that never quite came.
Would Joan Collins have been effective in the movie version of DH Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS? Would Warren have succeeded playing Tony in WEST SIDE STORY? The book gives us crazy dreams of movies that might have been. Afdera Fonda, the former wife of Henry Fonda who dallied with Beatty briefly in 1963, said that he was "naughty, charming and playful. He smelled like honey, and he came and went like a shadow in the night."
"A biography reader".......2006-02-03
I love and collect biographical books. This book was totally disappointing. The entire book was an effort to "elect" Warren to some future office. I had hoped to gain some insight to his personal life and was left entirely with mindless minutiae. A total disappointment for such a large book...little or no new information of any value.
Say It Again!.......2006-01-05
Finstad's exhaustively researched book (average: one footnote per sentence!) is repetitious, repetitious, repetitious. Oh, and did I say she repeats herself? Beatty is a fascinating and complex subject. He deserves a cogent, readable, examination of his life and work. This isn't it.
Further, Finstad's absorption in Freudian constructs to explain ALL behavior is facile and annoying. Does she mention that Beatty is a control freak and pleasure junkie because his father drank? Oh, yeah, just every page or so. Does she discuss the "fact" that Beatty did not want to achieve fame through the agency of his sister, Shirley MacLaine? About every other page, I'd imagine. Was Warren a "Virginia gentleman" conflicted by the temptations of Hollywood in conflict with his "strict Baptist upbringing"? Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.
Ironically, Finstad acknowledges her "editor." Too bad no attention was paid to editing. Read it if you have a high tolerance for aggravation and little else to do.
An incredible read!.......2005-10-29
I read this book while wearing two hats. The first hat was my "settle down with a good book" hat, worn when I am just looking for a good story that I can pick up and put down and won't make me think too hard. But once I started with "Warren Beatty, A Private Man," I didn't want to put it down! I was absolutely fascinated by his beginnings -- the mix of Canadians and Virginians, the artistic bent that ran through the family, the disappointment of his father, etc. The author layered it so beautifully and painted such a clear picture of Beatty's childhood, I really felt I knew all of them personally. Warren and Shirley were kids I could easily have grown up with. And, ironically, I had a rather close (though non-romantic) friendship with Warren when we were both working on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis." Unfortunately, there were times when I found it difficult to recognize the charming, amusing and polite young man I knew - and who Ms. Finstad captures so well --in the man who went on to become a Hollywood heartthrob and seemingly ruthless heartbreaker. All the pick-ups, the orgies, the conniving.... . And the difficult side of him when he started getting jobs, all the takes, mumbling, etc. Why would anyone hire him a second time? But I have to say he knew exactly how to deal with people who could help him advance. Although I admire people who work their way to the top (rather than having it handed to them), I found this particular side of Warren very unlikable.
My second hat, my writer's hat, was paying attention to the boundless research Ms. Finstad did, and was awed by the very real picture she painted of such a complicated man. I am familiar with research; my book, "The Tsar's Woman," required 15 years of poking through books, traveling to Russia, watching documentaries, etc. in order to get a handle on Russia's first tsar, Ivan IV, who became known as "Ivan The Terrible." I think she did an absolutely spectacular job, both in finding the man and explaining him to the reader in an easy, page-turning way.
Average customer rating:
- I guess i'm the only reviewer who read his other bios...
- Little Acting Ability, Minimal Personality, Morals Of A Jackrabbit..
- Biography and film history opus as sexy as Beatty
- This Book Is Shallow And Meaningless
- Execrable
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The Sexiest Man Alive : A Biography of Warren Beatty
Ellis Amburn
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Warren Beatty: A Private Man
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ASIN: B0009W8LB4 |
Book Description
The Sexiest Man Alive is the first in-depth biography of Warren Beatty, a man who blazed a trail of sex and high artistic achievement across the twentieth century as Hollywood matinee idol, founder of the New Hollywood with his groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde, and international Don Juan.Through interviews with friends and associates, Ellis Amburn reveals new details about Beatty's well-known conquests and tells of many others that have not heretofore been reported, from early affairs with Joan Collins and Natalie Wood to encounters with such unknowns as a Playboy bunny and a young black student to such recent romances with Madonna and Annette Bening, the woman he finally married.The notches on his belt read like a who's who of feminine beauty and power, making him the Casanova of the century. A partial list of his conquests include Jackie Kennedy Onassis, H.R.H. Princess Margaret, Barbara Harris, Lillian Hellman, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Linda Eastman McCartney, Inger Stevens, Dewi Sukarno, Vanessa Redgrave, Jean Seberg, Susannah York, Brooke Hayward, Maria Callas, Julie Christie, Cher, Brigitte Bardot, Candice Bergen, Jessica Savitch, Connie Chung, Diane Sawyer, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Barbara Streisand, Jane Fonda, Lana Wood, Leslie Caron, Diane Keaton, Michelle Phillips, Mamie Van Doren, Britt Ekland, Barbara Hershey, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Minty, Margaux Hemingway, Elle MacPherson, Dayle Haddon, Carol Alt, Sippi Levine, Isabelle Adjani, Kate Jackson, Justine Bateman, Robin Menken, Darryl Hannah, and Mary Tyler Moore.Along the way, Amburn tells the exciting story of the young filmmakers who revolutionized Hollywood in the sixties and seventies, the people Warren knew and worked with, played with, sometimes made love with, and fought with -- Diane Keaton, Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie, Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Hal Ashby, Robert Altman, Arthur Penn, Al Pacino, and Robert Evans.Amburn also explores Beatty's fascinating forays into Democratic politics -- his embattled relationship with Hubert Humphrey, how he wooed Barbra Streisand to raise millions for George McGovern, and the misadventure with Gary Hart, whose partying at Warren's bachelor pad -- and subsequent Donna Rice scandal -- some blame for his withdrawal from the 1988 presidential race. The Sexiest Man Alive is one of the most sizzling, revealing books about Hollywood, weaving together the rich material of Warren Beatty's life and art.
Customer Reviews:
I guess i'm the only reviewer who read his other bios..........2007-06-01
...because this one is better than most of them. There is more info on Beatty here than in any other bio (and photos i haven't seen anywhere else). I should complain that there are hundreds of quotes from other books and articles etc.? Um, no. I don't care where the info came from. The fact is, it's here, in this biography, where it belongs. If you have a problem with Beatty as a person, don't read a bio of him.
Little Acting Ability, Minimal Personality, Morals Of A Jackrabbit.........2005-08-28
So characterizes Warren Beatty, if one interprets this excessively detailed exploration of his life. Beatty's sexual exploits ad infinitum, and those of his fellow Hollywood comrades, male and female, should be enough for anyone to rip out their cable, never watch TV or go to a movie again, and retreat into the cultured world of literature. The shallowness of the last 50 years of movie celebrity is appalling, and continues today. I expected a tad more in-depth analysis and less randy ramblings, so although the book was well-detailed with the most minute information, that doesn't mean it was well done or as meaningful as it could have been. It did, however, verify my long-held opinion that Beatty's 'talent' was horribly overrated, and I never could figure out the mystique. I bought the book hoping to find a clue, but was disappointed. Perhaps it's simply the subject that is ultimately disappointing, and no amount of literary talent or research could hide that...
Biography and film history opus as sexy as Beatty.......2004-10-26
Warren Beatty's brooding face on the cover of Ellis Amburn's biography/film history opus indicates why he has achieved an iconic status that seems reserved for Hollywood rebels without a cause. Certainly, like Kevin Costner, his output has been eclectic and iconoclastic. Amburn makes the point that Beatty, like a Don Juan Forrest Gump, inserted himself into the tumult of the New Hollywood era, the era of Pacino, Nicholson, and Roman Polanski. The insight into politics and into actors entering politics, seems particularly timely in the wake of Hollywood (brain trust) protests against the Iraq war and Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful gubernatorial run.
Schwarzenegger is one of the many names and figures striking bold poses, vogueing like Beatty conquest Madonna, in Ellis Amburn's prose, which reads like a "Beatty's Complaint" crossed with 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, mixed in with Scott Thorson's LIFE WITH LIBERACE, which portrays a hypersexual performer who never quite grew up (though unlike Beatty, Liberace had little to do with politics or social issues).
Never content to name-drop, Amburn skillfully probes, with love, exasperation, a certain detachment, and fascination, the inner life of an aging Lothario whose film career and political carrer haves been as mercurial as his love life. Interestingly, Beatty's lasting achievements, "Reds," "Shampoo," and "Bonnie and Clyde," parallel his most lasting relationships, specifically with Julie Christie and Annette Bening, as well as his male friendships, specifically with Jack Nicholson (his relationships with gay filmmakers make an intriguing twist.) Has Beatty the rebel been tamed by Annette? If so, we'll always have the bad-boy image on the cover.
This Book Is Shallow And Meaningless.......2004-07-24
I agree with other reviewers that the book is shallow, disjointed, rambling, and too dependent on magazine profiles.
I would like to add that it is weird of author Ellis Amburn to assert that Beatty started sleeping with Natalie Wood while she was still married to Robert Wagner and that said adultery is the real reason for the break-up of that marriage.
Amburn refutes the claim by Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad that Wood walked in on Wagner while he was in a compromising position with another man and that this event ended the marriage. Moreover, Amburn knows "for a fact" that Natalie Wood was bisexual and that she and Wagner had an agreement that either one could cheat with a homosexual partner, but not a heterosexual one. Therefore, Warren Beatty wrecked the marriage. Right. I hope Mr. Amburn stays away from Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Oh, and I wish Mr. Amburn had presented more of Warren Beatty's early childhood in Richmond, Virginia. Warren, born in 1937, and sister Shirley MacLaine, born in 1934, are the only movie stars from that small city. Supposedly the place was a totally segregated southern city that remained unusually calm and non-violent during the entire civil rights era. It's no Birmingham.
Nonetheless, maybe white boys in Richmond were forbidden to discuss sex and they were told that black people combined dirty sex with devil worship in their music? It would be interesting to know if Warren Beatty was socialized this way and if it shaped the brief career he had as a honky tonk pianist before he got his big break in Splendor In The Grass. Did it also shape his and Shirleys' ultraliberal politics and Warren's friendship with Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart? Her liaison with Bella Abzug?
(Shirley was politically active as far back as 1968 when she was a delegate to the notoriously violent Democratic convention in Chicago. To what extent did her experiences in Richmond motivate her to do such a thing? Does she feel genuine compassion for disfranchised people or does she prefer to spend her time with the supernatural? How much of those traits are in Warren? Does he enjoy the supernatural?)
This book ignores those issues. All it gives you is shallow name dropping and sex acts. Don't waste your time or money on it. The only good thing that could come out of this book is that it might motivate Warren Beatty to run for president in 2008. As part of his campaign platform he could say that people are so sick of hearing the shallow stories of his sex life and Bill Clinton's that they are ready to talk about the really important stuff for a change.
Execrable.......2002-10-03
Ellis Amburn continues his reign of biographical terror. In the same vein as his hideous Elizabeth Taylor biography, he now has penned the basic outline of the bedroom life of Warren Beatty, a guy whose teenage years extended well into his fifties. (Or until people stopped taking him seriously -- whichever came first)
It traces the career of Barbra Streisand's old schoolmate, an emotionally-needy Don Juan who went to bed with just about any woman he came across, married or single, famous or not. He remained a heartthrob in Hollywood for many years, reappearing with a bang and a flash when critics had declared his career dead. He dated women like Diane Keaton, Madonna, Michelle Phillips, and finally settled on Annette Bening, whom he married.
This book is less about Beatty's life than his bedroom life. We get extensive chronicling of, if not every woman he ever slept with, then quite a few of them. Most of these affairs add nothing either to the book or to our understanding of Beatty. And, as he did in "The Most Beautiful Woman In The World," Amburn is not satisfied merely to present Beatty's sexcapades: he does so for just about everyone else in the book. Madonna, Lara Flynn Boyle, Roman Polanski, and dozens of other people have their randy bedroom lives outlined in this book, usually with plenty of detail. Why? No reason. It makes for more titillating reading, I suppose. (The description of videotaped sex games by Sharon Polanski, who was stabbed to death while pregnant, and the first-person description of seduction of a thirteen-year-old, crossed the line into insensitive, tasteless, even pornographic)
The actual writing style is plodding and repetitive. Like many bad biographers, Amburn feels the need to spread anecdotes about the main personality traits of his subjects throughout the book. He repeats constantly on the predatory attitudes of Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, or the strained relationship between Beatty and his sister Shirley MacLaine, or Madonna's liking for other women.
Perhaps the most unforgivable aspect of this book is the lack of insight into Beatty's mind. There are a few half-hearted attempts to explain why he tries to bed all these women, to the point of threatening to rape one girl and stalking another, but it's skimming the surface. Near the end of the book, he inexplicably decides to grow up and be responsible -- but by that time, the readers may be so disgusted by him that they will no longer care.
If you're hunting for a compendium of every tabloid article ever written about Warren Beatty, this is the book for you. But for a serious biography, look elsewhere.
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Warren Beatty: The Last Great Lover of Hollywood
John Parker
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0786700726 |
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- There is more to Warren Beatty
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The Films of Warren Beatty
Lawrence J. Quirk
Manufacturer: Carol Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 080651194X |
Customer Reviews:
There is more to Warren Beatty.......2000-03-29
The best thing about the book are definitely its photographs. They at least pay tribute to Warren Beatty. Otherwise I feel a bit disappointed about the unambitious way the book treats Beatty's film carreer. The basic impression one gets when reading the book is that Warren Beatty hasn't done much and what he's done he could have done better. "Splendor in the Grass", "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Reds" which are terrific movies are reduced to Beatty's good looks, which in Quirk's opinion do not qualify him for the roles. The same criticsm appears for Beatty's political ambitions. So the whole book has a "Who does Beatty think he is" notion which does not in any way give credit to the beauty of the movies and the courage and efforts that are behind them. But once again: beautiful photographs!
Product Description
Classic issue of Playgirl magazine featuring Warren Beatty on the cover and in an interview inside. Also in this issue: Playgirl's Man Jim Davis, an almost nude pictorial of the NFL's Bob Chandler, the 1981 Centerfold Review, nude snapshots, a feature on Phyllis Schlafly, fiction, and lots more!
Average customer rating:
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The Films of Warren Beatty
Manufacturer: Citadel Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0806507586 |
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