Book Review: Fiasco, a History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops by James Robert Parish

[my_daroga]

When reading nonfiction, of course, the primary consideration is the subject, along with the author's knowledge and presentation of that subject. It is for this reason that one sometimes finds oneself reading something which offends their literary sensibilties yet which cannot be discarded because the subject matter is of interest. Such is the case

Comments

[filmnoir6]

'tis true: there are lots of scriptwriters who toy with film scripts whether credited or not. I normally cringe whenever I see more than three names listed to a "screenplay by" credit in a film or poster.

A lot of the stories behind the production of "flops" is interesting sometimes but not too much one could say. Still, even after the notoriety of a "flop" is revealed, over time, the film still makes its producers some sort of profit.

[my_daroga]

True. And I was continously struck by a sort of hypocrisy in the book itself; it seems to decry the overspending of Hollywood, yet when someone helms one of these movies the author points out that the person has yet to make another "important/big" picture. It sounds like he's saying that the sign of success is to make costly movies--although these people made the mistake of doing so!

And while most of the films discussed aren't good, many of them are also not nearly as bad as their reputations (probably because the money spent is out of proportion with the quality of the work). Ishtar really isn't THAT terrible, and neither is Popeye (as far as I can remember) or LAH, among others. There's some confusion, in general, about cost and quality and success and what all those mean, relatively.