Roger Ebert's Book of Film: From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the Finest Writing from a Century of Film

From one of the country's most popular movie reviewers comes this exhaustive and pleasingly eclectic selection of articles on film and filmmaking. Designed for selective browsing, the book contains a treasure-chest of fine works, and only the occasional well-meaning clunker. On the fictional side, the strange nature of fame and star identification is subtly exposed in a short excerpt from Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, while novelists Elmore Leonard and Michael Tolkin both cut deeply and satirically into the odious nature of the moviemaking business. While John Updike is coolly humbled by Doris Day, Norman Mailer complains he could have used a whole lot more sex in Last Tango. Surprisingly, a few genuine geniuses come across a little stiffly, notably Alfred Hitchcock and Buster Keaton. But happily, light relief is close at hand: join John Waters for a gutter-level saunter through Hollywoodland, or thrill to Kenneth Anger's refined sleazoid take on the slew of tabloid-ready deaths the movie business has produced over the years, among them Lupe Velez in 1944 and Robert Walker in 1951. Elsewhere Terry McMillan compares her native Michigan to Dorothy's Oz and Kansas, Joan Didion finds much to admire in John Wayne and the incomparable Libby Gelman-Waxner from Premiere magazine disses film noir in her own catty fashion. A wealth of lore and legend is provided. (Nov.)