OK You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

OK You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors Book

O.K. You Mugs is an unusual collection of essays--a book full of writers writing about actors without once making cracks about their relative intelligence. It is a wildly varied collection that jams deadly serious film critiques up against swoops of poetry, but all the pieces are united by a genuine love of cinema--be it Dave Hickey's ode to Robert Mitchum's eternal cool or Manny Farber's bracingly crabby essay on the death of real acting in movies. In a refreshing change of pace, character actors are given just as much space as leads, if not more. Homage is paid to both to Thelma Ritter's solid but always welcome screen persona and the quiet genius of Margaret Dumont, the remarkably dignified dowager in the Marx Brothers movies. The best pieces will send you straight to the video store--Greil Marcus's essay on the chameleonic evil of J.T. Walsh will have you eagerly rewatching a half-dozen terrific oh-he-was-THAT-guy! performances with renewed appreciation. John Updike's "Suzie Creamcheese Speaks" is also a revelation, exploring the surprisingly tough and pragmatic private persona of screen good girl Doris Day. An entertaining and thought-provoking collection for actors and movie fans alike. --Ali DavisRead More

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  • Product Description

    O.K. You Mugs is a smart and stylish anthology of original writings on character actors--some famous, others not--who have left indelible marks on the movies and on our imaginations.
    Geoffrey O'Brien on Dana Andrews, Patti Smith on Jeanne Moreau, John Updike on Doris Day, Patricia Storace on Madhur Jaffrey, Dave Hickey on Robert Mitchum, Jacqueline Carey on Margaret Dumont, Greil Marcus on J. T. Walsh, Linda Yablonsky on Thelma Ritter--these are only a few of the twenty-six pairings of writer and actor included here, each one wickedly insightful and warmly appreciative.  As Luc Sante (who profiles a "rogues' gallery" that includes Leo G. Carroll, Wallace Beery, and Nick Adams) and Melissa Holbrook Pierson (whose subject is Warren Oates) write in their preface:  "As they reappear in one film and then another, it is as if they are returning in our very dreams: these characters take on character."  In these lively and provocative essays, we are reminded in new and revelatory ways about what made these actors live so vividly on the screen.

    Wonderfully engaging, O.K. You Mugs is a singular contribution to the literature of film history and appreciation.

  • 0375401016
  • 9780375401015
  • 1 October 1999
  • Pantheon Books Inc
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 304
  • 1
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