This book is alternately fabulous and frustrating. In the fabulous column, Biskind is to be commended for his incredibly thorough research. How he got an interview with producer Bert Schneider is beyond my comprehension -- the guy is a total recluse, and one of the most fascinating figures in Hollywood history. I love the way he puts across the story-telling abilities of his interviewees...instead of distilling the information in cold, analytical prose, he lets everybody from Bruce Dern to Warren Beatty to Margot Kidder speak for themselves in compelling, salty language. There's plenty of dirt dished in this book, and I was ready for second and third helpings by the time I finished it.

On the minus side, Biskind comes across as an embittered would-be filmmaker in this book. He takes people to task for some pretty dumb things. For instance, I find it difficult to buy his argument that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas ruined 70s Hollywood by cranking out enormously popular films. I mean, all they did was make great movies. The fact that mainstream producers insisted that every subsequent movie draw record crowds is what drove the nail in the coffin of 70s cinema. Clearly, Spielberg and Lucas have tremendous talent, as well as a deep respect for filmmaking. It's not their freakin' fault that the money guys stopped funding quirky genre pictures as a result of the success of pictures like Jaws and Star Wars.

Also, I had to laugh at the way Biskind clucked his tongue at the excesses of guys like Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby, and Francis Ford Coppola, only to turn around and mock Steven Spielberg for being a nerd. I mean, if you're going to argue that drugs and alcohol derailed the careers of some fine directors, you can't then chastise the one guy who led a squeaky-clean existence. Besides, such views are reductive, in my opinion. Nobody is sadder than me that 70s film culture no longer exists. But if you're going to lay the blame for its demise with anyone, put it the door of the people who fail to finance great pictures, instead of the ones who have the courage to make them.

Very distressed to discover my faves were all shagless dorks who couldn’t talk to a women without a few Palm D’Ors under their belt.

I suspect the stories detailed in this book are highly selective - my own (limited) experience in these realms attests to the unlikelihood of spending most of one’s time and energy boozing/drugging/shagging/tormenting loved ones and then breaking every so often to make universal culture-shifting high art with such a degree of focus, craft and skill that it echos on through the generations to become the bedrock of our understanding of not-just the medium, but of late-humanity itself.

Maybe I just never had the real sauce.

There’s no denying that this book is scandalous, salacious, and probably deeply irresponsible. But that’s what makes it so much goddamn fun.

More than just a resource, a potent cocktail of non-fiction storytelling. All at once a champion of the auteur and polemic of the studio exec but able to see where the new Hollywood dream fell into excess and megomania, which makes for a lot of good gossip too.

Peter Biskind is a yenta! The book is hefty with gossip of all kinds, which is too bad because he's talking about the revolution in films in the 60's to early 80's. When he does talk about how the movies changed, both in cinematography, plot development, in every way, Biskind is insightful and intelligent, but he doesn't dwell on such matters for very long.

Worse, you're reading along about one topic and suddenly there is a paragraph about another time or other people which you may vaguely recall his talking about elsewhere. It seems as if he cuts and pastes (as we all do), but when he cuts, he doesn't get all the paragraphs and leaves one behind. Add to that his breezy habit of talking about Bob or whomever,but unfortunately, there are several Bobs and after the first 50 pages, when he mentions "Bob" you don't always know which one he meant. Also, in the early pages, he says that Bob or someone married (or lived with) Toby or Polly or whomever. He doesn't mention her name for 100 pages, and suddenly we are hearing about Toby or Polly or whomever doing something and we don't know who she is or whom she is with. Has this guy ever heard about appositive clauses in subsequent mentions, you know, "Bob, the one who funded X in 1969..." or "Polly, who was still married to...." I hate reading books that are like one big puzzle and you keep having to flip backwards to figure what in Hell is going on. It's especially annoying when it's a subject I'm especially interested in.

this took me forever to finish because it's so dense and so detailed. i wanted to make sure i was super focused on it. definitely a must read if you're into movies, especially the era of jaws, star wars, harold and maude, the exorcist etc

Reads as a messy eulogy for something lost but impossible to entirely understand. Hypocrisies abound and it can get extremely crotchety, but it’s a work of love and grief, and the final framing poignantly sells it as that.

It is remarkably concerning that this is treated as an intro to film school book as if there is anything to actually glean about the art apart from how this industry chews folks up, spits them out, and is eternally doomed to being 5 years away from total collapse but oh well.

This is film history of the 1970s essentially told through gossip magazine headlines. You'll learn more than you ever cared to know about various players' drug habits and sexual partners. Admittedly, it is fun to read and see how studio conditions changed to produce an era of films still celebrated today, and what caused those conditions to evaporate.

An amazing book. Extremely dense and filled with thousands of names which are sometimes hard to keep track of, but that's what makes this a "bible" for people in the industry. This book is best read while simultaneously googling and imdbing (to help you memorize names better, and to give a fuller picture), further, I recommend watching and rewatching the films they discuss in the book while you are reading. The author makes up for the density and sometimes tediousness of the reading by telling really juicy and emotional stories that give you the real "insider" view on the lives of some of the most famous players in 1960s and 1970s Hollywood.

I liked this book when I first read it (during its first paperback printing), however, much of the information borders on more of the kind that runs in gossip magazines rather than an accurate portrayal of Hollywood in the 1970s. Is this information true? It might be, some of it certainly sounds like it could be, but because of the salacious nature and the lack of identifiable sources to the information, it tests the readers believability. If a new edition were to be published that contained footnotes of where the author found his information I might be more apt to give the book at better review, but for now read with a grain of salt.

It’s grimy and greasy and engrossing. While I don’t believe every word of it, and I think Biskind inserts himself (and his clear lack of taste) too frequently into the mix, it’s still a delicious piece of filmmaking gossip about the most interesting period of American cinema to date. I enjoyed it thoroughly and can’t recommend it enough

Most movie books are about the actors we see on-screen; this one paints a detailed picture of the up-and-coming directors from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Some of those who survived and are still around to reminisce on those heady, druggy days include Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now), Steven Spielberg (Jaws), George Lucas (Star Wars), Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull), William Friedkin (The Exorcist), Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show), and Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde). This tome is a no-holds-barred, tell-all expose on the failures, successes, and excesses of those involved, as the "New Hollywood" directors negotiated studio politics, created amazing cinema, made millions - and sometimes lost it again. It's hilarious, outrageous, and sometimes tragic - but guaranteed never boring. Highly recommended to all movie fans.

Salacious. Totally cool to discover that every filmmaker you idolised at age 15 would certainly be #metoo'd today.