Complicit by Winnie M Li
I’m really impressed with how much Winnie M Li was trying to accomplish with this book. For the most part, I think she pulled it off. Because I had it in my head how this was going to go when I read it: unassuming young female on a movie set gets assaulted by a Harvey Weinstein clone. But it’s really more than that. In living up to its title, Winnie M Li shows how the whole system is wretched, including Sarah, nominally the protagonist, who […]
Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee
Sisters May and Gemma Chow are working hard to keep their family afloat while their father is away being treated for tuberculosis. When they discover the body of Lulu Wong, a former classmate and rising Hollywood star on the outskirts of Chinatown, they set out to solve the mystery of her death. I’m always on the lookout for historical fiction that centers the experience of people who were marginalized during the era of the setting, because to see history through their eyes is usually completely […]
Game Show Confidential by Boze Hadleigh
Game shows have a surprisingly long history, starting with their roots in radio quiz shows in the 1930s to today’s glut of revivals, with plenty of drama and scandals along the way. It occurred to me over the course of reading this book that I’ve not actually seen many American game shows beyond Jeopardy – I was more likely to pass my time watching Telugu game shows aired in the early afternoon with my grandmother during summer holidays. But the appeal of game shows in […]
Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower
What a fascinating life this woman led. I really feel like it would be pretty hard to come away from this book not liking Elizabeth Taylor as a human being. She loved fiercely, struggled publicly, and left a huge legacy that has helped millions of people, and continues to do so. I grew up in the 80s and 90s knowing who Elizabeth Taylor was, just like everyone else, because she was part of the zeitgeist, one of the most famous women ever to live. I […]
The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear by Nat Segaloff
CBR 15 Bingo – Picture This: This book is all about the visual medium of cinema and television, discussing the Exorcist franchise from many perspectives. The Exorcist is at first glance the story of a mother desperate to save her daughter from evils beyond her reckoning, but in the fifty years since it was first released it had gone on to become a beloved, long-running franchise rife with controversy. I have never actually seen The Exorcist. Of course I know the movie and how iconic it is, […]
Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by Anne Helen Petersen
CBR 15 Bingo – Dwelling: All the people discussed in this book work and live in Hollywood – both town and concept – which for better or for worse casts a long shadow across their lives. Hollywood has always banked on its stars and their stories as a promotional tool, so heavily that when actors openly diverge from their public personas it often causes backlash among the public. Especially in the first half-century of Hollywood, stars were marketed with particular stories and personas, often as […]
