Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer

I'd been drawn to this book for several years due to it's subject matter of offering some much overdue praise to Spielberg & Co & whilst it's by no means a classic it's still a good read if you're a fan of 70's & 80's "Block-Busters".

The book quite simply follows a timeline of genuine block-busters from Jaws through to The Lord of the Rings, tossing in Behind the Scenes anecdotes & Box-Office matters along the way. It's well written but I often grinned when the Author let down his guard to take swipes at those foolish enough to dismiss the likes of Back to the Future & Indiana Jones as mere childish drivel. It's long been a severe annoyance of mine to read far too much movie-snobbery so it's nice to have read a mainstream book that sides with us "mere mortals". It's not all sweetness and light however as the Author readily admits that in this day and age the Block Buster has now turned into something vastly different from Jaws & Star Wars - the two movies most often refrered to as bench-marks.

The Author DOES become self-indulgent in focusing on several movies that weren't anywhere near block-busters but quite simply "personal favourites" that have gone onto become Sci-Fi favourites (namely the Alien franchise & The Terminator) but this can be overlooked as I'd have done the same - not sure I'd have gotten a chapter out of Ferris Bueller's day Off" though !!!

If you like Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, Zemeckis & Co and have a genuine interest in their works it's well worth a read.

A brilliant walk down memory lane (0/0 people found this helpful)

For someone who was 10 when Star Wars came out this book proudly tells me I haven't wasted the last thrirty years watching overblown popcorn movies but i've been having the time of my life.

For people who think Easy Rider was a nasty, depressing little film and that Back to Future Rocks.

Enjoyable analysis of the "Jaws & Jedi" generation of film-makers (2/2 people found this helpful)

Some reviewers have accused Shone of being simplistic in his rebuff of Peter Biskind's Easy Riders etc, but in fact it's simplistic to view the book in this way. I think Shone just wishes to continue the story beyond the point at which Biskind chose to end his; the Biskind-bashing very evident in the early chapters comes off the back of this but one of Shone's main points is that Jaws and Star Wars should/can be seen as artistically rich and groundbreaking in their own right, just in a different vein to the films of Biskind's heroes.

The view glibly asserted by an earlier reviewer here, that Spileberg and his ilk are "dull" and therefore unsatisfying as subject matter, is exactly the somewhat sniffy received opinion that Shone attacks, and it's a pleasure to read, as is the long-overdue puncturing of some sacred icons. He isn't simply defending anything that gets called a blockbuster - he calls into question our use of that term when it's often used to describe over-hyped films that open big and then vanish. What is definitely simplistic is the notion that this is a phenomenon that can be blamed purely on Jaws and Star Wars.

I also like a good, genuinely informative list and his highest-earning films list adjusted for inflation I found very interesting (most of the very recent biggies vanish). And any book that has a graph of audience reactions during Jaws gets my vote.

Hire from Library - Don't bother buying (3/7 people found this helpful)

How can you take any book seriously when it contains two noticeable errors to any massive film fan?

1. Page 196 - Says 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' was released in 1989 when it was 1984.

2. Page 203 - 'spending $1.2 million on a script called Radio Flyer and another $30 million developing it, the film never saw the light of day' - this is not true as Radio Flyer was released in cinemas in 1992.

Good... but not that good (1/1 people found this helpful)

As a riposte to ERRB, BB is not bad. As a piece of film history, it’s not bad either, though most of it has been told before elsewhere. The book fails in the end though because not enough thought has been put into it. Is this a book about how some people changed Hollywood, or is it a history, coupled with some “making-of” sections and some reviews? Also, the bibliography does not include all the texts mentioned in the book itself. For example, in the section about Blade Runner he mentions a couple of essays which are not referenced in the bib and so we have no idea where they were published, when they were published, etc. Not helpful. Shone repeats himself quite a lot, too, either because he likes the sound of his own voice or because he knows his book needs padding-out. Or both. So yes, it’s not bad, but it’s no masterpiece. ERRB is one of those film books that became essential because there hadn’t been a book quite like it before. BB is a mish-mash of enjoyable personal reminiscences, making-of stories, box office figures and anything else Shone can cram in. Not unenjoyable, but hardly essential.

Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer

Tom Shone

Reader Reviews:

Top Bloke, Decent Read (0/0 people found this helpful)

A brilliant walk down memory lane (0/0 people found this helpful)

Enjoyable analysis of the "Jaws & Jedi" generation of film-makers (2/2 people found this helpful)

Hire from Library - Don't bother buying (3/7 people found this helpful)

Good... but not that good (1/1 people found this helpful)

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