If You're Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble: Movies, Mayhem, and Malice

This collection of essays and interviews, reprinted from Movieline , Rolling Stone and the Washington Post , includes illuminating pieces on the work of Woody Allen (Queenan prefers the satire and silliness of his earlier work), Martin Scorsese (the director is ``getting back at the nuns'') and Oliver Stone (Queenan comes down on him for his ``macho posturing''). The author discusses why he thinks rock stars fail as straight movie performers, analyzes the ``incredibly idiotic stuff that passes for realism'' in movies and reviews the surprising number of films that deal with aged men involved with nubile young women. All this is relatively tame compared with the unfettered ridicule Queenan unleashes in the pieces about actors and actresses--he loves movies but tends to find the performers loathsome. Except for certain sex-objects (he writes eloquently about noteworthy bosoms and ``edifying glutes''), Queenan refuses to take performers seriously, even the likes of Brando or Olivier. Fans of Barbra Streisand will definitely be offended. (Feb.)